Published Mar 29th, 2021, 3/29/21 6:22 am
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The Silver Shard
Note: regrettably I did not have the spare time to finish this build in time for the contest ending due to exams. As of now the build is about 75% completed, still missing some final detailing and interiors.
A fleet ship of the line constructed for war at sea; The Silver Shard boasts a broadside of 50 cannons and a crew of 280 men. The Silver Shard was originally commissioned for warfare, but later found itself patrolling the pirate infested seas of The Caribbean.
Building Process:
Here I will write a short version of the steps I took in building this mammoth of a warship, right from my original ideas to the end result. To make the read as short and simple as possible I’ve divided the building process into 4 main captions.- Inspiration
- The Hull
- The Masts (including rigging and roping)
- The Interior
The Hull
When building a hull for a ship, especially a ship as big as The Silver Shard, it’s important to think in terms of “shapes and curves”. I usually start by building the keel, making sure to get the curvature right with as few blocks as possible. In minecraft simplicity is key, and adding too many blocks from the get-go has a tendency to make a build look too busy or bulky.Having built my keel I added in the stem and bowsprit alongside the rudder. I spent some time coming up with a design for my figurehead and settled for a white dolphin since this fit the overall theme of the build.
I then set to work on the top most line of blocks of the bilge and the main deck following a set of blueprints of the HMS. Victory. At this point my ship had a skeleton and I filled in the gaps between working down and up.
The Masts:
By following blueprints of real-life ships I pinpointed the location for my masts and outlined the heights I wanted. By scaling my build to a real-life counterpart (1:1) I avoided any issues with weird proportions. The masts themselves looked too skinny by being 1 block and too thick by being 2x2 blocks. I used trap doors to flesh them out and gradually thinned them toward the top by using walls and fences. I then added my crows nests and the horizontal beams holding the sails… except I didn't want sails.
Then came the rigging and the roping. I had the idea to use chains and rails to build some very detailed and realistic roping. Here I used world edit to replace the blocks I used to place the rails upon with barrier blocks (invisible blocks) by selecting the region and typing “//replace lime_wool barrier”. The roping was in particular a lot of work and I spent several hours getting the shapes looking natural.
The interior:
A highly underrated part of any build. Fitting my ship with a functional, realistic interior was a long process of making space and overhauling many parts of the ship. Trapdoors came in handy as walls and dividers.I began by building floors and stairs, after which I set about dividing the ship's interior into sections that each had a specific function: sleeping quarters, captain's room, storage etc. Also, I had to make room for cannons… lots of cannons.
Having finished my interior I stepped back and admired the now finished Silver Shard Warship.
I hope my little writeup of the building process comes in handy to any would-be builders!
| Progress | 75% complete |
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