Tower of the nameless seer [Avalonia]

[T-86(swe)]

Built for the SJ fantasy heights-category. Crossposting continues!

"A nameless primeval seer have made her dwelling in a large ornamented stone tower.Wearing a hooded brown cloak she is seen walking around with her mysterious staff. 

A long time ago she left her order in the mystic isles and headed for the parts of Historica today known as Avalonia. As no others followed her, she established and built the great tower.  The sheer hight of it makes it distinguishable all the way from the outskirts of Dandelume on a cloud-free day.  

The seer hold great magical power, guarding the four seasons. As a nameless being she is only known as she appears in respective season: ‘Summer’, ‘Autumn’, ‘Winter’ and ‘Spring’. Atop the tower she planted a magical seasonal tree that grew stronger and taller over the years.  

All types of creatures; from agricultural humans, wild forest beings to elves and fauns cherished the wisdom of the seer. Her magic controlled nature, animals and weather in the area. Many came to visit her, highborn and common folk, for an audience to maybe learn more from all the knowledge she had. 

The inhabitants can look to the sky to see the official changing of the seasons as the tree had a close connection to, and ruled all other nature in the area. The seer’s two peculiar birds residing in the tree will fly around but have their nest beneath the roots of the tree."

Some closeup photos:

 

 

 

[Grover]

This is a gorgeous build.  I love the overall shape and presentation. The tall tower dominating in the middle, with the asymmetric placement of the tree and the irregular base are awesome.  The organic chaos of the roots and vine really look nice, and I like how you incorporated the ornate light grey fence pieces into the structure as stone carving.  The roller skates under the arch add some nice detail as well.  Even the careful choice of placement of the masonry bricks really help add to the texture, since you have intentionally chosen a pattern of them in their stacking.  I LOVE the mushrooms. I'll need to remember that technique for my builds.  Really fantastic with that gear under there.  The detail with the SNOT stone work between the masonry 1x2 bricks is great, and I like some of the subtle detail in there without being too busy with insane greebling.  The fall color choices are spectacular and I think they really work well with the dark brown and dark orange.  The minis look good, as does the horse.  I like that you took a chance with the lime green, although in my opinion, it doesn't quite work with the other colors.  I have been quite surprised how well it can work in other builds, but I'm not sure if the lime green is too jarring against the other fall colors or it's something else that sticks out too much to me.  I am imagining an olive green or even a sand green might work here.  Just my opinion, though, and of course, you have to build with what you have and olive is not a particularly easy color to come by.  One interesting thought occurred to me: as the seer of 4 seasons, maybe each face of the tower could hold a different season?  That might be challenging but interesting if you ever take this to a show.  Really nice work, and I'd love to see this in person!

[T-86(swe)]

20 hours ago, Grover said:

This is a gorgeous build.  I love the overall shape and presentation. The tall tower dominating in the middle, with the asymmetric placement of the tree and the irregular base are awesome.  The organic chaos of the roots and vine really look nice, and I like how you incorporated the ornate light grey fence pieces into the structure as stone carving.  The roller skates under the arch add some nice detail as well.  Even the careful choice of placement of the masonry bricks really help add to the texture, since you have intentionally chosen a pattern of them in their stacking.  I LOVE the mushrooms. I'll need to remember that technique for my builds.  Really fantastic with that gear under there.  The detail with the SNOT stone work between the masonry 1x2 bricks is great, and I like some of the subtle detail in there without being too busy with insane greebling.  The fall color choices are spectacular and I think they really work well with the dark brown and dark orange.  The minis look good, as does the horse.  I like that you took a chance with the lime green, although in my opinion, it doesn't quite work with the other colors.  I have been quite surprised how well it can work in other builds, but I'm not sure if the lime green is too jarring against the other fall colors or it's something else that sticks out too much to me.  I am imagining an olive green or even a sand green might work here.  Just my opinion, though, and of course, you have to build with what you have and olive is not a particularly easy color to come by.  One interesting thought occurred to me: as the seer of 4 seasons, maybe each face of the tower could hold a different season?  That might be challenging but interesting if you ever take this to a show.  Really nice work, and I'd love to see this in person!

Thanks Grover for your (as always) elaborate and detailed feedback!

I really like the idea with each season being represented in the tower!

On the lime-green choice; I felt as it could work with the dark-prefixed colors as some kind of popper I guess. I can see where you are coming from on that choice though. I feel  it will have to stay this way for now. Perhaps Ill stumble upon a larger quantity of sand green or olive green-pieces 😃

Take care man!

[LegoModularFan]

Really great build, love the tower and the tree with its roots on its top!  I really enjoy the patterns and the detailing you’ve come up with on your tower as well as your color choices; I find lime works quite well against the the yellow/BLO/orange/dark orange foliage, but to go a little more in the direction of what Grover said, mixing it with olive would really help softening it up a little and also getting a better transition to dark brown… Moreover, with lime being such a dominant color, I would also make the water look softer by replacing 1-2 layers of trans blue tiles on the top by trans clear tiles/plates. Other than that, I love the tree you’ve got on bottom left and I think the one on the right could also very much benefit from some leaf interweaving as well as a branch or two so that it looks as organic as its peer.  Lastly, regarding the presentation, I personally find your photos to be a tiny bit oversaturated and “overcontrasted”, you probably enjoy the poppy colors but I really believe that going for more accurate LEGO colors would look better… If anything, you could try to work around a little bit with the depth of field if you have a camera/recent phone, it should help your presentation! All of that said, you’ve done an amazing job on the entire build, this is mostly just to keep in mind next time you work around a similar build with a similar color scheme!  

Edited July 31, 2023 by LegoModularFan

[T-86(swe)]

On 7/31/2023 at 1:45 PM, LegoModularFan said:

Really great build, love the tower and the tree with its roots on its top!  I really enjoy the patterns and the detailing you’ve come up with on your tower as well as your color choices; I find lime works quite well against the the yellow/BLO/orange/dark orange foliage, but to go a little more in the direction of what Grover said, mixing it with olive would really help softening it up a little and also getting a better transition to dark brown… Moreover, with lime being such a dominant color, I would also make the water look softer by replacing 1-2 layers of trans blue tiles on the top by trans clear tiles/plates. Other than that, I love the tree you’ve got on bottom left and I think the one on the right could also very much benefit from some leaf interweaving as well as a branch or two so that it looks as organic as its peer.  Lastly, regarding the presentation, I personally find your photos to be a tiny bit oversaturated and “overcontrasted”, you probably enjoy the poppy colors but I really believe that going for more accurate LEGO colors would look better… If anything, you could try to work around a little bit with the depth of field if you have a camera/recent phone, it should help your presentation! All of that said, you’ve done an amazing job on the entire build, this is mostly just to keep in mind next time you work around a similar build with a similar color scheme!  

Thank you for taking your time to give feedback on the build. I will surely take your ideas of improvements with me. Im still in a process of learning by doing considering the photo-phase! Thanks again 😃

[mrcp6d]

Awesome work with the decaying/damaged impression in the structure, really well done by going SNOT with the large wall panels.

The lime green here is bold!  I'm not sure of my opinion one way or another honestly.

[T-86(swe)]

On 8/30/2023 at 10:13 PM, mrcp6d said:

Awesome work with the decaying/damaged impression in the structure, really well done by going SNOT with the large wall panels.

The lime green here is bold!  I'm not sure of my opinion one way or another honestly.

Thanks! Yeah the choice of LG has been commented here on EB and my swedish lug-forum as well. im pretty happy with how the base turned out colorwise!

[jtooker]

Stunning build! I love the fall colors. They work well against the muted stone color as do the the organic shape of the trees against the geometric shapes of the building!

[T-86(swe)]

On 1/31/2024 at 2:42 AM, jtooker said:

Stunning build! I love the fall colors. They work well against the muted stone color as do the the organic shape of the trees against the geometric shapes of the building!

Hey! (I didnt notice you commented on this build at first)

Glad you liked it, especially the colors since I took a chance with them and went out of my normal choices/comfort zone.

Edited February 9 by T-86(swe)