Book IV Prelude Challenge: Category A: The Astral Obscurvatory

[Yoggington]

<- Reserving this post for the final product ->

[Yoggington]

 <March 16th> 

I'm not sure if I should start a separate thread, just pop updates in here, or maybe even not post at all until the gate-point. I figure I'll hold myself to account and keep myself honest by posting in here if I make anything I could think of as progress. Spoiler tags as this is quite image-heavy.

I have for a while wanted to tackle an observatory, specifically one with a nice dome on it. Something not too modern or sleek - along the lines of the Dominion Observatory. But of course, domes are rather tricky to pull off in lego. Looking at this technique, while of course it could be used for the tower .. if I flipped it over sideways, and with a little modification - maybe it could be used for a dome?

I started with a circular floor:

Spoiler

Then while struggling with filling in the gaps, decided it was way too big anyway. I messed around with a variety of smaller circular shapes, but not many of them would take a snug ring of rounded plates on the perimeter. I found to my delight that just mimicing the pagoda base from Rivendell gave something just the right size.

Spoiler

It does have an odd stud count to divide to 6 or 8, but if you add a few 3-plates, it works out with odd sized sections (which I kinda wanted anyway)

 

This is not a dome! I hear you say. Yes, Rollo knows his shapes. So far, we only have a circle-ish.

My hope is to add flexible rods something like this:

Spoiler

And then connect them in the centre something like this: 

 

You will be left with bendy-pizza-slice sections you can then fill up using the technique in the thread :)

I gave that a bit of a go, and found it all entirely unreliable. Looking back at my reference pics, I noticed that observatories aren't even dome shaped!! They have a smooth half cylinder in the centre, and then a half-dome to each side. That smooth part is the bit you see opening and closing sometimes. It also might be a little easier to try out.

I ended up with this: 

Spoiler

 

 

Inners: 

 

Next stop, bendy pizza slices.

[Grover]

I love the name!  I don't have a lot of commentary beyond what I posted previously, but congrats, you are the second member to make the WIP midpoint deadline, and the only one eligible for prizes at this point!