Kitbashing and recycling packaging for sci-fi terrain

More base shapes constructed this weekend. Here’s where I’ve gotten to, looks like nine dwellings so far. Plenty still to do to these, need to finish their structures, add roofs where needed and then start detailing with bits.

I’m trying to capture a few of the Territories listed in the Shanty Town Table such as; Gambling Den, Nutrient Vats, Shanty Guilder, Friendly Doc, Drinking Hole and maybe a Water Still. I’ll see how I go.

I can already sense the dilemma of whether to base them collectively or to keep them independent so they can be arranged freely.

Currently one of them looks like a cheap bedside lamp, that will hopefully transform from being a Cotton Buds container clad in plasticard into a Water Still of some sort but needs a lot of work.

I do recommend the styrene sheets (various thicknesses) as a building material. Very useful and easy to work with. Also recommend the corrugated card sheets for crafting that are ideal as a wall cladding. Foam board also very handy as a wall when coupled with a Glue Gun.

I heard Warren and the guys sounding very unimpressed with battery powered glue guns this weekend. I just want to say that my Bosch GluePen is great. It uses the 7mm glue sticks and is rechargeable, and has hardly any “warm up” time at all. Turn it on and a few moments later it’s ready to use. Maybe this is different to the ones they were using, I think they had actual replaceable batteries in theirs which could explain the poor performance.

Getting back to the styrene though, you can see in those images that I was able to cut a round door shape into the sheet and “flex & snap” (TM) the piece out leaving a nice clean space for the door to glue into.