DyeHard's Wargame Terrain


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Structure Building from Bubbles

Bubble Buildings :
Structures of alien worlds can be made from a wide variety of starting materials. It is important to keep an eye open to possible source matter before you take out the trash. Here we explore the use of the thin clear plastic bubbles that are vacuum-formed for the display cards for items for sale in your local stores.


This bubble is from a light bulb sold by Phillips. Not the typical light bulb shape I thought the curvacious form would be good either for some kind of space ship or a Martian bunker.


This is a double pack of the same light bulb as above. Most bubbles will need some modification to be truly useful.


By merely trimming out the main part of the bubble this one is ready to go.


Likewise with the double pack. The 15mm figure is shown for scale comparison.


This is a tray from the devil food cookies I used the box for in the building of a landship . A simple trimming of the edge will yield an interesting array of domes. (I was thinking of power generator of the ice moon Hoth from the Star Wars film when I fist saw it.)


Some bubbles come ready to use. This example is a double pack of "D" cell batteries.


The bubbles are really very flimsy, so they will require a base to may them stiff enough to survive the wargame table. I picked the card that backed one of the robots I am converting into a VSF Walker to serve as the base. This was a fairly stiff card so I just set it aside until I could find a use for it.


I simply place the various bubbles on the card, position them for optimal position, draw a line about each leaving enough lip on all sides and cut them cut.


The bubbles were then glued down with some tacky PVA glue. On this example, I gave the bubble a light coat of white primer.



These two were given a coat of a spray epoxy appliance paint that imparts more texture then normal spray primer. This is the same paint I use on my pilot house and the front of the Land Titan . Sure it was a mistake that time, but it turned out pretty good, so now I am using this paint specifically to add texture.


An alternative to spray on primer I often use artists gesso. It is a classic primer used to prepare canvases for painting. The modern version is no long made from rabbit skin but is an acrylic paint, so it can be handled like most of the popular paints for modeling.


With a basic finish on it is time to start playing with details. Instead of a power generator I thought I would made this bubble into some type of storage tank. I have used some piping and a valve from an HO scale model railroad kit and some cut sections of sprue from other model kits (the red parts).


Here is the over view. I and trying to imply that more pipes run underground.


With the primer dried, it is time to start painting. I added doors of the same style as on the Martian bunkers above. The first layer of paint is a custom blend of house paint (latex) in a warm light brown.


I use this inexpensive paint for its covering power. It does tend to fill in details, but on such shapes that is not a problem. It is very good for painting beadboard Styrofoam packing material (which I will cover latter).


The paint covers and fills the card stock doors very well. This helps give the impression of the doors being an built in part of the structure.


With the Martian tank farm, I try to avoid painting over the pipes details.

You may click on the following to return to the Building Structures page.

You may click on the following to return to the Master Terrain page.

You may click on the following to return to the Victorian Science Fiction page.

I hope to be able to add more latter.

Thank you for looking:

DyeHard

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Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.