Harburg Kitchen

[soccerkid6]

This is my first entry  into the Colossal Castle Contest XVI. If you haven't already seen it, you should really check it out. It runs through the end of December, and this model of mine is one of the prizes:

The castle room interior category caught my eye this year, so I started off with that. After looking up some medieval kitchens I decided on including a series of stone arches connected by wooden rafters. The loosely connected floor tiles were inspired by Cesbrick, while Matthew Oh’s build gave me the idea of forced perspective stairs. I tried to pack in plenty of kitchen details, so be sure to check out all the images.

Like most castles, Harburg has a large kitchen to produce the substantial amount of food required for the staff and castle inhabitants.

Eryl and his mother, Lady Karin, visit the kitchen today to check on the preparations of a feast for some visiting dignitaries from throughout Mitgardia.

While Karin is shown about by head cook Svein, Eryl  takes a turn cranking the spit of meat over the fire and chats with one of the young kitchen apprentices who is about his own age. The warmth and cheerful bustle of the kitchen makes it one of Eryl’s favorite rooms in the castle.

Additional pictures can be seen on Brickbuilt.
Comments and criticism welcome 

 

[Kai NRG]

Great kitchen build, I especially love the arches - impressive work getting a semicircle out of a bunch of slopes!  Lots of fun detail too!  

[TheLordOfBricks]

Awesome work! Great busy atmosphere with this build! Loving all these details, they make for a great busy looking scene. :)

[adde51]

Nice work man, a lot of fun details and like I already told you on Flickr I really like the stairs in the background. 

[Servertijd]

Great entry! Lots of details, there is alot going on just like a real kitchen. Don't let the people wait for food.

[Henjin_Quilones]

So let me start off by saying that I like this a lot, and I will probably steal details from it when I start actually building the kitchen that I currently only have a partial base for right now. In typical Snyder form, everything is crisp and concise, placed excellently and with nothing superfluous. However, I don't like it, too; and before you accuse me of contradicting myself, let me explain. It is too low for me, and the columns are too close together, making it hard to see anything inside. Now, it is probably realistic in its scaling, and the arches are pretty top notch, but it does not photograph well due to the obstructing nature of the roof supports. It would undoubtedly be a delight to see in person or to view up close, but on the computer it is too obscured. What would I recommend to fix the issue? Taller columns could help, preventing the arches from hiding as much; fewer columns could also help, there then being less material to block the view. Of course, both solutions cause more problems, like suspending stuff from the ceiling is harder when it is higher, or the arch design would have to be modified to span a larger distance. I don't know the answer. It's a beautiful build but hard to see. 

[en_zoo]

soooo, are you the snow-master or the interior-master? or both? decide! no seriously, I love all the details as well as the activity  Nice use of the slopes for the arches and using the columns is cool as it makes it look 'real', though it makes it hard to have a clear view of the whole scene. How about a bigger build? Or maybe just cutting off the front-left column, leaving only half of that arch there?

[mccoyed]

Great interior. The best detail, which I haven't seen before, is those hanging pots and items. That's just a great idea and parts use that really makes this build stand out from similar scenes.

I also disagree with Henj about this. I don't think the build is too small or the proportions obscure the photography. I think the closeness of all the details makes the "overview" shot look appropriately dense and busy. Then those detail shots really go to show both your photography skills and the way your layouts make it possible to take good photos up close with so many densely packed details. As always, your builds are an example to us all.

[Garmadon]

Sweet interior, Isaac!  Well-done busy castle kitchens are always fun to see   I'll second the others about all the stuff hanging from the rafters, and the use of the medium flesh throughout works really well! 

[de Gothia]

Yummy!! Two mocs that have so much to like!

The microbuild with it´s colours looks so good. The rockwork stands out in this build!

The second build feels like your homecourt! Interior scenes that I just want to study for hours to find more great features and details! 

Great work mate!!!

[Ayrlego]

Great interior scene. I like how you have conveyed a busy atmosphere with lots of clutter and yet everything at the same time looks so neat and clean. I also really like the base - looks great on an interior scene!

[Captain Dee]

Beautiful kitchen! And I love those arches. I agree with Henjin regarding the fact that the columns and arches somewhat obstruct the view on screen, but methinks the overall scale is better this way. Great work incorporating all the detailed elements. It looks rather inviting.

[Muakhah]

Theis certainly bustling with lots of details and clever techniques on display. I like the stack of dishes and other implements on display.

[mrcp6d]

Packed with detail!  I especially like all the baskets and whatnot hanging from the rafters.

[soccerkid6]

On 11/7/2018 at 8:21 AM, Kai NRG said:

Great kitchen build, I especially love the arches - impressive work getting a semicircle out of a bunch of slopes!  Lots of fun detail too!  

Thanks Kai!

On 11/7/2018 at 9:03 AM, TheLordOfBricks said:

Awesome work! Great busy atmosphere with this build! Loving all these details, they make for a great busy looking scene. :)

Thank you, I tried to pack in plenty of kitchen life

On 11/7/2018 at 1:03 PM, adde51 said:

Nice work man, a lot of fun details and like I already told you on Flickr I really like the stairs in the background. 

Thanks! I'm glad to hear you like the stairs. They took some experimentation and I was unsure whether I liked them or not at first.

On 11/7/2018 at 1:05 PM, Servertijd said:

Great entry! Lots of details, there is alot going on just like a real kitchen. Don't let the people wait for food.

Thank you

On 11/7/2018 at 3:00 PM, Henjin_Quilones said:

So let me start off by saying that I like this a lot, and I will probably steal details from it when I start actually building the kitchen that I currently only have a partial base for right now. In typical Snyder form, everything is crisp and concise, placed excellently and with nothing superfluous. However, I don't like it, too; and before you accuse me of contradicting myself, let me explain. It is too low for me, and the columns are too close together, making it hard to see anything inside. Now, it is probably realistic in its scaling, and the arches are pretty top notch, but it does not photograph well due to the obstructing nature of the roof supports. It would undoubtedly be a delight to see in person or to view up close, but on the computer it is too obscured. What would I recommend to fix the issue? Taller columns could help, preventing the arches from hiding as much; fewer columns could also help, there then being less material to block the view. Of course, both solutions cause more problems, like suspending stuff from the ceiling is harder when it is higher, or the arch design would have to be modified to span a larger distance. I don't know the answer. It's a beautiful build but hard to see. 

Thanks HQ. I expected to hear some feedback along these lines, and almost didn't include pillars/arches for exactly this reason. Ultimately I decided the uniqueness, aesthetic, and ability to hang various ingredients from the rafters was worth the compromise in build visibility. Since the CCC allows five pictures per entry, I also knew I didn't have to get the entire build across in a single image. I didn't want to go any higher with the arches since the room is already fairly tall (two minifigures stacked would be at not risk of bumping the ceiling) and I wanted to make sure it looked like a utilitarian kitchen and not an extravagant hall or throne room.
It's always good to hear your detailed thoughts though

On 11/8/2018 at 5:26 AM, en_zoo said:

soooo, are you the snow-master or the interior-master? or both? decide! no seriously, I love all the details as well as the activity  Nice use of the slopes for the arches and using the columns is cool as it makes it look 'real', though it makes it hard to have a clear view of the whole scene. How about a bigger build? Or maybe just cutting off the front-left column, leaving only half of that arch there?

Hmm, maybe I should combine the two for a snowy interior scene Thanks en_zoo!

On 11/9/2018 at 1:46 PM, mccoyed said:

Great interior. The best detail, which I haven't seen before, is those hanging pots and items. That's just a great idea and parts use that really makes this build stand out from similar scenes.

I also disagree with Henj about this. I don't think the build is too small or the proportions obscure the photography. I think the closeness of all the details makes the "overview" shot look appropriately dense and busy. Then those detail shots really go to show both your photography skills and the way your layouts make it possible to take good photos up close with so many densely packed details. As always, your builds are an example to us all.

Thanks mccoyed! The hanging pots and bags were something I had in mind from the start of this build, and was a little nervous about how I would achieve it. Fortunately those brown whips made things quite simple

On 11/9/2018 at 2:15 PM, Garmadon said:

Sweet interior, Isaac!  Well-done busy castle kitchens are always fun to see   I'll second the others about all the stuff hanging from the rafters, and the use of the medium flesh throughout works really well! 

Thanks Garmadon! We have a quite a bit of medium dark flesh now, so I'm having fun experimenting with it.

On 11/9/2018 at 3:48 PM, de Gothia said:

Yummy!! Two mocs that have so much to like!

The microbuild with it´s colours looks so good. The rockwork stands out in this build!

The second build feels like your homecourt! Interior scenes that I just want to study for hours to find more great features and details! 

Great work mate!!!

Thanks dG

On 11/9/2018 at 4:13 PM, Ayrlego said:

Great interior scene. I like how you have conveyed a busy atmosphere with lots of clutter and yet everything at the same time looks so neat and clean. I also really like the base - looks great on an interior scene!

Thank you! I like using reddish brown bases for interior scenes.

On 11/9/2018 at 10:49 PM, Captain Dee said:

Beautiful kitchen! And I love those arches. I agree with Henjin regarding the fact that the columns and arches somewhat obstruct the view on screen, but methinks the overall scale is better this way. Great work incorporating all the detailed elements. It looks rather inviting.

Thank you Captain Dee

On 11/10/2018 at 9:43 PM, Muakhah said:

Theis certainly bustling with lots of details and clever techniques on display. I like the stack of dishes and other implements on display.

Thanks! It was good to use a bunch of our pots and pans at once.

On 11/11/2018 at 3:30 PM, mrcp6d said:

Packed with detail!  I especially like all the baskets and whatnot hanging from the rafters.

Thanks Mike!