[MOC / WIP] My medieval village

[Leewan]

Two years ago, I've built a small medieval horse stable inspired by the Medieval Blacksmith 21325 (you can read all about it on its dedicated topic) : 

 

Shortly after that (I think it was in August 2021), I began working on a second model, I wanted to do something original, so I thought I'd do a joiner's workshop. Again, the inspiration comes from the Medieval Blacksmith, because I wanted my models to go together with the set, so that the village would look like a real village and not a collection of random medieval Lego creations. So I looked at the set, and noticed that there was a beautiful bed, with fine details. Surely it was made by a talented craftsman. So I decided to build his house and his workshop.

Again, I used Mecabricks to design my model. It went through several iterations, over the course of about a year :

 

The stairs moved a lot in the early stages.   That's because I tried to think of the model as a real building, and for example I didn't like the idea of having the stairs inside the building because it meant the joiner and his wife would have to go though the workshop to go to their house that's above, I thought it would be better to have a clear separation between the working area and the living area, so I needed two doors and the stairs outside. But then it didn't make sense to have the stairs on the opposite side of the workshop door, so I'd have to move them to the "front" of the building, or at least the main facade. I wanted to make sure every side of the model was interesting to look at, so there's the "front" (which would actually be the back), with the workshop and house doors, the stairs, and the logs, a more relaxing  / garden side with the pergola and the vines on the wall, the customer's entry with the balcony, the chimney and the sign, and a big door on the fourth side, with an oriel window above.

But at one point I got stuck because I needed parts that aren't in Mecabrick's library for the roof. I tried to do something innovative with the horse stable by using the quite recent 2x4 oval tiles, and this time I wanted to use the small Technic panels 71682 and 89679. I ended up rebuilding the model with stud.io (I would have had to do it anyways to create the building instructions) and I gave it a try :

Sadly it didn't quite work, I think this technique would be easier to use on a simpler model, with a square or rectangular footprint, so I'll save it for later. 

So I decided to reuse the technique from the stable instead, and here's the finished model :

The interior is fully furnished :

There's the workshop and a "showroom" on the ground floor, and a kitchen and a bedroom (with a small desk) on the first floor.

 

I like when Lego models allow storytelling, so I thought it would be fun if the joiner made toys from his wood leftovers, and that his toys were so popular that even the prince and princess would come to buy them. It's also a nod to Ole Kirk Christiansen, who was a carpenter before he created Lego.

The toys include knight figures, a watermill (which may or may not hint at my next model in the series ?), a carriage, a house, and of course a huge castle, made of interlocking wooden blocks.

I haven't built this model physically yet, but I have submitted it to the BrickLink Designer Program, so maybe I'll build it when it becomes a set.  You can vote for it here : https://www.bricklink.com/v3/designer-program/series-2/776/Medieval-Joiner's-Workshop, and see more pictures in the Flickr album.

 

While I was stuck on the roof of the joiner's workshop, I've built a bridge. Again, my inspiration came from the video game Skyrim :

I've spent a long time wondering how I could build the curve of the road. It's the Ninjago set 71767 that gave me the solution : using rollercoaster rails. That technique allowed me to do a simple and modular build, so there's basically each end, a middle section, the rails, the road modules and the sides.

I've displayed it with my horse stable and the blacksmith at an exhibition back in september :

Instructions for the bridge are available on Rebrickable : https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-133219/Leewan/medieval-stone-bridge/

I was a bit tough to break up the model in clean modules that would allow an easy build and customization, but I think I succeeded. It's possible to build the bridge as is, or to adapt it, to make it longer, narrower, the goal here was less to provide precise instructions to reproduce a specific model than guidelines to inspire people to build their own bridge.

Here's a render of my two buildings with the bridge, or in other words the current state of my village (minus the blacksmith) :

I'm thinking of doing a watermill next, but I'd like to do a monastic brewery as well. I'll have to do some research to make sure my model is believable, and see if I could make good monks minifigs. But maybe I could do something simpler, like a small watchtower. I'm not sure yet, and as you can see I can work on several models at the same time. Also, I'm already working on a condensed version of the joiner's workshop for the BDP series 3 if the current model isn't selected, but it could also very well become something else !

 

Anyways, I hope you like what you saw and that the bit about the design process of the models wasn't too boring, for those who read it all. 

[Yoggington]

Great set. I had given this one of my few 'love it's on the BDP. If I could vote a second time, I would!