Minecraft Build - Update 6: Functional portal and further development

Well after some fiddly and rather dangerous mining I at last got enough blocks of obsidian to make a portal. It was quite a pain in the arse as it takes nearly a minute to hack out a single block of the stuff even with my fancy diamond pick axe. When you need 14 to make a portal this was fairly taxing. The obsidian was also located in the middle of a big pool of lava so I needed to carefully block all of the lava from behind each block before I could safely dig it out. Anyways I got it and so after some careful planning and building I activated the portal on its specially built platform and ventured for the first time into the mysterious realm of the Nether.

I must say I was disappointed. I guess this could have sommet to do with the fact that Ive got it set to peaceful, so the Ghasts and Zombie Pigmen who normally populate the place were missing. Also, theres not much really to do or get there. In the whole of the Nether there is only 4 types of blocks, lava, netherrack, soulstone and glowstone. The Netherrack is nothing too exciting except it can be set on fire permanently, so should be good for creating a nice bright fire to illuminate somewhere. The soulstone does nothing other than slow your movement. Glowstone appears in big formations usually in the roof and emits bright light. This would make it handy for some underwater illumination but nothing much else really. Its also a pain to collect, each block you mine gives you one piece of glowdust, and you need 9 glowdusts to make one block. So basically you have to mine out 9 blocks of glowstone in order to get one block of placeable glowstone. Not very economic with your tools unfortunately. 

But that said my tower progresses. Iv added all the height I can as I have reached the upper limit of the game world. I didnt think there was one but I guess it was added in the beta. Not to worry though, my tower is very high so far and will continue to expand it laterally as I go. The new blocks from the Nether have been used as I can to spice up my tower here and there. Honestly though i grow bored expanding the upper stories so iv now concentrated on building some ground based stuff. I went and hollowed out two large chambers near the top of my mineshaft within which I have converted into underground farms fit with lava skylights. I have now got some crops and trees growing in side my fortress.

After several weeks of on and off building i am starting to lose interest somewhat. So to spice things up iv built a massive wall around my tower with ramparts and fire traps and have turned the game back onto monster mode. Armed with a sword I now plan to go out an hack up as many creepers as i can find to collect some sulphur so i can create some coveted dynamite. With this i can carve up the landscape much more effectively.
Anyway, I may post some more on this or not, but see below for my latest pics.

My exact point of respawn

Night view of my sky fort

Some experimentation with my glowstone

The base of my atrium

Level 3 atrium

The Nether

Lava lake in the Nether

My portal

The Nether side

My poral in its custom built platform

A view of the portal room with a cloud passing through the artrium

My courtyard

A view from the raparts

My fortress entire

Sculptris & 3D Modelling

I must say I am very excited about this 3D modelling class. I was very impressed by Sculptris and what can be done with it. While I have some 3D experience from my undergrad days namely in Solidworks, this program would struggle to create the smooth organic shapes that comes so naturally from Sculptris.

3DS is another story. Its been on my laptop in one form or another for years now but everytime iv opened it its been so scary and complicated looking Iv just abandoned even attempting to learn it. So I am glad we've finally begun a 3D class with what seems like a competent and decent lecturer so far. I look forward to shrugging off the heavy cloak of ignorance I have worn for too long and getting into creating some cool things like space ships and impulse engine manifolds :)

In the mean time I plan to churn out lots of heads in Sculptris, aliens, demons, human and anything else i can come up with. This will be a cool new tool for me and something I hope I can get quite good at.

My first serious attempt at Sculptris, your standard demonoid monstrosity!