The_Cook

The plastic baseplate is a bit of a letdown, but at $1.70 a minifig (or £1.10 if they ever releas it in the UK) as an army builder it's much cheaper than buying overpriced battle-packs 2nd hand on eBay which are retailing for £2.6 a minifig, not sure about US rates as I don't track them.

Noooo! That's almost the last project we should submit. No offence to Derfel I think his designs are amazing pieces of artwork, but they're unbuildable as a model that could be sold in shops. Think simpler!

You have to look at the spectrum of people that are making submissions, in general they're AFOLs who are good at building models. A good model doesn't necessarily make a good playset. Case in point, Defel Cardan's designs are amazing pieces of art, uterlly useless as a set you could sell in a shop. Your average 6-11 year old will get bored after the 3rd 1x1 round plate! I also think that once people have started to see what gets approved and what doesn't, then they'll adapt to give themselves a better chance at the submission process. Ie. concentrate on child friendly themes, themes that don't overlap with existing product lines and models that could be built from instructions. Just at TLG are working out how their side of the process should be handled so must the submission community. What interests me is that there are very few castle submissions on CUSCOO. Given the popularity of the theme and classic castle currently being displaced in favour of LOTR I'd have thought that there's an area there that's ripe for development. Conversely those of us that would like to see a Greek/Roman theme should get ourselves aligned behind one of the submissions and start pushing it properly. Get a steady momentum behind it like the Wild West Town has done and get it towards the frontpage where non-historic AFOL's might see it and give it a bit of a push.

That's not necessarily a problem, you just pitch the marketing, the price-point and your manufacturing quantities differently. A one-off CUSCOO project is always going to be in the "consumer direct" realm rather than having it's own double page spread in the annual catalogue. The word of mouth that got it 10,000 votes will hopefully generate it 10,000 sales. Again marginally more chance with the WW town where people from the Lego buying community voted for it because they wantted it rather than some celebrity telling their fans that it would be a good wheeze if they all voted for this toy thing.

I always liked the modularity of the late 80's castle sets, how you could build a great big castle by clicking more together. What I miss (present tense, as a child as long as I had bricks to play with I was happy!) is a single large square keep, a-la the White Tower in the Tower of London or Rochester Castle, to sit in the middle. In these days of high priced, huge UCS and Modular buildings a proper keep could be made to fit the same price bracket as the 10188 Deathstar.

I've just seen the hinged version and that really did bring a smile to my face, an excellent rendition of a complete classic. If the next castle line (after LOTR) re-introduces the concept of a modular castle wall then this should definitely be up for inclusion within. A couple of tweaks here and there to make it buildable from instructions and to have a sensible price point and it would be a high seller amongst the AFOL's and do well amongst the wider castle buying public.

Very nice. I used to walk past this building daily and your representation is spot on.

From a historical perspective it's worth pointing out that a lot of the features of Morro castle are 18th Century rather than Medieval since it was a fort designed to protect shipping interests in the Carribean. For proper medieval castles I'm afraid that you have to travel to Europe, even then many of those that are still standing have been updated to handle the changes in warfare through the ages. My local castle is the Tower Of London, but if you're ever in England then Rochester (ruined) and Dover (restored) are both worth seeing. For a more romantic castle then Bodiam Castle or Scotney Castle are both worth seeing. The North Wales castles are also supposed to be very impressive but it's not an area of Britain that I've had time to explore. One of our continental contributors will have to chip in with details of castles in mainland Europe.

I think where I'm going is more along the lines of questioning the original Urak-hai set rather than yours... so feel free to ignore me. It's all somewhat reliant on the friction in those hinge pieces. If you could squeeze another hinge in where the inverted 2x1 slopes are now, or maybe some form of clip to actually secure that apex of the triangle then I think you're on to a winner. That said, I appreciate that you may (as we all so oftern are) be limited by the parts you have to hand and in the right colours.

Very nice, the blue works surprisingly well and the inspiration is immediately evident. Does the front hinge? If it does, like the original did, then extra points!

A nice little set. You've obviously been thinking in terms of "What would Lego do?" rather than the usual MOC technique of packing lots of detail in. One question that I'd have to pose is: "Are you designing a army building set or a siege machine set?" There are too many minfigs for a siege engine set and too much scenery for an army builder set. Many fans tend to be army builders, so it's natural to want to put lots of minifigs into a set but that's not necessarily going to help sell the set. That said the Urak-Hai army set has 6 minifigs, so my question could equally be applied to that set. I assume that Lego have done their research and realised that people are buying just for the minifigs so will pay a premium for a set with lots of figures. Another qeustion is regards the engineering. Engineering is one of the quality control aspects that all Lego designed models go through to ensure that they're structurally sound and aren't stressing the bricks by using improper construction techniques. Whislt I love the design of the catapult I feel that the lack of a structural linkage between the two uprights could be an issue. I also think that the frame between the wheels looks a little flimsy. One third point is that on the wall section the piece of wall at the top of the steps is floating in space, it really needs some degree of support. As slready mentioned by Stiel some texture or colouration on the wall would be nice and make it a little more interesting.

Indeed, the first idea stemmed from a desire to build some sets that got away from the wall. Whilst it's a nice idea in theory the "tongue" of garden isn't the most stable or manouverable of constructions and I think a child would quickly end up breaking it off whilst moving the set about. The advantage of the detached garden is that it can be moved separately and, if desired, positioned in a similar manner. I think separate pieces of scenery, eg. the weapon stand in 6041 Armour Shop or any of the more modern sets, are the way to progress as they allow the set to spread out forwards.

The Herbalists Hut is the 10th in a series of MOC's that could have come from the late 80's castle range. I'm trying to explore Medieval life in more detail than Lego's sellable range ever allowed whilst staying true to the design principles of that era. This posting can also be found here on MOCpages. Design The initial design was based on my desire to explore designs that stretch out perpendicular from the caste wall rather than along it. To this extent the hut was built into a very short stretch of wall with it's garden extending out in front of it. The hut was detailed with doors and a table and fireplace in the interior. The garden had rows of flowers, trees and shrubs. Job done the design gets put to one side for a month or two whilst I assemble some other designs. I revisited the herbalists hut on a spare wet evening, pulled the relevant parts from stock and started assembling it. It was soon apparent that nice through the hut was it wasn't playable. You couldn't get the fingers through the doorway to do much in the interior. Despite being a nice design it fails because it's not playable, if it's not playable it can't sell. The garden stretching out infront was also very fragile and it seemed unlikely to pass any engineering critique about sets holding together. Photo's of the original design are shown below. At about the same time I'd being re-appraising how Lego actually designs it's sets, thinking more about access which in turn foster playability. There's a good reason that the Lego designed sets all have open backs, eg. 6067 Guarded Inn, or wide frontages, eg. 6040 Blacksmiths Shop. Whilst I might desire to get my models away from being just simple extensions to the wall there is a certain width that they have to be in order to have an open front that allows them to be played with. I knew that I wanted to retain the bulge to the wall, it gives the exterior of the wall a little texture and stops it being just a uniform ribbon of grey. I also wanted to keep the fireplace but it had to move to somewhere more accessible. The design evolved by adding a 4444 panel to the side to get it width and moving the fireplace to the front and centre. Originally I tried to use round macaroni's to form the fireplace but it qickly became apparant that a small square would be more appropriate. The table was retained and by raising it by a plate I was able to tuck it right back into the alcove that the 2345 corner panels made up. Most importantly this alcove isn't too deep therefore it's easily accessbile to put bottles and items onto the table. The garden became a single row of flowers on a 6x12 plate with a tree and scrub bush, enough to elicit the feel of a garden without going too over the top. Being loose it could be positioned anywhere infront of the hut. Minifg choice was the good wizard in pale blue. As a small set I decided that it didn't need an additional soldier minifig looking over it. LDD screen captures are shown below. Analysis I'm trying to work to a similar set design criteria to what the Lego designers would work to, a more detailed explanation can be found in my earlier posting on The Maidens Tower. Story: Not much. Herbalists make medicine to releave wounded troops. Equally if the childs imagination is more fantasy orientated then it could be that the herbalist brews magic potions that confer strength, invisibilty or maybe copious facial warts. There's fun to be had with a little imagination, but the imagination is required rather than it being blatant. Playability: With the redesign the interior of the hut is accessible, the fire on the front very easily so. Not present in the design, but added for the realisation in ABS are gardening tools, a spade, a sickle a knife. Build-ability: Pretty easy. No fancy techniques, the hardest part is probably the positioning of the flowers as they each need rotating to a different angle so that they fit neatly on the 2 stud spacing they've been given. Cost: At 112 bricks it's of a similar size to 6041 Armour Shop and would fill a similar price point. Consistency: It fits in very well. Modernists may balk at the use of the old style apple tree but it is all part of the 80's ambiance. The anachronisms are the srcub bush and the arched window at the back of the alcove. The red highlights over the firepit match the colouring used on 6040 Blacksmiths Shop. Conclusion I'm very happy with it after the redesign that has opened out the structure. It has purpose but looks sufficiently different to make it easily discernable from either 6040 Blacksmiths Shop or 6041 Armour Shop. The freestanding garden allows it to encroach into the castle grounds in the same way that the weapons stand in 6041 Armour Shop can be positioned away from the main structure. The Series

Very nice. I especiallly like the colour scheme and the simple but very effective construction of the big-top.

Good work and nice use of a limited number of bricks/sets. My only criticism is that from a historic/architectural perspective the stone (grey bricks) would go at the bottom of the wall as foundations with the timber on top rather than the other way around which is what is sort of happening on front wall. However, I appreciate that your limited brick options might have precluded that. The lean-to makes it feel like a real workmans cottage and the interior rounds it off nicely.

I think TLG's stance on religion is pretty clear, in 30+ years of City and Medieval sets they've never done a church, mosque or synagogue. Any temples that they have done are for extinct or imaginged religions, eg. egyptians, aztecs or atlantean. Perhaps a Medieval monk is far enough removed from present reality that they might consider it, but I'd be more hopeful trying to persuade them to do a hermit and then trying to customise that with capes and hoods. I'm in general agreement with the other comments about artisan this or that always being a "bloke with apron and hammer" but one or two differing apron torso's to mix and match between wouldn't go amiss. My thoughts would be: A bard/troubadour would be a nice thing to see, as would the characters from the Commedia dell'arte although that's more recent than the medieval period we're describing. A hooded execution would be nice, but unlikely given most people's moral stance on execution and torture. Some form of Merchant, the peasantry are well represented as are royalty but there's nothing of the (admittedly small) medieval middle class. A Judge, Lawyer or Scribe. Non-religious so more of a possibility that priests.

That wasn't the intention with this little set, the main aim was to get the difference in colour and texture between the grey wall and the brown pallisade. However what you've suggested is something I've been exploring for some siege engines that I've got in the pipeline.

Thank you. I've been putting together a small convent of these. A church is on my list of buildings, but it's one that I'm somewhat reluctant to do because Lego always avoids religion and I'm playing by their rules. Even in the their castle themes they've studiously avoided religion despite the church being one of the three pillars of medieval society. Knights to protect, Priests to care for the soul and the Peasantry to provide food.

Much better, the proportions are getting there. Personally I think the body of the bed is half a stud too long and I think with a bit of the ingenuity that you've already demonstrated you could loose that 2x4 plate in the headboard. The couple the loss of the that plate with the loss of a stud from the length of the bed and the length will be about right. If you're going to put the white/green sheets on then I think you should dispense with the upper layer of brown tiles. It's all getting a bit too thick with both the brown tiles and the two layers of sheets. Finally I think the proportions are wrong on the footboard. The use of telescopes is taking the footboard to shoulder height which is the equivalent of 4' or 1.3m tall. I appreciate that they achieve a nice spindle effect but they're making it too tall. Good luck! I personally find trying to get detail into the interiors one of the trickiest parts of building MOC's, despite all my comments I think you're doing a good job of getting a lot of detail into such a small space.

Which pieces are you thinking of? Post some pictures or bricklink/peeron links so that we know which pieces you've got and perhaps we can suggest some ideas.

I have to agree with NiceMarmot, I think the proportions are slightly wrong if you're building it to Minifig scale. If you think of a stud as being 1ft (30cm) then a single bed would be 6studs by 3studs, a double bed 6studs by 5studs. You need to squeeze the detail into that sort of space for it to look right. Try lying a minifig on it. How does the model look in proportion to the minifig?

I've been considering trying to replicate the yellow/orange backgrounds of the 80's castle sets but I haven't quite build up the requisite number of trees to properly reproduce those wonderfull Forestmen attack scenes from the catalogues... The next model, which you can get a preview of at MOCPages, has a cart. I've also got some siege machines in the pipeline. I'd not heard of bread rolls being thrown from the roof of the town hall but it's the sort of tradition that could well happen.

The Guildhall is the 8th in a series of MOC's that could have come from the late 80's castle range. I'm trying to explore Medieval life in more detail than Lego's sellable range ever allowed whilst staying true to the design principles of that era. This posting can also be found here on MOCpages. Design The design was inspired by the town hall in Abingdon, England. It's comprised of a covered market below with a meeting room above. Whilst I knew that was what I wanted to build, the actual design gestated for a good while until early one morning in those moments between sleep and wakefulness my mind suddenly assembled some Panel 2x5x6 Wall w/ Black Stripes in a way that would work and, perhaps more importantly, how the arches below would also work and be the right dimensions for the room above. I sketched the design out as I travelled into work on the tube. The key was that two 4444 panels side by side is 10 studs which is the same as two Brick, Arch 1x5x4. The cutouts on the Brick, Arch 1x5x4 arches mean that Brick, Arch 1x6x2 could be used at right angles. 3 arches in a row gives 18 studs width to the frontage. A 4444 panel side on adjacent to a 4444 panel front on is 6 studs, leave a gap of 6 studs for a balcony and then miror the panel arrangement on the far side. After some furious sketching this design was really starting to come together, although it was all still on squared paper it was obvious that it was going to work. One of the things that I've learnt from studying the Lego designs is that they're rarely enclosed. If you add all 4 walls then you can't get inside to play. Indeed the Lego designers go to a lot of trouble on their playable models to allow easy access, often they will hint at walls by using pillars or other tricks rather than actually building them. Another favoured trick is to just provide a frontage and leave the rear open. It was this design paradigm that I followed on the back of the town hall, a single 1x16 beam runs across the back to support the roof leaving the entire room accessible for playing in. An arch over the balcony supports a bell tower with the standard peaked roof that I've used on several other models, the rest of the roof was formed of 33 degree slopes. I replace one of the side 4444 panels with an arch and pillar arrangement leading to an outside set of stairs. I decide to go for brick built stairs rather than an all in one piece. The balcony was in-part inspired by something I'd seen whilst studying the images in the Prototype Castle Sets thread, the curtains to either side were inspired by the window detailing in the Green Grocer modular building. Moving on to the interior detailing a large table was an obvious starting point. The ubiquitous chest tucked into one corner and a globe taken from 4729 Dumbledore's Office was tucked into the corner opposite. LDD refused to cooperate to get a flag behind the mayors seat I just couldn't get it aligned right even though it should fit. If this were a real set then I'd get a flag made up with either the Lion, Falcon or Crusader emblems printed on sideways so that they're the right way up when hung downwards from a vertical bar. The LDD shots below show the front and interior detail. The LDD design itself is available from the MOCPage version of this posting. Analysis I'm trying to work to a similar set design criteria to what the Lego designers would work to, a more detailed explanation can be found in my earlier posting on The Maidens Tower. Story: None, although some degree of story could possibly be concocted around the prince taxing the peasants. This could quickly become a Robin Hood story if one of the peasants was a forestman. Playability: For once I think I've got the access about right. It's a little tight getting minifigs under the arches and into the upper room, but it's not impossible. Looking back at it now could I have gone even further, I wonder if I could have changed the roof to make just half a building. The hardcore collector could easily place two and place them back to back to create a whole whilst the child market that we're aiming at would have easier acces to the interior to play. Build-ability: It was all going quite well until I got to the stairs up the edge. In order to support these I needed to extend the base plating out beneath them, but to do so would have left an unsupported seam down the middle. Eventually I opted to add a small well in the middle built out of grey Brick, Round Corner 2x2 Macaroni around a round blue plate. This proved to be enough to secure the stairs propely. The shots below show the rear and sides of the built model, along with the interior detailing. Minifig choice for the photo's was somewhat prefunctory on my part, which I now regret. I feel that with a bit of effort I could have come up with a proper mayor minifig, possibly based around the Lucius Malfoy torso from 4867 Hogwarts with suitable yellow head and hands applied for an old man. I think I'd argue the case with the accountants for the inclusion of an additional Robin Hood minifig to drive the storyline. The revised minifig lineup shows from left to right, a Forestman, a Nun, the Prince, a Peasant and the Mayor. Cost: 260 pieces puts it in the same bracket as 6067 Guarded Inn. Looking at the modern equivalents; the pice count puts it halfway between 7948 Outpost Attack and Prison Tower Rescue so probably about £30. Consistency: This is a trickier building to judge as, unlike everything else that I've created so far, this one doesn't clip into the wall. That said there's nothing in the design that couldn't be from the 80's. The anachronisms are in the props; the globe is modern as are the printed tiles forming the paperwork on the table. Also, I ended up using a 3x3x2 cone for the bell when building the model for real as I didn't have a 4x4x2 cone which would have been period. Conclusion I like this one, the design is nice and simple but sufficiently distinctive that it stands out from the other castle buildings. Would it sell? I think it's got as much of a chance as Guarded Inn, primarily because it does stand out. I'm beginning to realise that the storyline is very much bound up in the minifigs and that I need to pay more attention to them from the outset rather than adding them afterwards since they dictate the story which ultimately leads to the sell-ability of the set. I think that the late changes to the minifig line give much more playability straight from the box. The Series

I feel the bell might have been nicer in a warmer colour than black, but the rest is exquisite. The icicles are an inspired touch, very clever.

As ever a well thought-out, thorough review of the faction. This is a faction that fell well within my dark-age, but since returning I've often looked at whether I should pick up a 6096 Bull's Attack and you've probably swayed me into picking one up if I find it at the right price. Lookig forward to the King Leo side of the theme.