Ingrid Islands

Ingrid Islands
Survival 4 Husky
Ingrid Island viewed from the western pier on July 28th 2021.
Base
World	Survival 4 (Husky)
Builder(s)	Minda905
Founded	August 2020
Location	X= -818 Y= 68 Z= 3265
Transport	Connected to the South NTN tunnel around the 3000-mark.
Map Click for full map

Ingrid Islands was the base of  Minda905 on the Survival 4 world of the Dogcraft Server, located in the sea around 3200 blocks south of Husky Spawn, founded in August of 2020.

It consisted of six islands that were terraformed around an originally small landmass and held many historically inspired buildings and vessels. At the heart of the base was a villa overlooking a harbour – with its central tower staircase reaching all the way down to bedrock, sprouting several corridors and rooms leading to storage, farms, and themed rooms.

Building development history

After unsuccessful attempts traveling around to find a suitable base location in the north of Husky Minda scouted a tiny island south of spawn on the Dynmap, voyaged to its location and set base. Following a few nights spent in the mines and a makeshift hut, the villa was the first build to be constructed, followed by a bridge (later re-worked into the western pier of the harbour) leading out to a ship docking at its edge.

An active decision was made to expand underground and terraform the main island in parallel due to lack of space for buildings above sea-level. Development then continued in an organic fashion, with new additions being put in place as needs for farmable resources or ideas for structures came about. The underground was to host farms and storages with a couple of special themed rooms, while the builds above ground were mostly decor.

The first additional island was built to the northeast in November of 2020 and ended up being used for farming chorus plants. Following that in January of 2021 was the lighthouse island, which covers up a cactus farm. Progress was quite steady, with a lot of focus on infrastructure, then, as Minda got involved in other projects around the server, progress became more sporadic.

It wasn’t until the summer of 2021 that some major additions would be founded – following the finishing of Fort Boyard to the west, and the flagship M/S Cinnamon south of the harbour, came the outline for the northern islands, upon which the Chapel and the Inn were placed. Coming into September of the same year, progress was put to a full stop as Minda joined in with the events team to prepare for Halloween. Work at the base was then picked back up in November, seeing continued development of the northern islands as well as additions of some 1.17 farms.

In the last months of Survival 4 a lot of work and revision was put into the natural exterior and decoration of the base – a staple event being the finalization of the island’s terraforming in January of 2022. The final touch to the base was the addition of the Noteblock Basics room in the underground Music Hall, and on March 7^th 2022, one week before the server closed, Minda decided that Ingrid Islands were finished.

• Progress maps
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  The original island

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  Progress clipped from dynmap on Jan. 21st, 2021

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  Progress on June 23rd, 2021

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  Ingrid Islands in its finished state

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  Map with labeled points of interest

• Ingrid Islands - Before and after
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  Southwest perspecitve - before

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  Southwest perspecitve - after

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  South before

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  South after

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  Southeast before

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  Southeast after

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  Southeast before

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  Northeast after

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  Northwest before

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  Northwest after

Style and block palette

The architectural style was realistic and historically inspired, not necessarily adhering to any specific era but blending elements together to form a unique look. The block palette was never set but rather developed as the base came along, but to keep a sense of coherence, features and elements from earlier structures were combined with other materials and shapes to create something new. Notable is that the earlier structures feature no to some block variation, while the later ones start to make use of gradients – a result of Minda growing more confident as a builder and trying new techniques.

Minda standing by the edge of the dining table inside Villa Ingrid on Jan. 14^th, 2021.

Materials most used in the exteriors consists of grey toned blocks such as varieties of stone, andesite, concrete powder and clay, along with lighter tones of diorite, calcite and white concrete. Prominent attributes such as house corners, roof trimmings and the like features in oak, spruce, and dark oak materials. Prismarines, warped planks, terracotta, acacia, grassblocks, bricks and granite have been used to add some colour, especially for roofs and other details.

For interiors - specifically under the villa -, Minda decided to variate each room and to not follow a certain style or block palette. This was an active decision to help her discover and develop her building- and decorating skills. However, valved and/or colourful patterned ceilings as well as chequered floors were recurrent throughout.

Points of interest

Ingrid Islands held many points of interest, among them the greenhouse and harbour trading hall on the main island. Northsides were several scattered cottages, a lighthouse, chapel, inn, loggery and a pavillion. Within the base there is also a memory hall, a hidden entrance to a [Helper]-office and a secret axolotl cave.

• Some of the interesting sights at Ingrid Islands
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  The Greenhouse glimmering in the sunset on March 17th, 2021.

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  The Harbour Trading Office

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  A scenic morning view of the lighthouse

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  The Chapel, Inn and cottages on the northwestern island.

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  The Loggery, Pavillion and Lighthouse to the northeast, as well as the Silmarillion in the background.

While these builds certainly are unique and special in their own way, the few more notable attractions were as follows:

Villa Ingrid overlooking the harbour on Feb. 26th, 2022.

Villa Ingrid

At the heart of the base was Villa Ingrid, overlooking the harbour and serving as Mindas home on the Survival 4 world of Husky. The house was inspired by a real-life building constructed in 1902 but dressed up in a Tudor-look, the main materials used were stone varieties, oak, spruce, and white concrete.

The central tower on the front side held a staircase reaching all the way down to bedrock, sprouting several corridors and rooms leading to storages, farms, and themed rooms.

The attic storage room.

There was no large storage room in a “traditional” sense where all things were kept together in one spot at this base. Items were rather spread out into smaller rooms and units – farmable items usually kept by their respective farms. Food items, brewing supplies and mob-drops were kept in the kitchen, stone- and colour blocks in a dedicated hall, while the main storage room was up in the attic beside the bed corner and enchanting setup. This was result of the organic development of the base but also a choice made to make the space feel more like an actual “lived in” home/place rather than “just a base” - or in other words, a decorative yet functional space.

Music Hall

The Music Hall with its organ center piece.

One of the special themed rooms in the base was the Music Hall, which served as the central hub for Minda's project of creating various Musical Contraptions around the server. A short corridor with a display list of finished music contraptions led into an octagonal hall with a grand organ as its centrepiece. By reaching in and tuning one of the noteblocks in the organ you could start the music contraption which played an excerpt of Badinerie by J.S. Bach, installed underneath the floorboards. Placed on the walls around the hall were decorative miniblocks, chosen to represent the 16 available sounds that can be produced when placing a noteblock on top of them.

Autumn coloured trees lining the walls above the music contraption of Höstregn.

On the left side of the hall was a room lined with colourful autumn trees (built in collaboration with  Chriizsich) and a display of a noteblock contraption under a glass floor. This contraption played an original tune composed by Minda called Höstregn (Autumn Rains), and was made to give players an interactive experience, letting them take control over the performance by choosing the parts that would be played each loop with the use of four levers, one for each instrument.

Space was made to the right of the main hall for a third contraption, but it remained empty for a long time due to “Minda not finding the perfect song to put there”. Instead, the noteblock basics room was created as one of the last additions to the base. In there you could learn about the mechanics and how to get started on creating noteblock machines.

Fort Boyard

View of Fort Boyard from the western side of Ingrid Islands on July 7^th 2021.

The oblong seafort located west of the harbour - Fort Boyard - rested upon a fully terraformed island made of basalt. Within its structure was the minigame “Dunk”, in which two players, armed with bows and arrows, would compete to get to the top first. Whilst trying to do this, they could also “dunk” their opponent into the water by shooting at targetblocks underneath the logs which made up the parkour course on the walls.

On occasion Minda invited friends and cyberdogs to come hang out and play the game at her base. During one of these instances, involving  PerskyPuff, the fort was nicknamed “The Ooval”, as a reference to its oblong shape. This amused Minda and Persky very much at the time and had them both bursting into uncontrollable laughs and giggles.

Harbour and Ships

During the season the harbour and surrounding seas were populated with vessels of various kinds. The purpose was to bring interest to the surroundings and more life to the base as well as contributing to the lore-idea of the Isles being a well-known travel and trade spot for seafarers and voyagers.

The vessels mainly featured in colourful attires of dark prismarine, dark oak, crimson planks, warped stems, white wool, quartz, and mushroom stem.

Whenever a ship was finished, Minda performed a small ritual to properly name it. This was done by throwing a re-named splash water bottle with the ships name on its hull, followed by putting up a sign. All the ships were then added to the Harbour ledger:

• Moonriver - Modelled after a Minecraft shipwreck and one of the first structures to be built at the base.
• Charlies Island Canoe Service - Named after Minda's first pet dog on the server.
• Hajanga - Named after Mindas favourite song at the time.
• Jolly Bear - Built in secret by  Chriizsich as a birthday present.
• M/S Cinnamon - The flagship of the Ingrid Island Fleet, constructed after a tutorial by Lord Dakr and named after the cinnamon bun miniblock of Minda's own design.
• Silmarillion - The loggery's cargo ship, with  PerskyPuff appointed as Captain.
• Meja - Another sailing ship built after a tutorial by Lord Dakr.
• Joy, Coloratura and Lovis - All variants on Jolly Bear, dedicated to Minda's siblings.

Yet another transportation vessel, but of the aviator kind, could be sighted from the east shores of the island; a white airplane tailed with a banner, which was a birthday gift built for Minda by  N1cM4tth3w63.

Farms and utilities

While the exterior of the base was mostly reserved for aesthetic purposes, the inner workings situated underground held most of the farms and utilities.

Being somewhat interested in redstone made Minda variate between making her own designs, outright following tutorials and/or adapting them to fit her needs. In attempts to reduce item overflow and lag, several of the farms were togglable, half-manual or installed with automatic “turn-off” systems based on comparator outputs from the storage points.

The following farms and utilities could be found at Ingrid Islands:

• Flowerfarm
• Smelter setup
• Kelp farm
• Basalt farm (in the netherportal hub)
• Concrete converter
• Sugarcane & Bamboo farm
• Honey farm
• Sweet berry farm
• Egg collector
• Fern/grass/glowberry farm
• Pumpkin & Melon farm
• Wool farm
• Cave spider spawner
• Crop farm, including netherwart and cocoa beans
• Mushroom farm
• Vine farm
• Cactus farm
• Tree farm
• Moss and azalea farm
• Dripstone
• Several bonemeal outputs and converters

Yet another larger flowerfarm, a skeleton spawner, a creeperfarm and a second treefarm were made to serve Ingrid Island with resources but were built in other parts of the world away from the base.

Gallery

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  The humble beginnings of Ingrid Island on Sept 24^th 2020.

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  The terraforming process has begun and the first iteration of the western pier is being laid out, Oct 19^th 2020.

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  Terraforming progress on the north side of the island on Nov 22^nd 2020.

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  Harbour progress on Nov 28^th 2021.

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  Trading Hall and terraforming progress on the east side of Ingrid Island Harbour, Dec 10^th 2020.

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  Terraforming progress of the east shore on Jan 10^th 2021.

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  The guest houses behind Villa Ingrid, Jan 15^th 2021.

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  Outdoor seating in the garden between Villa Ingrid and the guest houses

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  The greenhouse glimmering in the sunset on the east side of Ingrid Island, Jan 17^th 2021.

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  View over Ingrid Island Harbour on Jan 21^st 2021

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  Ingrid Island on Mar 11^th 2021

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  A view of the eastern side cliffs behind the trading hall, with custom trees made by  Chriizsich. Mar 13^th 2021.

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  Ingrid Island viewed from the lighthouse on Mar 11^th 2021.

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  View over the harbour and Fort Boyard from the roof of the villager trading hall, May 19^th 2021

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  Fort Boyard viewed from the bottom of the sea, towering over the surface on the handbuilt basalt cliffs, Jun 13^th 2021.

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  Scenic view of the back garden, Jun 25^th 2021.

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  Scenic view of the lighthouse at dawn

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  The airplane built by  N1cM4tth3w63

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  View of the wool farm from the bottom of the corridor

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  Autumn leaves hall adjacent to the Music Hall, decorated together with  Chriizsich

Notes/Trivia

• Most of Minda's pets and vessels had names related to music.
• The cottages behind Villa Ingrid were Mindas first ever attempt at building on a diagonal.
• A doorbell was installed at the main entrance of the villa, and it was frequently used by firends and visitors.
• Ingrid Islands were featured in the 1 year anniversary stream on April 10^th 2021.
• The rubber duck miniblocks in the corner of the harbour was a monument to the tag game which Minda participated in together with  lauratje19,  JakeMnLo,  PerskyPuff and  colliecolie.
•  TrainerMoon once came to hang out with Minda at her base and managed to accidentally die by riptiding into the airplane whilst circulating the islands in the rain, but they had a great time and a very fun afternoon running around on the server.
•  StenLLuk gifted Minda two blue axolotls for Christmas 2021, which prompted the creation of the secret axolotl cave.
• There are at least four hidden entrances to the inside of the terraformed shells of the isles.
• One extra room in the attic above the entrance stood empty for the longest time or was used for storing away shulkerboxes for projects. After finishing The Egg Museum in February 2022, it was finally emptied and made into a guestroom for  SummerFlower1234.

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