The_Cook

On a slightly related note, Durham Cathedral is building version of itself in Lego to raise money. I can't find a thread charting progress but a Google Image search for Durham Lego Cathedral provides images. When I was there in the summer they were still at the floor tiles stage but it looks like they're making good progress and nave walls have reached the clerestory and roof vaults.

I'm one step ahead, Blacksmith can be found here, the other Trollicisation that I've done would be a Troll version of 2504 Spinjitzu Dojo. Trolls' already have a Mountain Fortress but I assume you're talking about a re-imagining of 6081 King's Mountain Fortress. I suppose my motivation for sharing the process is to show that care and thought have gone into the build even though it may seem very simplistic compared to some of the extravagant creations in these forums. In Real LifeTM I train and coach people and I've always found that it's the "why" things are done that's more useful than "what" is done, in this case the "what" is the bricks you see before you'll learn more from knowing the "why". In my opinion some of the best sets in recent years are the Master Builder sets because the booklets have all those tips tell you "why" things are being done it teaches those foundational construction skills.

Created as part of my Troll Town project. What would the 6067 Guarded Inn look like in Troll form? To answer that question one obviously has to build it in Troll form but before we get that far we need to go back to the source material and look at the identifiable features of the Guarded Inn that make it obviously the Guarded Inn. For me these would be: Attached to a length of wall Red half timbering curving around the side The opening front with the door, chimney and sign Big black roof with turret ontop Arches inside supporting the roof Annoyingly Peeron is serving pages but the images aren't coming through so I can't look at the instructions. Thankfully Eurobricks LDD thread has furnished me with a version of 6067 that I can inspect (because I'm too lazy to go upstairs and pick up a real ABS copy and also to sort through my paper instructions to find them!). From this I can determine some of the practical considerations such as dimensions: Floorplate from wall to wall is 8x19, comprised of a 6x16 plate and a 2x16 plate with a 2x8 at the half timbered end and a 1x8 providing the foundation for the wall. The wall length is 20, comprised of 4x 4444 panels. The Inn attaches at studs 4 to 11 inclusivs. The interior arches and fixed on top of the 5th brick in the walls. 2 from the half timbered side, 1 from the wall side. The wall passage is 6 studs wide, a single arch attached to the top of the 2nd brick supports the rear (open) side of the inn. Total brick count 250 including 4 minifigures, a horse and their accessories. So what would a Troll Guarded Inn look like? Aim to keep the same floorplate dimensions and hinging, possibly allow the wall itself to hinge. Ideally the half timbering would be Dark Red rather than Bright Red, but Dark Red is only available in a limited number of bricks and the 3x3 facets aren't one of them unfortunately. 2x3 Wedges might be a suitable substitution, how to get some form of half timbering onto them? The black roof should follow the design pattern that I used on the Troll King's Hall, where the roof has holes in it. Enough theorising, time to break out the bricks, or in my case their digital equivalent. It starts by laying out the general areangement of the structure. A BURP forms the wall, and an 8x16 plate for the interior of the Inn. Whilst I'm building the wall I add hinges halfway and properly spaced 1x2 technic bricks ready to form the connections to the rest of Troll Town's walls. The hinge for the front wall goes in and I mark out the outline of the doorway with a couple of 1x1's and some inverted slopes for the top. The front wall contains the half timbered section. I play around with dark red pieces, starting out with a flat wall, then an arched window. The arch has to be Brick, Arch 1x4 since that's the only arch available in Dark Red which leads to placing a arched window frame and associated barred window into the space. Except that nice curved windows aren't Troll! Back to the design DNA of Troll architecture, I realise that the slope of the chimney can be the starting point for a Troll window. I add the inverted arches and the corresponding side. Using a troll window allows me to make the doorway one brick wider, which will be beneficial because I want the door to be a rickety Troll style door and that needs a certain amount of space. The disadvantage is that I've lost one of the expanses of red half timberwork which is one of the key design details in the orginal Guarded Inn. I tackle the door next, I start with the top-clip, build the door and then work out where the bottom clip should go. It's a fairly standard Troll door which keeps people out but lets the wind in. Troll hygiene probably means that they need airy spaces anyway! Moving on around I try some dark red wedges to represent the half timbered end of the building. They don't work. The wedge shape is just fundamentally the wrong shape in this context and doesn't easily marry with the bricks that for the edge of the front wall. I abandon the attempt at the end wall and instead move around to the interior wall with hope of getting the roof on. A 1x4x5 panel with window is used to form the bulk of the interior wall replacing the 4444 panel that was originally used with the modern part. The issue now is getting the structure in place to support the roof and the area over the wall passage. In Troll land this is harder because the arches are brick built from multiple inverse slopes rather than being a single mould element with inherent structural integrity. The trick I use is to place a couple of arches in Light Purple to act as markers for where my brick built arches should go. Light Purple stands out from the standard Troll colour palette and is a reminder to me that I've left scaffold or marker bricks in place. The arches are duly built from inverse bricks, I opt to let the roof support arches sit a brick lower that they should otherwise there isn't the pleasing arc from inverse 45slopes to the shallower inverse 33slopes. A line of 45 slopes on top helps lock the whole structure into place and will act as supports for the roof. The aim with the roof was to have the same style as the Troll King's Hall. This means flat plates with the use of wedge plates to form gaps in the roof which are in-turn covered with dark green foliage of some form. A plate roof means some form of hinge is required to angle the plates, therefore I start with these. Building up from there a mix of 2x8 plates, 1x8 plates and wedge pieces is used to form the plane of the roof with everything being sandwiched between some 1x6 plates and tiles running perpendicular. After attachment there's a bit of fiddling to be down with tiles and slopes until the right mix of bricks forms the correct stops to allow the two halves of the roof the come together neatly in the middle. Except there's no hole in the middle for the roof turret to come through, so a quick shuffle around and a hole is formed. This pushes the SeaGrass pieces a bit too far down the slope so I swap the tiles for plates and mount Dark Green 5x6 limb pieces across the gaps. Because of the angles the gap ísn't a precise number of studs wide so it makes sense to use tall slopes to pass through the gap then spread out again afterwards. In Troll architecture this form of construction takes it's inspiration from the Siege Engine in 7037 Tower Raid and slopes are duly added in Dark Brown. Which just leaves that end wall and it's half timbering to finish up. If wedges don't work; could I do something squarer? I lay a 3x3 facet piece down as a foundation and then start building up a line of dark red 1x1's in the middle and dark grey on the outer edges. It's certainly working better than the wedges were. There needs to be a window so a Troll window is added and the wall starts to take shape. Some more 3x3 facet pieces across the top lock everything into place and conveniently form a platform for hinge bricks for the roof. The facets by happy coincidence are light bluish grey so they form a foundation layer of light bluish grey all the way around the two built sides of the Inn at ground level which is visually quite pleasing. A bit of tidying up here and there, crenelations and an interior table and it's done. 263 bricks without Minifigs so slightly more than the source set but this was expected due the arches being brick built and the 2345 and 4444 panels being replaced by bricks as well. It'll probably top out around 290 by the time the Minifigs and utensils have been added. All-in-all a good mornings work. I think the design is instantly recognisable and contains the majority of the traits that make 6067 Guarded Inn what it is, whilst translating that to 7097 Troll style architecture. There is a brief hiatus whilst waiting for a second tranche of parts in build up the Guarded Inn, Graving Dock and Dragon Platform. It's not too much of a problem as I still have the first tranche of buildings to build up. ABS having arrived it's time to start building and one evening I pick the required parts from my stocks ready to build up the following morning. The Guarded Inn goes together quite quickly, the principal delays due to me picking parts in the wrong colour and therefore having to traipse upstairs to get the right part in the right colour. Some colour substitutions occur, namely the 1x3 inverse slopes not being available in Dark Brown so Reddish-Brown gets substituted. A couple of minor changes to the top involve some 1x4 plates to lock the top structure together. All-in-all I'm very happy with how it looks and how it's gone together. Annoyingly I'd received and seen a Lady Liberty head that I'd ordered just the other day and had put it to one side to keep it safe and now I can't find it... therefore I can't build up a Troll Lady Inn Keeper Minifigure in order to take the photo's. Which leaves me in a bit of a quandry how to progress. I can't take photos until the head is found and the Minifig can be assembled. I think for fans of a certain age it is instantly recognisable in form as the Guarded Inn yet it most definitely now part of the Troll empire. As always, LDD files can be found on my MOCPages mirror of this post.

One of the other key features of the trolls are their seige engines with their big speckle silver wheels. I had been considering some form of extra-muros industry in terms of yards for creating the siege engines. My gut feeling was that I should be looking at the 7036 Dwarves Mine or the more recent Lone Ranger 79110 Silver Mine Shootout for inspiration which I duly did and felt that they weren't quite what I had in mind. What I was thinking of was some form of double height wall from which extends tiered platforms for building siege engines, and a siege engine being built. Perhaps a gateway at height through a gap in the wall that leads out onto the walkways. Given that I'm thinking of tiered platforms it's going to need something with some height, therefore it has to be a siege tower being built. The siege tower could be a duplicate of the one in 7037 Tower Raid or it could be a simpler construction that follows the same basic premise; notably for forward leaning of the slopes. It's worth noting that the the mid platform of the siege tower in 7037 Tower Raid is at 12 bricks high and the top platform at about 18 bricks high. A little bit more playing in LDD whilst on the tube allows me to flesh out the structure. From a conceptual point of view I'm happy with the general shape but the actual execution leaves a lot to be desired. Twin mountains either side, these work and the Burps build up bulk quickly. Upper level door feels like it's going to work. Twin height platforms. Something in behind: stockpiles, anvils, sawpits High level crane to get onto the upper deck. A tower structure could support the crane. It might be nice to try to substitute one of the upper LURPs for a tower assembly to give a little bit more asymetry. Can the side mountains be pivoted for flexibility? Needs to open inwards rather than outwards so that it's not covered by the platforms. Support, how? Something structurally strong. Check to see what the Dwarf mine did. Width, 4 or 5 studs. Anything wider and the support gets harder and the interior becomes inaccessible. There are plenty of ideas above to work on based on the first sketch model. As it stands the first sketch was only 100 bricks, so there's room for more to be added. Second attempt. One of the mountains has been replaced with a double height tower. The gate has been moved to the inside and both mountains are now hinged. It's getting better but the platform structures are still a little lacking and there's no detailing for the interior in terms of construction materials. The structure is currently 170 bricks, although that will probably increase as the platforms are rebuilt. A small siege tower will probably be a good 80 bricks, another 30 for interior props and 20 on a collection of minifigs. Having spent a few days away from the design I'm now certain that the platforms aren't right. It's very reminiscent of the situation I was in with the Trolls' Landing, where the jetties weren't right. I try to work that train of thought through. It's obvious that the flat plating of the platforms is incorrect and that they need to be replaced with the "planking" of my Troll Town. What supports the planking? The spindly Support 1x1x6 Solid Pillar don't work but I can't see how to form rock pillars that will sensibly support the platforms without them becoming too crowded to get into. Then lying in bed in a Polish hotel room with a stinking cold I started thinking could I support the platforms off of BURPs. There's precedent with the Trolls' Landing the Trolls build on top of rock outcrops so the base layer of the structure could easily be BURPs. The following day I start to make changes to the design. The old platforms are removed and I stick in two BURPs back to back, except they don't fit. The doorway isn't wide enough. I open up the doorway and it becomes much more like the doorway from Trolls landing, this improves the look of the gate tremendously since it's more balanced and symmetric than before. A bit more work and I have a first level platform built across BURPs and LURPs. The current design has the BURPs and LURPs immediately adjacent to each other, but I recall now that I was thinking about separating them and creating an arch between the two, or just spanning the gap. This precedent / design motif follows the arch in Troll Forge between the wall and the forge. Separating the BURPs and LURPs allows me to raise the platform. The proportions are better. I try to construct an upper level but around halfway through I realise that it's not tall enough and it's too late in the evening for my fatigue addled brain to work out how to raise it the few bricks necessary to make it work. It is however showing promise, the structure is right and the design is falling into place, it's just needs some more effort to get it to work. What I can't work out at the moment is how to support the upper platform. A few days later with a clear mind I try to get the upper level built again. It needs some form of pillars and the style that is currently being used to support the lower level is based around black 2x1x3 Inverse Slope 75. I follow that through and use those slopes atop a 3 high stack of 1x1 bricks. If I turn the slopes outwards I can run supporting beams across the outer edge and have some form of tie across to the opposing pillar; this is important because it provides structural support to the upper platform. The architectural detail is shown in isolation in the image below, it's unique enough and interesting enough that it will join the series of architectural details that I outlined in Trolls' Landing and I'll use it elsewhere in future builds. I use a mix of wedge plates to plate out the platform. One last minute change is to replace one of the 1x1 bricks in the stack with a headlamp that has had a helmet horn inserted into it. This completes the structure; numerous cosmetic tweaks occur over the next few days but the structure itself remains unchanged. The design focus moves to the siege tower. Earlier revisions had had a half height siege tower, my idea being to mount some form of flick fire missile on the top. The problem is that a flick fire missile is feels too small atop a siege tower even a half height one. The solution is a bigger missile! Enter the competition cannon, there's already precedence for these in that one is mounted to the bottom of 7041 Troll Battle Wheel. I mount one in the middle of the siege engine and fashion a crude firing lever up the back. The flick fire missile is retained on the top but it's no longer the principle armament. Much happier with this design and it's added in. Several weeks elapse between the design being finished and being in a position to create it in ABS. The bricks took a while to arrive and then I've been building the earlier models such as the Troll Kings Hall and the Troll Forge. The build itself is fairly easy, the main issues being finding the right bricks. Everything goes together smoothly over the course of about two hours. I think my biggest concern is that for all it's bulk it's quite compact; it's got height but not much spread. I did have concerns about reaching into the lower platform and whilst it's tricky it's not impossible to get a minifig in there. Seen here with additional Siege Engines docked. The two Siege Tower variants side-by-side. Whilst clearing the models away at the end of the day I realise that I've built the siege engine wrongly there should be some Brick, Arch 1x8x2 in the upper section to provide structural support. I'll rectify that over the next few days ready for when I assemble Troll Town in all it's glory; my rough calculations are that it will fit on my table but only just. Unfortunately LDD files are unavaillable whilst I find another file hosting site. PM if you want them.

Having seen the shots rather than just a textual description I agree with what you've said and understand that they're using that "looks like it was made by a 5yr old" vibe to drive the design of the series. Castle feels a bit under-represented with just 1 set, whereas the western theme seemed to get 3 sets and lots of City. I actually quite like the series and think it will really appeal to kids but I can see why a lot of the AFOL's are disappointed: "I wanted more of my favourite theme and Lego didn't give it to me!". Those people expecting a horses and soldiers battlepack when they read the world Cavalry are obviously disappointed, their use of the word Cavalry probably stems from the "cavalry to the rescue" phrase where someone (usually the cavalry) charge in towards the end to save-the-day or win-the-battle. It will be interesting to see what the alternate builds are. Given the pieces it'll be a small stretch of wall or a tower for the castle and a cart of some sort. The series isn't at all what I expected, but I'm definitely tempted to pick up one or two of the sets.

What else? Trolls have a navy. An awesome, epic, construct would be a shipyard, possibly beyond the scope of what can be sensibly achieved if I'm constraining myself to TLG size/style sets. Jousting, training. Good playability, how do Trolls train? Assault course? Practice dummies? Steps, ladders, tunnels, undergrowth. Pop-ups, trapdoors. Part of the inspiration is 2504 Spinjitzu Dojo from the Ninjago line, a triptych of Asian influenced walls and doors that are laced with traps. Replicate that but with Troll architecture. So I gamely set about building up three sections of walls that are hinged together, 120 bricks later we have a structure that I can start adding an assault course to. Except the structure doesn't take well to additions, there is no neat way of adding to the insides of BURP's. There is also no neat way of replacing the BURP's without dramatically increasing the brick count. Almost a back to the drawing board type scenario, to attempt something similar but not within the context of a Fortress wall. However I persevere for just a little longer. I extend the baseplates to give me a little more room on the inside and use a LURP as a starting point. To this I'm able to attach headlamp bricks with Bar 4l protruding horizontally to give a series of bars to clamber over. I copy the falling axe mechanism from the Spinjitzu Dojo, but again I'm struggling to get it to fit in within a BURP. Then I realise that if I take the top plate away the BURP has a nice cutout which will allow me to insert a 6L axle and pivot from the top. The cranked operating levers no longer make sense, so they are replaced with straight technic pieces. I realise that one of the best ways of topping them off would be to stick a 2x2 round tile on them as a target. If something hits the target the axe will pivot forwards and knock a minifig off of the beam. Which means I need some mechanism for lobbing or shooting bricks at the targets. A quick trawl of Brickset shows a couple of Troll catapult designs but the nicest happens to be Troll Warrior which has a small siege cart which shoots flick fire missiles. This design is duly replicated. This leaves the central tower. There needs to be some form of clamberable obstacle in order to tie the lower baseplates together. Possibly some from of trapdoor. I probably need to research how to do that with as few bricks as possible but also as thinly as possible. Some form of hanging chain to swing on as well. A hanging chain and some stepping stones with interspersed spikes and flames. When starting to build the model in ABS I realise that I've ordered the wrong size green wedge plates. I have to substitute reddish-brown plates instead which compromises the colourscheme somewhat but allows me to complete the build process. Everything else progesses very smoothly, a couple of minor refinements when I find a brick missing from the LDD design and a two 1x1 bricks side-by-side get replaced with a 1x2 brick. Structurally it's all good but the top of the tower feels empty. What I realise is that it needs a large half barrel full of stones, and maybe a skull, to drop down onto the heads of the trainees climbing the chain. Onto the play features. Clambering over the bars. Jumping across flames and spikes Dodging the swinging axes and flick-fire missiles Clambering the chain whilst skulls rain down from above. Unfortunately the LDD files are unavailable whilst I sort out an alternative hosting service. PM me if you want them. Here's Troll Town in it's almost it's entirety; there's a 7097 that needs incorporating as well. The Troll Warship is shown alongside the landing for scale. What I can say is that I'm going to need a bigger table... From left to right: Troll Training, Troll King's Hall, Trolls' Landing and the Troll Forge. From left to right: Trolls' Landing, Troll King's Hall, the Troll Forge and Troll Training.

Am I right in guessing that the walls on the upper floor are actually at right angles to each other and it's a mix of the tilt and the plates forming the timberwork that give it the completely rickety feel? Then the roof is square with the base and the timberwork is covering the joins? Regardless it's very cleverly done.

I'm not entirely reliant on TLG there have been a dozen Bricklink Orders to get the various parts but there are a couple of rare colours of standard elements that TLG happens to be cheaper for; case in point being Dark Green Plate 1x2. Dark Green 5x6 Leaves are also cheaper than the UK Bricklink stores at the moment. Dark Bluish Grey BURPs are also surprisingly hard to get hold of, unlike their Old Grey ancestors which are found much more regularly. I did a quick back of packet calculation and the cost of postage when buying them one or two at a time from dozens of Bricklink sellers means that the TLG price is still favourable with their fixed cost pack and postage. German and other continental BrickLink stores often seem to be cheaper than the UK but the cost of foreign rather than domestic postage has to balance that out. Anyhow all the bricks for the Tranche 1 buildings have arrived so over the next week or two I'll build up: Trolls' Landing [done + posted] Trolls' Forge [done + posted] Troll King's Hall [done + posted] Troll Training The Engine Docks I've got another batch of Bricklink orders in for the Tranche 2, but I probably need another TLG order for Dark Green 1x2's and a handful of other bits that aren't cheaper elsewhere. This will allow the building of: Trolls' Market The Graving Dock Guarded Inn The Dragon Platform At which point I'll probably have to stop... I hadn't considered the Medusa, but yes she might work. I've got a Liberty head which I recall someone turning into a more feminine Troll than the 7097 Queen.

A blacksmith. How else do trolls get their wonderful speckle silver helmets? The inspiration is undoubtedly 6040 Blacksmith Shop and my starting point was a short stretch of wall. The wall is lifted almost directly from the small wall section in 7097 Trolls' Mountain Fortress but trolls don't have a little red furnace they have a furnace that consumes the heart of a mountain! Perhaps a mountain is a little ambitious but a small-ish rock structure is used to hold the fire, with a connecting arch across to the wall. The connecting arch is deliberate since it provides a second anchor point without which the plate attaching the furnace to the wall would be too flimsy. The forge in the first attempt, shown above, had closed back but it felt somewhat forced. The use of a Wall Element Iceberg meant that the black surround to the coals couldn't go right the way back into the mountain. It was quickly removed in favour of hammering the swords from both sides. For decoration I initially stuck a skeleton in the tower section, as seen above. Pretty; but there's no storyline. I swap the skeleton for a Crownie and stick a door over the front. Better; we have a prisoner but what's a prisoner to do but sit and wait. Wait to be rescued? So we need a rescuer? One more Crownie on the outside. Now we have conflict, we have drama, will our heroic Crownie rescue his friend before the Troll uses his polished bones to make the pommels of the Troll cleavers? (Okay, maybe TLG wouldn't phrase it that graphically but it's what every 7year old boy is thinking!) A weapon/helmet stand and an anvil finish off the set and I retain the skeleton for posterity... Weighing in at 152 bricks, admittedly some are large BURP sized pieces, it's not quite a small set yet it's not yet made it into the 'big' set category. After an interminable wait for a TLG Customer Service order to arrive that contained two Slope 75 2 x 2 x 3 Double Convex that form part of the forge I can finally build the set in ABS. The one change that I make whilst building is to add a black apron to the Troll blacksmith to differentiate him slightly from the others. With only two troll torsos, two head variants and two helmet variant the amount of differentiation between trolls is minimal so something like the apron, or shoulder pads or a special helmet are important in order to make the characters special and unique. Compact, pretty sturdy. My ABS photo's above are currently missing the skeleton and 2nd Crownie; both of which are really needed to give the set a little more colour. I'll add them back in as the greater Troll Town gets assembled. LDD files are temporarily unavailable whilst I find an alternative hosting site; PM me if you want them.

Curse you, and the dragon(s) you rode in on! You've preempted one of my Troll Town models... I think that the Dark Green looks more menacing that this year's red. I know people were dismissive of it initially but I think that the Dragon Mountain is the best set of this castle wave just because it's a unique structure compared to the things like the castle which are just rehashes of the tried and tested square castle setup that they've been doing for years.

A small package with a Danish postmark, a familiar Red and White Logo and a slight rattle when shaken, has finally arrived... It takes me about 2hours to build up the Trolls' Landing from scratch. As this is one of the most refined of the Troll models, in the sense that it went through 5 iterations before I was happy with the design, the actual construction progresses smoothly and there are no structural issues in quite the same way that I had with the Troll King's Hall. The Trolls' Landing assembled next to the Troll Kings hall. Assembled the two models are getting too large for my photo-stage. By the time I've added all of the designs to 7037 it will easily fill the small Dining Room table.

Great stuff, but one minor observation is that the connections between your modules are wrong. The connections running up/down the screen (for want of a better phrase) are set right at the edge of the baseplate, whereas the connections running left/right across the screen are 1 stud inset. If you set the up/down connections in by 1 stud then the modules can be rotated by 90 degrees and still connect. You possibly also need to think about the 8x16's are going to connect in as well, does this mean that the 16x16 modules need connection points in the middle? It's a great concept and there are some nice designs in the individual modules but the engineering around the modularity needs just a little bit more refinement before it's perfect.

I'm stuck waiting for a TLG Customer Service Order to arrive, it looks like it's going to take the full "...up to 7 working days" of the small print. I know I can't realise the Trolls' Landing in ABS until the TLG order arrives and I'm similarly stymied in realising the Troll Forge in ABS because there are again key parts that are in the TLG order. So I turn to the Third of my designs; having designed the Landing and Forge (both of which I will return to) my ideas pile was starting running dry. The usual medieval town ideas don't translate so well in Troll Town... Troll Bakery anyone? But food is important, Trolls need somewhere to feast. They'd feast in the Troll King's Hall. My initial sketches, roughed out during a European flight where I didn't have enough room to pull out the laptop were of an open sided hall with a vaguely Nordic/Norse styling. It made sense to site a throne at one end which led to enclosing that end of the throne room with a wall, hinged on either side to form an enclosed space if the set were to be used standalone. For play purposes it would be necessary to get to the interior of the hall. The roof either had to lift of or be open-able in some way to allow access. Whilst thinking about pivots I wondered, but couldn't adequately determine on paper, whether the roof slopes could be pivoted at the bottom and then rest on some form of support to keep them at the right angle... Which led to me considering whether the support point could also become a tie-bar across the width of the roof section. It looked plausible but it would require an LDD session to try to prove the theory. That evening with spare time on hand LDD was duly fired up and some 3hours later a fully fledged Troll King's Hall emerged. My experience at Troll Architecture was sufficient that the various sections looked the part from the outset rather than requiring a substantial redesign. I opted to use 1x12x3 arches as the tie pieces but with hindsight I could equally use a number of inverted slopes to create the tie pieces. The result might not be quite as strong but should be sufficient. The overall cost would be 20 more bricks on an existing total of 303. The unique element count would remain the same since the inverse slopes are already used and the 1x12x3 arch would be replaced by a 1x8 brick. For stability some the 1x1x2/3 cheese slopes might need to be replaced with 2x2x2/3 cheese slopes which is an anachronism since these elements are newer than the Fantasy castle line. The rock-work end to the hall feels substantial whilst being simply built with BURPs and LURPs, whilst the adjacent windows fulfill the Troll architectural style without making the wall expanse too repetitive. I'm particularly pleased with the roof structure, it's simple in design but the use of 12x3 wedge plates overlaid with tiles and foliage give it substantially more depth and character than a simple plated roof. The holes in the roof are especially pleasing as they follow the Troll's decrepit architectural practices. Four trolls formed the initial minifig complement but for storytelling purposes I feel that a King or General from the Crownie side might need to be substituted for one of the Trolls. Such a substitution would allow the Troll/Crownie equivalent of the "Capitulation of Vercingetorix". May they prostrate themselves before the Troll King whilst his warriors feast... This is the one model that I can actually build without the TLG Customer Services order being present. According to my records I have all the parts bar some 1x2 plates in Dark Green which aren't of structural importance and can be skipped. The baseplates lock together nicely (pretend the old brown 2x8's are reddish brown ) and I start building the columns. The one thing that you can never tell from LDD is how strong the actual connections are. As I build my columns of the hall I realise that the supports for the roof brackets aren't as strong as the could be the columns really need a layer of plates to lock the top together with the 1x12x3 arches. The roof mounts at the wall end are particularly weak. I continue regardless but it's something I might have to come back to in a design revision. I start building the roof then realise that I don't have either the Technic, Pin Connector Plate 1 x 2 x 1 2/3 with Two Holes (Double on Top) nor the Reddish-Brown Slope, Inverted 45 2 x 1's. The later I replace with Dark Bluish-Grey, the former I spend half an hour hunting through boxes on unsortted black bricks to see if I have any spares followed by searching through various sets to find Dark Bluish-Grey equivalents. I also need to colour substitute 1x8 plates in Reddish Brown for Dark Brown. With the roof sections built they're added to the existing structure and my earlier suspicions about the mounting points are correct, they're holding for the moment but I doubt they'd pass an engineering review. I then find the 8 black Technic, Pin Connector Plate 1 x 2 x 1 2/3 with Two Holes (Double on Top) that I had indeed ordered but had forgotten to log in the inventory and so spend another 20 minutes swapping out the Dark-Bluish Grey subsitutions and returning them to their rightful sets. Subsequently I find enough spare Dark-Bluish Grey pieces in my unsorted box of Dark-Bluish Grey; a very frustrating diversion caused by poor planning. The fully assembled model. Structurally the pillars are holding together although they are a definite weak point in the build and I spend a little time LDD in putting locking plates across the top of them, particularly where the side walls hinge onto the main structure. It comes at the cost of about 12 more pieces although I haven't been able to reflect the changes in ABS yet. It's not a bad little set, definitely some play value. Here's the capitulation of the Lion King to his new Troll overlords. LDD files are temporarily unavailable whilst I work out a suitable alternative hosting site.

So essentially the Movie tie in sets are supposed to look like they've been built by a 5yr old who's been given a bunch of unrelated spare bricks by his elder brother, makes what he can and lets imagination do the rest....

I realise that, and replied to you because I knew you would respond rationally and in good humor, but there are many here that project their own personal desires onto sets and themes and feel disappointed when the sets aren't tailored precisely to them. .

The definition of better varies depending on who you talk to! My suspicion is that the simplification of the Castle line from the previous Kingdoms incarnation was a deliberate move from TLG's perspective to distance it from the more intricate LOTR/Hobbit lines and a move to try to get younger children who need a simpler build experience more interested in the Castle theme. Better from TLG's point of view is simpler and more enticing to kids, which isn't necessarily better from an AFOL's point of view. If they don't continue this line then expect more of the same. One of the reasons that we see the same basic castle shape over and over again, ie. 375, 6080, 6085, 7946, 70404 is that it's instantly recognisable as a castle and every year a new bunch of 7yr old boys comes along that thinks this is new and fresh; because to them it is, they've only just turned 7 and everything is new. My other suspicion is that the detail presented to us in the Fantasy Line and on through into the Kingdoms Line was a bit of an aberration and that the line has resumed focus on it's target customers with simpler builds a-la the KKII days, although thankfully without the silly coloured knights.

Try thinking smaller, go for an 8x8 diorama rather than a 32x32. Remember that some of the people here have been collecting bricks for years and have real day jobs that they can use to subsidise their hobby/obsession. When you're starting out with just a few sets, then you have to tailor the size of your MOCs accordingly. For a given number of bricks you can achieve a much greater density of bricks in an 8x8 space than you could with the same set of bricks in a 32x32 space. I would also suggest considering to build in a style or to develop a style that works without needing such density of bricks. I appreciate that the historic forums are heavily populated with hugely intricate MOC designs utilising hundreds and thousands of bricks in styles typified by Derfel Cardan and Legonardo, but it doesn't have to be that way. My personal preference is to try and follow the TLG style of achieving what needs to be achieved with as few bricks as possible. Third thing. Practice, practice, practice. Then be critical with yourself and ask yourself how can I improve, then try it! The beauty of Lego bricks is that unlike say woodwork or metalwork if you're not happy with something that you've created you can pull it apart and reform it continuosly until you're happy with it.

I'm still waiting for a little package from Denmark... When it arrives next week I'll have all the bits necessary to start building up this and the other 4 models that extend 7097 Trolls' Mountain Fortress to make Troll Town.

An index to jump straight to the various parts: 19/04/2018 : Trolls' Prison 02/08/2016 : Fisherman's Landing 16/07/2016 : Custom Troll Heads 16/03/2015 : Troll Town Assembled everything put together for the first time. 07/08/2014 : Dragon Carrier 17/07/2014 : Cattle Poaching 06/01/2014 : The Graving Dock 02/01/2014 : The Dragon Platforms 06/12/2013 : Trolls' Market Place 13/11/2013 : Trolls' Guarded Inn separate thread 06/11/2013 : The Engine Docks 31/10/2013 : Troll Training 29/10/2013 : Troll Blacksmith 26/10/2013 : Troll King's Hall It's been a while since I've posted any new creations here, mostly due to the fact that my home office, and therefore build space, has been taken over with storage boxes whilst a major redecoration of the rest of the house is being undertaken. However, I have had a couple of projects lurking in digital form that are now starting to take shape as the decorating finishes and a slew of Bricklink orders start wending their way across the country to promote them from bits to ABS. So I thought that it's time to post now and we'll add to the thread as the ABS arrives and the various models take shape. My usual stomping grounds are 80's castle and I've quietly been amassing a small (possible understatement) army of Lions, Falcons and Crusaders in order to try and stage one of the large battle scenes as seen in the catalogues, complete with beige ground and orange from the box covers; but that will have to wait until the last of the real world decorating is done and I get some space to erect the photo stage. Meanwhile, I've been somewhat taken by the Trolls from 2009's Fantasy Era. Whilst 7097 Trolls' Mountain Fortress is modular I was a bit disappointed that TLG never released any extra modules to build out the castle in the same way that they did with the 80's castles. I can fix that... The first idea was the Trolls' landing. I needed somewhere to moor my Troll Warship! For some months I've been toying, unsuccessfully, with a concept in my 80's range whereby a gate in the wall opens out onto a beach or quay with a small rocky outcrop and beacon at the end. Thumbnails of the original 80's style are shown below to give you an idea of how the concept has progressed over several months and across the differing styles of the two eras. But these are Trolls, everything has to be rockier, spikier, more exuberant. A rocky outcrop with beacon becomes a towering outcrop with a massive flaming torch. There would be steps to the outcrop, then steps carved into it then a ladder to the top where the beacon burns brightly. Even with the above in mind my first attempt at rebuilding the above in Troll style was pretty lame. The rocky outcrop was so-so, the quay a black plate to the gate, the flame not quite massive enough, the steps up just didn't have the awesome epic-ness that I'd had in my mind and most importantly of all the design DNA from the 7097 just wasn't present; it didn't look Troll-like. Time to step away from the drawing board (or it's LDD proxy) and to do some research into just what makes Troll architecture look Troll. I pulled out one of my many copies of 7097 and actually set about building it. Surprisingly this was the first time I've ever built the fortress itself. I built it slowly, deliberately looking for the techniques, the colour schemes and the motifs that make a Troll building Troll. Windows: Formed by Slope 75 2 x 1 x 3 facing inwards in Light Bluish-Grey and Slope, Inverted 45 2 x 1 also in Light Bluish-Grey, again facing inwards. Walls: A mix of BURPs, LURPs, Rock Panels and Tower pieces. The big pieces create a lot of wall quickly with small bricks used for infill and detailing. Dark green 1x1x2/3 slope detailing on the BURPS simulate moss or foliage. Black inverse slopes and small reddish-brown highlights are used to represent Troll constructions over the rocks. Towers and other major masonry sections are Light Bluish-Grey, rocks are Dark Bluish-Grey. Troll constructions are typically topped by Dark Red 1x1 cones with white horns inserted. Arches: Brick built using slopes to provide an angular construction. Gates: Plate built in reddish brown with deliberate spaces between the plates to create an open yet formidable gate. Tower tops:Brick, Arch 1 x 5 x 4 Inverted are used to create crown type structures. I still feel the concept of gate, quay and beacon will make for a good set but it needs to incorporate the Troll design ethos listed above. For inspiration I analysed around some of the other sets, 8876 Scorpion Prison Cave and 7093 Skeleton Prison Tower. Although the styling is very different there is a certain DNA that they both share; they're both towers and they both have prison cages hanging off of the side. I'll steal the prison cage idea. My first beacon was a solid lump of BURPs topped with a back-to-back pair of LURPs. Solid... lump... great play features... not! For the next attempt it would be good to open things out, I steal the arches from the giant Troll guard towers on 7097 and open the solid lump of BURPs out so that it becomes a cave. Better, we now have more play value, we can hide things in the cave. My initial attempts to incorporate steps carved into the rock were soaking up too many bricks for too little benefit. Nice though the idea was it wasn't adding to the playability of the design. Sometimes you have to "sacrifice your darlings", the rock built steps had to go. I drew heavily on the top of the main tower in 7097 to create the platform for the beacon. Tall inverted slopes in black support the platform which utilises the inverted arches in dark red to make it uniquely Troll. A ladder at the back to an intermediate platform supported on more inverted slopes with a set of steps taking us down to the quayside. The gateway draws on the brick built arches to provide the angular troll arch with a single gate design based around the spaced slats used in the main gate of 7097. Slope 75 2x1x3 with inserted horns provide the spiky adornments of Troll architecture. It's a better attempt but it's still not quite right. The cave isn't accessible and the quayside is just a boring expanse for flat black plates. There's more work to be done... A second side of the cave is opened up and I realise that I can insert a boat into the cave. Suddenly the landing has an immediate purpose more than just an add-on for the Trolls' Warship. The jetty gets rebuilt into a much more rickety form, copying some techniques that I tried in the Troll King's Hall that can be seen in the town images above and will be described in a later posting. A skeletal prison cage and a Dwarf's head on a stick give the proceedings some more ambiance although I still feel that there's more to be done raising the tower another brick or two higher but I need to think about how I can achieve that and more in terms of mooring posts on the jetties. A new day, a clear mind. I remove the jetties from the model and condense the mass of blue base-plates down to a single 16x16 plate. Without the jetties it all fits on, just. I'll come back to the jetties later, they're an intrinsic part of the set but I have some modularity in mind, partly inspired by the Heroica sets. I pull the tower apart placing the top section to one side. I'm happy with the top, it's the base and middle, particularly the middle that isn't quite right. I start layering up bricks, typically the big 2x8 bricks, but it's not working, it isn't coming together to form a suitable support for the upper portion of the tower. I stop, pull it all apart again and go back to the 7097 instructions to find out how the big Troll guard huts were topped off; the TLG designers built the back and side walls up square and level and then used a large plate across the top. I decide to try that, a couple of large 1x12 bricks bring the sides up level but then I find myself back to using 2x8 bricks to bridge the gap and form a base. I'm back to the same problem I had moments ago, but two bricks higher. What I do notice is that the space is 10x8, just right for a pair of back-to-back BURPs and that those BURPs narrow to the right size for the LURPs that form the starting point of the upper section of the tower. The whole rework has probably cost another 20 bricks but has given me an additional 6 bricks worth of height. My plan with the jetties is to make them modular and therefore configurable to suit play. I design a basic crossroads jetty piece that fits onto a blue 6x6 plate, this gets replicated three times. I design a length of jetty that fits onto a blue 10x6, replicated twice and a shorter 6x8 that holds a small bridge section. Black technic connector pins hold everything together and the jetty walkways themselves replicate the design style that I had tried earlier. I change the overall colour to brown and everything looks good. It's probably cost me another 30 bricks to do the jetties this way but I think it's definitely preferable. The disadvantage is that the model can't be picked up as a single lump, the connections are just a little too fragile for that. A quick pass of the model attempts to minimise the number of unique elements by ensuring that every brick type is only present in one colour. The fact that the colour palette blends so well and that the construction already contains a degree of colour mottling to achieve it's affect means that this isn't anywhere near as problematic as it sounds. I replace the bone cage with one based on the prisoner cage present on the 7094 Trolls' Warship. It saves me about 15 bricks and blends in better with the rest of the Troll Architecture. Minifigs are added, I initially started out with 4 trolls but quickly sacrificed one of those for a Crownie that could be a prisoner. Prisoners on their own are no fun, somebody needs to rescue them so another troll was sacrificed for a second Crownie soldier. Of the two remaining trolls one is armed with a cutlass, the other gets a flaming torch to light the beacon. I add a spare sword and oars to the boat and the jetties get barrels and fish. A couple more minor tweaks here and there and it feels like it's done. Maybe a skeleton in the cave... but I can't see any suitable attachment points. There's at least one more element rationalisation pass whereby I try to standardise the colours of various bricks across all of the models to ensure consistency across the range. Having looked at the element listings for 7097 I realise that I'm probably being more ruthless than I need to be, but the engineer in the back of my mind is thinking that if I mix two bricks of different colours in a single bag then no matter how many times I weigh the bag I can never tell whether I've got the ratio of one colour to another colour correct. The more I think through this problem the more respect I have for the TLG engineers that run the packaging process, getting the apparently simple process of putting the right bricks in the right bag correct time and time again is much harder than it looks. Which leaves me waiting for the ABS to arrive, almost a dozen BrickLink orders have been placed and one order with TLG customer support, but I realise belatedly that I've not ordered the key 16x16 plate in blue! Which means I'm stuck until I place another order or locate one of the sets that contains the 16x16 plate... However, once enough of the orders have arrived I should have enough parts to build up one or two of the other sets: Trolls' Forge, The Troll King's Hall, Troll Training or the Troll Engine Docks. Expect something within the week... LDD file for those that are interested.

It's interesting to see how your wall technique has evolved over the last few big builds that you've done. The half timber-work is definitely your own style that you've been developing.

You've missed my original point about storytelling. It's not the over-arching epic, it's the storytelling within the individual sets. A child has spent $20 and wants to create or re-create stories with the bricks that he's just got, he doesn't want to have to spend $1000 for all of the sets to make sense. If you picked individual episodes from Greek Myths or Roman history and created them as small sets which allow re-enactment of the stories then you would have a viable set. As it is you've got a mish-mash of everything with no focus on anything, if it reaches 10,000 then the TLG designers are going to look at it and find the one set that enables them to tell a story. They're more likely to choose a Thesus and Minotaur, a Daedalus and Icarus, or Perseus and Medusa over army building sets because those represent individual stories. Pick up a copy of Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry; David Robertson, Bill Breen; ISBN 978-1847941152. To rescue the company from the bankruptcy of the 90's TLG had to refocus their design effort on stroytelling and their core audience of 5-9 year old boys. You'll need to start thinking like a product designer if you want to get a set through the review process and into the design path without your ideas being either discounted or changed beyond recognition.

Try turning the question around? Describe to us what Legoville is and qualities you want in the castle and then the medieval experts here can make appropriate suggestions as to suitable sets or other options. Is Legoville a city layout? Modern or historic? Is the castle in your city layout intended to be a historical castle that protected the city in distant ages past? A fantastical creation in a theme park? Do you have any size constraints? Cost constraints? Does the castle have to fit a colour theme? With a greater depth of knowledge we can provide you with more insight which is tailored to you, otherwise we're just comparing the two castles.

Very impressive. What it lacks however is the Barn and the Mill form the MMV.

Looks nice. Is the right width and does it have the right connections to actually become part of a current castle?

Then show them! Give us all the bits to recreate a story. I can't see them relaxing the religious ban ever. You only have to tune in to the morning news to see what religious conflict is doing to the human race to appreciate that staying as far away from religion as possible is a very wise move on their part. Even historic religious artifacts such as cathedrals or monastic buildings could quickly be attributed to crusades and re-ignite a modern controvesry over the historic past. It doesn't take a lot before deeply passionate people get inflamed and that's bad PR, look at the story around Jabba's palace where some people decided that it was too close in design to Hagia Sophia in Istambul and complained about it.