15mm Sci-Fi Squinch Dome WIP

One thing I love about spaceship miniature gaming is how simple the playing area is.  A few spheres or hemispheres to represent stars and planets and your vessels are all you need generally.  Games that represent land combat require a lot more in terms of terrain and figures and so I usually find myself sticking to the starships.

I just came up with a set of solo infantry skirmish rules last week however and after a very fun playtest I'm ready to put the spacecraft away for a little while and get in some troop action.  I've ordered some of GZG's Phalon troops as well as more of their armed Heavy Vac-Suited figures to oppose the Phalon.  While I wait for the miniatures to arrive I've decided to make some buildings.

Domes just seem a natural for science fiction settings.  I saved some styrofoam cups from the garbage and chopped off the lips to make the building sides.  I cut two of these lips in half and arranged three of these in order to create a triangular footprint.  I started the squinches (the part joining the apexes of the triangles to the domed roof) by spanning the open space with scotch-tape, sticky side up.  Then I laid pieces of fiberglass wall repair fabric on the tape.  The picture below shows what I'm talking about; please disregard the pink hue to the photos, my camera is about to die.

Framework for squinches

 With the tape and fabric in place I mixed up some water-putty and spread it on the fabric.  I kept a basin of water available to clean-up and shape the putty.  After this first layer of putty cured I placed a pre-made dome on top of the structure.  I constructed the dome the night before using water-putty as detailed in this old post.  A second water-putty layer went on, to attach the dome.  The picture below shows this second layer; as you can see a third layer will be required to create the smooth transition between dome roof and sides.

Frugality manifest on the game table

  When the third layer cures I'll add the walls under those arches.  I'm thinking something very comic book techno-babble looking.  Here's some wall examples:

Cost of materials was very low, and the time commitment not as high as some of my other putty-based terrain projects.  I'm thinking I can make three or four of these before my forces arrive and get painted.