BLueBLue

Thank you all for the nice thoughts! The hardest part for me probably was making the ground interesting enough while looking neither completely bland or illogic, especially on the shore under the trees and on the island itself. Color choice was an issue... As I'm totally inexperienced with landscaping, this took me probably far more time than it should have. Tips and pointers are welcome! I shamelessly stole some ideas directly from 80107 Spring Festival as well (bamboos and some lily pads), though I already had a similar design before that set came along. Yes, I had this MOC in my head for more than two years, and essential details like bamboos, the bridge and the roof were tested and built for that long, while waiting on part orders.

Island Shrine After multiple trips, there's only one place in Japan I went back to on every occasion I had: Eikan-dō Zenrin-ji temple in Kyoto. The garden, the colors, the view from the mountain side, and that lake. This place made me feel so remote and calm... This is my attempt to convey this. This MOC is only inspired by the view I remember, not aiming to be accurate at all and taking only a few details from other shrines elsewhere. Album Island Shrine on Flickr There are a few illegal connections here and there, but I don't care, I was aiming for the looks. For instance, I wanted the torii to have slightly angled pillars. As for the build, it all started with the candle stand and the bridge. I then built and rebuilt the island and shrine multiple times, before moving on to actually setting up the bridge and shore. Work in progress pictures can be found there: https://imgur.com/a/kseldcB. It's my very first MOC ever, it took a lot of time, trial and error, but I'm proud of the result and would gladly take some advice if you have some. I submitted it to the Summer Joust 2021, "asian setting" category, as it was still open for entries when I uploaded this to flickr yesterday. I hope you like it and thanks for looking!

Test

After having gathered a backlog of yet-to-build sets, dedicated a full lego room and emptied my local PaB, I now have enough (or some would say too much?) to build my own MOCs. I'd gladly submit my future creations around here for criticism!