Ghost Town Graveyard

[Klaus-Dieter]

Hello everybody!

After about half a year of having not designed some new Western MOCs I wanted to try a new MOC. I thought that - inspired by TheBrickster's and BrickMiner's awesome Ghost Town MOCs - it would be surely interesting to try to build a Ghost Town MOC with LDD. Of course it's not that perfect like BrickMiner's or TheBrickster's MOCs!

So here you are:

Ghost Town Graveyard

Pieces: 433

Price: 58,86 Euros (Germany)

It's midnight. The graveyard of the mysterious Ghost Town lays in total darkness. Cowboy James and sheriff Blackwater enter the gate. They are searching for Santa Legorana - but he doesn't seem to be there. Suddenly the graves open, some skelettons and a ghost cowboy attack the two. Will they overwhelm them?

This set includes the graveyard of Ghost Town with a lot of action elements, a black horse, sheriff Blackwater, cowboy James, two skelettons, a ghost cowboy and a lot of accessory.

Here you can see the opened grave, the tomb slap comming down and the treasure box in the chapel falling down from the attic:

Here is a view on the graveyard before it was midnight:

To the "building history" of this set:

Like you perhaps can see I used some elements of the official Harry Potter set Graveyard Duel (is this the official name?) and a lot of elements of TheBrickster's amazing Grave Stone MOCs like e. g. from the Shaddow Chapel.

I wanted to deisgn a Western set which could be used for two themes: For the "normal" WW theme and for the Ghost Town subtheme. For the "normal" WW theme you could use it since every bigger town in the Wild West had a little church (and mostly a graveyard, too). That's even why I included some nice interior in the chapel in order to use it as a "non-Ghost-Town-themed" church, too. Sor the Ghost Town theme you could use it - well, I think I don't have to say there much since this is obvious.

I wanted to include some action elements in this set since if there is a new WW theme TLG surely would include some action elements in the sets, too, and secondly since this rises the playability and should be very similar to the "old" amazing WW theme of 1996/97.

Comments are welcome!

Klaus-Dieter

Edited February 9, 2009 by Klaus-Dieter

[CommanderCody77]

It looks quite good but I think you should put more skeletons 'cause its a "graveyard"

[WesternOutlaw]

KD: I've been looking forward to your Ghost Town creation for some time, always interested in how others visualize a certain theme/sub-theme. You've done a good jub at building/designing this LDD creation.

First of all, I like the size which fits on half a baseplate. Of course if you were building the real thing, you'd want a tan baseplate to fit in with other WW creations. But given the spooky feel of the creation, grey doesn't look too bad at all.

The fence and gate work very well reminding me of the style and color of Arkham Asylum, a very nice set. While I like the large tomb stones, I think these may have looked more realistic in grey (light or dark), but black is definately chilling.

I like the size and design of the church, but I'm not sure about the use of the single black 3x4 slope over the door. I think it looks a bit out of place. Also, you might add one additional layer of bricks to the steeple, based on how the roof is almost taller or level with it. Overall; however, I think it came out very well.

One can not have enough owls and other spooky critters when building Ghost Town creations, so I like that you've added a few owls. Bats would also make a nice additions. Those cowboys need cowboy hats though, that I'm guessing aren't available in LDD. More skeletons, as mentioned above, would be fine as well.

While I don't think the tree looks bad, it is a bit flat. I think you can easily have a few branches facing different directions that would really improve the design. I'm really bad at building trees myself, and don't usually try.

Overall, this is a very nice creation, and the first Ghost Town MOC with LDD. Congratulations KD. I think you did a very good job at your first attempt.

Here are a few links from my Graveyard and Church structures for compariosn (also a picture of the Spooky Shack that shows one of my trees built with extra pieces):

Wild West Church

Early Ghost Town Creation

Shadow Chapel

Spooky Shack

Grave Stone Cemetery

I should redo these pictures some time.

[Klaus-Dieter]

Thank you very much for your nice comments, CommanderCody77 and TheBrickster!

It looks quite good but I think you should put more skeletons 'cause its a "graveyard"

Thanks, CommanderCody77!

Yes, you're perhaps right: Some more skelettons wouldn't be bad. But more than that I'd like to have a ghost included in this MOC - but regrettably LDD doesn't offer one.

KD: I've been looking forward to your Ghost Town creation for some time, always interested in how others visualize a certain theme/sub-theme. You've done a good jub at building/designing this LDD creation.

First of all, I like the size which fits on half a baseplate. Of course if you were building the real thing, you'd want a tan baseplate to fit in with other WW creations. But given the spooky feel of the creation, grey doesn't look too bad at all.

The fence and gate work very well reminding me of the style and color of Arkham Asylum, a very nice set. While I like the large tomb stones, I think these may have looked more realistic in grey (light or dark), but black is definately chilling.

[...]

Overall, this is a very nice creation, and the first Ghost Town MOC with LDD. Congratulations KD. I think you did a very good job at your first attempt.

Thanks, TheBrickster!

Nice to read that you like it.

I like the size and design of the church, but I'm not sure about the use of the single black 3x4 slope over the door. I think it looks a bit out of place. Also, you might add one additional layer of bricks to the steeple, based on how the roof is almost taller or level with it. Overall; however, I think it came out very well.

One can not have enough owls and other spooky critters when building Ghost Town creations, so I like that you've added a few owls. Bats would also make a nice additions. Those cowboys need cowboy hats though, that I'm guessing aren't available in LDD. More skeletons, as mentioned above, would be fine as well.

While I don't think the tree looks bad, it is a bit flat. I think you can easily have a few branches facing different directions that would really improve the design. I'm really bad at building trees myself, and don't usually try.

Oh, I thought that it would look more realistic when there is a little roof piece above the entrance of the chapel. But I must acknowledge that I built it how I wanted to and did not look at some pics of real WW chapels while building it.

I indeed first thought about making the tree bigger and adding more owls to it. But when the tree should go in every direction it would no have any place in this my MOC. But you're right: It looks a bit . Perhaps it would look better if I take away the foliage parts of the branch, what do you think? But since I now designed the tree in this style it is in the moment you can't add much owls to it. The next time when I'll build a Ghost Town MOC with LDD I'll try to design a better tree - promised.

Klaus-Dieter