WIP Royal Commons

[Commodore Hornbricker]

Royal Commons is located just inland of Government House in the Port of Brick Royal. It is home to shops, residences, and eateries for the ports inhabitants with enough wealth or prize money to enjoy it. Not sure on the name so make a suggestion if you have a better one. It still needs to have lots of nautical details added to the exterior. The interior needs to be finished as well. It is made up of 4 Cafe Corner sets, 2 Market Street Buildings and 1 Green Grocer. It is built on 4 - 45x45 plates.

I have one more building I am just starting that will be made from 4 Market Streets. It will be home to the middle class and lower level officers (not so luck in the matter of prize money). Then it will be on to the more working class areas of the Port, then the water front, then the naval facilties, merchant port, forts and gun emplacements, admiralty, walls, etc.

[Guss]

that's a lot of café corner ! I don't even have one of these snif, gimme one!

[Captain Green Hair]

What age are you planning to make the harbour in?

The buildings don't have that 18th century feel to me, do you plan on modding them to a certain age?

[Derfel Cadarn]

Nice idea, but if its the 17th or 18th century look your going for, then those stock lego sets deffinitly look to modern, they dont have that old feel to them. Are you planning on rebuilding everything? Or are you going to use them as they are.

[Adam]

I enjoy the fact that you've put modular City sets to good use, but I must agree with the others: they don't have that colonial, 18th/17th century feel.

Now, I know that you've yet to add those nautical details you mentioned, but I've a few suggestions that might boost the historical accuracy of the MOC. I propose that you remove all of the landscaping outside of the buildings and replace them with stone walkways - wood would be out of the question for such a heavy structure, lest it was supported by stones. My second suggestion is that you take off the large "hotel" sign, the decorations above the Cafe Corner doors, and replace the square window frames with the newer, Castle/Pirate frames.

Also, where do you plan to put the four Market Street buildings? I'm not sure whether you plan on adding another baseplate and building it on that, or trying to build it in the remaining space/within the "courtyard" made by the Corners, Streets, and Grocers.

Other than that, I can't wait to see what this structure will look like after the sea-related architecture is added!

Are you planning on rebuilding everything? Or are you going to use them as they are.

I think that rebuilding everything would be radical, to say the least, but slightly modifying each structure would go a long way to increasing the 17th/18th century feel.

[Commodore Hornbricker]

Thanks for the kind words and the great suggestions. Please keep those comming. I agree the Commons needs a lot of tweaking (including a better name something Commons). The hotel signs will be gone for sure and I think the yellow and white awnings need to be changes (light grey maybe or all white). The little tables and benches will also go and be replaced by something like little stands from the medieval market village. I am interested in the comment about the stone walkways. Do you think this could be accoplished with the 2x2 tiles just more mixed up or would you go 1x1? The little coffe cups above the cafes will be replaced with things like anchors, ships wheels and cannon. I am also going to make some color changes to some of the turents on top of the buildings so they look a little less uniformed. The doors is a cool idea I hadn't considered. I'll have to do some tests the next time I am working on them.

As you can imagine just getting them out takes about an hour.

The final "town building" made from 4 market street sets will be to the left of the Government House so opposite the East India Building. It will be on its own 45x45 plate. Where I really need parts is 1x16 bricks. I need thousands of those because I want the entire town to be raised up (talking about 30 45x45 plaes raised at least 8 to 10 bricks high). That will provide the dimesion I want it all to have at the sea wall/water front. I am also going to have 16x32 blue plates running through the left and right side of the port as rivers. I'll have to post the plans but they are on my office computer. I am imagining the main fort to the left above the port some 32 bricks high with a smaller fort to the right of the port at a little lower level.

[Captain Green Hair]

For the street i would use 1x1 round plates, placed at different heights to resemble the cobblestone used at the time.

Below is a picture from Kris1234's BS gallery:

[Dwarfinator]

Not bad. I want one of those cafe corners!

[Captain Blackmoor]

I got 1 Café Corner and I'm so happy I got it since there are so many useful MOC bricks in it...

To put so much buildings together you can create a huge city indeed.

But I agree with others to give it a more '18 century' look to make it more realistic and historic accurate.

It looks great though! I've never seen a collection of those kind of buildings that big.

[Commodore Hornbricker]

Captn Green Hair. Thanks. I love it. You're absolutely right. That's the look.

[Capt. Kirk]

I think that rebuilding everything would be radical, to say the least, but slightly modifying each structure would go a long way to increasing the 17th/18th century feel.

--> IMO lot of rebuilding would be necessary to give it a pirate look. This doesn't mean I don't like the moc itself... please Commodore Hornbricker don't understand me wrong. But don't forget the the golden age of piracy is from roughly 1570 until 1780. So every architectural style after 1780 is not realy the right one and no more realistic and historic accurate.

--> After 1800 most pirates where history because the Royal fleets became too big and a new way of getting money was found... slavery.

[martinsuper]

What about the new castle village set? Wouldnt that work well in a pirate port? I was thinking of asking for it as a present, and then mod-ing it accordingly. I thought maybe I would buy two of them and mod them as well...

[Commodore Hornbricker]

I have 7 of those sets. I think they are awsome for pirates. I need a few more. I am just building them original right now and thinking about how I will combine and change them. I need for of five more. The accessories and people all work great. I take the helmets off the knights and throw some hair on them and they become pages and lower ranking government officials of the port.

Here's a question for you caribbean experts. Can you get away with using the big tree from that set in a caribbean port? I am thinking not but it is such a cool piece of greenery.

[Captain Blackmoor]

Which tree from which set do you mean?

[Captain Green Hair]

The tree definitly works in any scene.

[Commodore Hornbricker]

Great.

Blackmoor, I was talking about the midievil Vllage Market Set