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Ovenntrie Castle

A freebuild for Avalonia.

 

Just off of the coast to the west of Avalonia, in the waters near the mouth of the River Lotharia, lies an island inhabited by Men. These Men are unique in that they are the only outsiders permitted near the famously exclusionary enclave of Hesperia, where High Elves, ruled by Fingolë the Golden, reside. Their castle is joined to the mainland by a bridge high enough for even the high masted ships of the elves to sail beneath, with room and more to spare. 

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The humans have become wealthy due to their exclusive access to high-quality Elvish goods, and the elves have enjoyed the influx of money as well from the trade. It is not uncommon to see the ships of the Elves sailing into the Ovenntrie harbor to dock alongside the fishing vessels of the men, unloading their goods. The Hesperian Elves utilize enormous eagles as mounts for their messengers, so the men of Ovenntrie designed their keep to accommodate the preferences of the birds for a lofty landing and take-off position. Due to the amount of money involved, and the considerable amount of respect shown by the humans towards the elves, the settlement is a haven of peace and prosperity for both sides.

Here an Elvish vessel approaches under the bridge, coming to unload its goods and take on others. 

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The castle features a blacksmith shop and stables near the gate, as well as a decorative fountain that also serves as the water source for the castle, keeping them well-supplied in the event of a siege. 

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A similar fountain in the town square below gives life and vitality to the celebrations of the humans. Long stairs lead from the town to the side gate of the castle

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More pictures:

Spoiler

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This was a build I did for the Summer Joust 2018, entered into the 48x48 castle category. I was pretty pleased with how it turned out, despite it being my first serious venture into the world of microscale building. I might just have gotten hooked though, so expect to see more microscale builds (and minifig scale, too) in the days and weeks to come. C&C welcome!

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I love the colors of this microscale, and the layout too!  So many neat details, like the round building (forget exactly what those things are called :laugh: ) on the edge of the cliff, the bridge, fountains, and castle courtyard!  I for one would definitely love to see more microscale from you!

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Oh yes! Great work Henjin! My personal favorite 48 x 48 entry of the contest, the colors and shaping are so nice and I now noticed the village below the castle, which I haven't seen before... Keep it up! :)

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I've been wondering when this was going to make its way over to these forums...

I love how tall this is, while still feeling sturdy.  The use of microscale really allows a sense of grandeur, as you noted the other day, and it's great to see a large castle and its town in their entirety.  I'm a fan of your unusual color combination for the ground and your use of tan in a non-Kaliphlin build, and the amount of detail you've packed in is very impressive.

My only detractions would be that your buttresses on the keep could go up a bit higher and the tree cover seems a little sparse for Avalonia.  Also, I would have expected to see one or two of those towers with a flat "landing pad" roof for the eagles.

Edited by The Stad

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Very nice microscale layout overall, with some excellent details like the stairs and the ship :thumbup:

I like the almost cartoonish feeling of the high keep with it's smooth walls and towers of varying height, a proper fairytale castle :classic: 

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Wow, I hadn't noticed the interior before! That fountain is dedication, I hate having to bury things like that :P .  And of course, congrats on getting second place in the Summer Joust with this! 

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Definitely a gorgeous micro-castle, HQ - loving all that dark brown! :grin: The color scheme is excellent, and all the angles in the castle walls (and with the bridge) make this very sophisticated and aesthetically pleasing :thumbup: I'll echo @W Navarre about that fountain! :laugh:

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This is a great miniature. Don't know if I've even seen a better castle micro build, especially at this scale!

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I can't believe this to be a first microscale, its just too good! :tongue:

I'm loving both the small details (like the excellent fountain designs :thumbup:) and the general lay-out, with the castle towering over the harbour and the angled bridge :wub: 

Just thinking out loud now, but woulf it be a possibility to add some coloured roofs to a few buildings (for example: the little stands in the castle) to spice things up?

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Nice micro build!  I particularly like the use of the grating brick for stairs.  It works well.  I like the overall effect, as it gives a really good sense of the city plan without having to use thousands of pieces trying to do that on minifig scale (and photographing that size would be a nightmare).  I am curious: is the water supposed to be from the river or from the ocean?  If it's the ocean it may be a bit too calm.  Maybe some clear trans plates would look like some surf.

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Brilliant castle, with a tremendous layout :wub::wub: Your eye is immediately drawn to the soaring keep of the castle, and the dark bley and gold roofs look marvelous against the tan walls :thumbup:

Very impressive work with the interior buildings, and masonry brick courtyard too.

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Great castle, so little and so much details.

Colorscheme is great too. The water looks realy cool, gives it realy depth.

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On 8/22/2018 at 4:04 PM, Kai NRG said:

I love the colors of this microscale, and the layout too!  So many neat details, like the round building (forget exactly what those things are called :laugh: ) on the edge of the cliff, the bridge, fountains, and castle courtyard!  I for one would definitely love to see more microscale from you!

Thanks, Kai, hopefully I can get my microscale finished and photographed soon. I am back to more conventional colors, though, with dark bley rocks and light bley walls...

The layout ended up being mostly what fit as I went along - I had a general idea of what I thought it should look like, but very few details were planned. 

On 8/22/2018 at 4:14 PM, TheLordOfBricks said:

Oh yes! Great work Henjin! My personal favorite 48 x 48 entry of the contest, the colors and shaping are so nice and I now noticed the village below the castle, which I haven't seen before... Keep it up! :)

Thanks! It might not have won, but second place wasn't bad. The village was something I decided the castle needed, some way to connect to the harbor and a place for regular folk to live. 

On 8/22/2018 at 4:33 PM, The Stad said:

I've been wondering when this was going to make its way over to these forums...

I love how tall this is, while still feeling sturdy.  The use of microscale really allows a sense of grandeur, as you noted the other day, and it's great to see a large castle and its town in their entirety.  I'm a fan of your unusual color combination for the ground and your use of tan in a non-Kaliphlin build, and the amount of detail you've packed in is very impressive.

My only detractions would be that your buttresses on the keep could go up a bit higher and the tree cover seems a little sparse for Avalonia.  Also, I would have expected to see one or two of those towers with a flat "landing pad" roof for the eagles.

Thanks! I don't have anything in tan that is longer (or higher) than the 1x4x1 slopes I used for the buttresses, so there is little to fix that, I am afraid. The tree cover is limited due to two factors: 1, my parts collection; and 2, a good castle should not have much tree cover around it, as it could be used by enemies to attack unseen. And not all of Avalonia is covered with trees, after all. 

The eagle landing pad is between the main keep and the central round tower, on top of the connecting bridge (to the right and above the main doorway into the keep). It is not a separate tower, or on the roof, but on top of a bridge. 

On 8/22/2018 at 4:38 PM, Gideon said:

Very nice microscale layout overall, with some excellent details like the stairs and the ship :thumbup:

I like the almost cartoonish feeling of the high keep with it's smooth walls and towers of varying height, a proper fairytale castle :classic: 

Thanks, Gideon! I had originally thought to make it an elvish castle, but ended up thinking it looked too human still, so I changed my mind. But the lofty fairy-tale castle ideal was something I was hoping to attain nonetheless. 

On 8/22/2018 at 5:25 PM, narbilu said:

So cool... love every detail

Thanks, Narb!

On 8/22/2018 at 6:25 PM, W Navarre said:

Wow, I hadn't noticed the interior before! That fountain is dedication, I hate having to bury things like that :P .  And of course, congrats on getting second place in the Summer Joust with this! 

The full thing is detailed, meant to be viewed from every side; I am a little sad none of my pictures showed the interior of the upper wall around the keep, but oh well. The fountain indeed was a pain, with multiple layers having to be ripped out and rebuilt when someone decided to add the detail towards the end...

On 8/22/2018 at 7:08 PM, Garmadon said:

Definitely a gorgeous micro-castle, HQ - loving all that dark brown! :grin: The color scheme is excellent, and all the angles in the castle walls (and with the bridge) make this very sophisticated and aesthetically pleasing :thumbup: I'll echo @W Navarre about that fountain! :laugh:

Thanks, Garm!

On 8/23/2018 at 1:54 AM, mccoyed said:

This is a great miniature. Don't know if I've even seen a better castle micro build, especially at this scale!

High praise, indeed! Thanks! 

On 8/23/2018 at 5:53 PM, TitusV said:

I can't believe this to be a first microscale, its just too good! :tongue:

I'm loving both the small details (like the excellent fountain designs :thumbup:) and the general lay-out, with the castle towering over the harbour and the angled bridge :wub: 

Just thinking out loud now, but woulf it be a possibility to add some coloured roofs to a few buildings (for example: the little stands in the castle) to spice things up?

Thanks, Titus! It was indeed my first real attempt at microscale, but I copied techniques left and right from other more experienced builders. I deliberately chose to keep the roofs mostly monotone, so as to convey the idea that everyone got their materials from the same place, at roughly the same time. It did not make sense to me to have them be different, even though I wanted to do something else when I began to run out of dark bley cheese!

On 8/24/2018 at 1:04 AM, Grover said:

Nice micro build!  I particularly like the use of the grating brick for stairs.  It works well.  I like the overall effect, as it gives a really good sense of the city plan without having to use thousands of pieces trying to do that on minifig scale (and photographing that size would be a nightmare).  I am curious: is the water supposed to be from the river or from the ocean?  If it's the ocean it may be a bit too calm.  Maybe some clear trans plates would look like some surf.

The water is mostly from the ocean, though it is near the mouth of the river, too. It was just a still day... That and I wanted the water to be almost stylized and smooth, since the scale is so small. Putting studs out there would be heavy surf!

On 8/24/2018 at 10:59 AM, Andrew Spader said:

You scaled this really well. 

Thanks!

On 8/26/2018 at 8:35 AM, soccerkid6 said:

Brilliant castle, with a tremendous layout :wub::wub: Your eye is immediately drawn to the soaring keep of the castle, and the dark bley and gold roofs look marvelous against the tan walls :thumbup:

Very impressive work with the interior buildings, and masonry brick courtyard too.

Thanks, SK! I tried to build something that would have a compelling visual layout, hence the high keep. 

On 8/26/2018 at 11:10 AM, neonic said:

Great castle, so little and so much details.

Colorscheme is great too. The water looks realy cool, gives it realy depth.

Thanks! I like the colors quite a bit myself. I have used them before in multiple builds set in Hesperia. 

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24 minutes ago, Henjin_Quilones said:

...

Thanks, Titus! It was indeed my first real attempt at microscale, but I copied techniques left and right from other more experienced builders. I deliberately chose to keep the roofs mostly monotone, so as to convey the idea that everyone got their materials from the same place, at roughly the same time. It did not make sense to me to have them be different, even though I wanted to do something else when I began to run out of dark bley cheese!

... 

Okay, that makes a lot of sense to me. Now the MOC is even cooler!

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