Matn

Excellent descriptions of the various guilds! This is getting really awesome. The ideas behind it are great, and I'm glad to see it all worked out so good. The Avalonia guild sounds the most interesting to me, with its magical forests and such. I can't wait to get my hands on my collection this weekend again and create a suiting character. Great job, guys!

I'd like to join Western Grasslands please.

Matn signing up. Awesome!

Although I don't really have anything to add to this topic (I'll think of some things eventually), I want to say I'm impressed with all these great ideas floating around! Keep them coming. I especially like the guild idea, I hope to see it soon on Eurobricks.

Is there any news or rumours on a possible Harry Potter: years 1-7? I surely hope to see something like that.

I did not know that either! I've used it a couple of times with 1x2 tiles to make a nice "stone" corner. It looks very nice, but I really didn't know it stressed the bricks. I didn't even notice the difference in height, I'll definitely have to check that out. Thanks for the link to the illegal-guide! And I'm looking forward to the next instalment. I'm away from my collection five days a week, but I manage to maintain my addiction of the brick thanks to your regularly updated guide.

That batcave sure looks great, but not something I would buy. It looks very playable and classic. The figures are the highlight, they're awesome!

Thanks for the high-resolution pictures! I think these new sets are awesome, I can't wait to get my hands on a few of them. The police line is very refreshing with the whole new style, those bears are great. There's a nice variety of vehicles in the new City line. I also like the fact that there are much more female figures than earlier years. Great stuff!

Great new instalments, and at what a speed! I'm impressed by how fast you manage to build/photograph/write these posts. The excessive use of plants starts to grow on me (for instance near the shore), it looks so much more natural and lovely than just green plates. I also love to use plant pieces, but I never went so far. I think I just might give it a try in my layout I'm working on. Those tree ideas are very nice, especially the tree with levers: very effective, yet low on parts. I'm looking forward to see what you come up with next.

I must say I was really interested in this. After someone suggested it, I almost uploaded my latest creation (a train station), which I have designed to look like an official LEGO set. In the end I didn't, I just made an LDD-file of it for everyone's pleasure. What put me off, was the fact that once you upload your creation to LEGO Cuusoo, your creation is totally owned by LEGO. If I am correct, even if you don't reach to 10,000 votes, they could develop your idea without giving you a penny. However, I could change my mind. I made the creation for fun, what loss would I have with uploading it to LEGO Cuusoo?

Here's my first contribution to this index: Rural Train Station by Matn - LXF

Thanks for your awesome comments, it's appreciated! I've made the set in LEGO Digital Designer, you can download the file here. Then I've generated the instructions in LDD and put it in a PDF-file, which you can view here. Last but not least, I've made instructions for the forklift in photographs.

Great job with the new instalment. The blue tiles underneath the trans-blue plates has a beautiful effect. I'd love to use the same effect, but it's a bit difficult when you plan on ending the river in a lake (which would consist out of blue baseplates). I like the variety of colours near the river bank, but adding plants makes the use of different colours obsolete. Of course it wouldn't look so good as it does with the plants. At first I thought all those plants were excessive, almost overwhelming. But it looks awesome and actually very natural in combination with the trans-blue water, great work! A suggestion for the actual guide topic: ask a moderator to lock it. Add a big picture to the first post in this topic with a link to invite people to the guide topic. And whenever you want to update it, ask a moderator to open it while you post in it. It seems people have a tough time reading the title.

Thanks everyone, I appreciate the feedback! It looks like I've succeeded in giving off the feeling of the 7777 idea book. It's a possibility indeed, but I was going for this specific look, it's called a crow-stepped gable. EDIT: If a mod also thinks this fits better in the Train Tech forum, please feel free to move it over there.

Thanks for the info. I hope my entry has achieved the kind of entry you want to see. I had a hard time thinking in which style to build it. Like you have said, there's no need for fancy techniques. Something like the modular houses, huge and full of details, didn't seem right to me (and I didn't have the pieces). So I tried to make a building like an official set with play features and a basic colour, only a bit upgraded with more details and without gaps in the walls. Good luck to other entrants!

B-T-2E This is my entry for the 7777 Redux contest. It's a countryside railway station, with similar colours and play and light-up features as the train station in 7777. I chose to build in a more advanced style than regular sets, although it's still pretty basic. It's not as big as the modular houses, but it's playable and it looks nice in a little scene. Light bricks, a little shed and a forklift, lots of figures and accessories, how much more fun can a train station be? More (detailed) images at: MOCpages: http://www.mocpages.com/moc.php/290738 Flickr: Brickshelf: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=485744 Instructions will follow soon. I'll try out LDD in my spare time, if it doesn't work out I'll break the station down and take pictures of every step. Comments and tips are as always welcome!

A forum needs indeed its critics, how would we become better builders if no one points out where things could be better? But that's certainly not how to give decent critique. It doesn't even make sense. Derfel Cardarn developed his own unique style you recognize in all of his buildings. But they still are all very different, using a variety of building techniques with different looks on all of them. Only a handful of builders manage to do that. Anyway, I hope to see the next write-up very soon!

Nice first write-up. I hadn't thought of different shades of green beneath trees and near rivers. Buying the great amounts of 1x1 round plates you have is indeed worth it, you've managed to create a very distinctive style which I adore. Can't wait to see the river and water mill, coincidentally a building that's also next on my list.

What a great gesture of you to do this, I'm looking forward to it! Your creations are always mind blowing, especially the amount of detailing, the landscaping and the plants and trees are always impressive. Together with maydayartist's topic, your guide will serve as great inspiration for me as I'm building my own medieval styled village.

I don't mind it either, as long as it helps Eurobricks. Just one idea: I think the frontpage would look better with only two columns, one text block and one sidebar. Putting the left bars also on the right would be better now.

Hogsmeade is a little wizard village placed inside the magical world of Harry Potter. As some of you may know, I am planning to build the village of Hogsmeade in LEGO. If you were hoping to see a massive, beautifully detailed and completed layout in this post, I have to disappoint you. Instead of building the whole layout and show it to you when it is completed, I want to share my work in progress. So instead of creating a surprise effect, I want you to take a look at my progress and share your ideas and tips. I already had put the buildings on baseplates (not my huge trees, unfortunately ), but I wasn't really content with the looks of it. Inspired by maydayartist's medieval layout, I started working on a better layout last weekend. Before I started on the layout, I finally sorted all of my LEGO bricks. I almost ran out of storing space during the sorting process. After building the first part of my layout I have empty drawers again because of the amount of 2x4 bricks I used. I also stumbled on a kilogram of green bricks, slopes and plates on the internet. I bought it and figured I now would just have enough green for the first part of my village. It looks quite plain and blocky, but it's already much better than just baseplates. I hope it will look very different with plants, trees, train track ballast, ... and more details. I am not too happy with the small train bridge, although I don't have any better ideas for it. I am creating all the pubs and shops in Hogsmeade to put them together in a nice layout. When the station part is finished, I will start on the second part with the buildings. As usual I will photograph the buildings separately, but for now I don't have any new shops to add. I'm also out of green and tan plates and black bricks for the next part. Of course this will take some time, especially since I'm starting university next week. This means there will be an update at the very best every weekend, but it also means I won't be placing a Bricklink order every week. Tips and comments are very much appreciated!

Happy birthday! And that's an awesome birthday build.

I don't see LEGO releasing such a great amount of huge sets. I don't think it would sell that well because of the room it would take and of course the high price card. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see something like that. That's why I'm making such a layout for myself!

I was also really hoping for more. There are of course many great ideas for new sets which I'd love to see, and don't get me started on the characters I'd love to see in LEGO. But the Diagon Alley set is really a fantastic set to end the series with, so I'm not complaining at all. I was so happily surprised when the rumours began of a new LEGO Harry Potter line, and although I'm not upset the LEGO theme is ending (again), it's like saying goodbye to Harry Potter a third time and having that same weird feeling as I had each time. First with the books, then with the films and now with the LEGO line. Luckily I'll still be creating lots of creations based on the fantastic wizarding world. And of course, there will be Pottermore in a few weeks to keep me inspired by more Harry Potter stuff!

Fantastic! Everything looks very natural in a way, because of the shapes, the beautiful trees and the variation in colours. The buildings are also excellent, my favourite is the white one (very impressive and so detailed). You really inspired me in reshaping my Hogsmeade village into something with variation in heights, a river, more colours, ... The work in progress photos are also great to look at, keep them coming!