BDP 11 - Imperial Guards Fort Estrella

[HanSime]

Welcome to Fort Estrella, the mighty Imperial Guards stronghold!
Bring your pirate or rival imperial fleet to bare and lay siege to the fortress, blasting your way into its treasury, or sneak into the fort and steal it with a small group of brigand infiltrators! Perhaps you will gather your fleet and start your anti-piracy campaign or new conquests here under the leadership of the ambitious and temperamentful Governor Tempest. Maybe you will find your dreams of pirate ambitions reduced to the small, damp brick, pardon, brig of Fort Estrella and you need to find a way to escape... Perhaps you want to wage war between two imperial factions with their own port cities or you're in need of a safe port to restock or find shelter from a storm, with several bastions guarding the entrance to a bay.

Whatever your fancy, you can create it with Fort Estrella!

Its 10 main sections as well as a target practice buoy and parrot/pidgeon cote provide countless options for replay. The sections can be displayed individually or in small groups, but when put together the size of the fort is approximately 92 by 94cm. If put in line with the bastions stretched to its 180° angle, the city wall can reach 1.6m in length or if you only stretch some sections, you could create a large protected town square to place your other buildings. Aside from creating a huge imperial port wall, you could also use this to store it on a shelf.

So could you create a giant fortress with two sets? Hell yes. Could you build an entirely different fort with this set? Absolutely.

Feedback

Regardless of whether or not the design makes it, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the design, the changes since last time and your ideas for how you'd use this in your collection or inspiration you get from it. Which sections would you (not) want to display and why (not?). What works and what doesn't? Does it miss anything important play value wise?

What do you think of the presentation? Is it too busy? Too small renders? Too much text? Etc.

Please let me know your thoughts so I can improve any future submissions! :D

What changed from BDP9?

You may remember the Imperial Guard's Star Fortress from BDP 8 and 9. BDP9 was already significantly altered compared to BDP8 and many of those changes only gotten more radical so I won't discuss those changes, but this version too has been given some significant upgrades and revisions.

Compared to BDP 9, I've tried to make the fort more visually interesting externally, with more bright and coherent colours. For instance reducing the degree of dark and light bluish grey used, especially on the outer wall and introduce a bit more colour and decorative elements on the façades including plants and details to distinguish sections. The balustrades use a more similar design to increase the coherency of the whole. The bricks to do this were freed up by replacing, simplifying or removing little bits all over. Changes included:

• A lot of colour updates (more "moss", far less gray, bit more wood)

• Some interior detailing of several sections was altered while maintaining the aesthetic.

• New triangular section of the governor's quarters and split up the top and bottom of the removable wall/ceiling.

• The BDP9 clock tower was removed in favour of a larger lighthouse tower.

• The BDP9 lighthouse was mirrored and turned into a watchtower and given a door.

• The gatehouse got a better gate system.

• More battle damaged areas (like cannon balls still being stuck).

• More and more intense/detailed use of plants.

• Made the cascading waterfall in the cave transparant.

• Changed uniforms

• An additional minifigure (purple Jaeger).

I've tried to change the marketing as well through putting more focus on the many configuration options, having a more neutral, non-distracting background and a little bit of purple framed box art nostalgia.

Anyway, probably the last time I'm submitting it. Don't think I can do a whole lot more with the design aside from splitting it into half / downsizing or maybe rebrand it as a Napoleonic era land based fort. ^_^;

Edited 5 hours ago by HanSime