WIP: Nickel City Smoke Shop and Community Center

With the weather getting colder, I jumped back into an MDF kit I started a few weeks back - cold and wet means no taking stuff outside to prime or varnish! This is a two story "Mean Streets" brownstone from Atomic Laser Cut Designs, the manufacturer of many of my recent modern buildings. In fact, I think ALL of the MDF buildings I've built in 2025 have been ALCD kits - the pawn shop, ramen restaurant and Off-Track Betting buildings I've built have all been Atomic Laser Cut Designs kits. This is my first two-story building, the beginnings of an effort to add more verticality to my modern terrain layouts. 

There's a street about five minutes from my house, Webster Street, which is all older two and three story buildings with a shop at ground level and apartments above, all looking very much like this kit. So Webster Street is going to be my point of reference in collecting a few more of these taller buildings from Atomic Laser Cut Designs. Incidentally, while we're still very much a Rust Belt town, Webster Street has gotten significant sprucing up in recent years thanks to efforts from our phenomenal mayor and is now a great place to go and eat or shop; my models might end up a bit more of a blend of Webster Street of today and 10-15 years ago. 

I still need to hit my local Office Max and do some color printing for signs, bill boards and interior art, but otherwise the building itself is pretty much complete. Gluing acetate into the windows will probably have to wait until spring, because I'm not sure the weather will cooperate for spray varnishing the building, and I'd like to do that before I glue the windows in so the "glass" doesn't frost. 

There's graffiti decals from both Green Stuff World and Dave's Decals on the walls, most notably the XL "pinup" graffiti next to the back door. I threw a sheet of these supersized decals in an order with Dave a while back on a whim, and this is the first one I've used; I'll leave it to the viewer to guess if the full word behind her is "SWANK" or "SPANK"! Hopefully not "STANK"...

Part of why I chose to use the XL decal is because I decided to make the ground floor shop a cannabis dispensary/head shop. A lot of these have cropped up around here since New York State legalized marijuana, ranging from high end dispensaries that look like Apple stores to grubby spots that look like they should have Cheech & Chong versions of the venerable cigar store Indian out front. There's one right on Webster Street that has a huge, lavish mural covering one side of the building done in the style of an EC Comics' scifi cover from the 1950s, so I knew I wanted some more color for mine. A detailed graffiti mural centered around a buxom blonde pinup felt right for my seedier, more run-down tabletop town. 

While my terrain is fairly generic as to location (other than America's Rust Belt), this one actually will have a reference to location; Buffalo, NY is nicknamed the "Nickel City" due to the American Bison (also called a Buffalo) on the back of the old "Indian Head" nickel, and the sign I've made for over the front window identifies the dispensary as "Nickel City Smoke Shop."

The most challenging part of the build was actually the awning over the front door - It hooks into the wall instead of just slotting in, so I had to spray each piece individually with beige spray paint and then assemble it in the wall - slotting the sides in, letting the glue dry, then fitting the top and front pieces in. 

Inside, each level has a paper floor pattern from Sarissa Precision glued down into place:

The black and white tile floor is, for me at least, a bit dizzying to look at for too long - which might be either great or terrible for a shop catering to stoners! As far as interior furnishings go, I'm thinking about grabbing the "Spice Shop Interior" from Miniature Building Authority and repurposing it. I scaled down some Cheech & Chong movie posters and some counter-culture art from the 1960s and 70s - the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Mr. Natural, etc. - to decorate the walls with as well. 

The second story, with the wooden floor, is going to be a community center of sorts, an open space for people to congregate with like-minded sorts. Of course, I love hiding things in my builds that reward taking the time to look at them, so it's probably not going to be quite so straight forward as that! I won't say any more until I can show off the completed, furnished room. 

I am debating what to do with the roof; it's a lot of wide open space. I could put a 3D printed air conditioning unit up there, maybe some teeny tiny little pigeons; I have some picnic-themed bits from a Mantic Terrain Crate box, maybe someone got up there for a private party. Just something to break up the expanse of gray and add some visual interest while keeping it largely playable. 

I did do some test-fitting on an Atomic Laser Cut Designs billboard set and placed it on the roof to see how it would look; once completed it'd be something I'd keep separate so I could place it on different roofs or next to roads to maximize it's usefulness on the table.

And the only other big thing to do with this kit is going to be some advertising posted on the side walls of the second floor. A big "Camel Cigarettes" ad or maybe a billboard for a local restaurant kind of deal. Otherwise, the walls are a bit bland! I thought about some "Ghost Ads" decals from Dave's Decals, with the faded remnants of decades-old ads still lingering on the walls; I absolutely see some of those walking down Webster Street! I'm iffy though because the decals tend to have the brick pattern printed on them which won't match up with the incised brick patterning on the MDF. It might look fine, it might not. 

With the OTB next door for height comparison.

I'll probably head to Office Max tomorrow morning to do my printing, so I can finish pasting things on to this building in the afternoon. I've also got my internal furnishings for the Off-Track Betting finally primed so I can start painting those and gluing them into the building as well. 

Figures Acquired in 2025: 234

Figures Painted in 2025: 164