What, exactly, could I do with these boxes to make them into buildings? What sort of greebles are necessary? How should they be stacked? What kind of paint job do you think I need?
I can't link it here but check out the Maelstrom's Edge scenery sprues, they're full of sci-fi greebles to turn boxes into scenery.
Cut out the borders of the plastic inserts. Hot glue back to back. Paint grey and drybush. Add graffiti at will. Now you have A LOT of modular walls.
You may need to get the cat stoned out of it's gourd on catnip before it will stay still enough to be scenery.
That's the thing! The cat is the boss! He kidnap a unit and the mission is to save it before it gets eaten!
That is my result of such a recycing action. What I did: First I checked all boxes I had for stability and dismissed all weaker ones. Then I stacked some smaller ones on the bigger ones (on top or on the side, whatever fits better). Of course - missing ceylings are the biggest problem here. I wanted a wasteyard-style, so I took thin cardboard and cut it into irregular pieces, than glued it on the outside of the boxes, but tall enough to create the ceylings on the roofs. Now the rest was just painting with spraypaints. I will maybe do an other table in that way, but with more details on the walls. It is cheap and easy and supringsingly durable.