The summer home.

Here are a few shots of my new beach summer home. I've built it primarly out of wood. I modified the stone brick blocks and created a simple one colour green block which I'm using as a copper style roof and for my small creeper island statue, which I hope, will ward of evil spirits.

sailing away.

A week spent working on this monstrosity has burned me out a bit. So, in the eleventh hour I decided a break was in order and it was time to return home, or at least establish where home is.

I packed just the basic essentials, as I assume I will return to this project soon. I grabbed a few slime balls and a couple of ender eyes. Everything else can be found with a bit of patience. What makes this location so important is that it is thus far the only nether portal I have constructed which is close to a nether fortress, which I will require to make more ender eyes. So, I will undoubtedly revisit it in the future.

I sailed into the rising sun, keeping my path as narrow as possible, no distractions. The sun rose, the sun set and while I was aware of how great a distance this island was from the mainland, it felt ... further. As the days dragged on I began to doubt my decision or where or not I was indeed even sailing in the right direction. What if, I had originally sailed toward the rising sun?

I passed unfamiliar islands, finding none of the familiar land marks. Eventually, after what may have been close to a week in game, I hit land. But, it was unfamiliar land. I had assumed I had drifted slightly off course when I had originally settled on island 3. But this felt like foreign soil.

I created a small beacon, which is, I think a straight path to island 3, but seeing how easy it is to get lost in the oceans, there is always the prospect that, like the mysterious island 2, I will never set foot on it again.

In the meantime, I'm without a home and it's starting to get dark and bad things come out in the dark.

Resource hunting and a little taste of home

I spent the day stockpiling what I consider the most precious resouce; coal in the mine which is located via a portal threw the nether. I brought my map with me and was surprised to discover this mine isnt the abandoned mine located in the lower left hand corner of my map. I suspect its much further south. I also build a quick mini base in the mine complete with a concealed door which, opens via 2 sticky pistons. I also continued construction on the cathedral. I'm close to finishing the first two layers of this mammoth cake fortress.

unending construction 02

The endless construction continues. Everything I could run out of, I've run out of. I don't think I quite grasped the amount of materials I would require to fill in the gaps of the original wire frame when I built it, because it has become a repetitive cycle of; stack stones, mine cobblestones and coal, burn those, then stack ... and repeat. Thankfully I am almost done the lower portion of the building. What concerns me is the enormous amount of material I will also need to prop this up off of the ocean floor. From a distance, it becomes very apparent that this building is sitting on the surface of the water. All of this makes me home sick. I think once this monstrosity is done, I'll head back home and search for a stronghold. ... buck up tug boat ... we're almost there.

unending construction

Due to the size of this particular project, progress feels slow, I finally got the basic frame done and started working on the lower portion of the building. I wanted to avoid the "stilts" look I typically have een doing, so I'm concentrating on building a solid base for the building that will sit on the second wire frame. The wire approach is both working, and not working. While I like working with a complete building in mind, it is currently appearing very "blocky" and lacks some of the negative space that makes some of my other buildings work. I think once the basic construction is done, I'll punch some holes in various places and build some stronger negative space.

Think Big!

I've started work on the castle which the portal room will lead too. it felt appropriate for it to bridge into something much larger, which is not on stilts. In order to do this, I've started mapping out the basic wire frame of what will, without a doubt be the largest creation I have ever built. This thing dwarfs anything else I've ever attempted. Whats great is, I'm using all my experience and preferences to figure out how to make it visually pleasing. Basically I'm going to create a wire frame of what the second floor will look like with gravel as place holders for windows. Then build the first floor and ideally the third floor. I'm probably going to built right to the ocean floor which will require a ton of gravel. In addition to which, I've started using the glowstone blocks which I have been placing on the ocean floor, it has an amazing effect.

Maps and phantom lights from the ocean floor.

I finally got around to making a simple map. I got on a boat and did a "quick' tour of my surrounding area. I am completely surrounded by water. Island 3 is located in the center there and is composed of the 3 tiny little specs of land. I found 2 other spots where land broke the surface. The bottom 2 green dots was a 4x4 island. To the right of island 3 is that light blue area. There actually was some land visible on the surface.

While cruising around I also discovered the strange phenomenon of lights emitting from the ocean floor. This are actually caused by torches which are shining from hidden undersea abandoned mines. They are often only visible at night. I found two. One is located in the bottom left hand corner, and other is near that green spec in the bottom center. This will prob be a future project, sorta like an off shore oil rig.

Construction on island 3, text mod, the intro of the 1/2 block.

I started building up more on island 3. I added a portal room for 2 nether portals on either side, not that i really need an additional portal, but they make great center pieces.

The big changes that have occurred is my tweaks to my text mode pack. I took the original texture pack "cobblecraft" and made a few small changes. The most significant was I copy/pasted the stone texture onto the 1/2 stone blocks. Originally they were a smoother texture which I found stood out to much, now they are identical to the original stone block (which is fantastic texture i might add.) so I now have 1/2 stone blocks at my disposal which will open up a world of possiblities. Eventually I want to try my own texture pack, but thats way off in the future.

Skull Entrance

Entrance to the building Im working on.

Concealed nether portal

The rough construction for a 6 piston door which will reveal a nether portal. I'm going to attempt to get the back 6 to work as well, then conceal the whole thing in a nice design.

Update: got all 6 to work from either a pressure plate or a lever. The wiring takes up a little bit of room on the sides, but the front stuff i can conceal underground, and the side I can cover up with construction.

Update: concealed it with basic dirt. I was originally going to use stone, but decided to go with dirt and give it a more natural look. Across from it is the main structure I've been building. I started implementing other materials, not just stone into the construction to give it some variety.

This is all occurring on "island 3" I spent a good hour trying to find island 2 from my first island, but after days sailing in what I believe was the right direction, I never actually found it. Ideally one day I'll come across it again.

Light tower and hidden dungeon entrance.

Two piston based mechanisms I've built. One is a simple hidden block entrance which leads to the mine directly below my house. The second is a light tower adjacent to my house. A lever in my house raises and lowers a block in the tower which lowers a block which conceals some hidden torches which illuminates the silver capped tower.