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Sci Fi Dome Habitats

Giant nesting plastic Easter eggs. Well, a few of the giant ones. Just right for some sci fi domes.

But for an explanetary habitat in a harsh environment (or not), you want some connector passageways. That's why you were keeping all those toilet paper tubes.

Big thing is, you want it to mate with the curve of the egg reasonably well. So I take one, and eyeball trim it, then go back and forth a few times. I chewed up about a fourth of the tube getting it right.

Now, we don't want to repeat that process, so we slit the tube long ways, roll it flat(ish), and copy the curve on to a piece of paper.

Now copy the top half of the curve on to a sheet of thin card, and add tabs for the rest.

And we fold it to make this little arch shape with the curve bit on one end.

And when you put the arch on the end of the tube, you get a good fitting.

Now, rinse and repeat.

One third have a curved arch on one end, one third have a regular non-curved arch on one end, and one third have a curved arch on one end and a non-curved arch on the other end. That lets us modularly section them together like this.

The eggs are a little plain, so I decided to add some tubes to the top as well. Same type of cut to fit action.

And in this case, I am laying the template cut right on the other tubes and replicating.

Add an air dry clay gasket to the contoured bit ...

And stick it on top. Coincidentally, the tp tube diameter matches the regular palstic Easter egg diameter. Coincidence? Nope, it's the Illuminati.

And since the eggs are hollow, I made some interiors. Tip: Once you trace the circle on corrugated cardboard (or whatever) for the floor, cut these slants outside the circle. Makes cutting out the circle much easier!

Rinse and repeat with the circles. Cut some in half. Turn some of them into arches. Assemble as you will.

This is my fave. I have two half circle cross pieces, but I bent the X a little to make different sized rooms. The idea is three larger bunk rooms, and a smaller bathroom in the back.

And instead of cutting arches or doorways, I made hatches. Milk jug caps with a steampunk jewelry gear in the middle. Those gears are great to add just the right amount of detail to generic parts like this.

Here is a typical layout on my modular Mars boards.

The parts without the Mars ground are supposed to be rivers of muck. As well as protection, the conntector tubes also give you bridges from one area to another.

This interior fit right underneath the dome and allows inside/outside action.