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Based on the amazing Micro-Model designed by master builder Mariann Asanuma for Brickjournal
Ignoring the elegant lines of Mariann's model, I made a few tweaks to the design, extending the roof and adding a chimney. I also gave a bigger hat to the snowman, 'cause I'm a rebel like that.
Oh, and I changed the door to red-and-green and used a 1x1 red plate to create a wee little doorknob.
i modified my old LC-A rusian version to have some the feature the LC-A+ has. i added a multiple exposure switch and cable shutter release.
I also added a new rubber skin. it is off an old Pentax slide zoom lens, witch is cool because it the skin if from another camera and it adds great grip too
The plastic shutter of my Big shot was beyond repair so I replaced it with a press type leaf shutter from an oscilloscope camera.
I kept is the single element plastic lens .
Distance from film plane is almost the same so only a small change in RF calibration is necessary.
The shutter is capable of various speeds but I'll leave it at 1/15s The aperture is adjustable for L/D correction.
With the plastic nosecone in place there will be little difference except the cable release thread where the red lever used to be. The shutter has an X-sync contact so I can mount an electronic flash where the Magicube used to be.
I have been working on a new project for my boy Marcus,
He is getting his demon wings, which are part of his background story.
This is only just the basic frame form of the wings. I will be sculpting them with apoxie soon when I find some more time for it.
by Brian K Webb... his original, original dahlia by Hajime Komiya, folded from Julia's paper (10 cm square), this is lazy version using as small effort as you can to make it looks like this :)
(recipe from Meghan with minor modifications)
Vegetarian Stuffing
cornbread
loaf of French bread
1 stick butter
1 onion, diced
4–5 celery stalks (about 2 cups), chopped
4 cups vegetable stock
1/2 cup fresh parsley
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary
2 tablespoons fresh sage
1 tablespoon fresh thyme
salt and pepper to taste
Chop bread into 1/2 to 1 inch cubes and lay on baking sheets to dry out for 24 hours. (It helps if they are slightly stale.) Transfer to a large baking dish (I had to use two separate dishes).
Melt butter in a large pan and cook celery and onions until almost translucent. Add broth to celery and onions and bring to a boil. While it's heating up, chop herbs and then add them once it starts boiling.
Gradually ladle the stock mixture over the bread, tossing as you go. Taste and adjust seasoning as necessary.
Bake for 20–25 minutes in a 350°F oven. You're looking for a golden brown crust to form on the top.
The other day I took apart a Helios 44m-6 lens to modify so that I can use it on my D90 with the full range of apertures. On the older models (non-M models I believe), you don't have to do this. On the newer models, there is a pin that is pushed in when you take a picture that changes the aperture. If you don't have an adapter that pushes in the pin, you can only shoot wide open, in this case at f2.
At Lego shows in 2024, my Castle class would occasionally derail when there was a kink in the track, particularly when entering corners.
I put this down to the chassis setup I'd chosen, based on Carl Greatrix's previous Castle model, whereby the rear bogie wheels were fixed to the main chassis. In some cases, it seemed these wheels were getting raised off the track by the driving wheels behind.
I've now re-worked the chassis to have a more conventional pivoted bogie. There is still only 1 set of flanged drivers, to allow the bogie to not crash sideways into the cylinders. However now the bogie is on a single pivot, positioned above the rear bogie wheels.
This should help to 'steer' the loco into corners, and the little shoulder on the pin piece also helps to keep the weight on the bogie wheels.
I like poster modifications, but not so uncreative and primitive. They should go to an Islamic country or to North Korea, where they have not to see naked flesh.
I made several modifications to Dallen's original design (I explain why in my video).
I've published an updated file on Google Drive that you can download here if you'd like to build this for yourself: drive.google.com/drive/folders/1q3fcHUkif2NVOPf0r_0IbqCnx...
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the model, the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
A monitor is a class of relatively small warship that is lightly armoured, often provided with disproportionately large guns, and originally designed for coastal warfare. The term "monitor" grew to include breastwork monitors, the largest class of riverine warcraft known as river monitors and was sometimes used as a generic term for any turreted ship. In the early 20th century, the term "monitor" included shallow-draft armoured shore bombardment vessels, particularly those of the Royal Navy: the Lord Clive-class monitors carried guns that fired the heaviest shells ever used at sea and saw action against German targets during World War I.
Two small Royal Navy monitors from the First World War, Erebus and Terror survived to fight in the Second World War. When the requirement for shore support and strong shallow-water coastal defence returned, new monitors and variants such as coastal defence ships were built. Allied monitors saw service in the Mediterranean in support of the British Eighth Army's desert and Italian campaigns, and they were part of the offshore bombardment for the Invasion of Normandy in 1944.
During the First World War, the Royal Navy developed several classes of ships which were designed to give close support to troops ashore through the use of naval bombardment. The size of the various monitor classes of the Royal Navy and their armaments varied greatly. The Marshal Ney class was the United Kingdom's first attempt at a monitor carrying 15 in (381 mm) guns, two of these ships were eventually built and showed a disappointing performance. The Admiralty immediately began the design of a replacement class, which incorporated lessons learned from all of the previous monitor classes commissioned during the war. Some of the main modifications were an increase in the power supply to guarantee a speed of 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph) and a change to the angles and lines of the hull to improve steering. Another significant change was to raise the top of the anti-torpedo bulge above the waterline and reduce its width; both changes would improve the stability and maneuverability of the ship at sea. The new design would later be named the Erebus-class, the first ship being launched in June 1916. Two ships were built and took part in WWI, but the Admiralty was not fully convinced with these ships, which also had shown major operational flaws, and requested in early 1918 three ship from another monitor class with higher firepower and better performance at sea, which led to the Trebuchet-class – even though it came too late to take part in any hostilities.
The class’ ships were to be the name-giving HMS Trebuchet, HMS Mangonel and HMS Ludgar. The latter would be the first and eventually become the class' only ship, because Trebuchet and Mangonel were quickly cancelled. HMS Ludgar was named after the famous, probably largest trebuchet ever made, also known as “Warwolf”, which had been created in Scotland by order of King Edward I of England, during the siege of Stirling Castle, as part of the Scottish Wars of Independence. Still seeing a need for this specialized ship for local conflicts in the British Empire around the world, Ludgar was proceeded with and laid down at Harland and Wolff's shipyard in Govan on 12 October 1918.
Due to the lack of wartime pressure, though, Ludgar took three years to complete and was launched on 19 June 1920. The new design was a thorough re-modelling of the earlier Royal Navy Monitors, even though most basic features and the general layout were retained - with all its benefits and flaws. Overall the ship was slightly larger than its direct predecessors, the Erebus-class monitors. Ludgar had a crew of 224, 9,090 long tons (9,185 t) loaded displacement, was 436 ft (133.1 m) long, 97 ft (29.6 m) wide with a draught of just 11 ft 8 in (3.6 m, less than a destroyer) for operations close to the coastline. Power was provided by four Babcock & Wilcox water-tube boilers, which would generate a combined 6,000 ihp (4,500 kW) that were produced by triple-expansion steam engines with two shafts. The monitor had an operational range of 2,480 nmi (4,590 km; 2,850 mi) at a speed of 12 knots.
HMS Ludgar’s deck armor would range from 1 in (25 mm) on the forecastle, through 2 in (51 mm) on the upper deck and 4 in (102 mm) over the magazine and belt. Unlike former British monitors, the Trebuchet Class featured two main turrets, which were each armed with two 15 in guns, what considerably improved the ship’s rate of fire. With the main 15 in guns being originally intended for use on a battleship, the armor for the turrets was substantially thicker than elsewhere in the design; with 13 in (330 mm) on the front, 11 in (279 mm) on the other sides and 5 in (127 mm) on the roof. The main guns' barbettes would be protected by 8 in (203 mm) of armor. Learning from the earlier experience with Ney, the turrets were adjusted to increase elevation to 30 degrees, which would add greater firing range. The 15 in guns had a muzzle velocity of 2,450 feet per second (750 m/s) – 2,640 feet per second (800 m/s), with supercharge. Maximum firing range was 33,550 yards (30,680 m) with a Mk XVIIB or Mk XXII streamlined shell @30° – 37,870 yards (34,630 m) @ 30°, with supercharges.
Just like on former British monitor ship designs, the turrets had to be raised high above the deck to allow the small draught, what raised the ship’s center of gravity and required a relatively wide hull to ensure stability.
The tall conning tower was protected by 6 in (152 mm) of armor on the sides and 2.5 in (64 mm) on the roof. The former monitors retrofitted anti-torpedo bulges were integrated into the Trebuchet-class’ hull, extending the deck’s width and giving the ship a more efficient shape, even though the short and wide hull still did not support a good performance at sea. The outer air-filled compartments under the waterline were 13 ft (4 m) wide with a 9 ft (2.7 m) wide outer section and an inner compartment 4 ft (1.2 m) wide containing an array of protective, air-filled steel tubes which would take the blast from an eventual broadside torpedo hit.
Ludgar conducted sea trials on 1 September 1921, during which the ship was faster than her predecessors at 16.5 knots (30 km/h; 19 mph) compared to 13 knots (24.3 km/h; 15.1 mph) for the Erebus-class monitors. However, like her ancestors, the wide and shallow hull of Ludgar made the ride rather unstable, and under practical conditions the ship’s top speed rarely exceeded 14 knots, making Ludgar only marginally faster than older monitor ships. The inherent flaws of the ship class’ design could not easily be overcome. However, Ludgar was officially commissioned on 2 September.
Upon entering service Ludgar was immediately deployed to the eastern Mediterranean as part of the 1st Battle Squadron of the Atlantic Fleet to mediate conflicts between Greece and the crumbling Ottoman Empire. While in the Ottoman capital Constantinople, Ludgar and the other British warships took on White émigrés fleeing the Communist Red Army.
The 1922 Washington Naval Treaty cut the battleship strength of the Royal Navy from forty ships to fifteen. The remaining active battleships were divided between the Atlantic and Mediterranean Fleets and conducted joint operations annually. Ludgar remained with the Mediterranean through 1926. On 4 October 1927, the ship was placed in reserve to effect a major refit, in which new rangefinders and searchlights were installed and the ship's original secondary armament, eight 4 inch naval guns against enemy destroyers and torpedo boats, was replaced be anti-aircraft guns of the same caliber.
On 15 May 1929 the refit was finished, and the ship was assigned to the 1st Battle Squadron of the Mediterranean Fleet. The squadron also consisted of Royal Sovereign, her sisters Resolution and Revenge, and Queen Elizabeth, and based in Malta. The only changes made during the Thirties were augmentations to Ludgar’s anti-aircraft batteries.
Fleet exercises in 1934 were carried out in the Bay of Biscay, followed by a fleet regatta in Navarino Bay off Greece. In 1935, the ship returned to Britain for the Jubilee Fleet Review for King George V. In August 1935, Ludgar was transferred to the 2nd Battle Squadron of the Atlantic Fleet, where she served as a training vessel until 2 June 1937, when she was again placed in reserve for a major overhaul. This lasted until 18 February 1938, after which she returned to the 2nd Battle Squadron.
In early 1939, the Admiralty considered plans to send Ludgar to Asia to counter Japanese expansionism. They reasoned that the then established "Singapore strategy", which called for a fleet to be formed in Britain to be dispatched to confront a Japanese attack was inherently risky due to the long delay. They argued that a dedicated battle fleet would allow for faster reaction. The plan was abandoned, however. In the last weeks of August 1939, the Royal Navy began to concentrate in wartime bases as tensions with Germany rose.
At the outset of war in September 1939, Ludgar was assigned to the 2nd Battle Squadron of the Home Fleet but remained at Plymouth for a short refit. In May 1940, painted in an overall light grey livery, she moved to the Mediterranean Fleet. There she was based in Alexandria, together with the battleships Warspite, Malaya, and Valiant, under the command of Admiral Andrew Cunningham.
In mid-August 1940, while steaming in the Red Sea, Royal Sovereign was attacked by the Italian submarine Galileo Ferraris and lightly damaged. Later that month, she returned to Alexandria for repairs and she received false white wakes at front and stern to simulate speed and confuse enemies. At the same time the conning tower was painted in a very light grey to make it less conspicuous when the ship was lurking behind the horizon. These were combined with periodic maintenance and the stay at dock lasted until November 1940.
Ludgar then moved to North Africa where she supported Operation Compass, the British assault against the Italian Tenth Army in Libya. The monitor shelled Italian positions at Maktila in Egypt on the night of 8 December, as part of the Battle of Sidi Barrani, before coming under the command of Captain Hector Waller's Inshore Squadron off Libya on 13 December. During the successful advance by the Western Desert Force Terror bombarded Italian land forces and fortifications, amongst others the fortified port of Bardia in eastern Libya on 16 December. After the Bardia bombardment concern was raised about the condition of the 15 in gun barrels which had been fitted, having been previously used, in 1939. The barrels were inspected by Vice Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham and the order was given for Ludgar to reduce the amount of cordite used when firing the main guns, in an attempt to extend the weapons' useful life. In a further attempt to conserve the monitor's main guns, her duties were changed to concentrate on providing anti-aircraft cover for the rest of the squadron and to ferry supplies from Alexandria. The ship also served as a water carrier for the advancing British and Commonwealth army.
Along with the flotilla leader Stuart, the gunboat Gnat and the destroyers Vampire and Voyager, Ludgar supported the assault on Tobruk on 21 January 1941 by the 6th Australian Division with the port being secured on 22nd. By this point the monitor's main gun barrels had each fired over 600 rounds of ammunition and the rifling had been worn away. While the main guns could still be fired, the shots would rarely land accurately and frequently exploded in mid-air. Ludgar was now relegated solely to the role of a mobile anti-aircraft platform and her light anti-aircraft armament was supplemented by two triple two-pounder anti-aircraft guns, mounted in armored turrets in front of the bridge and on a small platform at stern. To make room for the latter the original locations of the ship's lifeboats was moved from stern to the main deck behind the funnel, and a large crane was added there to put them afloat. The crane was also able to deploy a light reconnaissance float plane - and for a short period in early 1941 Ludgar carried a Fairey Seafox biplane, despite having neither catapult nor hangar. However, since the aircraft was exposed to the elements all the time and quite vulnerable, it soon disappeared.
At this phase the ship started sporting an unofficial additional camouflage which consisted of irregular small patches in sand, brown and khaki over her basic grey livery, apparently applied in situ with whatever suitable paint the crew could get their hands on, probably both British Army and even captured Italian paints. The objective was to better hide the ship against the African coastline when supporting land troops.
In March 1941, Ludgar was involved in Operation Lustre, the Allied reinforcement of Greece. The turn of fortune against the Allies in April required the evacuation of most of these forces, Operation Demon. On 21 April Ludgar was in Nafplio and accounted for the evacuation of 301 people, including 160 nurses. Following this, the ship became involved with the Tobruk Ferry Service, and made 11 runs to the besieged city of Tobruk before engine problems forced her withdrawal in July. Ludgar sailed again to Alexandria for repairs, which lasted from September 1941 to March 1942.
Ludgar – now re-fitted with new main gun barrels and two more Oerlikon AA machine cannon to the original complement of eight – was then assigned to Force H in the Mediterranean. Operation Torch saw British and American forces landed in Morocco and Algeria under the British First Army. Force H was reinforced to cover these landings and Ludgar provided heavy artillery support for the land-based ground troops. The end of the campaign in North Africa saw an interdiction effort on a vast scale, the aim was to cut Tunisia completely off from Axis support. It succeeded and 250,000 men surrendered to the 18th Army Group; a number equal to those who surrendered at Stalingrad. Force H again provided heavy cover for this operation.
Two further sets of landings were covered by Force H against interference from the Italian fleet. Operation Husky in July 1943 saw the invasion and conquest of Sicily, and Operation Avalanche saw an attack on the Italian mainland at Salerno. Following the Allied landings on Italy itself, the Italian government surrendered. The Italian fleet mostly escaped German capture and much of it formed the Italian Co-Belligerent Navy. With the surrender of the Italian fleet, the need for heavy units in the Mediterranean disappeared. The battleships and aircraft carriers of Force H dispersed to the Home and Eastern Fleets and the command was disbanded. Naval operations in the Mediterranean from now on would be conducted by lighter units, and Ludgar was commanded back to Great Britain, where she was put into reserve at Devonport, enhancing the station’s anti-aircraft defense.
At Devonport Ludgar was repainted in a dark grey-green Admiralty scheme and on 2 June 1944 she left Devonport again, joining Bombardment Force D of the Eastern Task Force of the Normandy invasion fleet off Plymouth two days later. At 0500 on 6 June 1944 Ludgar was the first ship to open fire, bombarding the German battery at Villerville from a position 26,000 yards offshore, to support landings by the British 3rd Division on Sword Beach. She continued bombardment duties on 7 June, but after firing over 300 shells she had to rearm and crossed the Channel to Portsmouth. She returned to Normandy on 9 June to support American forces at Utah Beach and then, on 11 June, she took up position off Gold Beach to support the British 69th Infantry Brigade near Cristot.
On 12 June she returned to Portsmouth to rearm, but her guns were worn out again, so she was ordered to sail to Rosyth via the Straits of Dover. She evaded German coastal batteries, partly due to effective radar jamming, but hit a mine 28 miles off Harwich early on 13 June. The explosion ripped her bow apart, leaving a gaping leak, and she sank within just a couple of minutes. Only 57 men of Ludgar’s crew survived.
General characteristics:
Displacement: 9,090 long tons (9,185 t)
Length: 436 ft (133.1 m) overall
Beam: 97 ft (29.6 m)
Draught: 11 ft 8 in (3.6 m)
Complement: 224
Propulsion:
4× Babcock & Wilcox water-tube boilers, generating a combined 6,000 ihp (4,500 kW) via
triple-expansion steam engines with two shafts
Performance:
Top speed: 16.5 knots (30 km/h; 19 mph)
Range: 2,480 nmi (4,590 km; 2,850 mi)
Armament:
2× twin BL 15-inch L42 Mk I naval guns
8 × single QF 4-inch Mk V naval guns
2 × triple two-pounder (40 mm) anti-aircraft guns
10x single Oerlikon 20mm (0.787 in) anti-aircraft machine cannon
The kit and its assembly:
This was another submission for the "Gunships" group build at whatifmodellers.com in late 2021 - and what would such a competition be without a literal "gunship" in the form of a monitor ship? I had wanted to scratch such a vehicle for a while, and the GB was a good motivation to tackle this messy project.
The idea was to build a post-WWI monitor for the Royal Navy. From WWI, several such ships had survived and they were kept in reserve and service into WWII, some even survived this war after extensive use. However, the layout of a typical monitor ship, with low draft, a relatively wide hull and heavy armament for land bombardments, is rather special and finding a suitable basis for this project was not easy - and I also did not want to spend a fortune just in donor parts.
Then I recently came across Hobby Boss 1:700 kit of the USS Arizona (in its 1941 guise, w/o the hull barbettes), and after some comparison with real British monitors I found my starting point - and it was dirty cheap. Righteously, though, because the model is rather primitive, comparable with the simple Matchbox 1:700 waterline ships. There are also some dubious if not cringeworthy solutions. For instance, in order to provide the superstructures with open windows, the seams between the single levels run right through the windows! WTF? These seams can hardly be hidden, it's really an awkward solution. Another freak detail: the portholes on the lower hull protrude like pockmarks, in real life they'd the 1 1/2 ft (50 cm) deep?! Some details like the cranes on the upper deck are also very "robust", it is, in the end, IMHO not a good model. But it was just the starting for me for "something else"...
Modifications started with shortening the hull. Effectively, I cut out more then 3 1/2 in from the body, which is an integral part with side walls and main deck, basically any straight hull section disappeared, leaving only the bow and stern section. My hope was that these could be simple glued together for a new, wide hull - but this did not work without problems, because the rear section turned out to be a bit wider than the front. What to do...? I eventually solved this problem through wedge-shaped cuts inside of the integral railings. With some force, lots of glue and a stiffening structure inside the new hull could be completed.
Next the original turret bases had to disappear. as well as two of the four anchors and their respective chains on the foredeck. I retained as much of the original superstructure as possible, as it looked quite plausible even for a shorter ship, but since the complete hull basis for it had been gone, some adaptations had to be made. The main level was shortened a little and I had to scratch the substruction from styrene sheet, so that it would match with the stepped new hull.
At the same time I had to defined where the main turret(s) would be placed - and I settled for two, because the deck space was sufficient and the ship's size would make them appear plausible. A huge problem were the turret mounts, though - since a monitor has only little draught, the hull is not very deep. Major gun turrets are quite tall things, on battleships only the turret itself with the guns can be normally seen. But on a monitor they stand really tall above the waterline, and their foundation needs a cover. I eventually found a very nice solution in the form of 1:72 jet engine exhausts from Intech F-16s - I has a pair of these featureless parts in the spares box, and with some trimming and the transplantation of the original turtret mounts the result looks really good.
In the meantime the hull-mounted gun barbettes of USS Arizona had to disappear, together with the pockmarks on the hull. A messy affair with several PSR rounds. Furthermore, I added a bottom to the waterline hull, cut from 0.5 mm styrene sheet, and added plaster and lead beads as ballast.
Most of the superstructure, up to the conning tower, were mostly taken OOB. I just gave the ship a more delicate crane and re-arranged the lifeboats, and added two small superstructures to the rear deck as AA-stations, behind the rear tower - the space had been empty, because USS Arizona carried aircraft catapults there.
For the armament I used the OOB main turrets, but only used two of the three barrels (blanking of the opening in the middle). The 4 in guns were taken OOB to their original positions, the lighter 20 mm AA guns were partly placed in the original positions, too, and four of them went to a small platform at stern. For even more firepower I added two small turrets with three two-pounder AA guns, one on the rear deck and another right in front of the bridge.
Painting and markings:
The ship might look odd in its fragmented multi-colored camouflage - but this scheme was inspired by the real HMS Terror, an monitor that operated in early 1941 on the coast of North Africa and carried a similar makeshift camouflage. This consisted of a multitude of sand and brown tones, applied over an overall light grey base. I mimicked this design, initially giving the ship at first a uniform livery in 507b (Humbrol 64), together with an unpainted but weathered wooden deck (Humbrol 187 plus a washing with sepia ink) and horizontal metal surfaces either in a dark grey (507a, Humbrol 106) or covered with a red-brown coat of Corticene (Humbrol 62). As a personal detail I gave the ship false bow and stern waves on the hull in white. Another personal mod is the light grey (507c, Humbrol 147) conning tower - as mentioned in the background, I found that this light grey would be most useful when the ship itself was hidden behind the horizon from view, and only the conning tower would be directly visible in front of a hazy naval background.
On top of the grey hull I added several other paints, including khaki drab (FS 34087 from Modelmaster), red brown (FS 30118, Humbrol 118), khaki drill (Humbrol 72), mid stone (Humbrol 225) and light stone (Humbrol 121).
The model received an overall washing with dark grey and some rust stains with various brown and red shades of simple watercolors. The waterline was created with long and thin black 1.5 mm decal stripes, a very convenient and tidy solution. Finally, all parts were sealed with matt acrylic varnish, and after the final assembly I also added some rigging to the main mast with heated black sprue material.
Phew, this was quite a challenge, the result looks good overall, but I am not happy with the finish. Ships are not my strength and you see the Hobby Boss kit's flaws and weaknesses everywhere. Then add massive bodywork, and thing look even more shaggy (*sigh*). Nevertheless, the model looks like a typical monitor ship, and when I take the rather crappy USS Arizona kit as basis/benchmark, the "new" HMS Ludgar is not a bad achievement. It's surely not a crisp model, but the impression is good and this is what counts most to me.
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This photo shows the lighting spread using the 7" reflector modification with the AlienBee/White Lightning grid spots.
I think this was the first 37 to have this modification to its lights.
37100 at Carlisle, 12th May 1984
Only additional part used to make Luke. You can find the differences as notes on the pic.
left > right:
Original LEGO set > picture from Star Wars Empire Strikes Back > Rebuilt set by me
After what I felt was the successful execution of my arm swap for my Skipper body, I guess I got the bug to try more!
I got the "Barbie® Beauty Salon & Doll - Brunette" and "Fashionista 54-Tutu Cool - Petite" a while ago. The beauty salon doll had articulated knees, but stiff arms. Miss Tutu had been put on a MTM body, but I thought maybe she should remain petite. Ms. Beauty Salon got an arm transplant from an old body I had laying around and Miss Tutu got a Medium Azone body with large breasts! I also had an Azone Medium body with small breasts, so I put one of the many MTM Purple Top heads I had laying around on it. She is shown next to an AA Petite so you can see a size comparison.
Well he is kinda finished. I see a lot of things I could've done better. But I will alter him when I have time again.
I will sand his eyes a tad better for example. They are a tad bit grainy now. So it needs to be smoother.
But in the end I am happy with the result. He is the little snarling guy I wanted him to be, haha.
Fun project ^^
My girl Hilary is slowly transforming in to my little troll Fenris . modification of face and ears are done and also her dread wig. ^^
The "Pecking Mechanism" is my modifications of the "Pecking Kingfisher" by Yamada Katsuhisa.
A double-sided heart is attached to the "Pecking Mechanism" to form the "Heartbeat" model. See the video clip here - www.flickr.com/photos/61236172@N08/14230223695/
Other simple models can also be attached to the "Pecking Mechanism". Try to make your own model and attach it to the "Pecking Mechanism". You may want to "cheat" by using glue but try to do it without glue.
Another Matchbox Series No4 Dodge K Series Stake Bed Truck Modification. 1966 to 1968 - 1-75 Series. This is the testing with the new color and the restored stake bed painted green. The color I like but on the truck but I am not happy with the stake bed. The warp is bad and I tried to fix it without it breaking which it wanted to do. I even soaked it in hot water to soften it but not luck.
the drawn on plan for my friend's tattoo that she's getting next month :)
excuse the poor quality, it was taken with my phone
now that my subscritpion has expired see all of my art here www.flickr.com/groups/463498@N21/
For some reason, full-sized pickup trucks are built with a very high bed. My old mid-sized pickup had a bed you could lean over and reach into. The sides on the new pickup are higher than my shoulder.
For that reason, I frequently have to climb into the back of the pickup. When the tailgate is up, I can step on the hitch and then up onto the bumper and into the bed. When the tailgate is down, I can't step on the hitch because the tailgate covers it, so I have been stepping up onto the rear tire and pulling myself up into the bed. Also, just getting into the driver's seat is an effort so I put an aftermarket step on the side so I can get into the truck in two steps.
I don't know why they are built so high. There's no good reason for it. It can't be for clearance, because the clearance is defined by the axle, not the body. The tires are a bit larger than the old truck, but that only makes the clearance a couple inches higher. The bed is at least a foot higher. The only reason I can think of is style. Making the truck higher makes it look bigger. I'd much prefer it to be unstylishly low like my old truck.
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Instructions available from Rebrickable at: rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-183741/Rubblemaker/tie-silencer-...
Arguably, the greatest thing to come out of the Star Wars sequels was the Tie Silencer. A stunning, sleek take on the Tie Interceptor that had way too little screen time. Set 75179, ‘Kylo Ren’s TIE Fighter’, was my entry point into this hobby and I’ve kept hold of it all this time. It’s a great set, but I wanted to turn this playset into a display set. So here it is. A complete overhaul and extensive modification of set 75179.
It keeps much of the interior structure from the set but has an entirely new exterior design with numerous details added and lines re-made based on screenshots and highly detailed 3d models (you’re looking at a lot more than just the original set with some tiles stuck on top) It also features completely re-designed wings using new construction methods.
I re-designed the underside and part of the internal structure (with no loss of structural integrity) to incorporate a cavity for the stand to slot into. A modified version of the UCS Batwing stand worked perfectly for this ship. The instructions have also been completely re-designed from scratch.
The ship now weighs in at 1324 pieces, including the stand (the original set is made up of just 630 pieces) 52% of the parts from the original set are used in my modification so if you own the set you would need an extra 1012 pieces to create this mod, plus it’s stand. (Currently those parts can be purchased from Bricklink for about £60).
The Palace of Versailles is a former royal residence commissioned by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about 19 kilometers (12 mi) west of Paris, France.
The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, under the direction of the French Ministry of Culture, by the Public Establishment of the Palace, Museum and National Estate of Versailles. About 15,000,000 people visit the palace, park, or gardens of Versailles every year, making it one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world.
Louis XIII built a simple hunting lodge on the site of the Palace of Versailles in 1623. With his death came Louis XIV who expanded the château into the beginnings of a palace that went through several changes and phases from 1661 to 1715. It was a favorite residence for both kings, and in 1682, Louis XIV moved the seat of his court and government to Versailles, making the palace the de facto capital of France. This state of affairs was continued by Kings Louis XV and Louis XVI, who primarily made interior alterations to the palace, but in 1789 the royal family and capital of France returned to Paris. For the rest of the French Revolution, the Palace of Versailles was largely abandoned and emptied of its contents, and the population of the surrounding city plummeted.
Napoleon, following his coronation as Emperor, used Versailles as a summer residence from 1810 to 1814, but did not restore it. Following the Bourbon Restoration, when the king was returned to the throne, he resided in Paris and it was not until the 1830s that meaningful repairs were made to the palace. A museum of French history was installed within it, replacing the apartments of the southern wing.
The palace and park were designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1979 for its importance as the center of power, art, and science in France during the 17th and 18th centuries. The French Ministry of Culture has placed the palace, its gardens, and some of its subsidiary structures on its list of culturally significant monuments.
History
Main article: History of the Palace of Versailles
An engraving of Louis XIII's château as it appeared in 1652
Versailles around 1652, engraving by Jacques Gomboust [fr]
In 1623, Louis XIII, King of France, built a hunting lodge on a hill in a favorite hunting ground, 19 kilometers (12 mi) west of Paris and 16 kilometers (10 mi) from his primary residence, the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye The site, near a village named Versailles, was a wooded wetland that Louis XIII's court scorned as being generally unworthy of a king; one of his courtiers, François de Bassompierre, wrote that the lodge "would not inspire vanity in even the simplest gentleman". From 1631 to 1634, architect Philibert Le Roy replaced the lodge with a château for Louis XIII, who forbade his queen, Anne of Austria, from staying there overnight, even when an outbreak of smallpox at Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1641 forced Louis XIII to relocate to Versailles with his three-year-old heir, the future Louis XIV.
When Louis XIII died in 1643, Anne became Louis XIV's regent, and Louis XIII's château was abandoned for the next decade. She moved the court back to Paris, where Anne and her chief minister, Cardinal Mazarin, continued Louis XIII's unpopular monetary practices. This led to the Fronde, a series of revolts against royal authority from 1648 to 1653 that masked a struggle between Mazarin and the princes of the blood, Louis XIV's extended family, for influence over him. In the aftermath of the Fronde, Louis XIV became determined to rule alone. Following Mazarin's death in 1661, Louis XIV reformed his government to exclude his mother and the princes of the blood, moved the court back to Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and ordered the expansion of his father's château at Versailles into a palace.
Louis XIV had hunted at Versailles in the 1650s, but did not take any special interest in Versailles until 1661. On 17 August 1661, Louis XIV was a guest at a sumptuous festival hosted by Nicolas Fouquet, the Superintendent of Finances, at his palatial residence, the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte. Louis XIV was impressed by the château and its gardens, which were the work of Louis Le Vau, the court architect since 1654, André Le Nôtre, the royal gardener since 1657, and Charles Le Brun, a painter in royal service since 1647. Vaux-le-Vicomte's scale and opulence inspired Louis XIV's aesthetic sense, but also led him to imprison Fouquet that September, as he had also built an island fortress and a private army. Louis XIV was also inspired by Vaux-le-Vicomte, and he recruited its authors for his own projects. Louis XIV replaced Fouquet with Jean-Baptiste Colbert, a protégé of Mazarin and enemy of Fouquet, and charged him with managing the corps of artisans in royal employment. Colbert acted as the intermediary between them and Louis XIV, who personally directed and inspected the planning and construction of Versailles.
Construction
Work at Versailles was at first concentrated on gardens, and through the 1660s, Le Vau only added two detached service wings and a forecourt to the château. But in 1668–69, as a response to the growth of the gardens, and victory over Spain in the War of Devolution, Louis XIV decided to turn Versailles into a full-scale royal residence. He vacillated between replacing or incorporating his father's château, but settled on the latter by the end of the decade, and from 1668 to 1671, Louis XIII's château was encased on three sides in a feature dubbed the enveloppe. This gave the château a new, Italianate façade overlooking the gardens, but preserved the courtyard façade, resulting in a mix of styles and materials that dismayed Louis XIV and that Colbert described as a "patchwork". Attempts to homogenize the two façades failed, and in 1670 Le Vau died, leaving the post of First Architect to the King vacant for the next seven years.
Le Vau was succeeded at Versailles by his assistant, architect François d'Orbay. Work at the palace during the 1670s focused on its interiors, as the palace was then nearing completion, though d'Orbay expanded Le Vau's service wings and connected them to the château, and built a pair of pavilions for government employees in the forecourt. In 1670, d'Orbay was tasked by Louis XIV with designing a city, also called Versailles, to house and service Louis XIV's growing government and court. The granting of land to courtiers for the construction of townhouses that resembled the palace began in 1671. The next year, the Franco-Dutch War began and funding for Versailles was cut until 1674, when Louis XIV had work begun on the Ambassadors' Staircase , a grand staircase for the reception of guests, and demolished the last of the village of Versailles.
Following the end of the Franco-Dutch War with French victory in 1678, Louis XIV appointed as First Architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart, an experienced architect in Louis XIV's confidence, who would benefit from a restored budget and large workforce of former soldiers. Mansart began his tenure with the addition from 1678 to 1681 of the Hall of Mirrors, a renovation of the courtyard façade of Louis XIII's château, and the expansion of d'Orbay's pavilions to create the Ministers' Wings in 1678–79. Adjacent to the palace, Mansart built a pair of stables called the Grande and Petite Écuries from 1679 to 1682 and the Grand Commun, which housed the palace's servants and general kitchens, from 1682 to 1684. Mansart also added two entirely new wings in Le Vau's Italianate style to house the court, first at the south end of the palace from 1679 to 1681 and then at its north end from 1685 to 1689.
War and the resulting diminished funding slowed construction at Versailles for the rest of the 17th century. The Nine Years' War, which began in 1688, stopped work altogether until 1698. Three years later, however, the even more expensive War of the Spanish Succession began and, combined with poor harvests in 1693–94 and 1709–10, plunged France into crisis. Louis XIV thus slashed funding and canceled some of the work Mansart had planned in the 1680s, such as the remodeling of the courtyard façade in the Italianate style. Louis XIV and Mansart focused on a permanent palace chapel, the construction of which lasted from 1699 to 1710.
Louis XIV's successors, Louis XV and Louis XVI, largely left Versailles as they inherited it and focused on the palace's interiors. Louis XV's modifications began in the 1730s, with the completion of the Salon d'Hercule, a ballroom in the north wing, and the expansion of the king's private apartment, which required the demolition of the Ambassadors' Staircase In 1748, Louis XV began construction of a palace theater, the Royal Opera of Versailles at the northernmost end of the palace, but completion was delayed until 1770; construction was interrupted in the 1740s by the War of the Austrian Succession and then again in 1756 with the start of the Seven Years' War. These wars emptied the royal treasury and thereafter construction was mostly funded by Madame du Barry, Louis XV's favorite mistress. In 1771, Louis XV had the northern Ministers' Wing rebuilt in Neoclassical style by Ange-Jacques Gabriel, his court architect, as it was in the process of falling down. That work was also stopped by financial constraints, and it remained incomplete when Louis XV died in 1774. In 1784, Louis XVI briefly moved the royal family to the Château de Saint-Cloud ahead of more renovations to the Palace of Versailles, but construction could not begin because of financial difficulty and political crisis. In 1789, the French Revolution swept the royal family and government out of Versailles forever.
Role in politics and culture
The Palace of Versailles was key to Louis XIV's politics, as an expression and concentration of French art and culture, and for the centralization of royal power. Louis XIV first used Versailles to promote himself with a series of nighttime festivals in its gardens in 1664, 1668, and 1674, the events of which were disseminated throughout Europe by print and engravings. As early as 1669, but especially from 1678, Louis XIV sought to make Versailles his seat of government, and he expanded the palace so as to fit the court within it. The moving of the court to Versailles did not come until 1682, however, and not officially, as opinion on Versailles was mixed among the nobility of France.
By 1687, however, it was evident to all that Versailles was the de facto capital of France, and Louis XIV succeeded in attracting the nobility to Versailles to pursue prestige and royal patronage within a strict court etiquette, thus eroding their traditional provincial power bases. It was at the Palace of Versailles that Louis XIV received the Doge of Genoa, Francesco Maria Imperiale Lercari in 1685, an embassy from the Ayutthaya Kingdom in 1686, and an embassy from Safavid Iran in 1715.[
Louis XIV died at Versailles on 1 September 1715 and was succeeded by his five-year-old great-grandson, Louis XV, then the duke of Anjou, who was moved to Vincennes and then to Paris by Louis XV's regent, Philippe II, Duke of Orléans. Versailles was neglected until 1722, when Philippe II removed the court to Versailles to escape the unpopularity of his regency, and when Louis XV began his majority. The 1722 move, however, broke the cultural power of Versailles, and during the reign of Louis XVI, courtiers spent their leisure in Paris, not Versailles.
During Christmas 1763, Mozart and his family visited Versailles and dined with the kings. The 7-year-old Mozart played several works during his stay and later dedicated his first two harpsichord sonatas, published in 1764 in Paris, to Madame Victoria, daughter of Louis XV.
In 1783, the palace was the site of the signing of the last two of the three treaties of the Peace of Paris (1783), which ended the American Revolutionary War. On September 3, British and American delegates, led by Benjamin Franklin, signed the Treaty of Paris at the Hôtel d'York (now 56 Rue Jacob) in Paris, granting the United States independence. On September 4, Spain and France signed separate treaties with England at the Palace of Versailles, formally ending the war.
The King and Queen learned of the Storming of the Bastille in Paris on 14 July 1789, while they were at the palace, and remained isolated there as the Revolution in Paris spread. The growing anger in Paris led to the Women's March on Versailles on 5 October 1789. A crowd of several thousand men and women, protesting the high price and scarcity of bread, marched from the markets of Paris to Versailles. They took weapons from the city armory, besieged the palace, and compelled the King and royal family and the members of the National Assembly to return with them to Paris the following day.
As soon as the royal family departed, the palace was closed. In 1792, the National Convention, the new revolutionary government, ordered the transfer of all the paintings and sculptures from the palace to the Louvre. In 1793, the Convention declared the abolition of the monarchy and ordered all of the royal property in the palace to be sold at auction. The auction took place between 25 August 1793 and 11 August 1794. The furnishings and art of the palace, including the furniture, mirrors, baths, and kitchen equipment, were sold in seventeen thousand lots. All fleurs-de-lys and royal emblems on the buildings were chambered or chiseled off. The empty buildings were turned into a storehouse for furnishings, art and libraries confiscated from the nobility. The empty grand apartments were opened for tours beginning in 1793, and a small museum of French paintings and art school was opened in some of the empty rooms.
By virtue of an order issued by the Versailles district directorate in August 1794, the Royal Gate was destroyed, the Cour Royale was cleared and the Cour de Marbre lost its precious floor.
19th century – history museum and government venue
When Napoleon became Emperor of the French in 1804, he considered making Versailles his residence but abandoned the idea because of the cost of the renovation. Prior to his marriage with Marie-Louise in 1810, he had the Grand Trianon restored and refurnished as a springtime residence for himself and his family, in the style of furnishing that it is seen today.
In 1815, with the final downfall of Napoleon, Louis XVIII, the younger brother of Louis XVI, became King, and considered returning the royal residence to Versailles, where he had been born. He ordered the restoration of the royal apartments, but the task and cost was too great. Louis XVIII had the far end of the south wing of the Cour Royale demolished and rebuilt (1814–1824) to match the Gabriel wing of 1780 opposite, which gave greater uniformity of appearance to the front entrance. Neither he nor his successor Charles X lived at Versailles.
The French Revolution of 1830 brought a new monarch, Louis-Philippe to power, and a new ambition for Versailles. He did not reside at Versailles but began the creation of the Museum of the History of France, dedicated to "all the glories of France", which had been used to house some members of the royal family. The museum was begun in 1833 and inaugurated on 30 June 1837. Its most famous room is the Galerie des Batailles (Hall of Battles), which lies on most of the length of the second floor of the south wing. The museum project largely came to a halt when Louis Philippe was overthrown in 1848, though the paintings of French heroes and great battles still remain in the south wing.
Emperor Napoleon III used the palace on occasion as a stage for grand ceremonies. One of the most lavish was the banquet that he hosted for Queen Victoria in the Royal Opera of Versailles on 25 August 1855.
During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, the palace was occupied by the general staff of the victorious German Army. Parts of the château, including the Gallery of Mirrors, were turned into a military hospital. The creation of the German Empire, combining Prussia and the surrounding German states under William I, was formally proclaimed in the Hall of Mirrors on 18 January 1871. The Germans remained in the palace until the signing of the armistice in March 1871. In that month, the government of the new Third French Republic, which had departed Paris during the War for Tours and then Bordeaux, moved into the palace. The National Assembly held its meetings in the Opera House.
The uprising of the Paris Commune in March 1871, prevented the French government, under Adolphe Thiers, from returning immediately to Paris. The military operation which suppressed the Commune at the end of May was directed from Versailles, and the prisoners of the Commune were marched there and put on trial in military courts. In 1875 a second parliamentary body, the French Senate, was created and held its meetings for the election of a President of the Republic in a new hall created in 1876 in the south wing of the palace. The French Senate continues to meet in the palace on special occasions, such as the amendment of the French Constitution.
20th century
The end of the 19th and the early 20th century saw the beginning of restoration efforts at the palace, first led by Pierre de Nolhac, poet and scholar and the first conservator, who began his work in 1892. The conservation and restoration were interrupted by two world wars but have continued until the present day.
The palace returned to the world stage in June 1919, when, after six months of negotiations, the Treaty of Versailles, formally ending the First World War, was signed in the Hall of Mirrors. Between 1925 and 1928, the American philanthropist and multi-millionaire John D. Rockefeller, Jr. gave $2,166,000, the equivalent of about thirty million dollars today, to restore and refurbish the palace.
More work took place after World War II, with the restoration of the Royal Opera of Versailles. The theater was reopened in 1957, in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.
In 1978, parts of the palace were heavily damaged in a bombing committed by Breton terrorists.
Starting in the 1950s, when the museum of Versailles was under the directorship of Gérald van der Kemp, the objective was to restore the palace to its state – or as close to it as possible – in 1789 when the royal family left the palace. Among the early projects was the repair of the roof over the Hall of Mirrors; the publicity campaign brought international attention to the plight of post-war Versailles and garnered much foreign money including a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.
One of the more costly endeavors for the museum and France's Fifth Republic has been to repurchase as much of the original furnishings as possible. Consequently, because furniture with a royal provenance – and especially furniture that was made for Versailles – is a highly sought-after commodity on the international market, the museum has spent considerable funds on retrieving much of the palace's original furnishings.
21st century
In 2003, a new restoration initiative – the "Grand Versailles" project – was started, which began with the replanting of the gardens, which had lost over 10,000 trees during Cyclone Lothar on 26 December 1999. One part of the initiative, the restoration of the Hall of Mirrors, was completed in 2006. Another major project was the further restoration of the backstage areas of the Royal Opera of Versailles in 2007 to 2009.
The Palace of Versailles is currently owned by the French state. Its formal title is the Public Establishment of the Palace, Museum and National Estate of Versailles. Since 1995, it has been run as a Public Establishment, with an independent administration and management supervised by the French Ministry of Culture.
The grounds of the palace will host the equestrian competition during the 2024 Summer Olympics.
Architecture and plan
The Palace of Versailles is a visual history of French architecture from the 1630s to the 1780s. Its earliest portion, the corps de logis, was built for Louis XIII in the style of his reign with brick, marble, and slate, which Le Vau surrounded in the 1660s with Enveloppe, an edifice that was inspired by Renaissance-era Italian villas. When Mansart made further expansions to the palace in the 1680s, he used the Enveloppe as the model for his work. Neoclassical additions were made to the palace with the remodeling of the Ministers' Wings in the 1770s, by Ange-Jacques Gabriel, and after the Bourbon Restoration.
The palace was largely completed by the death of Louis XIV in 1715. The eastern facing palace has a U-shaped layout, with the corps de logis and symmetrical advancing secondary wings terminating with the Dufour Pavilion on the south and the Gabriel Pavilion to the north, creating an expansive cour d'honneur known as the Royal Court (Cour Royale). Flanking the Royal Court are two enormous asymmetrical wings that result in a façade of 402 metres (1,319 ft) in length. Covered by around a million square feet (10 hectares) of roof, the palace has 2,143 windows, 1,252 chimneys, and 67 staircases.[
The palace and its grounds have had a great influence on architecture and horticulture from the mid-17th century to the end of the 18th century. Examples of works influenced by Versailles include Christopher Wren's work at Hampton Court Palace, Berlin Palace, the Palace of La Granja, Stockholm Palace, Ludwigsburg Palace, Karlsruhe Palace, Rastatt Palace, Nymphenburg Palace, Schleissheim Palace, and Esterházy Palace.
Royal Apartments
The construction in 1668–1671 of Le Vau's enveloppe around the outside of Louis XIII's red brick and white stone château added state apartments for the king and the queen. The addition was known at the time as the château neuf (new château). The grands appartements (Grand Apartments, also referred to as the State Apartments[141][142]) include the grand appartement du roi and the grand appartement de la reine. They occupied the main or principal floor of the château neuf, with three rooms in each apartment facing the garden to the west and four facing the garden parterres to the north and south, respectively. The private apartments of the king (the appartement du roi and the petit appartement du roi) and those of the queen (the petit appartement de la reine) remained in the château vieux (old château). Le Vau's design for the state apartments closely followed Italian models of the day, including the placement of the apartments on the main floor (the piano nobile, the next floor up from the ground level), a convention the architect borrowed from Italian palace design.
The king's State Apartment consisted of an enfilade of seven rooms, each dedicated to one of the known planets and their associated titular Roman deity. The queen's apartment formed a parallel enfilade with that of the grand appartement du roi. After the addition of the Hall of Mirrors (1678–1684) the king's apartment was reduced to five rooms (until the reign of Louis XV, when two more rooms were added) and the queen's to four.
The queen's apartments served as the residence of three queens of France – Marie-Thérèse d'Autriche, wife of Louis XIV, Marie Leczinska, wife of Louis XV, and Marie-Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI. Additionally, Louis XIV's granddaughter-in-law, Princess Marie-Adélaïde of Savoy, duchesse de Bourgogne, wife of the Petit Dauphin, occupied these rooms from 1697 (the year of her marriage) to her death in 1712.
Ambassador's Staircase
The Ambassadors' Staircase (Escalier des Ambassadeurs) was an imperial staircase built from 1674 to 1680 by d'Orbay. Until Louis XV had it demolished in 1752 to create a courtyard for his private apartments, the staircase was the primary entrance into the Palace of Versailles and the royal apartments especially. It was entered from the courtyard via a vestibule that, cramped and dark, contrasted greatly with the tall, open space of the staircase – famously lit naturally with a skylight – so as to overawe visitors.
The staircase and walls of the room that contained it were clad in polychrome marble and gilded bronze, with decor in the Ionic order. Le Brun and painted the walls and ceiling of the room according to a festive theme to celebrate Louis XIV's victory in the Franco-Dutch War. On the wall immediately above the staircase were trompe-l'œil paintings of people from the Four Parts of the World looking into the staircase over a balustrade, a motif repeated on the ceiling fresco. There they were joined by allegorical figures for the twelve months of the year and various Classical Greek figures such as the Muses. A marble bust of Louis XIV, sculpted by Jean Warin in 1665–66, was placed in a niche above the first landing of the staircase.
The State Apartments of the King
The construction of the Hall of Mirrors between 1678 and 1686 coincided with a major alteration to the State Apartments. They were originally intended as his residence, but the King transformed them into galleries for his finest paintings, and venues for his many receptions for courtiers. During the season from All-Saints Day in November until Easter, these were usually held three times a week, from six to ten in the evening, with various entertainments.
The Salon of Hercules
This was originally a chapel. It was rebuilt beginning in 1712 under the supervision of the First Architect of the King, Robert de Cotte, to showcase two paintings by Paolo Veronese, Eleazar and Rebecca and Meal at the House of Simon the Pharisee, which was a gift to Louis XIV from the Republic of Venice in 1664. The painting on the ceiling, The Apotheosis of Hercules, by François Lemoyne, was completed in 1736, and gave the room its name.
The Salon of Abundance
The Salon of Abundance was the antechamber to the Cabinet of Curios (now the Games Room), which displayed Louis XIV's collection of precious jewels and rare objects. Some of the objects in the collection are depicted in René-Antoine Houasse's painting Abundance and Liberality (1683), located on the ceiling over the door opposite the windows.
The Salon of Venus
This salon was used for serving light meals during evening receptions. The principal feature in this room is Jean Warin's life-size statue of Louis XIV in the costume of a Roman emperor. On the ceiling in a gilded oval frame is another painting by Houasse, Venus subjugating the Gods and Powers (1672–1681). Trompe-l'œil paintings and sculpture around the ceiling illustrate mythological themes.
The Salon of Mercury
The Salon of Mercury was the original State Bedchamber when Louis XIV officially moved the court and government to the palace in 1682. The bed is a replica of the original commissioned by King Louis-Philippe in the 19th century when he turned the palace into a museum. The ceiling paintings by the Flemish artist Jean Baptiste de Champaigne depict the god Mercury in his chariot, drawn by a rooster, and Alexander the Great and Ptolemy surrounded by scholars and philosophers. The Automaton Clock was made for the King by the royal clockmaker Antoine Morand in 1706. When it chimes the hour, figures of Louis XIV and Fame descend from a cloud.
The Salon of Mars
The Salon of Mars was used by the royal guards until 1782, and was decorated on a military theme with helmets and trophies. It was turned into a concert room between 1684 and 1750, with galleries for musicians on either side. Portraits of Louis XV and his Queen, Marie Leszczinska, by the Flemish artist Carle Van Loo decorate the room today.
The Salon of Apollo
The Salon of Apollo was the royal throne room under Louis XIV, and was the setting for formal audiences. The eight-foot-high silver throne was melted down in 1689 to help pay the costs of an expensive war, and was replaced by a more modest throne of gilded wood. The central painting on the ceiling, by Charles de la Fosse, depicts the Sun Chariot of Apollo, the King's favorite emblem, pulled by four horses and surrounded by the four seasons.
The Salon of Diana
The Salon of Diana was used by Louis XIV as a billiards room, and had galleries from which courtiers could watch him play. The decoration of the walls and ceiling depicts scenes from the life of the goddess Diana. The celebrated bust of Louis XIV by Bernini made during the famous sculptor's visit to France in 1665 is on display here.
Private apartments of the King and Queen
The apartments of the King were the heart of the château; they were in the same location as the rooms of Louis XIII, the creator of the château, on the first floor (second floor US style). They were set aside for the personal use of Louis XIV in 1683. He and his successors Louis XV and Louis XVI used these rooms for official functions, such as the ceremonial lever ("waking up") and the coucher ("going to bed") of the monarch, which was attended by a crowd of courtiers.
The King's apartment was accessed from the Hall of Mirrors from the Oeil de Boeuf antechamber or from the Guardroom and the Grand Couvert, the ceremonial room where Louis XIV often took his evening meals, seated alone at a table in front of the fireplace. His spoon, fork, and knife were brought to him in a golden box. The courtiers could watch as he dined.
The King's bedchamber had originally been a Drawing Room before Louis XIV transformed it into his own bedroom in 1701. He died there on 1 September 1715. Both Louis XV and Louis XVI continued to use the bedroom for their official awakening and going to bed. On 6 October 1789, from the balcony of this room Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, joined by the Marquis de Lafayette, looked down on the hostile crowd in the courtyard, shortly before the King was forced to return to Paris.
The bed of the King is placed beneath a carved relief by Nicolas Coustou entitled France watching over the sleeping King. The decoration includes several paintings set into the paneling, including a self-portrait of Antony van Dyck.
Private apartments of The Queen
The petit appartement de la reine is a suite of rooms that were reserved for the personal use of the queen. Originally arranged for the use of the Marie-Thérèse, consort of Louis XIV, the rooms were later modified for use by Marie Leszczyńska and finally for Marie-Antoinette. The Queen's apartments and the King's Apartments were laid out on the same design, each suite having seven rooms. Both suites had ceilings painted with scenes from mythology; the King's ceilings featured male figures, the Queen's featured females.
Hall of Mirrors
The Hall of Mirrors is a long gallery at the westernmost part of the palace that looks out onto the gardens. The hall was built from 1678 to 1681 on the site of a terrace Le Vau built between the king and queen's suites. The hall is clad in marble and decorated in a modified version of the Corinthian order, with 578 mirrors facing 17 windows and reflecting the light provided by them. The ceiling fresco, painted by Le Brun over the next four years, embellishes the first 18 years of Louis XIV's reign in 30 scenes, 17 of which are military victories over the Dutch. The fresco depicts Louis XIV himself alongside Classical figures in the scenes celebrating moments in his reign such as the beginning of personal rule in 1661, breaking from earlier frescoes at Versailles that used allegories derived from Classical and mythological scenes.
The Salon of War and the Salon of Peace bookend the Hall of Mirrors on its northern and southern ends respectively. The Salon of War, constructed and decorated from 1678 to 1686, celebrates French victories in the Franco-Dutch War with marble panels, gilded bronze trophies of arms, and a stucco bas-relief of Louis XIV on horsebask riding over his enemies. The Salon of Peace is decorated in the same fashion but according to its eponymous theme.
Royal Chapel
The Royal Chapel of Versailles is located at the southern end of the north wing. The building stands 40-meter (130 ft) high, and measures 42 meters (138 ft) long and 24 meters (79 ft) wide. The chapel is rectangular with a semicircular apse, combining traditional, Gothic royal French church architecture with the French Baroque style of Versailles. The ceiling of the chapel is constituted by an unbroken vault, divided into three frescos by Antoine Coypel, Charles de La Fosse, and Jean Jouvenet. The palette of motifs beneath the frescoes glorify the deeds of Louis IX, and include images of David, Constantine, Charlemagne, and Louis IX, fleur de lis, and Louis XIV's monogram. The organ of the chapel was built by Robert Clicquot and Julien Tribuot in 1709–1710.
Louis XIV commissioned the chapel, its sixth, from Mansart and Le Brun in 1683–84. It was the last building constructed at Versailles during Louis XIV's reign. Construction was delayed until 1699, however, and it was not completed until 1710. The only major modification to the chapel since its completion was the removal of a lantern from its roof in 1765. A full restoration of the chapel began in late 2017 and lasted into early 2021.
Royal Opera
The Royal Opera of Versailles was originally commissioned by Louis XIV in 1682 and was to be built at the end of the North Wing with a design by Mansart and Vigarani. However, due to the expense of the King's continental wars, the project was put aside. The idea was revived by Louis XV with a new design by Ange-Jacques Gabriel in 1748, but this was also temporarily put aside. The project was revived and rushed ahead for the planned celebration of the marriage of the Dauphin, the future Louis XVI, and Marie-Antoinette. For economy and speed, the new opera was built almost entirely of wood, which also gave it very high quality acoustics. The wood was painted to resemble marble, and the ceiling was decorated with a painting of the Apollo, the god of the arts, preparing crowns for illustrious artists, by Louis Jean-Jacques Durameau. The sculptor Augustin Pajou added statuary and reliefs to complete the decoration. The new Opera was inaugurated on 16 May 1770, as part of the celebration of the royal wedding.
In October 1789, early in the French Revolution, the last banquet for the royal guardsmen was hosted by the King in the opera, before he departed for Paris. Following the Franco-German War in 1871 and then the Paris Commune until 1875, the French National Assembly met in the opera, until the proclamation of the Third French Republic and the return of the government to Paris.
Museum of the History of France
Shortly after becoming King in 1830, Louis Philippe I decided to transform the palace into a museum devoted to "All the Glories of France," with paintings and sculpture depicting famous French victories and heroes. Most of the apartments of the palace were entirely demolished (in the main building, practically all of the apartments were annihilated, with only the apartments of the king and queen remaining almost intact), and turned into a series of several large rooms and galleries: the Coronation Room (whose original volume was left untouched by Louis-Philippe), which displays the celebrated painting of the coronation of Napoleon I by Jacques-Louis David; the Hall of Battles; commemorating French victories with large-scale paintings; and the 1830 room, which celebrated Louis-Philippe's own coming to power in the French Revolution of 1830. Some paintings were brought from the Louvre, including works depicting events in French history by Philippe de Champaigne, Pierre Mignard, Laurent de La Hyre, Charles Le Brun, Adam Frans van der Meulen, Nicolas de Largillière, Hyacinthe Rigaud, Jean-Antoine Houdon, Jean-Marc Nattier, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Hubert Robert, Thomas Lawrence, Jacques-Louis David, and Antoine-Jean Gros. Others were commissioned especially for the museum by prominent artists of the early 19th century, including Eugène Delacroix, who painted Saint Louis at the French victory over the British in the Battle of Taillebourg in 1242. Other painters featured include Horace Vernet and François Gérard. A monumental painting by Vernet features Louis Philippe himself, with his sons, posing in front of the gates of the palace.
The overthrow of Louis Philippe in 1848 put an end to his grand plans for the museum, but the Gallery of Battles is still as it was, and is passed through by many visitors to the royal apartments and grand salons. Another set of rooms on the first floor has been made into galleries on Louis XIV and his court, displaying furniture, paintings, and sculptures. In recent years, eleven rooms on the ground floor between the Chapel and the Opera have been turned into a history of the palace, with audiovisual displays and models.
Estate of Versailles
The estate of Versailles consists of the palace, the subsidiary buildings around it, and its park and gardens. As of June 2021, the estate altogether covers an area of 800 hectares (8.0 km2; 2,000 acres), with the park and gardens laid out to the south, west, and north of the palace. The palace is approached from the east by the Avenue de Paris, measuring 17 miles (27 km) from Paris to a gate between the Grande and Petite Écuries. Beyond these stables is the Place d'Armes, where the Avenue de Paris meets the Avenue de Sceaux and Avenue de Saint-Cloud (see map), the three roads that formed the main arteries of the city of Versailles. Exactly where the three roads meet is a gate leading into the cour d'honneur. hemmed in by the Ministers' Wings. Beyond is the Royal Gate and the main palace, which wraps around the Royal and finally Marble Courts
The estate was established by Louis XIII as a hunting retreat, with a park just to the west of his château. From 1661, Louis XIV expanded the estate until, at its greatest extent, the estate was made up by the Grand Parc , a hunting ground of 15,000 hectares (150 km2; 37,000 acres), and the gardens, called the Petit Parc, which covered 1,700 hectares (17 km2; 4,200 acres). A 25-mile (40 km) long, 10-foot (3.0 m) high wall with 24 gateways enclosed the estate.
The landscape of the estate had to be created from the bog that surrounded Louis XIII's château using landscape architecture usually employed in fortress building. The approach to the palace and the gardens were carefully laid out via the moving of earth and construction of terraces. The water from the marsh was marshalled into a series of lakes and ponds around Versailles, but these reservoirs were not sufficient for the palace, city, or gardens. Great lengths were taken to supply Versailles with water, such as the damming of the river Bièvre to create an inflow in the 1660s, the construction of an enormous pumping station at the river Seine near Marly-le-Roi in 1681, and an attempt to divert water from the river Eure with a canal in the later 1680s.
Gardens
The gardens of Versailles, as they have existed since the reign of Louis XIV, are the work of André Le Nôtre. Le Nôtre's gardens were preceded by a simple garden laid out in the 1630s by landscape architects Jacques Boyceau and Jacques de Nemours, which he rearranged along an east–west axis that, because of Louis XIV's land purchases and the clearing of woodland, were expanded literally as far as could be seen. The resulting gardens were a collaboration between Le Nôtre, Le Brun, Colbert, and Louis XIV, marked by rigid order, discipline, and open space, with axial paths, flowerbeds, hedges, and ponds and lakes as motifs. They became the epitome of the French formal garden style, and have been very influential and widely imitated or reproduced.
Subsidiary structures
The first of the subsidiary structures of the Palace of Versailles was the Versailles Menagerie [fr],[199][200] built by Le Vau between the years 1662 and 1664, at the southern end of the Grand Canal. The apartments, overlooking the pens, were renovated by Mansart from 1698 to 1700, but the Menagerie fell into disuse in 1712. After a long period of decay, it was demolished in 1801. The Versailles Orangery, just to the south of the palace, was first built by Le Vau in 1663, originally as part of the general moving of earth to create the Estate.[191] It was also modified by Mansart, who, from 1681 to 1685, totally rebuilt it and doubled its size.
In late 1679, Louis XIV commissioned Mansart to build the Château de Marly, a retreat at the edge of Versailles's estate, about 5 miles (8.0 km) from the palace. The château consisted of a primary residential building and twelve pavilions, in Palladian style placed in two rows on either side of the main building. Construction was completed in 1686, when Louis XIV spent his first night there. The château was nationalized and sold in 1799, and subsequently demolished and replaced with industrial buildings. These were themselves demolished in 1805, and then in 1811 the estate was purchased by Napoleon. On 1 June 2009, the grounds of the Château de Marly were ceded to the Public Establishment of the Palace, Museum and National Estate of Versailles.
La Lanterne, is a hunting lodge named after the lantern that topped the nearby Menagerie that was built in 1787 by Philippe Louis de Noailles, then the palace governor. It has since 1960 been a state residence.
Petit Trianon
The Petit Trianon, whose construction from 1762 to 1768 led to the advent of the names "Grand" and "Petit Trianon", was constructed for Louis XV and the Madame du Barry in the Neoclassical style by Gabriel. The building has a piano nobile, basement, and attic, with five windows on each floor. On becoming king, Louis XVI gave the Petit Trianon to Marie Antoinette, who remodeled it, relaid its gardens in the then-current English and Oriental styles, and formed her own court there.
In 1668, Louis XIV purchased and demolished the hamlet of Trianon, near the northern tip of the Grand Canal, and in its place, he commissioned Le Vau to construct a retreat from court, remembered as the Porcelain Trianon. Designed and built by Le Vau in 1670, it was the first example of Chinoiserie (faux Chinese) architecture in Europe, though it was largely designed in French style. The roof was clad not with porcelain but with delftware, and was thus prone to leaks, so in 1687 Louis XIV ordered it demolished. Nevertheless, the Porcelain Trianon was itself influential and copycats were built across Europe.
The Grand Trianon
The Grand Trianon with courtyard and gardens. The wing at left is a residence of the President of France.
The Grand Trianon with courtyard and gardens. The wing at left is a residence of the President of France.
To replace the Porcelain Trianon, Louis XIV tasked Mansart with the construction in 1687 of the Grand Trianon, built from marble in three months. The Grand Trianon has a single story, except for its attached service wing, which was modified by Mansart in 1705–06. The east façade has a courtyard while the west faces the gardens of the Grand Trianon, and between them a peristyle. The interiors are mostly original,[214] and housed Louis XIV, the Madame de Maintenon, Marie Leszczynska, and Napoleon, who ordered restorations to the building. Under de Gaulle, the north wing of the Grand Trianon became a residence of the President of France.
The Queen's hamlet and Theater
Near the Trianons are the French pavilion, built by Gabriel in 1750 between the two residences, and the Queen's Theater and Queen's Hamlet, built by architect Richard Mique in 1780 and from 1783 to 1785 respectively. These were both built at the behest of Marie Antoinette; the theater, hidden in the gardens, indulged her appreciation of opera and is absolutely original, and the hamlet to extend her gardens with rustic amenities. The building scheme of the Queen's Hamlet includes a farmhouse (the farm was to produce milk and eggs for the queen), a dairy, a dovecote, a boudoir, a barn that burned down during the French Revolution, a mill and a tower in the form of a lighthouse.
Modern political and ceremonial functions
The palace still serves political functions. Heads of state are regaled in the Hall of Mirrors; the bicameral French Parliament—consisting of the Senate (Sénat) and the National Assembly (Assemblée nationale)—meet in joint session (a congress of the French Parliament) in Versailles to revise or otherwise amend the French Constitution, a tradition that came into effect with the promulgation of the 1875 Constitution. For example, the Parliament met in joint session at Versailles to pass constitutional amendments in June 1999 (for domestic applicability of International Criminal Court decisions and for gender equality in candidate lists), in January 2000 (ratifying the Treaty of Amsterdam), and in March 2003 (specifying the "decentralized organization" of the French Republic).
In 2009, President Nicolas Sarkozy addressed the global financial crisis before a congress in Versailles, the first time that this had been done since 1848, when Charles-Louis Napoleon Bonaparte gave an address before the French Second Republic. Following the November 2015 Paris attacks, President François Hollande gave a speech before a rare joint session of parliament at the Palace of Versailles. This was the third time since 1848 that a French president addressed a joint session of the French Parliament at Versailles. The president of the National Assembly has an official apartment at the Palace of Versailles. In 2023 a state visit by Charles III to France included a state banquet at the Palace.
There's a new owner of the Cafe Corner. The previous proprietor allowed the building to fall into disrepair. So it was time for renovation and restoration: a new facade and completely redecorated and refurnished hotel rooms (and an additional floor). Only the cafe on the ground floor is still the same.
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Almost two years ago I built my version of the Cafe Corner (#10182) with a slightly different colour scheme and some modifications, basically because the original building was already too expensive. I also added some interiors and replaced the stairwell by an elevator.
I didn't like the colours anymore and the building didn't match my other modulars anymore. Since my town still needs a hotel and I didn't want to destroy the old version completely I came up with this one.
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See all photos of the new and the old Cafe Corner here.