[MOC] Herbalist's Hut

[mishtron]

Hello Eurobricks Historic!

I am intensely inspired by this forum and a huge castle fan since childhood. I really enjoy the challenge of combining playability with appealing aesthetics - hope you guys/gals can offer some critique for my future builds. Here's to my first MOC shared on Eurobricks!

 A renowned local herbalist grows ingredients and preps her potions in a hut not far from town. The purple & tan colour scheme was inspired by a Toronto pick-a-brick wall full of tan SNOT bricks and purple tiles. Conveniently complementary colours. I built around the dimensions of a typical MMV type building, but wanted to include plenty of garden space.

I always liked houses that are displayable when open, like it's a two connected buildings on one side of a dirt road. This made things tricky with the garden space buffer and I got around this by placing the hinges on a chimney which extends further outside to power the distilling contraption:

Friends sets provide some fun flower variety. I was also happy to find that lego made amanita mushroom pieces while I was in my dark ages. I got these giant tan slopes from a used sphinx set I bought and really wanted to incorporate them. However I realized they looked really dull, and so I added vines, which evolved to wrap around the whole building.

I feel like no home is complete without a space to live and sleep. Admittedly there is no bathroom, but the garden does need fertilizer.

A prep station full of interesting ingredients, a pot producing a ghastly green smoke as it boils.

A place for stocking inventory and gardening tools, those potions look potent..

She senses a soul in search of answers

The confident traveller on his way to battle insists on only her strongest potions.

He is disappointed to find that her potions are far too strong for him. Onward he goes to find a seller that sells weaker potions

I'm pretty happy overall with the addition of a civilian building to my medieval setup -- however there are a few things I would do differently next time:

Firstly I would probably skip forcing big pieces into the build, like the big tan slopes, they did not look stellar when naked, which forced some flimsy coverup. They are also not very stable, which is annoying for playing with the set. As I expand my collection perhaps I can try multiple iterations. Secondly, I am not entirely happy with the roof overall, since the points where the large plates join at the top and the lack of overhang on the sides look somewhat unfinished. Either way, I'm looking forward to trying out some alternative roof techniques on my next castle themed build. Please feel free to share your thoughts on potential improvements.

[Alfadas]

That is a very nice build! I really like the roof, it looks great! Also the texture on the wall is awesome! Keep 'm coming!

Edited July 3, 2017 by Alfadas

[SirBlake]

Nice build. I like the green smoke. 

Reminds me of Skyrim a bit. 

[Vorkosigan]

Cute build, you packed a lot of detail into a small space! I like all the plant types and the wall textures. I always thought the female pirate hair would be great for this sort of character. 

One minor suggestion for your photos, you may want to use a smaller aperture so you have a little more depth of field. Some blur of the background is a cool effect but I think its a bit extreme in these photos.  

[mishtron]

13 hours ago, Alfadas said:

That is a very nice build! I really like the roof, it looks great! Also the texture on the wall is awesome! Keep 'm coming!

Thanks dude, will do

3 hours ago, SirBlake said:

Nice build. I like the green smoke. 

Reminds me of Skyrim a bit. 

I've been meaning to try it, really liked witcher 3

2 hours ago, Vorkosigan said:

Cute build, you packed a lot of detail into a small space! I like all the plant types and the wall textures. I always thought the female pirate hair would be great for this sort of character. 

One minor suggestion for your photos, you may want to use a smaller aperture so you have a little more depth of field. Some blur of the background is a cool effect but I think its a bit extreme in these photos.  

feel you on the hairpiece. thanks, I was totally fiddling trying to get rid of the extreme blur.. clearly not the camera expert ;)

[Vorkosigan]

Not to derail your thread with photography talk but what you want to look for is the F stop number, probably simply "F2.8" etc on your screen. If you're in aperture priority mode you should be able to manually change it. You want to have a smaller aperture for a deeper field of focus, which means a higher F stop number.

Edited July 3, 2017 by Vorkosigan

[Cozei]

Nice job making a building with some interior features and a way to swing open. 

If you're dissatisfied with the roof maybe try these:

A common trick to add a roof cap is a line of 1x round bricks in a line. If you don't have purple or something cordinated go with black. Also to get more overhang, esp. at either end, don't be afraid to add another layer of plates before your final tiles. That could give you the overhang. 

 

If you have some jumpers that also might be a way to close the peak gap with a second layer of plates. You would end up with 3 layers at the peak, but that doesn't seem unrealistic to me.

 

Last, if you have a few more green plates go for some more surrounding the building. You can expand the herbal garden. :-)

Keep going!

[mishtron]

@VorkosiganGood stuff, thanks

@Cozeithanks for the roof tips, I reviewed some of the guides and see what you mean

[Tezclatipoca]

Neat cottage ! I like the front greenery and the roofing gives to the house an elvish touch ! 

Overall a good job !

[Vindicare]

Lots of cool details...but the one I like best is using that new 1x1 round with post trans clear as a bottle stopper-that's genius. Evrytging is splendid too...but that green has billowing up is suspect...

[kaelthas]

Cool build! The purple roofs are nice!