We built this City

Here is a miniature city we built in cardboard.

Some pics and text explaining the process:

For building the houses we just used different cardboard that we could find and gluegun. 

The houses has only three walls - we won't see the fourth 

and it is also easier to light them from inside then.

The houses where built in differnt sizes to create 

an illusion of perspective/fake perspective.

Some of the houses where covered in putty and lightly sandpapered.

Then painted in different grayish desaturated colours.

 

( Sometimes we also clean up)

Here is the houses putted up for shooting. 

The background is the same as in the train exterior shots, 

but without the orange light behind (since its still night here).

The mountains is made by styrofoam.

This is how the set looks from behind.
We covered some of the windows and then had lamps behind every row of houses.
The aluminium foil is to cover cracks where the light slipped through.

 

For this shot we made a miniature animatable version of the character. Challenging and fun to animate!

And some photos with the finished lighting.