Book IV Prelude Challenge: Category A: Woodland Amphitheater

[LordDan]

This is Tom, a renowned bard from Avalonia, who has wandered far and wide across Historica, sharing his songs and stories. His travels have taken him to countless venues, each with its own trials. In Kaliphlin, there’s always sand in his boots, in Mitgardia, he nearly freezes walking from the inn to the stage; in Varlyrio, the seas leave him queasy and seasick; and in Nocturnus, the crowds are always dead… literally. In the end, he always comes back to Avalonia.

Today, Tom is performing at the Woodland Amphitheater, one of Avalonia’s premier destinations. This naturally formed amphitheater is famed for its excellent acoustics and draws a large crowd from across the nearby lands, including some famed Avalonian adventurers and lords. 

 

When concerts are held, the Woodland Amphitheater comes alive with vendors and traders who set up shop around the grounds. Today, visitors can enjoy a wide selection of food and drink at the amphitheater. Vendors offer beer and wine, serve honey-glazed chicken hot off the spit,  offer pipe weed and other smokes, and even magical shrooms. Outhouses are also provided for guests.

 [spoiler] Here are some overview shots of the build as well as a wip shot showing the stands. 

 The amphitheater technique was roughly based on this build from Hardegon on Flickr. [/spoiler]

The back of the build is built 5 bricks high so I can incorporate it into a LUG display we have been working on. Hope you enjoy! 

[W Navarre]

Fabulous curved amphitheater seats! Great festive fig life too, and nice Avalonian trees! 

[Ben S]

Impressive build! Great attention to detail. I love the variety of the characters (I even recognize at least  one familiar face! ).

[Seagull King of Vaughan]

I love the theater, the trees, the people…nothing feels out of place here! I love how you’ve given various banners out too.

[jtooker]

And here I thought my wooded theatre was a novel idea!  Yours great terrific!  The large round curves work very well for a stone amphitheater.   Having all the kids standing up front was a great idea.

Including all the 'concessions' in back really sets the mood too.

[LettuceBrick]

Very organic looking trees!

[mrcp6d]

Oh man, this is fantastic!  Those curved seats are perfect for the size of this build and the whole amphitheater is integrated seamlessly into the landscape.  Amazing work given all the off-grid building here.  

[Kai NRG]

This is very cool, particularly the rounded levels of amphitheater--I love the shot with all the minifigures, but I'm so glad you showed us the WIP shot too because otherwise I would hardly have known they were standing on a quarter circle!  A lot of the details around back are really fun too and make this feel like a real place.  Great stuff.

[MKJoshA]

Your amphitheater steals the show. But it's the details that keep you there! I love all the characters you've filled your MOC with. And the two little outhouses are a fantastic touch.

[T-86(swebrickLUG)]

You’ve nailed scale, proportions and composition in this avalonian amphitheater! Some of my favourite parts are the shaping for the seats, outhouses, trees and how the platform seems carved into the ground/hillside. The subtle walkdown where dbg and lbg connects sells that idea perfectly!

[Eyrezer]

Love the hunny chicken! Excellent build, I am inspired to try an amphitheatre myself

[Grover]

This is a fantastic build!  I love the expansiveness of it, and the technical end is awesome.  The trees are fantastic. I think it's hard to make a realistic-looking, not insanely parts intensive tree, and you did a very nice job here.  I also love the large elevation changes. Elevations are difficult to do right in Lego in my opinion, and you made it seem very natural.  I also like how you used various angles and foliage to cover some of the seams from the sloped rockwork, which can get very pixellated if you don't break it up.  The tongue in cheek nod to modern concert venues with the terraced seating, bathrooms, and drink area are hilarious and well done.  The story is a lot of fun and I hope to see the bard again, although I didn't pick up on how this venue or the bard fit into your sig fig's hometown.  I thought you did a bang up job of the slightly askew tiles making the quarter circle amphitheater, and your splashes of color with the flags and figures were great against the greys and greens. I also love slowly looking through all the figures. It's like a who's who of Lego castle figs through the ages.  Awesome job, and I hope you are able to incorporate the bard into the world some more!

[LordDan]

On 9/1/2025 at 5:00 AM, W Navarre said:

Fabulous curved amphitheater seats! Great festive fig life too, and nice Avalonian trees! 

On 9/2/2025 at 3:21 PM, LettuceBrick said:

Very organic looking trees!

Thanks guys! I really like building this style of trees, although it does burn through bar and flex tube pieces.

On 9/1/2025 at 12:45 PM, Ben S said:

Impressive build! Great attention to detail. I love the variety of the characters (I even recognize at least  one familiar face! ).

Thanks! I made sure to include as many Avalonian sig figs as I could!

On 9/2/2025 at 10:44 AM, Seagull King of Vaughan said:

I love the theater, the trees, the people…nothing feels out of place here! I love how you’ve given various banners out too.

Thank you! I based the banners on the totems and flags that are prevalent at current day music festivals, but with a castle theme! 

On 9/2/2025 at 1:12 PM, jtooker said:

And here I thought my wooded theatre was a novel idea!  Yours great terrific!  The large round curves work very well for a stone amphitheater.   Having all the kids standing up front was a great idea.

Including all the 'concessions' in back really sets the mood too.

Thanks John! I had a lot of fun coming up with ideas for different concession stands.

 

On 9/2/2025 at 3:21 PM, mrcp6d said:

Oh man, this is fantastic!  Those curved seats are perfect for the size of this build and the whole amphitheater is integrated seamlessly into the landscape.  Amazing work given all the off-grid building here.  

On 9/2/2025 at 8:26 PM, Kai NRG said:

This is very cool, particularly the rounded levels of amphitheater--I love the shot with all the minifigures, but I'm so glad you showed us the WIP shot too because otherwise I would hardly have known they were standing on a quarter circle!  A lot of the details around back are really fun too and make this feel like a real place.  Great stuff.

On 9/6/2025 at 2:27 AM, T-86(swebrickLUG) said:

You’ve nailed scale, proportions and composition in this avalonian amphitheater! Some of my favourite parts are the shaping for the seats, outhouses, trees and how the platform seems carved into the ground/hillside. The subtle walkdown where dbg and lbg connects sells that idea perfectly!

Thanks guys! The curved seats / amphitheater was very satisfying to get right! The original build I borrowed the technique from had a much larger radius for their semicircle though, so mine it pretty stressed and forced in there 

On 9/3/2025 at 2:58 PM, MKJoshA said:

Your amphitheater steals the show. But it's the details that keep you there! I love all the characters you've filled your MOC with. And the two little outhouses are a fantastic touch.

Thanks Josh! I spent way longer than I originally intended adding more and more characters into the scene. I started out planning for a sparely occupied arena so you could see the curved amphitheater, but decided it was more fun to have a packed audience! 

 

On 9/12/2025 at 5:54 PM, Eyrezer said:

Love the hunny chicken! Excellent build, I am inspired to try an amphitheatre myself

Thanks Eyrezer!! I think there's so many fantasy themed opportunities to build an amphitheater, like there are classic roman styled ones but also it could be fun to do guild themed ones such as a snowy landscape with covered seats for Mitgardia or an undead audience  watching gladiators fight it out over lava in Nocty! The opportunities are endless!

On 9/16/2025 at 6:47 PM, Grover said:

This is a fantastic build!  I love the expansiveness of it, and the technical end is awesome.  The trees are fantastic. I think it's hard to make a realistic-looking, not insanely parts intensive tree, and you did a very nice job here.  I also love the large elevation changes. Elevations are difficult to do right in Lego in my opinion, and you made it seem very natural.  I also like how you used various angles and foliage to cover some of the seams from the sloped rockwork, which can get very pixellated if you don't break it up.  The tongue in cheek nod to modern concert venues with the terraced seating, bathrooms, and drink area are hilarious and well done.  The story is a lot of fun and I hope to see the bard again, although I didn't pick up on how this venue or the bard fit into your sig fig's hometown.  I thought you did a bang up job of the slightly askew tiles making the quarter circle amphitheater, and your splashes of color with the flags and figures were great against the greys and greens. I also love slowly looking through all the figures. It's like a who's who of Lego castle figs through the ages.  Awesome job, and I hope you are able to incorporate the bard into the world some more!

Thank for the detailed feedback Grover!!! I'm very happy with how the elevation and integration into the landscape turned out, I based the landscape 5 bricks high to fit with the standard for a LUG display, which let me sink the seating and standing floor down, which turned out really well. As you noticed, I made a lot of references to modern concerts and venues, and based it on modern music festivals with banners and flags, funny costumes / hats, and some pyrotechnics . I tried to make the crowd a mix of Avalonian themed figs, references to classic castle themes, and some castle themed ravers  .I’m glad you liked the bard! I usually try to tell a story through the build itself, so the written part tends to be my weak spot.

[Yoggington]

Great work all round - the trees alone are fantastic.