Creating some model igloo's in maya

So i started off the igloos by thinking of different ways i could make them in maya and the first thing i thought was to make one single block then duplicate it to several, then duplicate those blocks in a circle making them smaller and turned in as the igloo rounded..... not as easy as it sounds, very frustrating and it started to work but tbh after having a go for a while i decided to scrap it and as annabeth showed me fold a sphere in on itself instead.

It didn't create the texture that i wanted as in they all look like separate blocks that have been built but when it comes to uv texturing i can make it look like that anyway, it will probably look crisper and neater too. 

I found this handy tutorial on special duplicating as i was having trouble cause it's really confusing to know what amounts to put in to get the special duplication you are wanting, this was a good trick but to be honest it took me just as long to figure this out as it would to create each single one and position them correctly.

Here's some pics of my first attempt at the igloo -

so as you can see from the image above i had trouble figuring out which way to special duplicate them on which axis and which one to translate and rotate, it's really confusing! This is something that i am sure i will learn to know through time and using maya constantly so this doesn't really bother me at this point. Annoying but it will sort itself out. 

as you can see everything i tried, nothing worked, until! Eureka! 

Lets look on youtube for a tutorial which i did and thus did this which worked! 

Eureka!

make a nurbs circle 

duplicate the amount you want

shift select all of them and tell maya to position along curve. simple as.

then as you can see, rotate and move in, make smaller etc...

So as i said this was going ok and im sure if i took a while going over it again i could make a lovely igloo but as the sphere one will be much easier for uv mapping and does look better and i can add windows and things in much easier than it would be with this one i think.... i'm going to go with the sphere ones.
So here's what i've done so far in the way's of different igloos and props etc.... :)

I'm all iglooed out!

completely iglooed out!

I can't make up my mind which one i like best so i'm gonna show the group and see which one everyone else likes best. I've added a fish barrel and fishing equipment will be propped up against the side, i thought it would be a nice little touch to the environment.

making a fishing rod in maya is quite hard, i need some more practise.