Troll Town [photos re-uploaded 04/07/2020]

[Master_Data]

I'm blown away! Nice job!

[skeaghshee]

I love your Troll Town, great idea and many nice details :) Impressive army of Hungarian Horntails too :D

[Lordofdragonss]

I'm big fan of your project as I always wanted to make something like this.

And one day I will probably! And you can be sure you will be my inspiration!

[The_Cook]

And one day I will probably! And you can be sure you will be my inspiration!

LDD files are available from each models individual MOCPages page so you can look at the builds in more detail for inspiration and even recreation if you want to build a version yourself. The models were all designed to be "buildable" and the greatest compliment is people going away and doing just that.

[Bugbot2008]

Wow great work!!

[Lordofdragonss]

LDD files are available from each models individual MOCPages page so you can look at the builds in more detail for inspiration and even recreation if you want to build a version yourself. The models were all designed to be "buildable" and the greatest compliment is people going away and doing just that.

Thanks for encouraging me! I actualy just finished my throne room design. It's indeed based on ingenious design of yours, but it's still quite different! When I will build some more I will post it.

Thanks again, and I'm looking foward your next updates! FOR THE HORDE!

Edited April 3, 2015 by Lordofdragonss

[GedweyGarm]

Wow this is just amazing! I love it a lot and have wanted to do some thing like this but time . . . . any how tis awesome!

[The_Cook]

There is slow but ongoing progress on Troll Town. I've got at least one more "set" sized piece that is nearing completion and one major piece that's been on the drawing board for 12months and in piece acquisiton for a large part of that.

Part of that acquisition phase has been to extend the array of "Civilian" trolls that I have; most of which has been documented in an alternate posting The Three Head Problem.

My female trolls now look a little more feminine without being wild eyed and witchy.

Piracy and age can now be represented.

Alternate expressions for the common soldiery. From left to right; original, shouty, goofy, eye-patch.

Very happy with the results; they're almost perfect. If I do another batch I'll just tweak the line thicknesses on the mouths up by about 20% to match the TLG originals.

The new artwork for the new heads was created by me and based on the existing designs from TLG; they were professionally printed for me by MinifigForLife.com . The shot below shows my new heads on the right with the original 3 heads on the left. There are 5 alternative designs.

I'm very pleased with how they turned out; if I run another batch I might just tweak the thickness of the mouth lines to increase them just a little to match the original designs.

Edited July 13, 2020 by The_Cook

[BrickCurve]

They look great! I particularly like the one with the eyepatch.

[SerenityInFire]

Nice work with the custom new minifigures and custom heads. Just wondering, who did you have do the printing and what was the cost?

[BrickJagger]

Glad to see this is back. I like the new troll heads

[The_Cook]

Nice work with the custom new minifigures and custom heads. Just wondering, who did you have do the printing and what was the cost?

minifigforlife.com did the printing, £1.40 per head plus postage. I provided the Sand Green heads which I'd sourced from Bricklink. Probably came in at £2.20 per head which is significantly more than Bricklinking standard Troll heads but then it has the uniqueness factor.

I'll definitely run another batch at some point perhaps with some additional designs. With well over 200 Trolls in Troll Town every little thing helps to create some differentiation and uniqueness.

Edited July 17, 2016 by The_Cook

[bricklover]

Love all the new heads.

[bnesty]

Not my favourite theme but great work and results

[The_Cook]

Work on Troll Town continues; albeit in fits and starts. The inspiration for the latest model was Nuju Metru's Dunrak Harbour.

Some months (years?) ago I'd recreated Nuju Metru's set in LDD and over the past year I'd collected the relevant bricks to assemble Dunrak Harbour in ABS. With solid pastic sitting in my hand I relasised that this would translate very nicely into a Troll set. Following my usual modus-operandi I fire up LDD and started playing.

Whilst the design itself is fairly obvious; a watergate flanked by a large tower the details proved very tricky. Getting the gateway translated into Troll architecture was not easy; the troll arches comprise of inverted slopes rather than the single 1x5x4 arch piece therefore there is less stability. Another major challenge was the lack of large wedge plates in Blue; this resulted in me reducing the depth of the model from 11 studs to 10 studs then eventually to 8 studs which resulted in a severe redesign of the reverse structures and gateway in order to get everything to fit.

The gates themselves proved problematic; firstly I'd hoped to use Technic, Link Chain in Reddish-Brown to drive the gates as I felt that this would fit with the Troll aestetic a lot more. However the reduction in depth meant that it is impossible to get the chain link to fit as it requires a minimum separation between the two shafts and a minimum gear size. After several false starts and a few weeks away from the design to allow a fresh perspective I resorted to a meshed gear approach and everything started to fit. After that the gateway itself came together over the course of an evening.

Next the tower. This had a few false starts. I dropped the angled link piece that Nuju Metru had used and opted to hinge the tower straight onto the gateway. After several attempts at building the base structure the eventual design settled upon was a modification of the Ogre "caves" that flank the main gate of 7097 Trolls' Mountain Fortress. This resulted in a reduced width which caused problems on the next level as there wasn't enough space to provide the mechanics necessary to connect a pre-moulded door; they're Trolls they don't care for doors. With the thinner tower I struggled with the design of the next level; there wasn't the space to build the bay windows. Then a moment of inspiration; Troll towers aren't always stone they use timber. I quickly dismantled half the floor and "ruined" the remaining part and from the ruins built a wooden tower akin to seige tower in 7037 Tower Raid. This is topped by a ramshakle platform on which the light projector is mounted. Inverted arches top of the platform in Troll Style.

I come back to the door; I take the door from my Trolls' Guarded Inn and reconfigure it to fit into a 4 wide space with the hinge clips projecting into the door space. It's not ideal but it's all that can be accomplished in the available space without the door projecting significantly forwards from the tower. The ramshakle aesthetic fits with the upper portions of the tower.

I also put together a small single sailed Troll boat utilising 4 of the new Dark Brown hull sections from 70732 City Of Stix. The Boat is too big to fit through the arch due to the mast and sail but it can moor at the dockside; although that would benefit from being larger. The 30516c02 Turntable 4 x 4 Locking Grooved Base with Black Top are getting pretty pricey on Bricklink so I built up a composite replacement using 2653 Brick, Modified 1 x 4 with Groove, 61485 Turntable 4 x 4 Square Base, Locking, and a pair of 60474 Plate, Round 4 x 4 with Hole; even as a composite this seems fairly stable.

60474 Plate, Round 4 x 4 with Hole; even as a composite this seems fairly stable.

Currently the set as a whole is up to 609 bricks which matches the 601 of Dunrak Harbour quite nicely; especially considering that the boat is significantly more complex than the small one found in Dunrak. The entire build process takes the best part of 6months due to distractions and having to source the a couple of bricks at the last moment. I was initially worried about the stability but it's fairly sturdy evern through the big arch in the middle.

Looking Down

The Reverse

The Boat

Minifigure choice was another problem area; Nuju Metru's original had one side in the boat pitted against another side in the harbour which doesn't work here as both Harbour and Boat have been designed for Trolls. The contrite answer is to cite City themes like Harbour that are driven by recreation type play rather than conflict and therefore all the minifigurres are working together. If this were a set that were going into production this probably wouldn't sell so well and whilst the little Troll Boat is nice it would be better as a small set of it's own against some form of adversary and the Fisherman's Landing set should follow Nuju Metru's original concept and have a small boat from an opposing faction.

The aim with the minifigure design was for as much differentiation as possible whilst still retaining Troll characteristics. Given that I now have access to alternate exp<b></b>ressions through some custom printed heads I decided to utilise those. The selection includes boat crew, a wizard and witch in the tower as well as two Troll guards.

The following two photo's provide a comparisson with my interpretation of Nuju Metru's original Dunrak Harbour. Both are roughly the same size; although Fisherman's Landing comes in a brick or two higher due to the base design. Dunrak Harbour is a little longer by about 6 studs.

As always this post is reproduced across on MocPages and the LDD instructions are attached.

Edited July 13, 2020 by The_Cook

[SirBlake]

This is just the best. Please keep up the good work!

[Lordofdragonss]

You are alive! And you are updating!

Love the new addition! You still have that amazingskill to make MOCs look like sets!

[The_Cook]

You are alive! And you are updating!

Love the new addition! You still have that amazingskill to make MOCs look like sets!

Between the day job and a major redecorating project the progress on Troll Town has been slow and much of it is currently in storage. I have however been quietly collecting bricks, Trolls and Horntails.

Some of the custom Trolls are detailed in The Three Head Problem over in the Minifigure Customisation Workshop; the ulitmate solution to the problem being the custom heads that you can see a couple of posts further up.

On the drawing board are a new siege tower based on tracks from 9449 Ultra Sonic Raider but the big goal is to build a Troll structure based upon Pieter Bruegel the Elder's Tower Of Babel.

Edited August 3, 2016 by The_Cook

[Gatekeeper]

The Cook,

Do you happen to still have the LDD files for these wonderful creations? I checked on MOCPages but that does not seem to working. I'm generally a lurker but I love what you've done with my favorite theme and I would to see the designs so that i might try my hand at a few of my own.

(EDIT: MOCpages looks to be back up so I will grab the LDD files from there. Thank you.)

Edited August 4, 2016 by Gatekeeper

[BrickJagger]

Love the repurposed Nuju MOC, Cook. Will we see the town in its entirety anytime soon?

Side note - Back to back posters with Troll avatars now in a Troll-related thread. Coincidence? I think not.

[The_Cook]

Will we see the town in its entirety anytime soon?

#

Post 49; whilst over a year old is the best representation of Troll Town in it's entirety so far. The current problem is that Troll Town when assembled takes up more space than I have in my small house. Post 49 was easily occupying 6' x 4' (1.9m x 1.2m).

Since Post 49 the above Fisherman's Landing is the only building addition to the town, the Dragon Platforms will need extending to accomodate another 4 Horntails and there's another 100 plus Trolls of varying types to populate the Town.

One day I should really sign up for a show (somewhere in the United Kingdom) and display the whole lot for people to see in person.

[The_Cook]

It's been a good few (say 18) months since the last posting but Troll Town moves slowly forwards...

I was staring at my Troll Harbour and thinking of other options. A Mine is still a possibility as is a Prison; the latter stuck, there is potential merit turning the current 60130 Prison Island into a Troll set.

To start with it's based around a rocky island which is a good candidate for conversion. Whilst the architecture is more modern the actual shape of the structures could easily become Troll-like. My initial attempts tried to insert the prison into the wall of Troll town but after downloading a pre-built Prison into LDD and starting to delete all of the boats it occured to me that actually keeping the Prison as an island is a valid concept. Replacing the helicopter pad with walkways lifted from [url="http://www.moc-pages.com/moc.php/372408">Trolls' Landing</a> allowes it to be stand-alone in the middle of the sea or part of the walkways abnd piers attached to Trolls' Landing. The frame and bar structures were reaplaced with a stack of 3 fences, door controls replaced with Troll style angular archways and floodlights with burning torches. The remaining piece of work is to rebuild the look-out tower, either as wooden structure similar to the siege towers, or as a stone structure similar to the towers in the fortress.     

The building of the prison in ABS was spurred on by the original set going on offer at Lego.com . That gets me most of the plates, burps and larger structural pieces but there's still a lot of "Troll" pieces needed to complete the conversion. A number of Bricklink orders were necessary to obtain enough black spindle fences and I realised that I have no 2x3 reddish-brown wedge plates as they're still fairly rare. My final burst of Bricklink activity deals with 1x1 dark bluish-grey plates. I'm always loathe to order 1x1 plates as they're often expensive in relation to the weight of ABS obtained but the upshot of this ordering policy is that I have a very limit stock of 1x1 plates in any colour. The 20 or so that I've ordered in Dark Blusih-Grey won't last long; it's something that I'll have to keep adding to orders as they get placed.

The Dark Bluish Grey 1x1 plates duly arrived. Fitting the plates to the columns on the tower; just need to build the very top now. Might even get as far as photography tomorrow...

 

Having said the above with great gusto; weeks pass, weeks become months, empires rise, empries fall...

There are a few little details to fix and I need to select minifigures. The minifigure decision is harder than it looks. I even end up building most of another (non-Troll) model in the intervening period. Finally I spot a 75198 Tatooine Battle Pack in my local supermarket. Replacement legs and heads and some Pearl Dark Grey spears turn the Jawas into Guards and a new head, cape and helmet turns the Tusken Raider into an Overseer. The 4th minifig is drawn from existing stock.

Need to find 4 minifigures from the human side as inmates. I grab a couple of Vikings for their rough and ready appearance and then use Crown Soldiers to man the balloon and boat.

The balloon gets a makeover; Red-White fits the Crown colour scheme. The Trolls need their equivalent of a helicopter; cue a dragon!

After many bitty Bricklink orders to get parts, the final result in ABS.  

All of the trapdoor functionality from the original Prison Island has been maintained; the rear view shows access to the cells and all of the play possibilities.

A Side by side comparisson with the original Prison Island.

Conclusions, it's good. The original had lots of play features which have been retained. The trap doors, sewers and breakaway bars allow lots of play opportunities; more than any other set I've seen in a long, long time.

Structurally it's very robust; I've regularly picked it up from the corner opposite the landing pad and the whole thing stays together. The weakest part is probably the top of the main tower; with hindsight I'd use two black 1x4x6 door frames to support the dark brown slopes that hold the top octagon. It's not immediately obvious but there are some technic bricks to allow it to be joined into the Troll Town city wall.

 

This post can also be found on MOCPages and the LDD files are located there.

Edited July 13, 2020 by The_Cook
Fixing hyperlinks

[Lordofdragonss]

WARCHIEF! You are back! WIth your glorious designs!
Once again - simply love your work and can't wait for next updates!

[Atilio]

I love all the Troll Town creations, great work,

just started to collect a couple of torsos, legs, etc for troll mini-figs, and ordered some viking figures during the spring.

I's a pity that the horntail dragon is hardly to have,

I hope we can read some updates soon,

regards,

[Aine]

And I thought myself original when I envisaged a Black Knights tribe of some 100 minifigs? Laughin' out in silence.

This is pretty cool! The only area where you could have been even more courageous are the female trolls. (Trollesses? Yeah, trollesses...) If you have the possibility and money to print the heads, you could have made even more feminine trollesses.
I don't like how the orcish, trollish (and often times the dwarven) females are depicted in most of the pop culture, and it'll be cool if you'd made them quite the opposite of the males, more of a green-skinned beauties than beasts. There may be a true sexual dimorphism amongst the trolls, so the males could sport the fangs and what not, while the females could have none of those. I understand that it's not a cheap hobby to have printed tens or even hundreds of female heads, but still, what do you think about it?

Edit: But honestly, this is a really very minor criticism, I really, really love what you've done. Seeing such a project, one last question remains: how do you walk with such a massive balls of thine? :-)

Edited July 5, 2019 by Aine