[Book 1 Challenge 1 Unofficial Entry] Forestmen Castle

[Kai NRG]

As a guild leader I'm not eligible for prizes for this challenge--which also means I'm not obligated to abide by the rules    So while we wait for results, I'll trickle through some WIP photos of the round build I've been working on.  This was built as part of a BrickWorld collab which is why I didn't share WIPs publicly while it was still actually in progress.  So the build is totally complete already, don't go crazy giving me advice... that said, maybe I could incorporate some advice into the next build, and I do always appreciate constructive criticism!!

Anyways, without further ado...

 

That is where the build sat for about four months.  Then this challenge came along and I got inspired to keep going...

First stab at a tree using this technique.  Super impressed by how smoothly it makes a circle and how adaptable it is to different sizes.  I wonder where it will go from here (hint: it gets a lot bigger...)

[Grover]

Woo hoo!  I'm excited to see where you go with this.  I have always wanted to use this to make a huge tree!

[Kai NRG]

Halfway stage!

I struggled a lot with the layout of this castle.  It's on a turntable, so it needs to be 360 viewable.  The water in particular was complicated, I couldn't figure out where it came from!

I should have gotten a shot of the internals of this tree, but basically what I did was open up the ring of 1x2 rounded plates and attached both ends to the square tower, which worked really well.  Starting to add some leaves to get a feel for the framing.  Speaking of leaves... I always struggle to figure out what combination of plant parts to use.  I'm toying with those seaweed parts here, but not too happy with how bare they leave the 5x6 leaves above them.

 

I actually only used one ring of 1x2 rounded plates (toward the middle).  Two would for sure have been more stable, but even one worked okay.  At this point is when I realized that if I'm going to take this to BrickWorld, I had better make it split apart.  So I came up with the idea of making a platform/part of the castle on this part of the tree trunk, and continuing with leaves branching out of the next segment of the castle.

[SpacePolice89]

Very nice build! I especially like the beautiful waterfall.

[Grover]

Love the big rocks as the foundation with the cracks and small rocks as mortar. The round tree looks great too!  I like the 360° viewing.  The stream is lovely, but I had a thought about where it pours off the edge: if you have some time, swapping out the falling water with trans clear to make it look more white might give it a natural look. If you look at pictures of streams, generally you see that where the water velocity is highest, you have the most white where the water is splashing, and in the case of the water falling off the edge of your build, it would seem to be falling a long way. In the linked picture, the tallest falls have the fastest moving water and the most white. Where the water is a little slower, you can see some of the rocks behind the water.  I tend to use fewer tiles and more plates with studs on falling water to show the splashing as well.  Gorgeous build, can't wait to see more!

[T-86(swebrickLUG)]

Dang this is shaping up to be super cool!  360 views are always a hassle to get al details right. Like you say water is water is an example! Keep up the awesome work! 

[Kai NRG]

Thanks for the comments!  I did indeed make some adjustments to the water; I went for trans light blue for the fall instead of trans clear mostly because I always find a transition from transclear to trans light blue to be a little unreal (also because there are blue lights behind the top fall) but I got rid of the blue background on the lower fall and I think that helped a lot.

Anyways, without further ado!

It's kind of hard to present this MOC in photos, actually, since it was designed for the 360 and it's impossible to get all the good stuff in one angle!  My favorite part is probably the lit balcony, but of course the big tree is really the star of the show so I couldn't make this the first photo.

It's more of a tower than a castle, but I've built so few castles that I'm going to count it as one anyways and say that it's probably my favorite minifigure scale castles I've ever built.

I gave a good bit of thought to the color of the roof.  I wanted to keep with the earth theme (blue water, green vegetation) so I ended up with light blue as kind of a good sky color.  The whole build started with the theme of "Earth" for a collaboration with several other Eurobricks builders for BrickWorld Chicago this year.

I tried to sneak in details everywhere I could--sometimes for the sake of the detail, sometimes, as in the case of this cave, because I didn't feel like building more rockwork. 

As for the tree!  I cannot say enough good things about how well this challenge technique worked for a tree.  It was super easy to work with, very modifiable for difference sizes and even easy to integrate into the tower wall.  I wish I had thought to take some pictures of the internal structure as I was building.  But it's pretty simple really, I did just one layer of 1x2 rounded plates, rather towards the top, and then extended the dark brown plates from there.  Probably I should have done two rings for stability's sake... but I didn't.  I have this habit of doing flimsy connections to see how things look and then never strengthening them because they work well enough. 

I also really enjoyed getting some gothic detail on the tower.  These windows were quite fun, maybe the whisk is a little silly but I like it.   And gargoyles!  You can't beat gargoyles.

The idea is that this was once a chateau, but fell into disrepair (and the boughs of a tree), and has now been taken over as a base of operations by a band of merry rogues.

The inside of the tower, though somewhat ruined and exposed to the weather, still shows signs of luxury.

Besides the balcony on the left, there's also a small outpost over the tree, which primarily serves the function of saving me from having to use quite so many leaves, but is also a good spot for the forestmen to hide while shooting arrows at an approaching enemy.

As I already mentioned, the balcony is my favorite part.  I've always wondered how these cheese slope cone roofs work, and the answer is, pretty well!  Mostly I used flex tube to get varying sizes of circles, and then I used the new "ring pop" piece--a clip on bottom, stud on top--to attach the cheese slopes.  So I guess I still don't know how people did cone roofs back in the day.  I'm thinking the ring pop makes it a big easier anyways.

Towards the top the tower gets more and more rickety, but the Forestmen like their dwellings well aired (I hope).  They also love to play Nine-Men-Morris (I used to play this game a ton when I was little and was so excited when I found the sticker at my local used LEGO brick shop!).

And in case you are interested in a bit of behind the scenes, the build breaks down into two for "easy" transportation, access to batteries, etc.  As tall as it is, it's pretty top heavy assembled, so having it split in half was a real life saver though, of course, a bit of a pain during the planning stage.

Well there you have it!  Shout out again to Grover for an awesome technique that was really fun to work with.  Something tells me this will not be the last tree I build like that.  Hope y'all enjoyed the build, comments and critiques are, as always, welcome!

[T-86(swebrickLUG)]

Turned out so nice!!! Love the whisk-detail 😃 and the roofs. Overall a very, very cool build! The waterfall is chefs kiss 💪