Printable litter request for scifi bases

[lawnor 25933xp 0]

I’ve got some scifi models to paint up soon and I was wondering if anyone knew of any printable sheets of litter I could use to add old crisp packets, newspapers, leaflets etc to my bases.  I’m open to other ideas of ways of making bases look scifi/modern without spending money on craft materials, resin bits, fancy bases, or resin for my printer.  Fantasy is easy.  Add a rock and a tuft.  Scifi is harder.  I know I can just change the colours on rocks, ground and tufts, but I don’t always want an outside effect.  I know I can paint road markings on tarmac.  Caladors always taught us a base needs 3 elements to pop.  Normally that’d be the ground, a rock, and a tuft or two.  Tarmac and a road marking would be two.  I’m currently experimenting with the side of a plastic milk carton to see if I can make it look like poured cement, or sheet metal.  I don’t think it’d got enough texture to really work though, but not all milk cartons are created equal.

[sundancer 42938xp 1]

If you have some guns in your bits box you could clip of ammunition clips and glue them to the base. Or vehicle bits. Drinking straws as pipes. Some twisted flower wire as power lines or fence material. If you have some broken electronic devices you could break them apart and use the components as litter. Capacitors, pieces of the pcb and chips.

[lawnor 25933xp 1]

I’ve done the pipes thing before using old Chupa Chups lolly sticks.  It’s a good excuse to steal sweets from children.  I do have a large supply of 40k bits.  I should have a look through and see what junk is even appropriate for a non-grimdark setting.  I don’t want skulls on my skulls in other games.

[somegeezer 18431xp 2]

There’s this for tailway modellers (o gauge is a good match for 28mm)

https://www.scalemodelscenery.co.uk/ax012-o-litter-o7mm143-392-p.asp

[somegeezer 18431xp 1]

Doing your own is cheaper and has so much scope for punning but oh the effort!

[lawnor 25933xp 0]

Thats the sort of thing I’m after, even if my scifi soldiers would be fighting over a tesco car park!

[lawnor 25933xp 1]

Its the effort and the muck ups that stops me doing it.  I know I’d never get the scaling anywhere near right, and I’d end up with downsized pixelated messes.  I’m hoping someone has something free they can link.  Right now I just need it for one model, but if it works well I may use it more.

[somegeezer 18431xp 1]

For one model would hand painted be easiest? Block in the colours and squiggle on some fake text. I’m saying this but I’m not sure I’d go through with it ?

[somegeezer 18431xp 1]

For what it’s worth i googled “printable litter o gauge”. One result suggested textures.com, which may be worth a look. I couldn’t see much from a skim without registering but maybe worth a look

[lawnor 25933xp 0]

I can’t freehand for toffee.  I can’t even write legibly with pen and paper!

I was googling earlier but I guess I didn’t have the right search terms.  I’ll look again later.  Cheers.

[scribbs 14509xp 1]

Slightly random idea. Do you remember as a kid ever sticking empty crisp packets into an oven to shrink them down in size? Still far too big in size to act as to-scale litter, but could you use it for crumpled advertising posters? Potentially interesting texture and detail, especially if you can break it down easily to smaller pieces. At a minimum, it would be cheap to give it a go and see what’s possible.

[lawnor 25933xp 0]

It’s an interesting idea.  I wonder if they would gain thickness as they shrink (The material has to go somewhere), or perhaps become brittle or hard to cut?  I also wonder if that works anymore, as crisp packets have become more metallic since we were kids.  There’s also the question of fumes, given the materials have changed, and we’ve discovered Health and Safety since I was a kid.

[ced1106Participant 6224xp 2]

I had some Zombicide zombies to do this for, and I just printed out some doll house papercraft, shrunk down to a reasonable size, glued them onto the base, and applied a dark wash. You can do this for posters on walls as well!

1:48 scale is close to 28mm : https://www.printmini.com/printables/pq.html

[somegeezer 18431xp 1]

Aw that is brilliant. I’m stealing these! ??

[lawnor 25933xp 1]

I see those signs being of use.  I’m a little tempted by papercraft pizza boxes on my bases, but I know it’ll be too fidly at that size and I’ll only crush one by picking up a model later on.

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