AoM: Mills Phase 2: Ambarvale Mill

[Ayrlego]

Previously,

Yngvi and Erik have finally reached their destination; the small town of Ambarvale nestled deep in one of the many fertile valleys of the area. On the outskirts of the town; adjacent to the nearest fields, is the mill. Powered by a constant flowing stream, the mill is owned by the feudal lord, Sir Alan de Crecy and operated by his miller, Rorik. One in every ten sacks of flour produced by the mill is claimed by Sir Alan as feudal lord. Rorik Miller collects the sacks which are stored at the mill while awaiting delivery to Sir Alan’s manor.

Yngvi and Erik are visiting Rorik and his wife Aedith, when Sir Alan and two men-at-arms come to arrange delivery of the tythe. Sir Alan commanded both men during the troubles and has been attempting to persuade Yngvi to join his household warriors as a man-at-arms for some time. Sir Alan’s men are easily distinguishable by their blue surcoats with the falcon crest emblazoned on the front; as blue is an unusual colour amongst the fighting men of Mitgardia. Yngvi has politely declined Sir Alan's offer again.

 

______________

I've been working on this one for some time now and I must admit that I'm pretty pleased with the way it came out - It's probably one of my favourite builds to date! Not quite sure the photos do it justice. The roof is obviously done in classic @soccerkid6 style as to me nothing says Mitgardian architecture quite like the MDF/dark tan tile combo! He also suggested the technique for the base, which needed to be at least two bricks high to accommodate the waterwheel. One part I am not terribly happy with is the water - I probably would have preferred to build something, but I really need to expand my trans-clear to do so.

Anyway not sure how much longer I can claim it is still autumn before I have to start building with some snow - which is largely unknown territory for me! Some WIP shots are in the Mitgardia main thread if anyone is interested.

 

 

 

[deraven]

Beautiful work on the landscape/foliage and colors overall.  And, that roof!  

Really great build!

[Basiliscus]

Another very strong build from you David! Love the mill design, being raised up it should reduce the chance of dampness spoiling the grain.

Colour choices are great, medium dark flesh, dark tan and olive green go well together. The base is really nice, and a nice change from the usual black borders we see.

The story is a good addition too, although I'd suggest that the lord could probably press Yngvi into his service if he really wanted him to join.

The flesh minifigs go really well with this colour palette too.

[W Navarre]

That's wonderful Ayrlego! Great layout for the house, and well done on the roof! Good choice of landscape colours too, I like the tree. The waterwheel would have been even nicer if you could have revered the plates and got it tiled on the outside, but it's still noice, well done! 

[Muakhah]

The base and the ground floor in stone are wonderful. The color scheme is brilliant.  The roof and wood work is perfect for mitgardia or avalonia...  But the stone work and base is so good I can see it working as a modular thing with a Kaliphlin style upper story too! Especially in combination with the olive green plants and dusty looking path.

[TheLordOfBricks]

Wonderful job! Very well built scene!

[Kai NRG]

Really solid MOC, great stonework and roofing!  The waterwheel itself is also well done, and adding a bit of color to the landscape with the dark red and orange leaves was a good idea!  

[The Last of Nergoue]

Really nice, the roof looks very good as does the stone works and the water wheel! But i have to say i think the landscape could us a bit more color as well as adding some more sloping in it.

Edited November 13, 2018 by The Last of Nergoue

[Darnok]

Brilliant build, the effort put into this really shows! Your already impressive skills seem to improve even more - a bit scary to be honest.

 

I hope to see an adopted version over at BotBS! The rather northern style and the roof fit the look of Stormhaven; the ground and the theme fits Mesabi Landing (theme it for Thanksgiving and earn good dubloons!).

[de Gothia]

Lovely! The mill with that roof is just wonderful!

 

I love that landscape and that base sorrounding it! 

 

Great work!!

[Henjin_Quilones]

This build does a great job of capturing the aesthetic of Mitgardia, especially as displayed in SK's builds. I love the steeply sloped roof to shed the heavy snows, and the subtle detail with the repeated 1x1 round plates in the eaves is excellent. I think I agree with @W Navarre about reversing the stud orientation of the waterwheel to clean up the look a bit (using 1x1 round plates with hollow studs would let you attach the 1x1 round bricks to the ship's wheel, and then you would basically have to flip the build order on the rest). Perhaps you tried that and did not like it, but it is a suggestion. Brilliant photography as usual, and I am sure that sooner or later winter will indeed come. But for now, your autumn builds have been lovely!

[pombe]

I'm clearly not on your level as a builder, so I don't really have any advice to offer.  But I wanted to say how incredibly beautiful this is, both the MOC and the photography.  Again, I'll be sure to use this as a reference for the future.

[MKJoshA]

This is a beautiful build and certainly fits in Mitgardia! Your miller looks a lot like my sig-fig, but I'm sure that hairstyle is popular across Mitgardia.

[soccerkid6]

Oh my
I think this is my favorite build from you yet, and you've had plenty of quality models before! The overall colors and aesthetics are stunning. Everything works together beautifully from the landscape to stone walls to timber sections.

I'm amazed by how well the log brick and standard brick walls in reddish brown/dark brown work, and the large set of doors looks perfect. You used a half stud offset between the main wooden walls and the wall portion under the largest roofline? Gives a very nice, but subtle depth change there.
Normally I try to avoid hollow studs in my landscapes, but your use of numerous dark tan jumper plates looks just fine

I'll be coming back to admire this quite a lot in the future

[en_zoo]

On 11/13/2018 at 7:39 AM, Ayrlego said:

not sure how much longer I can claim it is still autumn before I have to start building with some snow

hahaha good one I do feel ya, however. I don't envy your Mitgardian location.. Also, really nice build man, it's really neat! I really like the tree and the terrain, but especially how the pavement and the wall texture blend together

Edited November 17, 2018 by en_zoo

[Grover]

This build is fantastic.  Not only is the architecture awesome (the structure is well thought out, from the A frame roof that sheds snow to the stone foundation that helps life the milled grains off the ground), but the color pallette is great.  In contrast some of the other comments, I love the dark tan and olive combo and think it works well, especially with the fall colored tree.  The story is great, too, and the use of the aquaman hair is awesome.  Well done!

[KristinnK]

Where is the female minifig from?

[Henjin_Quilones]

35 minutes ago, KristinnK said:

Where is the female minifig from?

The clothes are from a HP CMF, Professor Trelawney. 

[Ayrlego]

On 11/13/2018 at 6:13 PM, deraven said:

Beautiful work on the landscape/foliage and colors overall.  And, that roof!  

Really great build!

Thanks deraven!

On 11/13/2018 at 6:27 PM, Basiliscus said:

Another very strong build from you David! Love the mill design, being raised up it should reduce the chance of dampness spoiling the grain.

Colour choices are great, medium dark flesh, dark tan and olive green go well together. The base is really nice, and a nice change from the usual black borders we see.

The story is a good addition too, although I'd suggest that the lord could probably press Yngvi into his service if he really wanted him to join.

The flesh minifigs go really well with this colour palette too.

Thank you Colin. Sir Alan certainly could press Yngvi, but I'm trying to make him a good overlord (unusual I know!). I'm going to try and concentrate on the story a bit more from now on so hopefully it will make more sense.

On 11/13/2018 at 9:48 PM, W Navarre said:

That's wonderful Ayrlego! Great layout for the house, and well done on the roof! Good choice of landscape colours too, I like the tree. The waterwheel would have been even nicer if you could have revered the plates and got it tiled on the outside, but it's still noice, well done! 

Thank you! I didn't consider reversing the waterwheel, but it's a good idea. I am planning on using the wheel part again so I'll probably attempt reversing it. Thanks for the idea.

On 11/13/2018 at 11:15 PM, Muakhah said:

The base and the ground floor in stone are wonderful. The color scheme is brilliant.  The roof and wood work is perfect for mitgardia or avalonia...  But the stone work and base is so good I can see it working as a modular thing with a Kaliphlin style upper story too! Especially in combination with the olive green plants and dusty looking path.

 

On 11/14/2018 at 2:49 AM, TheLordOfBricks said:

Wonderful job! Very well built scene!

 

On 11/14/2018 at 3:16 AM, Kai NRG said:

Really solid MOC, great stonework and roofing!  The waterwheel itself is also well done, and adding a bit of color to the landscape with the dark red and orange leaves was a good idea!  

Thanks guys!

On 11/14/2018 at 3:21 AM, The Last of Nergoue said:

Really nice, the roof looks very good as does the stone works and the water wheel! But i have to say i think the landscape could us a bit more color as well as adding some more sloping in it.

Thanks, I did experiment a bit with adding some dark orange and dark red to the landscape - but it didn't look quite right somehow so I decided to play it safe. Some more sloping would have also been great - thanks for the suggestion!

On 11/14/2018 at 4:09 AM, Drunknok said:

Brilliant build, the effort put into this really shows! Your already impressive skills seem to improve even more - a bit scary to be honest.

 

I hope to see an adopted version over at BotBS! The rather northern style and the roof fit the look of Stormhaven; the ground and the theme fits Mesabi Landing (theme it for Thanksgiving and earn good dubloons!).

Thanks Drunknok, I have plans for a waterwheel for BoBS, although it will be a completely new build borrowing only the wheel (with some modifications from feedback here). As it is this build probably best suits Hojaroja, Otoño - but who wants to give the greenies more builds (although that settlement desperately needs some love...)

On 11/14/2018 at 6:24 AM, de Gothia said:

Lovely! The mill with that roof is just wonderful!

I love that landscape and that base sorrounding it!

Great work!!

Thank you!

On 11/14/2018 at 6:53 AM, Henjin_Quilones said:

This build does a great job of capturing the aesthetic of Mitgardia, especially as displayed in SK's builds. I love the steeply sloped roof to shed the heavy snows, and the subtle detail with the repeated 1x1 round plates in the eaves is excellent. I think I agree with @W Navarre about reversing the stud orientation of the waterwheel to clean up the look a bit (using 1x1 round plates with hollow studs would let you attach the 1x1 round bricks to the ship's wheel, and then you would basically have to flip the build order on the rest). Perhaps you tried that and did not like it, but it is a suggestion. Brilliant photography as usual, and I am sure that sooner or later winter will indeed come. But for now, your autumn builds have been lovely!

Thanks Henjin, as I replied to W Navarre, I do really like the idea of reversing the waterwheel orientation. The use of 1x1 round plates with hollow studs is a great idea that I think would work well. Thanks for the detailed suggestion and I'll probably give it a try.

On 11/14/2018 at 4:24 PM, pombe said:

I'm clearly not on your level as a builder, so I don't really have any advice to offer.  But I wanted to say how incredibly beautiful this is, both the MOC and the photography.  Again, I'll be sure to use this as a reference for the future.

Thanks pombe, although I do think you're pretty good yourself! I used to really enjoy your BoBS builds and stories!

On 11/15/2018 at 4:04 AM, MKJoshA said:

This is a beautiful build and certainly fits in Mitgardia! Your miller looks a lot like my sig-fig, but I'm sure that hairstyle is popular across Mitgardia.

Thanks Josh, now you mention it, the miller certainly does look a lot like your sigfig! I only recently aquired the aquaman figure from BL and thought how good that hair would look in a medieval setting - seems we thought the same thing!

On 11/17/2018 at 2:35 AM, soccerkid6 said:

Oh my
I think this is my favorite build from you yet, and you've had plenty of quality models before! The overall colors and aesthetics are stunning. Everything works together beautifully from the landscape to stone walls to timber sections.

I'm amazed by how well the log brick and standard brick walls in reddish brown/dark brown work, and the large set of doors looks perfect. You used a half stud offset between the main wooden walls and the wall portion under the largest roofline? Gives a very nice, but subtle depth change there.
Normally I try to avoid hollow studs in my landscapes, but your use of numerous dark tan jumper plates looks just fine

I'll be coming back to admire this quite a lot in the future

Thank you Isaac - coming from you that is high praise indeed! The wall portion under the largest roofline is indeed half a stud offset. It just looked too flat otherwise. I would have avoided the jumper plates as well, I had planned on using tiles. However, the roof took up my entire collection of dark tan 1x2 tiles! En-masse I think they look ok, but I probably wouldn't have used them if I had the tiles!

On 11/18/2018 at 7:53 AM, en_zoo said:

hahaha good one I do feel ya, however. I don't envy your Mitgardian location.. Also, really nice build man, it's really neat! I really like the tree and the terrain, but especially how the pavement and the wall texture blend together

Thanks! I had thought my next build may feature some snow (finally), but it turned out to still be autumn! Oh well, maybe the next one!

On 11/19/2018 at 5:40 AM, Grover said:

This build is fantastic.  Not only is the architecture awesome (the structure is well thought out, from the A frame roof that sheds snow to the stone foundation that helps life the milled grains off the ground), but the color pallette is great.  In contrast some of the other comments, I love the dark tan and olive combo and think it works well, especially with the fall colored tree.  The story is great, too, and the use of the aquaman hair is awesome.  Well done!

Thank you Grover!

2 hours ago, KristinnK said:

Where is the female minifig from?

Hi Kristinn, as Henjin replied, the torso and skirt are from the Professor Trelawney Harry Potter CMF.

[Gabe]

Lovely! The rooflines are especially attractive.  I really like your clean and uncluttered style. I'm not 100% convinced by the waterwheel, but they are a tricky shape for sure, especially in a smaller scale. Congrats on getting this blogged on TBB! 

[KristinnK]

Thank you for the answer. The fig works out very well as a medieval woman.