6mm Science Fiction Temporary Encampment

Whenever I go to the Dollar Tree store, one of my favorite places to browse is the Party Favor section. There is almost always some interesting pack of small disposable toys that inspire me by their shape. On my trip earlier this week, I discovered these small squirt-'gun' style hand grenades, shown below with a US quarter for scale.


When I first saw these, I noticed that a number of packages of them had ones that had split into their two halves simply through the rigors of shipping from China. I noticed how a grenade half looked a lot like a Quonset hut, and I began to get the idea that they might make the basis for a neat Sci-Fi building. I assumed that they would be easy to divide into halves with a hobby knife at home since a few had divided on their own already.

My hopes were realised and the hard plastic grenades split apart with a modicum of effort by placing a hobby knife in the seam and hitting it gently with a small hammer. They must have been assembled with small quantities of cheap glue. In the picture above and below, you can see the halves glued to a standard sized CD. I have added some plastic bits from the bits box to create various sensors, and communications arrays.

My next step was to spray the piece with black primer. Again shown with a US quarter below.

Then I painted the buildings with progressively lighter shades of khaki drybrushing.
Shown below with some 6mm Epic Eldar figures (unpainted) for scale.

And finally I terrained the base using purple sand and various clumps of foliage. Again shown below with 6mm Epic Eldar figures.

This was a quick and simple project that I think most folks could do. I completed it in a day, with the longest periods of time being the waiting for the glue and paint to dry.