Toni's Blog - More windmill/bridge progress.

Got most of the exterior done, only need to add is the windows and wheel. Decided to go with mostly stone with the wood roof like my previous reference pictures.

Will do more research and start building on in the interior soon, after I get the exterior done.

I could use some redstone materials for the contraptions inside the mill. Use droppers, dispensers and other things that could look like gears, funnels and switches.

Will also add chests, crafting tables, hay bales, and furnaces as well to complete the look.

Most importantly will need to light up the rooms with torches.

Blog #3

I have been haven't really been able to get on to building lately, technologically difficultly.
But since I haven't building I have been reaching idea's for what our hobbit holes could look like once they are finish. I hope to be able to start building as soon as I can,

These are the best I have found so far, I know it isn't to look exactly like them, but similar.

New updates and a call for Wall help!

Some screenshots of the Castle Black progress so far. Ass an announcement to everyone, anyone who offered to help me build the Wall for Castle Black, now is the time to do so if you wish. The framework is up and all anyone needs to do is to follow the ice and snow block pattern in anyway shape or form. Once the current section of Wall is completed, I can put up another frame that's a few blocks thinner so that the Wall gets a slopping look to it, as depicted in the books and TV series.

I would really appreciate the help in getting a large, and very significant part of this build done as time is ticking on and the end date for this build is fast approaching.

Alicia's Blog 7 - Changes to the original plans

Differences from the Plan to the Actual Build and Reasons for Changes

Mountain

The basic concept for the mountain remains unchanged from the concept drawings, except of course it is within the limitations of the Minecraft blocks available. The concept drawing is shown in two colours, whereas the depth required for texture in the final Minecraft version uses four tones: stone, cobblestone, grey hardened clay and andesite. The concept version is craggy, whereas the build version is a simpler shape to counter time limitations, but still contains a high level of detail from the colour/texture variation. In the concept drawing the entranceway is centred, but in the build it is not centred to create a more natural look that has been taken advantage of by the fairies, rather than a built entrance. As the surrounds have not yet been built except for the basic outline of the dirt surrounding the mountain, this part will be added to the description later.

Underground dance/ball area

The concept drawing for the underground dance/ball area has been completely adapted. In the initial part of the build I tried to make this a square room, but it just didn’t look right. In the concept drawing it looked clean and ‘built’, this didn’t fit with the idea that faeries would live there once I saw it. Instead, I had to go back to the beginning and rework this room. It is now more like a natural dug out in the rock where the faeries have made a room. I have kept the throne from the concept drawing in the real build, but instead of being made from formal materials it is made from the dirt/rock around it. I am considering revising this as it isn’t quite right yet. The plinth that the throne is set on in the concept also has a more natural look where faerie kind have carved it out of the natural materials around it. 

As I made the room from the bare material of the rock face it was too dark, I countered this problem by dropping glow stone randomly within the walls to create a low ambient light. This cannot really be seen from the dance floor area, but the glow lights up the area. It gives the general feel of glow worm caves like the ones at Waitomo, again reinforcing the natural elements rather than a built environment. When compared to the concept, I’ve also added a chandelier (not visible in the concept drawing). This is mentioned in the plan as both a lure effect, and the fact that it was difficult to sketch. In the build, this adds a formality to the room which reinforces its purpose as a space to ‘dance for all eternity’. Eventually, this room will lead to the nursery and the kitchen, this part of the description will be added later.

Alicia's Blog 6 - References

Haven't had time to blog or build over the last week because I'm trying to finish the last couple pieces of my art portfolio. Here I just have a bunch of different references regarding the different parts of the build/plan (I probably won't end up finishing this build before the end of the year.)

References for the Concepts Behind the Build

Underground

‘Partly underground castle, inside a hill’ plays on the whole ‘under the mountain’ aspects of fairie lore where they are known to lure people under the mountain where they are forced to dance forever(*see eternal dancing below). To make the build possible in the amount of time given, the castle design needs to be reasonable simple, and not too extreme. Possibly a dance floor to symbolise above, and possibly a kitchen and/or nursery. 

• Aristocratic Trooping Faeries are gregarious, they live in communal groups under mounds or hills and in other underground areas [Ref: www.medbherenn.com/faerie-lore.html]
• Fairies…within the little hillocks they most haunt… [Ref: Robert Kirk, The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies, Stirling: Eneas McKay, 1933, pp 67-68]

Faerie Food

The kitchen to symbolise tales of talking about how if you eat faerie food, you’re stuck with fairies forever. 

• ‘Maybe you’ll starve to death, never able to eat human food again, maybe you’ll end up trapped forever’ [Ref: Kat Otis, Faerie Food www.dailysciencefiction.com]

Dark History

The nursery to symbolise the changeling stories. Inside the castle it’ll be a darker theme, symbolising the dark history of faeries and showing that they aren’t all ‘tinkerbell’. 

• ‘where no human habitations…then the imagination rushes to fill the woods with something other than blank darkness; nymphs, satyrs, elves, knomes, pixies, fairies.’ ‘Fairies are what we create to fill the dark places’. [Ref: Diane Prukiss, Troublesome Things: A History of Fairies and Fairie Stories]
• Dark Fairie Types from Celtic Histories
• Banshees - a form of faerie who foretells death - Irish
• Baobhan Sith - a succubus faerie - Irish
• Changeling - a fairy who replaces infants with fairy kind - Welsh
• Korrigan / Gwragedd annwn - faeries of lakes and streams that lure and drown people - Breton / Welsh

   [Ref: www.timelessmyths.com/celtic/faeries.html]

• Lore Podcast: Episode "Black Stockings" was so shocking considering the time when it took place. It's about the Irish folklore of the "changeling" or faerie. When a person or baby is believed to have been taken by a fairy and in their place, is a "changeling" something that looks exactly like them, but acts differently. [Ref:  http://lorepodcast.libsyn.com/episode-11-black-stockings#Ze7t6uGD3LI6RBeO.16]

Faerie Rings

The mountain will be surrounded by trees and faerie rings, it will have a much lighter atmosphere, symbolising the modern day faerie lore. Inside the faerie ring around the mountain I might add in things to symbolise oder day faeries such as brighter colours, mushroom rings, giant mushrooms, bridges between trees, trees/mushrooms that are houses, streams/waterfalls if they will fit. 

• ‘Whoever lives in a house built over a faerie ring will wondrously prosper in everything’ [Ref: Translation Ellis T.P. and John Lloyd, The Mabinogion, a new translation: ‘Lady of the Fountains’, Oxford University Press, 1929]
• A "fairy ring" in Ireland, said to be a portal between worlds. #lorepodcast #history https://instagram.com/p/5-oltqTOCa/ [Ref: https://twitter.com/lorepodcast/status/628697948738711552]
• Faerie Rings as mythical mushroom portals of the supernatural [Ref: www.ancient-origins.net/human-origins-folklore]

Eternal dancing* and Glass Domes

Possibly adding glass over the fairies ring, with rings of coloured glass through it to give a kind of bubble or forcefield effect.

• A poem:

In airy dalliance

Precipitate in love,

Tossed, tangled, whirled and whirled above

Like a limp rose-wreath in a fairy dance

Like a dome of many-coloured glass

Stains the white radiance of eternity

Until Death tramples it to fragments, die’

[Ref: Rajendra Nath Mishra: Search for belief in the poetry of Robert Frost, Anhinau Publications, 2003]

• ‘People could enter the (fairy) ring, and find themselves trapped, dancing for a lifetime, and invisible to the outside world, unable to escape.’ [Ref: Laura Starling, Faeries are Scaries www.critic.co.nz/features/article/5973/faeries-are-scaries]

Toni's Blog - Progress on the windmill.

I have some progress done on the windmill. I haven't done much as I am busy with my art class and the connection has been kicking me out sometimes during study class, when I do go on Minecraft.

But I still got stuff done.

Still working out if most of the building will be stone or wood, do more research. But by looking at plans and sketches, the building is mostly stone with a wood roof. Will have to change that the next time I can work on it.

Also found some plans for water mills for what the rooms will be.

Just a wee update, Have been trying to make the path the spirals up the hobbiton hill as shown in the picture

I dont know if I agree with using wood as the material so I will do a bit of research on that and see what material to use.