MOC: Elvendale and the Dragon Sanctuary (pic heavy)

[BenA]

2 hours ago, zoth33 said:

Do you have more dragons in the build I only see the one?  The floating islands are a nice touch too.

Thanks Zoth33. There's only the one dragon in the photos, but we have 5 altogether (Earth, Water, Fire and Wind, plus Kronan's). They get randomly placed around the build, mostly on the meadow or beach! The floating islands were a direct result of the tensegrity builds showcased here. I just wanted to give it a go! I had an idea to add the music shop on top, but at the right scale looked slightly too large. I might revisit that one day...

1 hour ago, soccerkid6 said:

Love how you re-imagined some of the official sets into beautiful new models.

All the time and thought you poured into this paid off in a big way

Thanks, that means a lot! We have your goblin village moc and medieval tutorials saved to favourites... they've been great inspiration!

24 minutes ago, Elysiumfountain said:

Absolutely gorgeous!

Thanks Elysiumfountain!

[richchie]

I have no words this is absolutly epic, awesome and breathtaking moc, I try to build for my daughter some elvendale moc, but this is absolutely top level  I will never reach 

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

Wow gorgeous HUGE diorama!

There are so many details to discover...

The dark blue tree is beautiful with yellow and dark yellow leaves

[BenA]

1 hour ago, richchie said:

I try to build for my daughter some elvendale moc, but this is absolutely top level  I will never reach 

Please build your Elvendale - it will be amazing. I just looked at your Flickr and it was incredible. Your castles are stunning and I *loved* your council of Elrond build.

1 hour ago, LEGO Train 12 Volts said:

The dark blue tree is beautiful with yellow and dark yellow leaves

Thanks! It was very nearly reddish brown but the original set was dark blue so we switched. Then we ran out of magenta leaves, which turned out great because we felt the yellow leaves worked so much better anyway. Funny how things work out!

[Lord Insanity]

That is nothing short of amazing.  A lot of medieval fantasy builds are so ridiculously over detailed that they look fragile and completely useless for playing with.  This strikes that perfect balance between being highly detailed and something you can actually play with.  I particularly like how the rocks are not just the standard boring slope piece spam but actually built up rock formations.

I never cared for the "modern day Emily Jones" story but I loved the Elves sets as medieval fantasy parts packs.  (Fairy elves being non-human and one of the few times mini-dolls mixing with mini-figs makes sense.)  I think you managed to make the default story come to life in a way I didn't think was possible.

[Rotbart]

Breathtaking! Although this more than impressive creation makes me kind of speechless, it actually pushed me over the edge to finally create an eurobricks account after lurking for many months. Congratulations!

I especially like the cave village! Even the ceiling of it contains many details and art instead of just being a boring or technic-looking support structure.

There is one minor thing that kind of irritates me: the blue and white color used for the river and water falls. But that's probably just me being used to LEGO using transparent pieces for flowing waters.

[BenA]

10 hours ago, Lord Insanity said:

This strikes that perfect balance between being highly detailed and something you can actually play with.

Thanks! Playability was definitely an important factor when we set out because my daughter was just over 8 years old. But because it took so long to complete and she's now 11 (and has discovered phones and apps) I have to say it became less important towards the end :(

1 hour ago, Rotbart said:

There is one minor thing that kind of irritates me: the blue and white color used for the river and water falls. But that's probably just me being used to LEGO using transparent pieces for flowing waters.

Welcome to Eurobricks, and thanks for your kind comments! Regarding the water, using white and blue was a conscious decison to try and best capture the look of the animated series and original concept artwork. We tried transparent pieces at the beginning but couldn't get them in the length we needed to get the look. I'm thinking about trying the technique out with transparent pieces in a future moc though!

[Berger]

Wow. Just wow.  The size and detail and creativity and the fact that there is actual playability and that there is that much detail is just stunning.

[Kalhiki]

Sweet baby Jesus, this is one of the most impressive builds I've seen in quite some time! I absolutely adore every aspect of it.

The detailing, architecture, environment, everything. It all fits so well together. I especially like how you did the rocks. The boulders and stone path both have a very cartoony fantasy vibe to them that I haven't seen anywhere else. Very unique! Same goes for the water and waterfall.

I also really like the Goblin buildings. They have a very distinct, rickety look, but the designs and colors keep them grounded in the world so they don't feel out of place when compared to the architecture of the Elven buildings.

And of course, that's saying nothing about the sheer scale of the build! Not only visually impressive, but also impressive in size. There also seems to be a weird optical illusion going on. Maybe it's the photography or maybe it's that aforementioned "cartoony fantasy" aesthetic, but to me it looks smaller than it really is. It's only until I see the minidolls that I start to realize how big this display really is!

 

I'm sure there's more I could say, but I'll refrain to save everyone from a wall of text. Seriously, amazing build.

 

[BenA]

On 11/16/2020 at 8:08 PM, Kalhiki said:

I also really like the Goblin buildings. They have a very distinct, rickety look, but the designs and colors keep them grounded in the world so they don't feel out of place when compared to the architecture of the Elven buildings.

Thanks! They were fun to do. We took plenty of inspiration from the animated series and original sets, but in the back of my mind was that the Goblins would have tried to copy the Elven buildings so they should share some similarities, but would then have messed it up in their own comical way.

 

[f2iso100]

Elves was my gateway into the LEGO world (my then-five-year-old was such a fan!). Those were the first sets I built, and in my imagination, they were always a bit grander, a bit more magical, but I had no idea they could be as wonderful as what you've presented here! This is such beautiful art that you've created! I've since turned my personal attention more to the wizarding world since Elves was retired, but I'm feeling a sudden itch to go revisit! Absolutely breathtaking. And please do let us know if you ever show at a convention! I see you're across the pond, but it would be well worth the visit! 

[BenA]

On 11/19/2020 at 6:10 PM, f2iso100 said:

Elves was my gateway into the LEGO world (my then-five-year-old was such a fan!). Those were the first sets I built, and in my imagination, they were always a bit grander, a bit more magical, but I had no idea they could be as wonderful as what you've presented here! This is such beautiful art that you've created! I've since turned my personal attention more to the wizarding world since Elves was retired, but I'm feeling a sudden itch to go revisit! Absolutely breathtaking. And please do let us know if you ever show at a convention! I see you're across the pond, but it would be well worth the visit! 

Thanks, that's really kind! I'd love to take it to a convention at some point - will let you know if we do. I had a quick look at your Diagon Alley moc by the way - it looks great! We're considering something Harry Potter related for the next moc, just not sure what... open to suggestions! :D

[westalbott]

Absolutley stunning build! I love seeing all the models reimagined in someone else's style. I especially love the more exaggerated shapes to the goblin village buildings, but even just the shaping of the rocks everywhere looks great, I wish I could see it in person!

[Svendp]

This is stunning. What an awesome build. Nice coloring, cool scenes, .... Top work

[LegoElvesFanatic]

THIS IS AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Would you ever think of giving out some base ideas for like hills and places? cause I would love to make this. Could you do like square by square cause I'm 15 and have every single lego elves set and want to create a place I can play with them rather than having the sets just placed out on my floor. i would love to have some tips

[BenA]

21 hours ago, LegoElvesFanatic said:

Would you ever think of giving out some base ideas for like hills and places?

Could you do like square by square

i would love to have some tips

Hi and thanks! If you'd like some pointers on how I created the landscape I did a couple of explanations of my thought process - with pictures - on my instagram (search for bena_lego), or there are lots of pictures on my Flikr that show work in progress (link is in the original post, but be warned my Flickr is very disorganised!).

Other than that, my advice is:

Gather plenty of reference material and use that for inspiration (I had lots of photos of real world streams and waterfalls, and I googled the artwork from the elves series to get a feel for the colours etc). You don't have to stick to them rigidly but I found having reference material to look at really helped me decide what I was going for, and also keep me consistent when my build took a long time.

I sketch what I have in mind before I start building and that helps me spot and work out major problems early on. It also gets me thinking about how I might build it. Sketching things out also lets me plan how ambitious I can be. At the beginning I underestimated how many bricks it takes to build even just a small piece of detailed landscape and it was quite disheartening to have to stop and wait when I ran out. I learnt that sketching it out first let me find the right balance between what looked good and what I could realistically achieve - and also let me plan bricklink orders in advance!

Once building I always go for interesting angles wherever I can, from whole chunks of scenery right down to individual rocks. I think most serious Lego moccers would agree that building 'off grid' is a very good way to make things look natural. I also try to make sure there's always a logical way for a minifig/doll to reach each part of the landscape, so lots of pathways, ladders, stairs etc... but that's just a personal preference and I don't always stick to it! 

Don't be afraid to change your mind or start over. I lost count of the number of times I rebuilt something on that moc because it didn't look right! My version of Rosalyn's blue Healing Hideout was especially tricky - must have rebuilt that 6 or 7 times.  I also sometimes take a photo of the build in progress, then draw over the top of it to give me an idea of what to do next.

Finally, enjoy yourself and don't forget to post whatever you build here - would love to see it!

[LegoElvesFanatic]

1 hour ago, BenA said:

Hi and thanks! If you'd like some pointers on how I created the landscape I did a couple of explanations of my thought process - with pictures - on my instagram (search for bena_lego), or there are lots of pictures on my Flikr that show work in progress (link is in the original post, but be warned my Flickr is very disorganised!).

Other than that, my advice is:

Gather plenty of reference material and use that for inspiration (I had lots of photos of real world streams and waterfalls, and I googled the artwork from the elves series to get a feel for the colours etc). You don't have to stick to them rigidly but I found having reference material to look at really helped me decide what I was going for, and also keep me consistent when my build took a long time.

I sketch what I have in mind before I start building and that helps me spot and work out major problems early on. It also gets me thinking about how I might build it. Sketching things out also lets me plan how ambitious I can be. At the beginning I underestimated how many bricks it takes to build even just a small piece of detailed landscape and it was quite disheartening to have to stop and wait when I ran out. I learnt that sketching it out first let me find the right balance between what looked good and what I could realistically achieve - and also let me plan bricklink orders in advance!

Once building I always go for interesting angles wherever I can, from whole chunks of scenery right down to individual rocks. I think most serious Lego moccers would agree that building 'off grid' is a very good way to make things look natural. I also try to make sure there's always a logical way for a minifig/doll to reach each part of the landscape, so lots of pathways, ladders, stairs etc... but that's just a personal preference and I don't always stick to it! 

Don't be afraid to change your mind or start over. I lost count of the number of times I rebuilt something on that moc because it didn't look right! My version of Rosalyn's blue Healing Hideout was especially tricky - must have rebuilt that 6 or 7 times.  I also sometimes take a photo of the build in progress, then draw over the top of it to give me an idea of what to do next.

Finally, enjoy yourself and don't forget to post whatever you build here - would love to see it!

Thanks! I am a high school student and do not have any pay whatsoever so I'm trying to ration money to get foliage and rocks. I own every single elves set and around 50 lego friends and I'm trying to create elvendale. I love your remodeling of the buildings and I think I will try to do something like that. Can I post some photos and you give me some tips?

[BenA]

1 minute ago, LegoElvesFanatic said:

Can I post some photos and you give me some tips?

 Sure - happy to help. I'd start a new thread if you're hoping for feedback from others too. Otherwise private message me and I'll see what I can suggest