Star Wars Miniatures
Mos Eisley-style Buildings


Most of my one-story buildings are made from three layers of stacked material. The base is a piece cut from a 1/4 inch foamcore board, the second layer is a 1/2" thick piece of blue styrofoam insulation from the hardware store, and the upper part is made of 2" thick white styrofoam from the craft store. These three layers are cut to have the same outline shape, then glued together in a stack with white glue. The domed roofs are made from various sized foam balls, cut in half and white glued to the roofs. I coat the whole thing with some sort of spackle or joint compound (whatever I already have around the house or is cheapest at the hardware store), which protects the foam and creates a rough troweled-on look. If necessary I sand it down a bit, then paint it tan (flat interior house paint from the "oops" section in the back of Home Depot, about $2 per quart, or $5 to $8 per gallon), and add a few shades and highlights. Some people might prefer to skip the spackle and just use a textured paint-- I'll probably get around to trying that someday.

The buildings are dressed up with vertical elements like buttresses (pieces cut from blue foam wall insulation--cheap), small pipes running up the walls (plastic model sprue--free!) and free-standing 'vaporators and antenna units placed on the roofs or in the adjacent streets (pieces of household trash decorated with plastic sprue bits and scrap wires, based on various sized steel washers--darn cheap).

I am working on some partially ruined buildings, with foamcore walls based on foamcore foundations piled with rubble made from all the bits of foam and plastic left over from other projects. Since some interior walls are showing, I am decorating those with additional high-tech vertical and horizontal conduits (plastic sprues) and raised panels of various sizes and shapes (cut up scraps of cardboard and plastic card). The interiors will be painted mostly grey, to contrast with the tan exteriors. The biggest expenses here really are the foamcore scraps (which I already had on hand), the white glue, and replacement knife blades (foamcore eats razors and #11 hobby blades for lunch).

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Last updated 1-8-99.