[COR-FB] Fort Princeton, Brickford Landing

[evancelt]

Brickford Landing was both growing and at risk from the Lotii threat. Earlier that season they had captured a Lotii scout who had been scoping out their position. With Major Brickford away on the Island of Terraversa, Captain Keats decided the small island battery that protected the settlement was not enough security.

He instructed his small group of soldiers to build a medium-sized fort a small way inland. The fort featured a tall tower from which a sentry could keep an eye on sea traffic. The fort also included a number of batteries that could support the small island battery if the need arose.

Once the basic fort had been constructed, Keats was ashamed of how ugly it was. His men had quickly thrown it together and it served its utilitarian purpose: keeping the settlement safe. However, he wanted to impress Brickford when he returned to the island.

So, Keats asked his men if any of them knew how to carve rock. Private Beesley spoke up - his father was a master carver in Belson and Beesley had grown up learning the trade in his father's shop. With no better option available, Keats decided to trust Beesley and excused him from his normal duties for a few weeks so he could work on improving the look of the fort. Keats was pleasantly surprised by the results. Now if only he could figure out how to keep the whitewash they were applying to the sloped walls from washing off following a heavy rain...

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OOC: Just an excuse to build a fort on a raised baseplate. Tried out sloped walls like @CapOnBOBS, but you can't really tell from this angle 

To be licensed as a medium fort by Corrington

Edited October 31, 2021 by evancelt

[LM71Blackbird]

Fantastic build @evancelt! The white goes great with the raised baseplate. Though simple, I like that front gate a lot.

Great job! 

[Mesabi]

Great job with the raised baseplate. They can be so effective for certain EGS types, especially forts. I really like the use of the unicorn tails, the 1x1 'X' bricks, the shield tiles, and the greebling of the wall of the fort. It looks quite well put together, and I really feel like it's an effective fort. 

I think my one tiny critique is that I would have liked a photo from a slightly side facing angle, so that we can see the sloping effect, a bit better. However, I'm not sure how much you built of the sides, so it might have been impossible to do properly.

Either way, great build, and I'd be excited to see some Lottii shell it. 

[Spud The Viking]

Superb build, it looks marvellous. The doorway and lanterns give it a good Caribbean-y feel!

Though, I hope there are some artillery pieces hiding atop those walls!

I too would also have loved to have seen a side-on view.

[CapOnBOBS]

Great "stonework" on the fort. What are the pieces just inside from the corners on the top on the left and right? Same one atop the small columns on either side of the door? Very fancy looking fort. I do love the Vauban angles on artillery fortresses, but always puts me on the dilemma of either making a realistic (huge, closed off, repetitive, bland) fort, or a fun lego build (playable, fun, interesting, etc). This is a real nice balance of the two. 

[LM71Blackbird]

48 minutes ago, CapOnBOBS said:

Great "stonework" on the fort. What are the pieces just inside from the corners on the top on the left and right? Same one atop the small columns on either side of the door? Very fancy looking fort. I do love the Vauban angles on artillery fortresses, but always puts me on the dilemma of either making a realistic (huge, closed off, repetitive, bland) fort, or a fun lego build (playable, fun, interesting, etc). This is a real nice balance of the two. 

I believe this is the part your looking at.

[Captain Braunsfeld]

Nice reuse of that old baseplate!

And I can see that the walls are sloped - good job!

Would you like to add a photo from above?

[evancelt]

21 hours ago, LM71Blackbird said:

Fantastic build @evancelt! The white goes great with the raised baseplate. Though simple, I like that front gate a lot.

Great job! 

Thanks! I took inspiration on using a raised baseplate from @Captain Braunsfeld Harbor Town. You can see some of the gate is similar to his bridge!

18 hours ago, Mesabi said:

Great job with the raised baseplate. They can be so effective for certain EGS types, especially forts. I really like the use of the unicorn tails, the 1x1 'X' bricks, the shield tiles, and the greebling of the wall of the fort. It looks quite well put together, and I really feel like it's an effective fort. 

I think my one tiny critique is that I would have liked a photo from a slightly side facing angle, so that we can see the sloping effect, a bit better. However, I'm not sure how much you built of the sides, so it might have been impossible to do properly.

Either way, great build, and I'd be excited to see some Lottii shell it. 

Thanks! Yeah when new parts come out I try to get 10 of them so I can try to find fun ways to incorporate them into things. Those 1x1 technic bricks are fun, and the cat tails are goofy in a "why not" way 

The sloped walls are satisfying, though it's a shame they aren't very visible in the main pic.

As you can see in this photo, it's a front facade only. Wanted to bust it out in one 3-hour sitting, so didn't spend the time to make it real four-walled fort.

Side view:

Spoiler

16 hours ago, Spud The Viking said:

Superb build, it looks marvellous. The doorway and lanterns give it a good Caribbean-y feel!

Though, I hope there are some artillery pieces hiding atop those walls!

I too would also have loved to have seen a side-on view.

Thanks! Yeah they definitely have many artillery pieces - made sure to mention the batteries in the story 

See above for a side view pic

8 hours ago, CapOnBOBS said:

Great "stonework" on the fort. What are the pieces just inside from the corners on the top on the left and right? Same one atop the small columns on either side of the door? Very fancy looking fort. I do love the Vauban angles on artillery fortresses, but always puts me on the dilemma of either making a realistic (huge, closed off, repetitive, bland) fort, or a fun lego build (playable, fun, interesting, etc). This is a real nice balance of the two. 

Thanks! The build took 3 hours to build, and the stonework was the hardest part - it just takes a long time to put lots of small pieces together (especially at a sloped angle!).

7 hours ago, LM71Blackbird said:

I believe this is the part your looking at.

Thanks! Yes the cat tail piece! It is such a strange piece that it caught my imagination as soon as I saw it. I considered using them as stone hooks to hang lanterns from, but unfortunately the little notch in the middle is too small for a 3mm bar. It does kind of fit a narrow antenna/zipline. I have it in some other colors too and am planning to use it in some upcoming builds.

5 hours ago, Captain Braunsfeld said:

Nice reuse of that old baseplate!

And I can see that the walls are sloped - good job!

Would you like to add a photo from above?

Thanks! As mentioned above, your Harbor Town was the inspiration. Included a side view pic above, but a view from atop the bastion might be a nice way to make a public-ready additional photo...

Edited November 1, 2021 by evancelt

[Kai NRG]

Someone showing off his 1x1 bricks with axel holes...   Great textures, really smooth integration of the raised baseplate!

[evancelt]

14 minutes ago, Kai NRG said:

Someone showing off his 1x1 bricks with axel holes...   Great textures, really smooth integration of the raised baseplate!

Thanks! I'm happy with how the grass around the outside helps hide the big baseplate in the build a little better.

With those 1x1 axle bricks, I ordered 10 from BnP as part of the order to get those double-convex white 75deg slopes used in the corner of the fort here (they are super expensive on BrickLink, but cheap on BnP). Whoever was packing the order must have been trying to save some time and just threw a handful of the axle bricks in! Ended up with 21, which allowed for more rows  I think they would look cool alternating with rows of 1x2 axle bricks to create a kind of star pattern. Will have to try that out soon.

[Ross Fisher]

This is a great build. Size-appropriate and stylistically accurate. I love it.

[blackdeathgr]

a) My favorite part is definitely the entrance. This is really, and I mean really, well made!

b) The tower has a lovely Moroccan style that blends in well with the rest of the building but I am not sure about the roof colors as I personally think it doesn't fit. Maybe a plain "classic-feel" red one would be a better match? I don't know.

c) My least favorite part is the red flag. Tear it down and put a blue one at its place!

On 11/1/2021 at 7:41 AM, CapOnBOBS said:

I do love the Vauban angles on artillery fortresses, but always puts me on the dilemma of either making a realistic (huge, closed off, repetitive, bland) fort, or a fun lego build (playable, fun, interesting, etc). This is a real nice balance of the two.

Vauban fortifications are lovely! DO try wall creeping vines I would say! Foliage (besides greebling) is always a good idea to spice up a wall. Also a good way to continue building "sloped" sideways at the edges of the facade is this (rudimentary step 2 here), as LEGO pieces geometry helps complementing sloped bricks with each other. Surely not my idea (I just did a little tutorial for my LUG years ago) but I don't remember where I saw it for the first time.

Edited November 2, 2021 by blackdeathgr

[Captain Braunsfeld]

On 11/1/2021 at 3:20 PM, evancelt said:

Thanks! I took inspiration on using a raised baseplate from @Captain Braunsfeld Harbor Town. You can see some of the gate is similar to his bridge!

That is interesting news!   I am not sure whether I still have that MOC or whether I have taken it apart...

Raised baseplates to the front!!