Henjin_Quilones

The Isle of Druidham [Avalonia Task III]

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The Isle of Druidham

A freebuild for Avalonia

Also a build for Avalonia Task III

 

 

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Deep in the midst of the Mystic Isles, beyond the routes normally taken by traders and travelers crossing the mist-shrouded network of islands and channels, lies a small rocky island pocked with caves. When Henjin Quilones and his wife Galaria returned to Avalonia after visiting the land of Mwamba, they needed a place to settle down, as they had been exiled by Galaria's father, King Fingolë the Golden, from the western High Elf kingdom of Hesperia and could not return thither. Also, during their travels they had had two children, Gahlen and Emmalie, and they needed somewhere to raise them and keep them safe. A life spent on the road was not an option for their family. 

In addition to their children, Henjin and Galaria had companions who had traveled with them, many of them fellow exiles from Hesperia, but others had been picked up along their travels: an orc, named Grisshak, who had been found half-dead in a ditch after a battle; a family of dwarves who had caught wind of a potential job working with stone; a couple of gnomes from Bandari, including the mad genius Injini; a forest Grent who aspired to be a Druid; a family of Werecoons; and a veritable army of others. They needed a place to settle and build, and Henjin had had the idea to search out the ancient Druid shrine that was located, according to legend, somewhere in the center of the Mystic Isles. So to the Mystic Isles the whole crew went, and Henjin had selected this particular island, unsettled by anyone, but bearing the marks of having once been home to Druids in some bygone age. And so they named the island Druidham.

Now, there was one other group that was with the various races who made up the new inhabitants of Druidham: the dragons. During their years in Bandari and greater Mwamba, Galaria and several of her elf companions had been privileged to form soul-bonds with freshly hatched dragons. Some of the dragons, including Galaria's own Daeara, had even had hatchlings of their own since then, which was how Gahlen and their youngest daughter, Lycaria, had managed to also form soul-bonds with their very own dragons. It helps if your mother is the Mistress of the Dragons, and your father is the Master of the Druidi Order. 

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For on the island of Druidham, there are two main groups: the nascent Druidi Order, resurrected from the ashes of the old Druids when Henjin appeared from the stars, and the Dragonriders of Avalonia, dedicated to training elves and dragons in the defense of the realm. A third group, no less important, provides the support the other groups need, as farmers, herders, smiths, cooks, housekeepers, stewards, and everything else necessary for sustaining a full settlement. There is no way to the island save by water or air, but for those who visit there is a guesthouse that is always ready to receive visitors of any race or creed. A few of the surrounding islands are used to pasture large herds of sheep and goats, mostly to serve as food for hungry dragons. Oddly, the sheep do not like to live on the island where the dragons themselves live. 

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Spoiler

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Another micro build from me, slightly less polished than Ovenntrie Castle, perhaps, but more intricate in many ways, with all of the different angles in the rockwork to make the dragon caves. It started as a small vignette-size build for the Summer Joust that I decided to expand into a 48x48 build. I plan to flesh out the island one building at a time, or one section at a time, since most of the "buildings" are in caves hollowed out of the mountain itself. Expect a bunch of interior builds!

C&C welcome. 

Edited by Henjin_Quilones

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Another gorgeous micro-build, HQ - that pink is fantastic! :wub:  Beautiful water and photography, and great job incorporating the towers and walls into the landscape as well :thumbup:

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You really shine with these micros, this one has a lovely blend of colors - I can't get over the transparency of your waters and the pink works so well!  Great use of headlight bricks on the buildings and the dragon dens around back are spot on.  The lighthouse is perfect and I love the waterfalls, not to mention the part of the building (dormitories and kitchen) built into the rock!  Keep these micro builds coming! :thumbup: 

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Excellent Micro as I have said before, great that you expanded your initial SJ entry! Great colors all around and nice parts use for the towers! Keep up the good work. :)

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This is really well done and evocative of Mont St Michael in France. The way it looks built into the mountain is the most amazing part. All the little touches help bring it to life though. Lots of good micro build techniques on display.

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Wow! Fantastic build, you really captured the scale well! As said above, I like how you've blended the structures into the landscape. 

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So many really nice part usages, from the grill bricks as steps from the pier, to the grill tiles as windows, and the sideways headlight bricks as narrow windows.

The overall design and aesthetic is really nice, and I can totally imagine this being a bit like Mont St Michel or something like that.

The last shot with the annotations is a nice touch and I enjoyed seeing your thought process.

Great work! :thumbup:

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Not at all a fan of micros so far -  you've just made me change my mind a great deal! I love how intricate it can turn even while you managed not to overbuild it and spaced apart every little section from each other just enough (love the taglines too! :laugh:). There are also some nice angles to mention and I really like how you made the stairs :thumbup:

Also, good to read more of the story! I've been reading back what I missed over the last year, but pretty sure you hadn't mentioned so far that Henjin and Galaria.. well.. that :grin:

EDIT: I missed you tasks 1&2, didn't I? Link pls? :tongue:

Edited by en_zoo

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Wow! Simply amazing! I wish I had such skill with microscale! You're an inspiration Henjin!

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On 10/31/2018 at 6:28 PM, Garmadon said:

Another gorgeous micro-build, HQ - that pink is fantastic! :wub:  Beautiful water and photography, and great job incorporating the towers and walls into the landscape as well :thumbup:

Thanks, Garm! I got a little bit of pink from a PAB wall, and immediately wished that I had filled a full cup with it. Oh well. 

On 10/31/2018 at 6:59 PM, Kai NRG said:

You really shine with these micros, this one has a lovely blend of colors - I can't get over the transparency of your waters and the pink works so well!  Great use of headlight bricks on the buildings and the dragon dens around back are spot on.  The lighthouse is perfect and I love the waterfalls, not to mention the part of the building (dormitories and kitchen) built into the rock!  Keep these micro builds coming! :thumbup: 

Thanks, Kai! The secret to the water is to...well, I don't know. This one has a layer of 1x1 round plates in trans-light blue under the trans-light blue tiles, so perhaps that adds to the depth somewhat, but it seems like whenever I use the trans-light blue tiles, even with other things underneath, it still comes out bright and vibrant. But I wanted especially to hide on this one that there are both green and blue baseplates under this build. My idea for what this part of the Mystic Isles looks like involves a bunch of "Friends-and-Elves colors" foliage-wise, so I love the pink myself - it creates a fantastic, otherworldly, and magical feel, I think. 

On 10/31/2018 at 7:44 PM, TheLordOfBricks said:

Excellent Micro as I have said before, great that you expanded your initial SJ entry! Great colors all around and nice parts use for the towers! Keep up the good work. :)

Thanks! The SJ entry was the seed that inspired me to expand to the whole island, to see if I could pull off the vision for what I hoped it could be. 

On 10/31/2018 at 10:55 PM, Muakhah said:

This is really well done and evocative of Mont St Michael in France. The way it looks built into the mountain is the most amazing part. All the little touches help bring it to life though. Lots of good micro build techniques on display.

Thanks! I wanted it to be very tied to the rock of the island, integrally so, so I am glad the effect works! And I love Mont-Saint-Michel. 

On 10/31/2018 at 10:56 PM, The_Nev said:

Wow! Fantastic build, you really captured the scale well! As said above, I like how you've blended the structures into the landscape. 

Thanks! I hoped to make the scale consistent throughout, and to somewhat correlate with what I end up building at minifig scale, too. 

On 11/1/2018 at 4:07 AM, Basiliscus said:

So many really nice part usages, from the grill bricks as steps from the pier, to the grill tiles as windows, and the sideways headlight bricks as narrow windows.

The overall design and aesthetic is really nice, and I can totally imagine this being a bit like Mont St Michel or something like that.

The last shot with the annotations is a nice touch and I enjoyed seeing your thought process.

Great work! :thumbup:

Thanks! The picture with the annotations was a last-second thought I had, because I was looking through a DK SW book that was explaining all the little details. It made me think of how I love to get the idea of what the different parts of something do, and when I build some of these buildings later people can refer back to this and see how it all fits together. 

On 11/1/2018 at 1:28 PM, en_zoo said:

Not at all a fan of micros so far -  you've just made me change my mind a great deal! I love how intricate it can turn even while you managed not to overbuild it and spaced apart every little section from each other just enough (love the taglines too! :laugh:). There are also some nice angles to mention and I really like how you made the stairs :thumbup:

Also, good to read more of the story! I've been reading back what I missed over the last year, but pretty sure you hadn't mentioned so far that Henjin and Galaria.. well.. that :grin:

EDIT: I missed you tasks 1&2, didn't I? Link pls? :tongue:

Thanks, en_zoo! I only started to fall in love with micros myself. I think it was @soccerkid6's Rivendell that really made me change my mind a while ago, and then this past summer I started to try my hand at them. I love them now, but I think I need to devote some more time to minifig scale stuff for a bit here. 

And I haven't done task 1 or 2 yet, so they are nowhere to be found... You can do them in any order, whatever suits your building schedule. 

20 hours ago, Windusky said:

Wow! Simply amazing! I wish I had such skill with microscale! You're an inspiration Henjin!

Thanks, Windusky! Practice, I guess, and steal (er, borrow) ideas from other builders whose micro creations you like. That's what I did. 

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This is an awesome microbuild.  I love the way it looks, its so realistic.  Very nice job with all the tree colors and the actual buildings are great.  Looks great against a skyline.  

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Great micro-scale, I love the window solutions you cam up with, the towers, the foliage, the stairs, the water and the small bits of pink. The only thing I'm not sure about are the rocks but I don't know if they could be done better in such a small scale...  Anyway, keep it up! :thumbup: 

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You're really killing it with these micro builds!  Great job!  I love not only the build and creative use of pieces that others have commented on (sideways headlight bricks, the two grill pieces, the grill façade bricks for stairs, etc.), but I like that you have detailed the picture of your build pointing out each of the rooms in the fortress according to your story.  By the way, what is that grey technic piece that you and Basilicus have used for the columns/towers?  I can't seem to find it.

Usually I am not a fan of the trans light blue, but because you have the bright green and pinks here (which are used to awesome effect), and your island is on the mystic isles, it seems to really bring out the brightness and compliment the highly magical feel of the build, and I think it works really well here.  Great job!

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On 11/2/2018 at 3:22 PM, de Gothia said:

Holy banana!! What an epic microscale! Lovely details and great part usage!

Thanks, dG!

On 11/2/2018 at 8:48 PM, zoth33 said:

This is an awesome microbuild.  I love the way it looks, its so realistic.  Very nice job with all the tree colors and the actual buildings are great.  Looks great against a skyline.  

Thanks, zoth! I try to make microbuilds interesting at the top, with different heights of towers and rocks, since it makes it more visually compelling. 

On 11/3/2018 at 7:34 AM, LegoModularFan said:

Great micro-scale, I love the window solutions you cam up with, the towers, the foliage, the stairs, the water and the small bits of pink. The only thing I'm not sure about are the rocks but I don't know if they could be done better in such a small scale...  Anyway, keep it up! :thumbup: 

Thanks! I deliberately keep the rocks simple with the shapes, because it gets too busy with the buildings otherwise. Glad you like the rest!

19 hours ago, Grover said:

You're really killing it with these micro builds!  Great job!  I love not only the build and creative use of pieces that others have commented on (sideways headlight bricks, the two grill pieces, the grill façade bricks for stairs, etc.), but I like that you have detailed the picture of your build pointing out each of the rooms in the fortress according to your story.  By the way, what is that grey technic piece that you and Basilicus have used for the columns/towers?  I can't seem to find it.

Usually I am not a fan of the trans light blue, but because you have the bright green and pinks here (which are used to awesome effect), and your island is on the mystic isles, it seems to really bring out the brightness and compliment the highly magical feel of the build, and I think it works really well here.  Great job!

Thanks, Grover! The grey piece is this one, which I find very useful, and I wish I had as many Basiliscus does! I am glad you like the picture with the details, as I thought that was a good idea myself. I know your prejudice against trans-light blue, but it is my personal favorite water color, but I am also happy that you like it here with the other colors. 

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Another top notch micro :wub_drool: Good balance of trees to add a little color, without obscuring or distracting from the buildings :thumbup:
And the rockwork works super well here, especially the curving portions that make up the complex of dragon caves. Beautiful waterfalls as well, which are a really challenge in microscale :classic:

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A lot to like in this one, great job. The water is superb but my favourite parts are the touches of pink which somehow fit in great! 

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7 hours ago, soccerkid6 said:

Another top notch micro :wub_drool: Good balance of trees to add a little color, without obscuring or distracting from the buildings :thumbup:
And the rockwork works super well here, especially the curving portions that make up the complex of dragon caves. Beautiful waterfalls as well, which are a really challenge in microscale :classic:

Thanks, SK! The trees are an important part, but they are not meant to draw anything away from the structures, so am glad they did their job well! The waterfalls were not as hard as I expected, actually; the hardest part of them was getting the surrounding rocks to match the angles. 

2 hours ago, adde51 said:

A lot to like in this one, great job. The water is superb but my favourite parts are the touches of pink which somehow fit in great! 

Thanks, I was inspired by some of DC's Dark Isle builds with their oddly colored terrain, and thought I'd keep the tradition of the Mystic Isles being oddly colored and magical. 

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