Space Station Zero - Creating a Framework of Corridor Walls

    My newly-created foamboard walls for games of Space Station Zero

As you may remember from my previous posts, a new project for me is trying out Space Station Zero from Snarling Badger Studios. We'd enjoyed their Reign in Hell rules, so I picked them up from Wargame Vault (nice deal on print and PDF). Reading the rules, I was intrigued, so began building terrain to create my own dilapidated space station somewhere lost in the depths of space. An earlier post showed you the six 10"x11" battle boards I created to piece together for the 30"x22" board.

    Another look at the walls, with images that I had downloaded off the internet glued onto their sides

The more I began to think about it, though, I felt I would need walls to give the real look of a space station. I looked around for something commercially available, but didn't find anything in a reasonable price range. So, like with my boards, I figured that I could create my own. Wandering the aisles of the craft stores is usually where I get my inspiration. I came upon a black, foamboard trifold that I have often seen my students use for project displays. That made me think, "Hmmm..." The trifold would already have the fold in it for each of the 90 degree angles needed. That would work! 

    As you can see, I used about a quarter of the trifold, foamboard display

I stuck a tape measure next to some miniatures and chose to do my walls 4" tall. Since the playing area is 30"x22", I figured four corner sections placed together would work. One arm could be 15" for the long side and the other arm extending out from the corner could be 11" for the shorter side. Placing them all together in a rectangle would create the 30"x22" frame. It was an easy matter to cut the foamboard with a sharp X-acto knife. 

    An exploded view of the four sections, each with a long 15" and short 11" arm

Now, I could have left them like that, but felt that gluing on images of space station corridors could really make the walls pop. I went online and Googled various images of space station corridors, downloading a number of images. I resized these in Photoshop to 4" tall. I then duplicated the image and flipped it vertically so that it could wrap around the top edge of the foamboard and extend down to the bottom, enclosing the foamcore in an upside down "U-shape." I took these images to the local office supply store and printed them out on their color laser printer.

    I used doors/portals glued to cardstock to clamp the four sections together with magnets & steel bases

 The trick was accurately pasting them onto the foamboard. I used Gorilla Glue spray adhesive, spraying both the back of the image and the foamboard. This kept the foamboard from warping, like it may have if I slathered the whole thing in white glue. I was fairly happy with how this process (which took several hours) went. I did screw up, though. One of the four pieces had its image glued on upside down. Much to my surprise, it did matter for everything to line up and have the "raw" foamboard edge facing down onto the tabletop. 

    Bonus pic of a recently-painted Dr. Zaius from Planet of the Apes investigating Space Station Zero

While trying to get to sleep the night before, I thought about how to clamp the four sections together so that it didn't get knocked over during play. I hit upon the idea of using the image of a door or portal glued on a piece of cardstock and placed over where each section joined the neighboring one (at the center of each long and short side). But how to clamp them? I decided to glue steel bases near the bottom corners of each side of the cardstock door. I placed magnets on the steel bases, peeled off their backing, and then pressed the door into position. Squeezing the door attached the adhesive backing to the wall section in the exact correct position. I was delighted to see the doors peel off and reattach easily with the steel and magnet connection. Success! I love it when a concept like this actually works out...ha, ha!

So, here are some pictures of my space station walls with the boards in between. I was very happy with how these all turned out. I think the walls make it look much better than simply using the boards would have looked.