[MOC] Vignette - Blue Coats on Quay Wall

[Masked Mini]

I've needed to practice making stone walls for future projects. This is my first shareable attempt at a non-boring smooth grey wall.
There are a few techniques I'm prepping for that I have not yet integrated. Such as plates with lips, round studs and bricks, simulating bricks with offset stacks of plates, headlight bricks forward and backwards and bricks with uncovered studs.

As far as the cobble stones go, they are alright I guess but I really need to acquire some round tiles in darker greys as well. For larger sections I've been hoarding 2x2 and 2x4 tiles to simulate flagstones.

Merlons are very simple but I think they are effective and sized just right at roughly chin height. In the future I might refine this to close the horizontal gap, my first thought on that would however raise the wooden bar to chest height and I quite like it where it is. The 5 stud spacing is partially dictated by my use of the 6 stud long bar but it will allow me to add a 4 stud wide gangplank later on. This is after all a Quay/ sea wall and will see my ships in dock. I anticipate using the forward facing studs on the merlon to attach wooden bumpers to protect the ships hull.

The sewer was a brainchild after constuction and required me to tear the build apart from the bottom twice. At first it was in flush, looked okay but the way I snotted the arches together meant the assembly was half a plate short. During reassembly the bottom half pushed into the build and came loose but it gave me the flash of ingenuity to rebuild it at the angle you see it now. The grate is no longer securely held in place and is actually wedged in place by the water splash. I may try to rebuild this sewer once of twice more as the wall extends and see if I can't secure the grate from within the shadow box behind it. As it is it provides a neat play feature for pirates/escapees a la Shawshank Redemption.

Waves need work. First attempt here as well. Next time I will build up the waves in blue brick first and then top with clear studs. Also I just noticed a clear F.lego snuck into the mix. *sigh*
 

Spoiler

 

[Mister Phes]

Is there any particular reason you hid the photos?  Doing so will probably cost you responses.

 

[Masked Mini]

53 minutes ago, Mister Phes said:

Is there any particular reason you hid the photos?  Doing so will probably cost you responses.

 

I'm on mobile alot and a ton of pictures can suck up data real quick. I'm on unlimited but others may not be. I can unspoiler them. 

[Mister Phes]

2 hours ago, Masked Mini said:

I'm on mobile alot and a ton of pictures can suck up data real quick. I'm on unlimited but others may not be. I can unspoiler them.  

I understand your concern but you need at least one visible "hero" image to grab attention.

Such as this one...

[Masked Mini]

Good advice! Thank you!

[Roadmonkeytj]

I actually like the way you added some angle the the sewer grating.

[Tezclatipoca]

Ah let's try some constructive comments :

first the good points :

- good thing to use different bricks and colours. Of course to simulate a rockwall near the sea some bricks should show some alterations.

- good thing to invert and make a slope with your sewer exit.

- good merlon technique. I like the studs popping out and the heigh and space you made with them is nice.

well, now I go to the not so good things and some advices to avoid them :

- let's talk again about the bricks. They are too long. Too big. Try to avoid on small portions to use bricks bigger than 2x1 or sometimes 3x1 and use more snot or more plates to create overlaped areas.

also use overlap to make relief on colours. For example a masonry brick can just pop more out if it's overlapped by a simple 2x1plate of the same colour or better : with a jumper the same size.

Too much variety is also not so good. I would have done like you (and still doing it BTW), using dark grey bricks towards the water and light grey ones on the upper parts of the wall. But be careful that there is not any dark grey upon light grey ones like you can see at the left hand side with what appears to be a plate. And then I think the green parts could have just been algae or foliage parts. No need for a bug colour variety sometimes.

- then let's talk about the sewer and what appears to me as a strange idea : the sloped part.

good thing to have a sewer exit even if the water is not your stronger skill (don't worry, it is very difficult to have good water/waves aspect) but (and here comes the BUT, sorry) why haven't you built a totally sloped wall ? Such quay wall can totally be slightly sloped towards the water and then just keep a round, simple strait, round exit for the sewer (using some good round pieces like wheels or something similar)

that's what I can feel seeing your build.

if I were you I would have built a sloped wall with dark and light grey variations and then added some snoted areas and some olive greenplants parts uppon the bricks (and also some sea life like shells or crab or seastars) and then I would have added a wheel support snotted directly on the good position on the wall strait to the sea to make the sewer exit. 

Sorry if it's too harsh or too long. I think globally it could be nice but it could be great and you near touching great techniques for the wall !

keep up the good job and happy building !