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Ayrlego

AoM: Tower Phase 1: Roadside Outpost

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Previously.

With summer coming to an end, herdsmen arrived in the summer pastures to take over care of the livestock from Yngvi and Erik. The herdsmen would soon begin to round up the livestock and drive them back down into the valleys for winter. As payment for their work, Yngvi and Erik are given one of the goats, whom Erik has named Clover. Originally Yngvi had intended return to his village and settle Erik in with family; however, after spending the summer with his son, he is loath to leave him again. As the pair head back down the mountains, Yngvi reflects on his options.

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Just before the first permanent settlements appear, the pair come across a freshly constructed outpost at a somewhat strategic point on the side of the road. One of the militia men manning the post was a familiar face from Yngvi's time in the militia, a good warrior by the name of Leif. The two greeted each other. Leif explained that the local authorities, concerned with increasing levels of banditry in the mountain passes; had raised some troops to establish a series of temporary outposts. These outposts would be manned until the herds from the valley towns and villages had all returned from summer pasture. Yngvi was tempted by an offer of work from Leif's, but he needed to return with Erik to their village to prepare for the coming winter. Clover the goat would help by providing milk and cheese; and Yngvi had a small amount of coin in a bag around his neck to buy grain, but he doubted it was enough to support the two of them throughout a long and cold winter. Leif explained that a nearby village was very short of labour, and if Yngvi and Erik were looking for a couple of days or weeks work on their way back down; they could probably find it there. So with thanks, Yngvi, Erik and Clover set out for the village in search of work.

 

__________

 

A relatively simple scene to progress Ygnvi's story. I have decided to change my character a little bit and make Erik his son. When I showed my own son my first build, he saw a small blonde boy with a bearded man and assumed it was a Lego representation of himself and me (not my original intention!). He then wanted to know what adventures Lego us would have next, so I have decided to share my stories with him if that makes any sense!

A couple of new techniques for me with this one, my first attempt at realistic looking pine trees using the weaving technique as demonstrated by Full Plate in a tutorial here. I wanted to get a really temporary looking tower with tapered legs leading to a flimsy wooden base. Although I'm sure it has been done by someone before, I was able to use some flexibility in the 1x1 round brick stacks and a system of square plates that decrease in size by one stud for each level to create the elongated sides. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out as my previous attempts at wooden towers have always been very square. I did originally try to increase the taper by using squares that decreased by 2 studs; however, it was way too unstable. By using only a one stud decrease, the build is actually pretty stable and I was able to detach it and move it around a few times.

Anyway thanks for looking, C&C always welcome. I have something a bit bigger almost ready, but needed to advance Yngvi's story a bit first!

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I love the tower! The trees are very nice looking, and I like the foliage along the path.

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Awesome tower, very appealing combination of colors for the ground and plants, and I really dig that ladder design.

The only things I'd change would be to add 1x1 tiles at the corners of the squares to clean up the edge where the plates meet the round vertical elements, and maybe add some internal structure to your 1x1 stacks to keep them from curving.  Otherwise, good story and great build.

Edited by The Stad

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The build is really nice, especially those trees. The tower is well done, showing a beautifully executed temporary-sort of watchtower without frills. The tapered supports work very well. The irregularly attached 1x4 tiles at the top of the tower look great as a way to show the hasty wooden construction. The landscape is nicely restrained, with enough detail but not too much to look too busy. 

My one real critique is that the whole build seems to be leaning. The trees are leaning to the right, the tower seems to be angled to the right, and even the guard at the base of the tower seems to be leaning a bit to the right. Perhaps it could be fixed by adjusting the picture slightly in a photo editor, at least the tower, which is presumably not leaning in real life. 

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I think the watchtower is very clean with the trees and ground leaving a nice counter-balance in terms of coloration and texture. I think Henjin is right about the lean, but it does sort of sell a windy effect which may be unintentional. I also like the story and the personal bit about your son. Stuff like that is great fuel for storytelling!

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I do like the trees, very nice. Great texture and color pallet on the path and landscape.

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Great job making some tall trees and then an even taller tower, really gives the MOC a sense of height!  And as others have said, those trees really do look good, perfect representation of the classic evergreen!

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Great build as always !

The tower is clean and well designed and those trees are quite good ! Even if they seem to be a little fragile IMO. Do you use something in the main tree structure to maintain them or are you just using foliage juxtaposition ?

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Lovely tower! Decreasing the platforms by one stud per level is just genius :wub: Also, I'm a big fan of the ladder

The vegetation is good-looking too, the trees came out nicely and the colourscheme is very Mitgardian. 

Lastly, that little cooking fire is such a sweet detail, I just had to point it out :thumbup:

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On 9/11/2018 at 11:06 PM, W Navarre said:

A very nice tower, but the trees are the coolest thing!  How hard is that technique? 

Thanks! The technique isn't hard at all, although I did wince a few times bending the leaf pieces to weave them. The hardest part was the three weave at the top. The trees themselves look better IRL, where they don't look like they are leaning as much!

On 9/12/2018 at 1:33 AM, Windusky said:

I love the tower! The trees are very nice looking, and I like the foliage along the path.

Thank you!

On 9/12/2018 at 1:56 AM, The Stad said:

Awesome tower, very appealing combination of colors for the ground and plants, and I really dig that ladder design.

The only things I'd change would be to add 1x1 tiles at the corners of the squares to clean up the edge where the plates meet the round vertical elements, and maybe add some internal structure to your 1x1 stacks to keep them from curving.  Otherwise, good story and great build.

Thanks, I actually intended to use 1x1 plates in the corners... not sure how they got missed out ... :wall:  Good idea with the 1x1 stacks... I need to get some more flexi-tube for internal structures as at the moment I am several lacking.

On 9/12/2018 at 3:15 AM, TheLordOfBricks said:

Awesome work! Good composition and colors! Some great textures here as well. :) Keep it up! :)

Thank you, I'll try!

On 9/12/2018 at 5:48 AM, Henjin_Quilones said:

The build is really nice, especially those trees. The tower is well done, showing a beautifully executed temporary-sort of watchtower without frills. The tapered supports work very well. The irregularly attached 1x4 tiles at the top of the tower look great as a way to show the hasty wooden construction. The landscape is nicely restrained, with enough detail but not too much to look too busy. 

My one real critique is that the whole build seems to be leaning. The trees are leaning to the right, the tower seems to be angled to the right, and even the guard at the base of the tower seems to be leaning a bit to the right. Perhaps it could be fixed by adjusting the picture slightly in a photo editor, at least the tower, which is presumably not leaning in real life. 

Thanks. Regarding the lean you are right. For what was supposed to be quite a simple build I really struggled to get a good photo for some reason. The whole thing definitely doesn't look so angled IRL, so I suspect you are correct and it is the rotation of the photo.

On 9/12/2018 at 6:58 AM, Bracari said:

I do like the trees, very nice. Great texture and color pallet on the path and landscape.

Thank you!

On 9/12/2018 at 8:37 AM, Kai NRG said:

Great job making some tall trees and then an even taller tower, really gives the MOC a sense of height!  And as others have said, those trees really do look good, perfect representation of the classic evergreen!

Thanks, I was nice to have some nice tall trees for a change. I'm quite happy with the design, I just need to perfect squashing the stacks of leaves a bit more aggressively to get a better shape (I think I was probably too timid this time...)

On 9/13/2018 at 10:28 PM, Faladrin said:

Great build as always !

The tower is clean and well designed and those trees are quite good ! Even if they seem to be a little fragile IMO. Do you use something in the main tree structure to maintain them or are you just using foliage juxtaposition ?

Thanks Faladrin, They were indeed a bit fragile, although not as bad as some of my previous trees! Both trees have a dark brown internal structure. Mostly 3 high slopes with some bricks and round plates. Originally I didn't use any internal structure, but I found building a tapering trunk right to the top seemed to stabilise them much better than the leaves just balancing on each other. 

On 9/14/2018 at 1:54 AM, The Last of Nergoue said:

Very nice clean build, i really enjoy the tower.

 

On 9/14/2018 at 3:22 AM, mlongworth said:

Love the colors and the trees

Thanks!

On 9/14/2018 at 6:18 PM, TitusV said:

Lovely tower! Decreasing the platforms by one stud per level is just genius :wub: Also, I'm a big fan of the ladder

The vegetation is good-looking too, the trees came out nicely and the colourscheme is very Mitgardian. 

Lastly, that little cooking fire is such a sweet detail, I just had to point it out :thumbup:

Thanks Titus, I was tempted not to include a ladder, however some annoying part of me kept saying, how do they get up then.... so glad you liked it!

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The tapering tower structure is genius in its simplicity :wub: Consider that design stolen :laugh:
Lovely choice of landscape colors and plants - looks perfectly Mitgardian :thumbup: The old tree stump and campfire are just the kind of small details to complete the build.

And naturally the pine trees are beautiful!

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Nice design of the tower! The trees are also very fitting for the scene :thumbup:

A couple of photo notes however. S
traightening the photo (so that vertical shapes in the middle of the scene are vertical) and some simple editing to remove the line in the lower right corner would have improved the presentation.

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