Minecraft Villages - To fix or not to fix?

First of all, I have been a model builder long before I heard about Minecraft, the computer and console game.  What attracted me to it was the creative aspect of it, where you can build almost anything in a virtual world.  Of course the default look of it is in a grainy, pixel, and block like appearance and can turn off some people, since clean round lines do not exist.  

Anyway, I tend to switch back and forth between resource packs as well as survival and creative mode.  That alone is a great feature, since you may want to build instead of fighting to stay alive or mine a lot.  

Above is a screenshot of the front of my hill shelter.  It may look simple and not very asthetically pleasing yet in game play it is secure and easily accessible for me.  The overhang prevents any mobs from falling on my doorstep and I have a trench that I can jump over and trap any mobs from trying to get to my door.  Eventually, I will either build out from this bunker and add on to it or move on to a better location and build some other sheltering house of sorts.  

I have watched various videos on how to build and redo or improve upon structures that are automatically generated by the game, which is why I thought of doing a project of improving the look of a minecraft village that I discovered in a creative world that I was exploring.  

Above is the bird's eye view of the village I was referring to.  After exploring the area I decided to put a temporary wall up to section off the area and to see what I have to work with.  I also wanted to keep mobs out and to help condense the area, so that I would not wander too far from its borders.  The village consisted of a few houses, a few crops, a forge, and a well.  

Now I am going to address issues about the village that I think need improvement.  Of course keep in mind that this was generated by the computer and not built.   

First, the buldings are up against the pathways and raised, so they need steps to allow access to the entrances.  This clutters the nicely wide walkway and makes it look crowded.  

Second as shown above, although I like that this village is on a slightly elevated section of land, the buildings are poorly placed in relation to the slope of the land.  As you can see from this angle the fenced in area is right up against a wall of earth.  The backyard of the house above has no fence or such to prevent from falling into it.  How did that guy get on his roof and why bother?  

Finally, you can see a variety of structures here and I don't understand why their shapes and sizes are drastically varied as such.  They all look as if they were constructed by different people with the materials they had available.  Even with the textured blocks they still look a little flat.  This is the other side of the village with no definitive pathway into the village and the houses are too close together.  

Although it is not broken and it works for minecraft, I think in time I could fix it, make it look and function better.   

Secret Doors and Floors

I managed to return to my secret door project, since I wanted a break from the hallway archway and such.  Halloween is a busy season for me and my family and it is the best time of the year to stock up on spooky things that can be used in making dungeons and castle related terrain.  Anyway, I didn't promise on writing blogs every day.  However, I always look forward in sharing my passion for creativity.

What challenged me with the secret door at this point was the flooring.  In the design of the secret door module I decided to have a section of the wall break away as the secret door. Without getting into the mechanics too much, the flooring for that wall section would slide inside the room.  Pictured here is the floor untouched with the wall sitting on it.

After determining the size of the secret wall/door section I had to measure and mark the flooring for the top layer.  This section of foamcore would then be cut to allow the middle section to slide inward.   Dry fitting, gluing and waiting took priority in making sure the flooring would work the way I intended.  The outer sections were glued on first and were measured to fit the base of the archway section.  This is how I envisioned the door would move into the room.

With the glue dry I measured out the middle flooring to see how much room I would need for the secret door to slide inward and allow a figure to pass through the opening.  Pictured here you can see from a top down view of the figure having space to move in and around the door slid inward.  I drew some simple lines to start the tile pattern of the flooring as well.

Even though I cut the middle floor section I plan to keep the unneeded floor part for the module in case I want to cover the track below.  Pictured also is how far the door will slide into the room and how the flooring looks with the carved tile pattern.







Like the other floor tiles I carved the foam with a similar tile pattern, although the floor gaps are still an indicator of inconsistencies of the flooring.

Inside painting, Fitting and a Gate Corridor Section

Ever try to assemble something and you realize there are parts that are hard to reach when you paint it?  Dealing with the Gate Corridor Section of my modular dungeon has shown me that issue.

The gate section for a corridor was going to be a simple archway as pictured.  Then it dawned on me for this piece to be two sided and have a gap between the to archways in order to allow something to slide down and create a barrier.  My first thought was a simple gate that would slide down, like to a portcullis.

I decided to use foam core as pictured to give a sturdy spacer and it is thick enough to let cardboard and skewer sticks to pass through it.  Of course I used a template to know how wide to make the spacers and such.

Cardboard is great for holding skewer sticks together and gives a good uniform spacing for them to represent metal bars.

After placing the two sides together for a dry fit test and where I was going to glue it to the floor tile, I realized the inner part on the flooring as well as the inner part of the archway was going to be difficult to paint when glued together.

This reminds me of my Gate Tower Project that I did a while back for a stronghold I was building.  In both cases you have to paint and detail the inner part before you can finish assembling the piece and painting the outside as well,

After gluing the foam core sections down, I test fitted the skewers and cut them to size to see how they would slide in the archway.  I kept the brackets simple and will paint them after the gate is assembled.    

Base coated with black as pictured.

The neutral gray really brought out the details as pictured from the carving of the foam.

Personally, I prefer to assemble everything in a build and paint later.  This is how it looked on the floor tile as pictured and the flooring was going to be the next challenge in covering the hard to reach areas.

After tracing the outline of the archway on the floor tile I noted where to paint the floor and knew it only needed a base coat to cover up the white area under the slot section.

Seams, Archways, and Secret Doors

Over the weekend I had a chance to expand on a couple of ideas to add to my dungeon diorama tiles.  With all of my current flooring tiles taken up with walls I decided to make more regular floor tiles.  As soon as I did that I thought of a corridor archway and a secret door tile.  I was even more happy to try and find a way to creatively hide the seams of the walls as they stood together from different tiles.



Pictured here are three different tiles with the sections added to help hide the seams of the walls.  Notice how I cut them higher to allow space for joining floor tiles.







At first I thought of adding a stud or pillar like section to an edge of a wall, so when it would butt up against another wall you would not see the seam between them.  I used foam core again to achieve this, however, I realized that it will be more of obscuring than covering, since any protruding edge is liable for breaking or chipping off.  With this section added it will help reinforce the corridor side of the wall on a tile.




With measuring and lining things up the pieces effectively fit together.  A 28 mm figure stands near the doorway for scale.  








The archway tile was an idea that hit me as far as creating an obstacle for a corridor.  It's function would help reinforce the dungeon ceiling and have other options at its opening.  So far I have thought of adding a gate, portcullis, and some other sliding door to the opening to give this piece some versatility as well.

This is still in its experimental stage as the indented doorways will face out on both directions of the corridor.  I plan to separate the two with a piece of foam core for spacing.







While all this was going on, I came up with an idea for a secret door that would be accessed from the corridor of the dungeon.  So far I cut a piece similar to how the stone would look from the inside of a room.  It is still in the works yet I think I am on the right track.  I am thinking the door will be unlocked from either side of the wall, but the secret door can only be pushed into the room from the corridor.  This will require a custom floor tile for this piece.

Pictured here is the wall with how it would look from the room side of the dungeon, similar to a basic wall tile.  The main difference is the inner part will move away from the archway as a separate piece after the door is unlocked and pushed inside the room.

More Templating, Corner Sections and Fitting

This dungeon diorama project is turning into an exciting puzzle.  One by one all the pieces are falling into place as one idea builds on to another.  For now I am just working on a generic dungeon design in which all the walls and flooring will be the same.

My latest addition to the set I have been working on is a corner piece.  This section can be used to help form a room and a corner for the intersection of a corridor.  

Just like the room wall section, I had to do another set of templates so that the arch would embellish the corner.  

Instead of mitering two wall sections, like a picture frame, I decided to cut one wall shorter so they could fit the corner of the floor tile.  As usual more carving is required to detail this section and that is half the fun.  

Here is the corner piece with the walls glued down to the floor section.  I had to wait for sections to cure before I could attach the archway pieces.  

And here it is with everything in place. I did my best to line everything up and for the most part the block lines came close.

Although I am ok with the flooring being slightly warped and flat, I am not satisfied with the seams between the walls.  I know its modular, however, I think I can find a way to hide it with some more material.

Archways, Burning blunders, and Details

I was happy with the way the dungeon wall turned out, design wise.  I took the hot wire engraver and carved the lines in the foam to simulate the stonework pattern.  This archway design proved to be the right size to incorporate a dungeon door as well.








The first order of business with the dungeon door wall segment was to cut out the opening for the doorway.  Using the hot wire 3d scrolling table made it a simple task to remove the desired section, marked off with the template.  

Now I needed to do a dungeon wall that has a doorway within it.  I rigged my hot wire router tool to ease in cutting an indentation for the door to lean against on the room side of the dungeon wall.

As careful as I am sometimes I get burned with the hot wire tool.  Luckily, the burns were minor enough that no additional treatment was needed.

The wall pictured on the right was my first attempt to cut out the indent for the door side of the dungeon wall.  Frustrating as it was, I started over and prepped another foam piece with an archway cut out.  On the second try I was a bit more careful and successfully cut out the indent on the left side of the photo.

After carving the lines in the foam this is how the dungeon wall with a door looks on the corridor side.

Here I detailed the cut out indent on the dungeon wall.  This room side view of the wall will receive a foam core archway face just like the regular dungeon wall.

Dungeon Walls, Archways, and Designs

After cutting out the templates I was ready to start working on the Dungeon walls.

The use of a square and a circle template came in very handy.









As I mentioned in a previous post I wanted additional parts for the walls for texture, reinforcement of the section, and design.


Pictured left is the main wall and the foam core archway, which will be glued on after the carving is done.







What I came up with was an archway that would take away from the straight block pattern and give it more depth.  The archway will serve only to be seen on the inner wall of a room of the dungeon.  I have not decided about what to do with the corridor side of the wall.







When it came to designing a doorway on a wall section I first thought of the opening to be an archway.  The inner part for the door to go against was going to be square cut and the door as well.

This is the side of the wall that would face the corridor of a dungeon as the door would swing inside when opened.

This is what the square cut indent would look from the inside of a dungeon room.  The square cut was designed to aid in making a simple straight door.

After comparing the square cut look with the archway for a regular wall, I realized that the two shapes would not look good together.

The square cut template will have to be used for another part of the dungeon, possibly a corridor entry with no door or maybe a grate.

Fortunately, I was able to use the other template to create an additional archway to cut into the wall for the door to go in place.

The archway on the left is only rough cut yet you can see how the shapes will not clash with the final details.