[WIP] Barad Dur

[ShaydDeGrai]

I haven't posted many MOCs here lately because I've been a bit busy with this guy. I spent about two months designing designing things on paper (literally, I play with Lego to get away from computers so I rarely do much with LDD or MLCad) and about eight months building and rebuilding the model itself.

The tower stands a bit over four feet tall from base to crown and is made from a ridiculous number of small parts for something that weighs about as much as a teenager. There's a six foot strand of LED christmas lights in the lava moat at the base to try to break up the black a bit, but other than that, everything else is pure factory issues Lego.

I still consider this a work in progress as:

a) I haven't come up with a good solution for the Eye of Sauron despite having built several dozen at this point (bricks, cones, flames, helmet plumes, radar dishes - still haven't the right look yet)

b) There's still work to be done on the base (outer guard towers, flume delivering molten rock to the lava moat etc.)

c) I really need to learn how to photograph big black, highly detailed ABS surfaces. This thing is way too big for my light box and I've yet to take a photo of it that does it justice.

The base is about 2 feet by 3 feet and the lower ramparts are a system of concentric rings tied together by radial walls. It's nominally hollow, but there's a lot of internal buttressing, arches, and technic structure buried inside to support the weight of the upper tiers.

If you're curious, I have a few more photos (of equally poor quality) over on MOC pages

I welcome all comments, questions and suggestions as to how best to finish and photograph this beast (particularly if you have any great insights in to the design of a 10 stud diameter Eye of Sauron that doesn't look cheesy).

Thanks for stopping by.

[Scaevola]

Great moc. The top section is excellent, though the rounded one below it looks a little out of place (as all the previous sections are square, it doesn't seem a precedent was set for the rounded part). However, superb work overall. I might try using trans-orange tiles or studs for the eye

[Lady K]

Awesome work! The top section is superb. Great rock work too.

[Eurolock]

Excellent build...of a very difficult structure. Loads of creative ideas. Wish the photographs were better so I could study it in more detail!

Did you check out skywalter's epic (even larger) version on Flickr? Might be some ideas you could borrow for finishing it.

[atreyu2112]

Wow ... holy shit that's epic. Awesome work. Can't wait to see it when it's finished.

[nymmerod]

Wow. Impressive. This is what I build in my Lego dreams. Really nice work and very accurate to the film look. Someday when I grow up a little more I want to build stuff like that. Now if only they would release some Lego fell beasts to go with it...

[Jan_sh]

That is most impressive - god idea to do Barad Dûr - and very well executed.

[TheLegoDr]

Your LOTR builds are always impressive.

I've considered building something like this in the scale of Orthanc, just so I can have both towers. It's a lot of black that I don't have, so it will take a while to plan and build and order parts.

This is very nicely done. I like the shaping. The scale is impressive. I don't have anything that sits that tall. Where do you have room for all of this?

Keep up the great work.

[ShaydDeGrai]

Thanks to all.

Your LOTR builds are always impressive.

I've considered building something like this in the scale of Orthanc, just so I can have both towers. It's a lot of black that I don't have, so it will take a while to plan and build and order parts.

Yeah, this was a LOT of black. It ate two Towers of Orthanc kits, a half dozen Black Gate kits, 7 K-boxes of small plates, slopes and bricks, six months worth of sizable Bricklink orders and it _still_ depleted my existing stockpiles of black (which _used to be_ fairly expansive).

This is very nicely done. I like the shaping. The scale is impressive. I don't have anything that sits that tall. Where do you have room for all of this?

Space is a BIG concern. It took over my home office for most of the year. I packed it up to show for BrickFair New England a month or so ago and haven't cleared space to unpack it yet so at the moment it's in storage in my attic. I really need to remodel my house to make a dedicated Lego Room. Working on this scale, having to multiplex a workspace is really daunting.

[Floundie]

Stunning work. That thing looks absolutely massive.

[DarkKnight7]

Wow, that is ridiculous! I like the rock details you did there. Very cool!

[Calanon]

This is awesome! I am loving your work.

[Master_Data]

Have you thought of using translucent orange/red (not sure about the official name, but it is the orange/red used on the magma monsters from the Power Miners theme). With your red underneath, it will create a better lava look. If you remove your red bricks and completely replace them with this colour, you could put some mini LED lights underneath to light up the lava.

[Steph 104th]

You captured it perfectly. To put it simply its AWESOME.

[ZCerberus]

c) I really need to learn how to photograph big black, highly detailed ABS surfaces. This thing is way too big for my light box and I've yet to take a photo of it that does it justice.

I do have some tips for you! Looks like you have several of them down, but there might be a few tricks to pull from this...

1. Take it outside! Lots of natural light so no light box needed, though you will definitely want to photograph in the shade to avoid shadows.

2. Turn off the flash if you're outside. The glare from a flash that is directed at a MOC is hideous!

3. For black MOCs, surround the MOC with white poster-board Or any flat white surface probably, and move/angle the poster-board so it reflects in the black. This will REALLY help as the detail will begin to be seen without having to torture the color in the picture in editing.

Click this link to see my results on a mostly black MOC and read my similar tips here.

These pictures a links too.

Indoors, no white poster-board:

Outdoors, using poster-board:

[Hectorin]

great job

[Bytor]

I cant wait to see the finished product! This is excellent.

[TheGreyPilgrim]

Very cool MOC! I will keep an eye on this thread to watch for the continued evolution.

Amazing!

[Godless-Mimicry]

No LDD would mean no build guide then? This is amazing.

[ShaydDeGrai]

No LDD would mean no build guide then? This is amazing.

Oh the building instructions are easy:

1) Fill a 150 square foot room about two feet deep with a ridiculous amount of black and dark gray parts

2) Randomly connect some parts

3) With each part added, if it makes the resulting mass look more like Barad Dur, keep it; if not, try something else.

4) Periodically, set the entire thing aside and try to rebuild it from scratch, emending the design to redo sections that weren't working; if you like the rebuild better, keep going, otherwise scrap it and go back to the previous version.

5) Repeat as necessary

It's not unlike trying to get an infinite number of monkeys at keyboards to randomly reproduce Hamlet; probably not the best process, but hey, it's a hobby

But more seriously, thank you to all for your feedback and suggestions (particularly the photography pointers). As the days get shorter and the weather gets colder, I hope to be able to get back to this and see if another round of improvements/enhancements will finally finish this guy to my satisfaction.