I used to build cardboard cities (A DIY Project)

This is not really a post, but a visual trip down the memory lane with a bit of explanation:

The year 2018 was a period when I was sick and had to undergo an operation. While I was recovering at home, I had a lot of free time on my hands, so instead of staring at the ceiling all day, I wanted to make my dream come true and build a toy city. Here's the background story:

When I was little, I used to play with tiny die-cast cars on a mat, the fabric of which resembled vinyl tablecloth. It was my favourite pastime running those cars down the toy streets with shops, police stations, etc. Unfortunately, I somehow lost that cloth, which made the little me quite sad. My mom couldn't even find a replacement anywhere. Back in Poland of the late 1990s, the most popular form of play like that were normal carpets with paintings of the roads and cities, but they always looked very cheap and aimed at toddlers.

As a result, in 2018, I sat down and started building a city. I took flat cardboard from packages, did measurements, scanned them to a computer, played with photoshop and paint, printed it out and the materials were ready. I repeated the process for buildings, but these were tougher to do because of three dimensions. On the whole, preparing stuff to print out, then cutting it out, and pasting with glue and duck tupe was long, but I had time. Here are the results. I took the pictures with an old phone that no longer exists, so forgive the quality. In addition, I even attempted to make some stop motion footage, which is also attached below.

The city (top view- different angles)

 

Airport (upper part of the image)

Railway station

City Center with a police station, shopping mall, and convenience stores in the middle.

Harbour Master's Offices

Behind the police station

The police station with a helicopter on top (if you look closely, you will see KITT from Knight Rider parked at the front)

KITT is guarding the streets.

The school bus arriving at a petrol station.

Close-up at the school shopping mall, and a convenience store.

The fire squad rescuing the school.

Nissan Exhibition

Final overview

Stop motion 1

Stop motion 2

Stop motion 3

Stop motion 4

That's it from me. The cardboard roads and buildings I made survived to the present day, but there are bends on the edges of the roads (probably because of duct tape putting pressure on cardboard). Maybe in the future, I will build new stuff on solid planks, but for now I'm fine with it. In addition, my collection die/cast/Hot Wheels grew larger since the time these photos were taken.