Imperial Harbor - Work In Progress

[ZCerberus]

Okay, so in this gallery you can see both the CAD designes and the actual lego builds that follow of an imperial harbor I am working on. I barely had time to finish the building before I had to leave to go back up to school, so some parts were part of an old design and are rather dusty. Also, my parent's house is under construction, so the pictures were take in the basement where there is not much light. The photos came out okay, but they are rather large and somewhat grainy as a result of the lighting. You can still see the basic idea though.

Harbor

Since I changed some Keywords so it would actually be searchable, it says it is not yet public, but it should be by mid day! humph-

When you can see it, there are some random photos of a fleet of ships too. Nothing special, but there are 2 Armada Ships, 5 Imperial Ships, 2 Pirate ships and 1 Ghost Pirate ship. Two of the Imperial ships are rather large and both Pirate ships are only somewhat modified versions of the official sets (Red Beard Runner and Schooner) Hopefully you will soon be able to see them. Here is a deep link to one of the photos, use it until the folder is public!

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=2207432

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=2207433

Here is a small preview of the CAD design... which is not yet done. the links will let you see the actual Lego images as well.

UPDATE:

I have finished the harbor, and Phes has linked the last page to a new thread for the finished project. If you are impatient or just want to see the 'After' shots, here is a quick link Finished Harbor

[Mister Phes]

The Brickshelf folder hasn't been moderated yet, so do you suppose you could provide direct links to the pictures, or post one of the pictures in the thread?

[ZCerberus]

Well it was public last night, but AVATAR was the keyword so I changed it this morning. I was actually modifying my post when you asked for the links! heh-

[Mister Phes]

These images are huge! I'd hate to be on dial up when viewing these!

Anyways...

Was this harbour originally inspired by the Imperial Trading Post? It looks like that was a starting point and you've just kept on building and building...

Its good to see huge imperial MOCs, not enough of them!

[Minifig Lecturer]

ZCerberus :'-(

Your pictures or at least some of them are in .BMP format so they are very big and slow to view. You should change them to .JPG or .PNG and they'll be alot smaller and easier to view. PNG has same quality as BMP.

[Norro]

I can't even see it all on my full screen... What I can see looks nice though ;-)

God Bless,

Nathan

[El Bucanero]

My great screen allows their size X-D And it is reaaaally cool!!!!!!!!!!!

[Mister Phes]

ZCerberus :'-(

Your pictures or at least some of them are in .BMP format so they are very big and slow to view. You should change them to .JPG or .PNG and they'll be alot smaller and easier to view. PNG has same quality as BMP.

Calvin has a point. A high resolution .JPG should just as nicely, but we must bare in mind that not every one understands file formats or realises there are people with small monitors or slow Internet connections.

In a couple of weeks time I'll do that IrfanView tutorial so everyone can scale down their images at the best possible quality.

My great screen allows their size X-D And it is reaaaally cool!!!!!!!!!!!

How big is your screen size Mr Tiber? Mine is 1680 x 1050 and it fits nicely.

[ZCerberus]

Yes, as per my first post I realize they are large and some what grainy. I do plan to fix that... eventually, but I have to finish the thing first. The brig on the far side doesn't have all the same niceties as the fortress or storehouse (i.e. removeable levels and magnetic roofs), so I will do that first in CAD, then when I get back my parents house I can get it built and new pictures taken. The peices themselves will be cleaned up without the dust and there will be better lighting too- but that is for another time. Maybe when I get around to it (I am very busy with School) i can retake the live pictures. The CAD stuff is easy enough to correct though. I will repost them. Done. They should be more managable now!

[Mister Phes]

You seem like a computer graphic savvy lad Mr ZCerberus, I'm confident you'll sort the images out.

Now, is there any particular feedback you like for this MOC? Have you finished building it? Are you looking to make changes? Or have you finished and now showing your creation to the world?

[ZCerberus]

These images are huge! I'd hate to be on dial up when viewing these!

Anyways...

Was this harbour originally inspired by the Imperial Trading Post? It looks like that was a starting point and you've just kept on building and building...

Its good to see huge imperial MOCs, not enough of them!

I actually never owned an Imperial Trading Post. I owned an Elderado Fortress, and bought the second base plate off bricklink. The brig's enterance is somewhat like the Elderado Fortress enterance currently, but as I develope the brig more, I will add a few pics of it. I guess is someways I could see how you might think that it was Imperial Trading Post inspired since it has a lot of docking area with a fotress and red roofs but it is not directly inspired. Actually the item that is the most ITP inspired is the little ship down by the fortress wall. It is somewhat similar to the ship in the ITP, but once again, I never actually had instructions (though I know I could find them online) from the ITP nor did I use them.

[ZCerberus]

You seem like a computer graphic savvy lad Mr ZCerberus, I'm confident you'll sort the images out.

Now, is there any particular feedback you like for this MOC? Have you finished building it? Are you looking to make changes? Or have you finished and now showing your creation to the world?

It is indeed still under construction. The whole left half is not complete- as you can tell it is a bit more bland than the rest of the Harbor. There are some general improvements to be made to the Brig, and I am working on it in CAD first since the parts are 180 miles away. I will post that when I make more progress.

The fortress and Store House are basically complete, though some details are missing yet. They have removable levels and the roof on the store house is magnetic for easy removal. I am planning to add both those features to the Brig.

Feedback would be nice, I have found it some what difficult to find actual historical information on fortress and harbors generally from that period. For example, did they ever use any sort of lighted tower to signal shore lines? What kind of out buildings were necessary? Do I need a gallows somewhere in my fortress? I also personally think there isn't enough vertical construction yet, so we'll see if I end up making some taller towers here and there.

This, however is really intended to be a harbor that is military in nature, so besides maybe a barracks or something, I am not terribly interested in a town of any sort, though improving the over all feel of what might be needed for a fortress is what I am looking for.

Future plans also include some additional vegitation, there is some left over stuff on there now, but not nearly as much as there will be.

[Mister Phes]

The answers to your questions depend on how realistic you want to make this harbour.

For example: I don't think you NEED an allows in your fortress, but if you want to add an extra level of detail then adding one might be a way to achieve this.

I suppose to determine what kind of buildings your port needs depends on what kind of port it is. I.e. is it a military port, fishing village, trading post, etc. However, you've state this is only intended to be a habour thats "military in nature" , so that makes me think of buildings like commissariat ( I suppose that equates to Store House), magazine, stockade (that equates to brig), etc.

[ZCerberus]

So basically it sounds like what I have there is about what I need-

Anything on the port (not including the stockade) that anyone is particularly found of, or anything anyone dislikes?

I feel as if I need another building on the left (top side of the pictures) to fill the huge open space there. It feels like it is a prime place for some sort of large tower structure, but I don't know that such a thing would be called or used for other than being really tall.

[ZCerberus]

ZCerberus :'-(

Your pictures or at least some of them are in .BMP format so they are very big and slow to view. You should change them to .JPG or .PNG and they'll be alot smaller and easier to view. PNG has same quality as BMP.

Okay, so I resized the guys, they are less than 1/3 the size of the original. They look the same on smaller monitors, but are now much smaller and faster laoding. Enjoy! Of course that means the pics will need to be moderated AGAIN, so the use the deep links until the whole folder is up

[Mister Phes]

So basically it sounds like what I have there is about what I need-

Most people don't bother going so far as to ensure they have every building in a fort they should have - you've got good attention to detail!

Here's some Spanish forts found in Puerto Rico I've quickly dug up.

Fort San Felipe del Morro

Fort San Cristobal

Fort

[ZCerberus]

Ah- nice. Thanks for the links, I will take a look at them. Fortresses seem to be very flat and open on the cannon decks, and most of them appear to be built into rock structures. I guess with my raised base plates I do sort of have that, but I was thinking of adding some BURPs somewhere anyways- we'll see- I think my harbor is unique when compared to the ones you sent me because my harbor is designed more to be at the entrance of a cove, and span the cove, then on a peninsula, but still, I think the links will be helpful!

[Mister Phes]

Your harbour is probably very different because the ones I showed you are real and yours is whatever your imagination wants it to be - which is a good thing!

Aside from deciding which buildings you're going to put in harbour, have you given any consideration to details? I think a touch of greenery would do wonders because there's a lot of bright colours will the white and yellow, so some plants would balance that out a bit.

If you look at most of the Imperial Guard sets all of them had some greenery, usually in the form of a palm tree which the exception of Cannon Cove which had a green baseplate and bush.

[ZCerberus]

Your harbour is probably very different because the ones I showed you are real and yours is whatever your imagination wants it to be - which is a good thing!

Aside from deciding which buildings you're going to put in harbour, have you given any consideration to details? I think a touch of greenery would do wonders because there's a lot of bright colours will the white and yellow, so some plants would balance that out a bit.

If you look at most of the Imperial Guard sets all of them had some greenery, usually in the form of a palm tree which the exception of Cannon Cove which had a green baseplate and bush.

Yes. I do believe in one of my first posts I said I needed some more vegetation and planned to add some. I, infact, did put some on there. If you look at the fortress portion, this is a palm tree off the back, and the stockade does have some greenery down by the docks. I do plan, however, on adding a bunch more. Only problem was time. Maybe I could add some to my CAD renderings to show you what I was thinking...

I will try to do that some time soon

[Mister Phes]

Ah yes, now that I've gone back and look it appears I did miss a couple of palm trees, but I think that's mainly because I've been looking at the CAD renderings because they appear to be a higher quality.

I suppose the other thing to consider when viewing the rendering is to bare in mind they look more stark and pristine because they don't have the level of shading or detail that photogenic images do.

So adding a few plants to the CAD renderings would be interesting to see. I noticed the plants you have already added aren't present in the current renderings.

[Evil Willy]

I'll let you and Phes continue the deep discussion, I missed out on the begining. But THat is a beautiful collection you have there, the fortress9port) is absolutley beautiful, I love the space between both models for ships to go through...Everything is wonderful. It looks so full, and with plenty of defence like a real fortress would have. I am inspired, I believe Willy shall be taking out his lego soon, very soon.

Edit:P.S: Do you play ESPG? For if you don't you should! It takes time setting up and is hard to get used to but boy is it fun! And you seem to have quite the collection that would allow you to do so quite easily :D Check it out -->here<--

[ZCerberus]

I'll let you and Phes continue the deep discussion, I missed out on the begining. But THat is a beautiful collection you have there, the fortress9port) is absolutley beautiful, I love the space between both models for ships to go through...Everything is wonderful. It looks so full, and with plenty of defence like a real fortress would have. I am inspired, I believe Willy shall be taking out his lego soon, very soon.

Edit:P.S: Do you play ESPG? For if you don't you should! It takes time setting up and is hard to get used to but boy is it fun! And you seem to have quite the collection that would allow you to do so quite easily :D Check it out -->here<--

Thanks for the feedback. I like it. But since you missed it earlier, it is actually still in progress. You may have noticed there are not direct pictures of the stockade because it is the only part I haven't gotten to. I didn't really mention the ships in the post too much, but there are several of them.

I haven't played Evil Steve's, though I think I made a trade with 'the' Steve a few years ago... some Blue Imperials for some other stuff.

And to Phes, I do plan on adding some palms to the CADs eventually too, but they will probably be "submodels" so they are easy to remove.

Soon I will add the first part of the new CAD design for the stockade. We'll see how it goes.

[Mister Phes]

Could you explain to me what "submodels" are? I'm not very knowledgable about these CAD rendering programs because I've only had a quick look at Mclad - is that what you use?

[Scouty]

Sections of the model is what I believe sub-models are. Like ZCerberus said, they are easilly removable.

I use MlCad and enjoy quite a bit. :-)

[Governor Broadside]

A submodel is basically two or more parts that a builder groups together that is placed in the larger model. I've never learned how to use submodels, especially since BrikTrak isn't able to include parts in a submodel to the list of parts for the entire model. |-/