Challenge I: Constructing Falcontop Keep

[Ayrlego]

Sir Alan de Crecy belongs to the minor Mitgardian nobility. He was knighted and awarded a small fiefdom four years ago. His lands include farm land and pasture in valleys of the southern mountains, a stone quarry, some forest and the village of Ambarvale. As a new fiefdom, created to reward de Crecy for service to the realm, no suitable residence existed. So three summers ago de Crecy started construction of a fortified keep a short distance just outside the village. The keep is being constructed on a rocky outcrop beside a shallow stream. As winter approaches for another year, work has slowed down and preperations are being made for the winter pause. In addition to the adverse weather conditions, masons almost universally agree that buildings in which construction continues over winter have a tendency to fall down. de Crecy has arrived on site to consult with his master builder, and inspect the summer's work.

This year, the second level of the keep has been finished and both the first and second levels are now habitable, although de Crecy and his family are yet to move in. Although no more stones will be laid this year, the last of the cut stone is hauled up to the construction.

Meanwhile, the roofers are busy laying the last of the slate tiles over the main hall.

Soon the exposed stone work at the top will be covered over with straw to protect it over winter and work will cease for the cold months. de Crecy is happy with the progress; all going well, the keep should be finished the following summer.

__________________________

Some additional views:

Spoiler

This build actually has some history! I started a base for a keep almost three years ago for LoR. The original finished build is here and is meant to show the laying of the foundations. Shortly after I posted the foundations, I constructed the bottom floor and some construction equipment but never photographed or posted it. Then the build went on the shelf, first the construction equipment was broken down for parts then most of the walls. The remainder then sat on the shelf for years until this challenge which provided the motivation to finally finish it! As my building style has somewhat changed over the last couple of years, I completely rebuilt the base and most of the first level (not much of the original remains!). I then added the second story and built a new trundle crane and scaffolding as well as adding the incomplete roof tiles. The design of the keep is based on these two classic builds: Crown Knights Castle by de Gothia and Legonardo's Crown Knights Remix. I created a new character as a minor noble to tell different stories to Yngvi, although I plan for their paths to cross both in the past and future.

[W Navarre]

Fantastic! I love the building in progress!  The roof, the crane, and the wood around the building!  Also love that little detail which the crane is picking up, and the manor itself is great, the inset windows look very good. The one little critique I have is that I wish you had not left all those studs on the top ooof the walls they are building. Maybe it's a nice nod to LEGO building, but it is distracting, fo me at least, and could be tiled (leaving a few studs perhaps). 

Edited October 12, 2018 by W Navarre

[Kai NRG]

This is a pretty wonderful completed WIP, if I may be allowed the expression - great job showing more than one aspect with the stones and roofing both going on.  I also really like the frame around the arch on the flat roof section.  As I said on Flickr, I love how this looks both like a home and a fortification - it's got the perfect layout for that!  Really nice scaffolding and I particularly like the double arch cross slits on the lower level.

[zoth33]

Great job.  The base is very nice.  I like how the landscaping is simple yet effective.  The keep looks great too, I really like the walls and the peak at the roof line is very intricate.  I also like the crane and the roof being built.  The windows on the lower level are excellent.  

[Tezclatipoca]

Nice build ! It's clean and efficient !

Is the crane functional ? I like its design, very close to real ones.

Great job !

[halixon]

This is absolutely amazing! It's simple, yet intricate. The bridge and outcroppings are the real eye-catchers.

[Basiliscus]

Another fantastic build as always David! Wonderful crisp photography makes everything really clear, and there's lot of nice details: the wooden frame behind the roof tiles, the crane and the door embellishments.

A few nitpicks: as @W Navarre said I think the studs at the top are a bit out of place and the way it's finished completely flat seem a little abrupt. I also think that from a health and safety point of view that bridge should have some kind of hand rail for people crossing it! 

In all seriousness a great entry, great work!

[Ayrlego]

On 10/13/2018 at 9:13 AM, W Navarre said:

Fantastic! I love the building in progress!  The roof, the crane, and the wood around the building!  Also love that little detail which the crane is picking up, and the manor itself is great, the inset windows look very good. The one little critique I have is that I wish you had not left all those studs on the top ooof the walls they are building. Maybe it's a nice nod to LEGO building, but it is distracting, fo me at least, and could be tiled (leaving a few studs perhaps). 

Thanks Navarre, I did consider tiling the top bricks, as you suspected I decided to leave them as a nod building. As always I am now not too sure if that was the right decision!

On 10/13/2018 at 12:30 PM, Kai NRG said:

This is a pretty wonderful completed WIP, if I may be allowed the expression - great job showing more than one aspect with the stones and roofing both going on.  I also really like the frame around the arch on the flat roof section.  As I said on Flickr, I love how this looks both like a home and a fortification - it's got the perfect layout for that!  Really nice scaffolding and I particularly like the double arch cross slits on the lower level.

Thank you Kai, a mixture of home and castle was what I was going for, good to know I got it right!

On 10/13/2018 at 2:05 PM, zoth33 said:

Great job.  The base is very nice.  I like how the landscaping is simple yet effective.  The keep looks great too, I really like the walls and the peak at the roof line is very intricate.  I also like the crane and the roof being built.  The windows on the lower level are excellent.  

Thanks Zoth!

On 10/13/2018 at 10:11 PM, Faladrin said:

Nice build ! It's clean and efficient !

Is the crane functional ? I like its design, very close to real ones.

Great job !

Thanks Faladrin, the crane is functional... well kind of. You could wind the string up but it isn't connected to the trundle (which actually has a minifig inside that I realise now you can't really see!).

17 hours ago, Windusky said:

This is absolutely amazing! It's simple, yet intricate. The bridge and outcroppings are the real eye-catchers.

Thank you!

9 hours ago, Basiliscus said:

Another fantastic build as always David! Wonderful crisp photography makes everything really clear, and there's lot of nice details: the wooden frame behind the roof tiles, the crane and the door embellishments.

A few nitpicks: as @W Navarre said I think the studs at the top are a bit out of place and the way it's finished completely flat seem a little abrupt. I also think that from a health and safety point of view that bridge should have some kind of hand rail for people crossing it! 

In all seriousness a great entry, great work!

Thanks Colin. Funnily enough I did consider workplace health and safety - those roofers working at height aren't wearing harnesses! I didn't consider the bridge though, I left it rail-less as a disadvantage to attackers..

[Professor Thaum]

That's a great realisation, as usual.

 

the scaffolding on beam is really well made, and there is a wonderful job around all the openings of that built.

Edited October 15, 2018 by Professor Thaum

[mccoyed]

Great entry. I don't know if you intended this, but I think including some visible studs in the top layers is a clever touch. It helps sell that "under construction" feel.

[Gideon]

Excellent entry! Great layout of the building and very good detailing overall

I really like the various parts of scaffolding and wooden support, making it a very believable construction site. The roof under construction is also top notch!

It's also nice to see how far you've progressed since 2015, both in your building style and photography. That's what we usually market GoH as a place to do also, but I suppose LoR and BoBS are also great places to polish your style in

[Gabe]

Ah, this is beautiful! The construction scene is excellent, the roof lattice showing through the tiles is my fav part. The fortified manor is very nicely intergrated into the rockwork as well.

[Gunman]

 

I just see pure win over here....

That amazing photography... that AMAZING roof with those exposed wooden parts... what can I say... just to admire 

Edited October 16, 2018 by Gunman

[Rogue Angel]

Great job on this build!  From the first three pictures, the build seemed a bit more limited in scale, but your actual build was much more substantial.  I am a big fan of the framing beneath the roof, the scaffolding along the top and the crane.  Very nice keep!

[soccerkid6]

Brilliant fortress set up. The clean classic style is beautiful, and gives the impression of a very solid castle  Top-notch  construction details as well. Using bars for the wooden frame of the roof is brilliant and well incorporated  I like the color choice  you made for the water, with trans clear over dark tan. It fits the late autumn setting well 

[adde51]

Lovely work and as always very crisp photography. Really like the look of the building itself, very nice balance between being solid and serving a purpose, as well as interesting (beautiful) to look at. The crane is fantastic! Also a little torn about how I feel about the studs on top of the tower, maybe it would have look a little ”better” with fewer of them exposed. Or at least by changing the height a little on a few of them. But at the same time I cant help but really like the studs showing, especially when it’s done intentionally as a nod to lego building. After all, what would we all do without these wonderful studs, haha! 

Anyways, overall a really impressive entry, best of luck to you 

[Grover]

This is amazing.  I think this may be my favorite of the rebuild challenge, for a lot of reasons combined.  There's a lot of great builds here, but this one not only has amazing detail in almost every aspect (the roofing joists under the shingles, the nice hamster wheel crane, the scaffolding, the landscape, etc.), but it's got a great throwback to the black falcons.  If this were a set from TLG, I'd buy it without question.  Would be a nice start to a modular castle line!

[Gideon]

Congratulations  
https://www.brothers-brick.com/2018/10/18/lego-outpost-under-construction/

[Henjin_Quilones]

I really enjoy this build! There is so much to appreciate in it, from the solid look of the buildings to the nice little section of landscaping giving it all context. The construction part of it is also quite lovely, as the crane looks nicely scaled to the tower and the frame below the roof is excellent. I personally both like and dislike what you did leaving the studs exposed: on the one hand, it makes it LEGO; but on the other, it looks unpolished. I think either way it is fine, but I would probably lean towards getting some tiles up there myself. And the upgrades you did from the original build are spectacular, and testament to how far your skills have progressed! Nicely done. 

[mrcp6d]

The roofing in progress is stellar in concept and execution and the water looks good with dark tan as the base color--I'm not sure if I've ever seen that.