[WIP] Watermill, Otoño

[Ayrlego]

I started my second Otoño build today and thought I might share my progress here with you guys. It's not really something I've done a lot of before. Hopefully I might give some of you an insight into how I build and I may be able to pick up some tips from you guys - critiques and suggestions most welcome!

So without further ado, here is my day 1 progress (pictures hosted on my new secondary account).

I've started with my usual standard base design. You can see how the SNOT edges are attached. I decided on a factory for Otoño for parity reasons and a watermill seemed like a good idea for the idyllic autumn scenes I attempt with these builds. The paddle is the first place I started with my previous GoH watermill (which I noticed recently has been digitalised by some enterprising person and you can buy instructions for it.... some credit would have been nice but hey, I guess that's the internet!). So it seemed like a good place to start here. After examining a number of options I decided to simply copy Isaac Sydner's excellent design from his Holt Watermill. Check out the build log on his website for a look at how a real master builds!

So I guess that's about it for day one! Enjoy and like I said, suggestions welcome or if there is something you want to see an explanation for etc, let me know.

Update 2: here

Update 3: here

Update 4: here

Update 5: here

[Captain Dee]

Looks like a good start. It seems to me that there aren't really many "good" options for building waterwheels, which has resulted in lots of creative designs like this. I hadn't seen that one before. My only concern is that it looks too small for the rest of the build.  Is it just me, or does the medium nougat for earth make the tans look old and tired?

[JintaiZ]

I think it's a great start. Looking forward to seeing the final project!

[evancelt]

Fun to see your SNOT base as a WIP - thanks for sharing! I think the water wheel is going to look great, and am glad you're going with autumn colors again.

[Capt Wolf]

I love the waterwheel design! Very creative! I never would have thought of using the chair piece. I'm really looking forward to seeing how this turns out.

[Khorne]

Looking forward to see how this develops! So cool to be able to follow the progress. Nice of you to share!

[The Neighborhood Merchant]

That is a great start, and that wheel is definitely one of favorite designs for a watermill. Looking forward to seeing the complete build! 

[Keymonus]

Nice start! I like in particular the wheel design and the base (so, basically, everything in your pics)! I'm looking forward to seeing how it evolves 

[Ayrlego]

On 11/10/2020 at 11:53 PM, Captain Dee said:

My only concern is that it looks too small for the rest of the build.

This thought has crossed my mind... hopefully it won't look too odd. I could try using bigger wagon wheels, although I only have the larger size in dark grey, which may not blend in well.

On 11/10/2020 at 11:53 PM, Captain Dee said:

Is it just me, or does the medium nougat for earth make the tans look old and tired?

I'm enjoying using it as it's different, but I don't think it will replace my old favourite dark tan! Although IMHO olive green is the BEST landscaping colour!!!

Thanks for all the encouragement. Here's day 2 progress.

DAY 2 - Part One

I stopped building at this point for a progress shot. Yellow chairs are temporary so that I can gauge the size of the completed wheel (I have temporarily run out of brown seats!). The main focus of this stage was working out the overhanging section. I plan for a wooden section to overhang the wheel with the rest of the upper story being Tudor style. I played around with a lot of different ways of insetting the 'wooden' supports into the stone work. I'm still not entirely convinced by the result, but it will do for now. It was important to get this part done so I knew how high to make the stairs at the front of the build. These will provide minifigs with access to the Tudor 'living' section of the mill. In the above image I've used simple light bley bricks to map out the stairs.

Day 2 - Part Two

The next part was mainly filling out the stone work. Large doors will provide workers access to the mill floor. Not sure whether I'll make the doors open (which will require sometype of interior). Also reworked some of the landscaping to incorporate some more dark orange. I'm not sure about the medium nougat/dark orange/olive green scheme at this stage. It worked well for the postmaster but I remain unconvinced it will work as well here. Good news is to change out the landscaping colours while painstaking, will be relatively easy if I do decide to go down that track.

And that's a wrap for Day 2! The Day 3 instalment will likely be the product of several sessions over a number of days.

 

 

[Kai NRG]

Really neat to see the progress like this Ayrlego!  It's interesting how you add a little to the walls, a little to the landscape, a little to the path... I tend to build all of one thing at once, so I can get that color/part off my desk before moving on to the next section!

[evancelt]

Looking good! Do you know at this phase what vegetation/trees will be part of the build? Or does that come in during the final phase?

[Ayrlego]

On 11/13/2020 at 1:35 AM, Kai NRG said:

It's interesting how you add a little to the walls, a little to the landscape, a little to the path... I tend to build all of one thing at once, so I can get that color/part off my desk before moving on to the next section!

Normally... (I'd say 9 times out of 10) I build the building, then do the base and landscape. So this one is a bit strange for me!

On 11/13/2020 at 8:52 AM, evancelt said:

Do you know at this phase what vegetation/trees will be part of the build?

Like in my answer to Kai, usually the landscaping comes last. Mainly because usually the trees are super fragile, so doing them early tends to result in much frustration and constant rebuilding! This one will be a bit different as you will see below!

DAY 3

So today I (almost) finished off the stone work. I reworked the main door as I didn't like the brown tiles directly on the stone and wanted a fully 'wooden' frame. I also continued the path and landscaping.

By this stage, evancelt's question about vegetation had me considering how many/what type of trees I was planning. I wanted to try something new and there really isn't a lot of room left on the base for a lot of trees. So I've decided to attempt a giant tree in the bottom corner of the build. I wanted the trunk to overlap the base, so I had to rework this part at this stage. Then as I was landscaping around the trunk, I decided that I didn't like the olive in the base, so I removed it and replaced with dark red. I'm not certain how it will look finished - but I'm going to give it a try!

Finally I had been toying with the idea of adding a second base and a stone bridge connecting the two. So I've started the bridge at the end of the path behind the waterwheel. I have yet to start the second base - I was thinking it would just be more path and maybe another (smaller tree). Not sure yet!

And that's a wrap for today!

[Ayrlego]

Update 4

A delivery of reddish brown chairs arrived! The timber floor is down and the Tudor style upper level has began construction. The timber offshoot above the waterwheel has also been added. The tree looks very weird at this stage. It's based on this design here. Hopefully once the leaves start to go on it will improve. Otherwise I may need to rethink it.

I need advice on the pathway. Originally I was going with the 1x1 round tiles, but I think I would prefer a more informal look. I was thinking of dark tan tiles and plates like I have tried inside and around the main door way... except is adding a third landscape colour too much??? Maybe I could do the same in MDF like the small trial patch just in front of the doorway? I suspect though that it will blend in too much with the rest of the landscape.... Any ideas?

 

[Spud The Viking]

Nice progress!

I would agree that it would look better replacing the round tiles. I think the dark tan tiles with a few studs would look much better, maybe lower them by 1 stud?

[evancelt]

Agreed that the MDF patch looks more natural than the 1x1 cobbles - the dirt seems like the more logical result of someone walking there day after day 

In the final pics, are you planning to leave the main door half-open like in this most recent step? Think any of the interior will be visible, and if so, any plans for furniture/machinery?

[Kai NRG]

I think I would go for dark tan with a bit of MDF worked in - all MDF might just be too much of that color.

I feel like you could do a better job on the tree though.  It looks a little too much like a dirt pillar.  Trees are usually round.   I would suggest looking at some real trees for inspiration.  Some of the abrupt angles you have going there look a little wrong.  The roots and the trunk are the most important part of course since once the leaves are on that's mostly what you'll see (IDK how many leaves you've got for it, but quite possibly they'll cover from the leaf line up so you won't hardly even see it).  Roots usually have exposed dirt between them, so around the edges, you might want to take off some of those slopes and put sideways MDF or something.
For an example, this I consider my best tree with the slope technique.

It's a bit of a nitpick, the tree is not the focal point by any means and I'm sure it'll look pretty cool covered with leaves in any case.  But if you happened to be feeling a little dissatisfied with it, I'm encouraging you to revisit it. 

[Count Vroskri]

Wwwow! This is awesome, very unique but still retaining the distinctive style of your previous builds. I love it! The use of chairs as Mill wheels is ingenious! 

[Puvel]

Changing olive green to dark red is definitely a win!

The 1x1 round tiles look a bit too organised though, you could keep some but replace the majority with scattered 2x2 rounds  /1x1 squares in a dark tan, mdf floorpan. 

Th tree does look a bit square, but that might be resolved once you add the leaves.

Personally trees, roof angles and taking pics are the things that make me go RRRRGGGGHHHHHH! You seem to have roofs and pics perfected so if your trees aren't prefect, we'll thank you for being a mortal after all :D

 

[gedren_y]

With the current ground color, it looks like it's near a place I called Dead Sand in my A Curious Story.

[Ayrlego]

Update 5

So I took the above advice on the pathway and have integrated the MDF and dark tan plates/tiles. I couldn't lower the pathway level without major effort, so rather I will continue to build the surrounding landscape up so it appears sunk into the ground a bit more. The tree will be tricky! I've never really been happy with my larger tree efforts and this is by far the largest I've ever attempted! I am hoping that the addition of foliage will help alot - but foliage will be the last thing to be added due to it's fragile nature. I am beginning to fear I may not have enough autumn leaves.... I estimate I currently have around 200 dark red and maybe about 100 dark orange. I could add bright orange/yellow/orange/various other Alt Brick autumn colours, but I wanted to try and restrict myself to just dark red and dark orange for this tree.

As you can see, the Tudor sections are almost done, just the window on the front to be added now. I'm debating about the orientation of the roof. I think it will slope from the stair side to the chimney side as it will be easier as I wont have to incorporate the wooden insert over the waterwheel into the roof.

Looks like it's going to be a busy weekend, so probably no more updates until next week.

Thank you all for the continued input!

On 11/19/2020 at 1:59 AM, evancelt said:

are you planning to leave the main door half-open like in this most recent step? Think any of the interior will be visible, and if so, any plans for furniture/machinery?

I think I will leave it half open like this. I don't think adding anything on the interior will be worth the effort as I'm not sure that you will see anything. If it does look gappingly empty I'll stick a minifig or cart or something in the way!

[Professor Thaum]

Nice display of color on the ground, this mixed style works well. I'm very curious of how will the tree looks at the end.

 

The mill already looks very clever

[Kai NRG]

Really like the doors, the dark tan worked well too.

[CapOnBOBS]

Clever door handles, amazing build!