Village around Castle Clifton - stage one

Merry Christmas Eve!  Been working on the village around the Clifton castle build today in the Bright Mountains creative world.

 

 

did these rowhouses yesterday and then a base pad for the Lighthouse 

rowhouses based on a famous building at the docks in Galway, Ireland

 

the Lighthouse finished

Mark thought it was a defensive tower at first, he mentioned 'Eye of Sauron'.. haha.. well.. see my comments about scale down below here

Lighthouse at night

Inside the Lighthouse

it got a ladder and floors after this. but it was a neat view

 

Now I know that this could be a lot better and smoother at a larger size.. and I do admire a lot of works that are done on 'much larger than Steve scale'... but I am trying to keep this world sized so that a Steve or an Alex could walk through at normal size and relate with doors and furniture etc... and everything is also in Vanilla, although this world 'Bright Mountains' is in creative (the McElvaney world was survival with only a few creative lapses for storyline work) 

After the Lighthouse (which was loosely based on another Irish landmark, the lighthouse at Inisheer Islands - also in Galway (do you see a theme here?) and I decided to use the pattern of the houses near that lighthouse to loosely base my shepherd's house off of.  

I

After finding out where the original inspiration castle was from, I  decided to look up more about what building styles were used over different time periods in this specific area because a) It's fun  and b) I'll learn something and c) There is so much out there I can use a different theme elsewhere and have fun and learn something about a different place next time.

 

 finished shepherd house off to the left there

 

 

the footprint for the shepherd's house

 in progress

the rabbit hutch, just because

 

gardens and sheep pen, caught those two sheep that had been running around town and are going to make them work for their grass *ha*

stick a chicken in the oven and sit down for a while

This is another example of scale.. this is a ship 'The Maple Leaf' that I saw something like it in a picture, and since the first castle had a ship, I gave this one too.  It would be better looking at a grander scale, but then it wouldn't fit into the landscape, either.

 

So this is what Stage One of the landscape looks like.. more to come

Bright Mountains castle loosely based on Clifden Castle in Ireland

 Welcome to Bright Mountains, Clifton castle...

Bright Mountains saga world : Clifton Castle

Finished as seen from front and above, without village or docks

well, this is very (and I mean very) loosely based on Clifden Castle in Ireland.  

 If you tilt your head from just the right angle you might see some resemblance between the Escher-like drawing I made below and the original manor house seen from behind, as seen on Pinterest when I was cruising around looking at things and well laid out in this Travel page that I did not find until later.

But it was really just inspiration, in the elements of square and round towers, and multiple connected causeways that made me want to sketch it.. then later that day, begin to build it.  My husband and daughter came up to bring me out with them to see the Grand Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, and my husband looked at the drawing and said 'oh, no .. she's drawing castles again'... as in I was soon to be lost to hours of building...

 

the image below is nearly the same angle as the drawing would be

 

in progress : at the beginning

in progress - a little further on

the interior seen through the back

looking down into the cistern in the enclosed courtyard

put in some chimneys over the smith and kitchens and so forth.. because well, that is something I've proliferated through my building style and even if it wasn't in the picture if I could work it in, I will.

from above at night

The original Clifden had a terrible history of loss and failure and then disagreement and division.  The Wikipedia article lays out how it was built not too long before the Irish potato famine, and then the tenants of the surround land and the family all fell to ruin.  I guess the point would be for Minecraft to plant more than potatoes in the surrounding landscape.  The modern day ruins still contain lots of sheep, which works with this Minecraft world as there are sheep wandering everywhere.  I had to pull one sheep out of the basement level before I could put in the stairs and doors!  

 

The castle still needs a village and support gardens before I can live in it in Survival Mode.  I'd also like a really nice dock with boats aimed towards trading with the original castle to the North.  I will be looking at some other images for info on what kind of docks, houses and so forth would have been in similar items and then run with whatever seems like it will fit the landscape.

Also, I see I would have had a much easier time discerning all the elements and angles if I had seen this Travel page first - lots and lots of pictures of the original ruined building from lots of angles.  Next time?   Still, I like it and it is a good addition to Bright Mountains.  This 'Clifton' castle (as it is named in the map) is located fairly south and a little east of the original Bright Mountain castle, which I had pulled entirely out of my head and don't have a name for yet.

Since I didn't really know where anything was in the original castle, and well... mine wasn't quite like it anyway, I tucked three family chambers into different places, then added some servant and guard rooms wherever they seemed they could fit.  As the first castle was a great exercise in making the 3D structure come together, this one was good in trying to fit a plan but then make the plan do something 'realistic' inside.  That was a slightly different challenge. 

  a few interior shots.. will update later with village and etc.. and link

the courtyard cistern

A lady's chambers

an eating and cooking area

a king-sized bedchamber

 

Creative mode, Bright Mountains saga world

Bright Mountains castle (alternate saga)

 This is the castle for 'Around the Bright Mountains' which was supposed to be a short story about a shipwreck and the community that came out of it... I rolled for both Rivertown and this one a few times in early October, and then continued with Rivertown and left Bright Mountains dormant.

I decided to use that world today for some quick draw play, and built this in creative mode.  It took four hours from start to finish.

The quick sketch plan:

 

 

and a few shots of in-progress work (Finished below)

in the beginning... 

 

 

after the towers..

I told myself it was okay they weren't identical... I was doing this for fun

 

  in progress (above and below)

It is like playing with a 3D puzzle except I have to pull the pieces out of thin air and nobody gave me an exact plan to go by...

 and from there it was just making sure all the rooms were sealed and had doors and stairs to them etc...

 

And now the finished images 

 

Finished : front of castle 

Finished : Back of castle, stable side

Finished : side of castle - side dock

Finished : back of castle - central view

castle and town at night (with the Bright Mountains namesake in background) 

one of the town houses 

a view of the little stable building in back