Derfel Cadarn

Well, the guild idea seems to be the most popular, and its a good one. We shouldn't try and make things to complicated to start with. So I think we should have 4 Guilds, but each guild should be able to build with any faction they want except if there is a special event/competition that deems otherwise. This way people are still free to build whatever they want rather than wait for a 'faction change'. Plus if we had guilds based on factions then I fear we might see too many people choose to be in certain guilds because they prefer that faction/building style. Then there should be a point system for when someone posts a moc and those points will go towards their guild. Then at the end of the year, the points can be added up to see which guild won and they will then receive some sort of awards. Its also handy as we are right at the end of a year, so this idea can be set in motion with the new year. It might also be wise to have a guild team leader who can be in charge of recording the points for their guild which will take a bit of pressure off the mods. My main concern is that we should start off with a simple concept first, to get everyone used to things, then start adding in some more ideas gradually. So really we need to get the ball rolling, and we need someone to choose the guild names and start a thread where every one can list what guild they will join. Yeah, they don't get much love, and to be honest I don't think we will ever see them coming close to the Castle theme in terms of mocs posted. Thats will I thought It could be handy to have a history section where all those mocs are posted. Basically a bit like the pirate forum but have a page for castle and one for history which can be for any era. As for the Arthur thing, I thought long and hard about weather to build a realistic Arthurian world, or the fantasy/legend one. From a building perspective, the fantasy/legend version is the most fun to build and most familiar. Plus if I was to go with the historic version, that would mean no Camelot, no round table, no Merlin, Lancelot, Galahad, Knights etc. So yes, fantasy/legend version it is! Like you said, this means it can fit nicely into the fantasy section. Thanks DC

Another interesting addition to your growing blog. I enjoyed reading this and its great that you are taking the time out to do this. I was always quite a fan of the Black Knights and 6086 is still the best looking castle Lego have made In my opinion, although the Royal Knights castle 6090 comes close. I look forward to reading your next installment, keep up the fine work!

This is a really great moc! Its always good to see something different and this has so many great features. The bridges look great and you have really captured the look of a 'dig' site. Nice written information as well, great job.

Ive read a lot of interesting ideas on this thread, the guild idea is interesting and the idea about earning points for your guild sound cool, but would probably be hard work to give points and keep track of every moc. That would involve a lot of updating, but it could work. One thing I have noticed though, this whole thread is extremly 'Castle' biased. This is the 'History' forum, not the 'Castle Forum'. Yes I know that probably 90% of mocs posted here are castle orientated, its the most popular historic theme. But lets not forget about the history itself! A guild with all different castle factions is great, but if thats the case, at least have a section for other historic builds like western, ninja, vikings and mocs that are based on actual historic events. I've built a few mocs that are based in the 17th/18th century during the witchcraft trials, and I'd like to think that they would be put into a History section as they are based on real events and people, rather then bundled in with medieval castle stuff. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of the faction/group/guild thingy, but it would be nice to have maybe a historic time line that features mocs based on real historic events. As for the castle side of things, I've always been very interested in the Arthurian Legends, infact every castle moc I've made is either named after Arthurian Locations or has references to it. I have spent 3 years now, planning a project that I am now finally able to start. This project is one of the main reasons I started building with Lego again and its something I wouldn't do till I knew I could do it in the best way possible. Whats the project? Well, Im going to build Camelot, naturally. I have just finished making and putting together the 20ft x 20ft square table of boards in my loft to build it on. Yes its gonna be huge! So, I wondered weather I would be able to do a Arthurian section and map, where all my Arthurian mocs will be based. Obviously if anyone else wants to build any mocs based on the Legends, then they can be added too. Its just that I see my mocs and future mocs belonging more to the Arthur story and not fitting in with Lego's factions, plus I'm also going to make custom shields. Just a thought. Whoa, thats a long thought. I do ramble on DC

Hi I have added a new update to the guide. It shows you how to build this: This is a slightly more trickier house to build as I have not used any standard bricks for the walls. I plan to keep building more technical houses as the guide goes along, starting with this 'intermediate' build, then a 'hard' build, then 'insanely detailed craziness' As the guide goes along I will try to tackle all the main buildings you would expect: Church/chapel, Inn, Windmill, Forge, other Trader's buildings, as well as ponds, swamps and ditches, burial grounds and gallow's pole etc. Stay tuned for another update at the weekend. Thanks DC

Right, the next part of the landscape is going to be built around a house, so first we need to build the house. For this we are going to use some of the techniques I covered earlier, but we are going to take it up a step and make it a bit more detailed and tricky. This house is going to be more of an intermediate build, not to difficult, but not easy. We need to be able to place this house at an angle, so the house will be built separately from the moc. I am not going to be building any interior to this house, as I won't be needing every house to have an interior, but feel free to add your own if you wish. To start, we first lay some dark bley plates to make the base. Then we build up a low wall of 1x1 round plates to the height of a 1x2 tile, which we will add in between the rounds. This technique should be familiar as I have covered how to do this part already. On top of the rounds I have layed some dark brown plates for the base of the woodwork and also added some stairs. Next, we lay dark brown tiles on top of the plates so they are in between the vertical 1x2 tiles below. Then we can build some upright woodwork. We do this using headlight bricks on their side with a 1x1 brick in between each headlight brick. We can then attach a dark brown tile to the studs showing. This can be seen in the picture below. In this picture you can see that I have added stacks of light gray bricks which are positioned behind the dark brown tiles and are stacked at a height of 7 bricks. Next I have added some dark brown half arch pieces which sit on top of the woodwork. These will only be used at the front however. Then we can add the rest of the light gray bricks. These go behind every tile that on the plates. As you can see in this picture, some of the stacks are only 2 bricks high, this is where the windows will go. Now we need to build lots more wood work sections, this time they have also got 1x1 clip pieces as well. See the pictures below for how to make them. Now we place them all around the house in between the gray bricks. Then we add the window ledges on each of the lower stacks of Gray. In this next picture you can see I have put the windows in place, with some 1x2 plates/with handle on top of the window piece and some white bricks. Now we need to make a door. For this, we simply get a 4x8 plate, then place tiles on it, leaving gaps to place the handle and hinges. Now add the handle and hinges. I have used black tooth plates for hinges, but there is lots of different parts that also give a good effect. Now we need to build an attachment on the back of the door so it will stand in place. To do this we add two 1x4 bricks at the top and bottom of the door. Then we lay 4 headlight bricks on their side and stack some 1x4 bricks on top with a 1x4 brick with studs on the side at the very top. This can now attach to the door and allows the door to be placed flush up against the arch of the doorway. Now comes the tricky part. We are going to cover those gray bricks with upright standing tiles, and they are not going to be standing flat, they are going to be standing at their side. Now, stacking tiles like this will only work as long as it is done within an even number of bricks, 2, 4, 6 etc. Otherwise they won't fit exactly. Then we clip on some dark brown tiles in front of the white tiles to hold them in place. As you can imagine, this works best if you use all 1x8 size tiles for the wall. Here however, I have added in bits of brown as well, but the tiles are surprisingly snug and they don't actually fall out easily. Obviously if you tipped the house on its side the small tiles would fall out, but the bigger ones are held in place. Now we do this same technique all around the house to finish up with something like this. Next, we then lay more dark brown plates at the top and build a whole layer of bricks with studs facing out from the side. We can connect the rest of the dark brown tiles to these to complete the horizontal woo work. Then I have added some tooth plates to fill in the remaining gaps between the wood work. The tooth plates also over lap the white tiles which adds extra hold to stop them falling out. You can then cover the whole top in dark brown plates. In the next picture, you can see I have started building a small wooden framed window box. This is done using the wood effect 1x2 bricks. Then I have added some dark brown plates which are attached to 1x4 bricks with studs on the side. These should allow the plates to sit level above the tooth plates like in the picture below. I have now added 1x4 dark brown slopes which line up with the wood work and will provide the supports for the overhanging roof pieces. Then in between the slopes I have added some white tiles and jumper plates with 1x1 clip plates to add a bit of decoration. Now we can start laying the roof. For the first row I am using 3x3 roof pieces as they over hang enough to cover the supports. In the next pictures you will see I have built up the roof and also made a siding effect using headlight bricks and white 1x1 wedges. This is the most easiest way of doing this effect and not very challenging. It also doesn't look as good as the other way using tiles, but I will cover that way later on in the guide. I have now topped off the window box with some 3x3 corner roof pieces. I have now started to build another wooden window box on the side of the house in the roof. This is built the same way as the other one and is very simple. In this picture you can see I am building up the roof and I've added in arches as supports for the roof. It is very important to add supports for the roof as it will easily cave-in if you don't. Also note that I have left a 3x3 gap in the roof for the chimney. Here is another shot showing the supports inside the roof, and I have also started building up the back wall using headlight bricks and white wedges. Now we need to add the gable sections which will attach to the clips sticking out from the top of the roof as seen in the picture below. Here are the two gable sections. When you build these you have to measure them against the roof so you can build the right size for whatever size roof you have. Now you can fit them in place like so. Do this for every part of the roof and it should look like this. Now we place a row of 1x2 plates with handle along the top of the roof facing out on either side. On top of this we will place jumper plates spread out with tiles in between. Along the jumper plates we can place a central row of plates with tiles on top, then at each end we can build up an interesting effect using curved slope pieces with 1x1 rounds underneath. Finally we can add the chimney in the space left in the roof. The chimney is built using 1x1 round plates with some tiles attached to headlight bricks. Now we have the finished building, all that's left to do is attach some pole pieces to the various clips in the wood work. Next we will be looking in at how to attach the house at an angle on the landscape overhanging a swampy ditch. Thanks for reading! DC

Its a bit like invasion of the body snatchers, but I really don't know what is happening. All I know is that I am Number 87 Of The 3001 Elite 2x4 Brick squadron from Sector 7, equiped with the power of Sky Blue!

When I first checked out your topic, I really liked the different technique you were using for the tumblehome, and I remember thinking that the bow will make or break this design. The bow is the hard part and I wondered weather you would be able to match the nice tumblehome with a nice smooth bow. Well, you have achieved just that, and I think it looks great, and all built using slope/roof bricks. Im surprised no-one else has tried doing that, as it clearly works well and is a great solution for this tricky part of the ship. I look forward to seeing this ship complete, as its shaping up to be one of the best.

Thank you Perfectionist, I'm glad you like them both. [quote name=Perfectionist' date='28 October 2011 - 08:38 PM' timestamp='1319830709' post='1105784] While I don't like so much that you simply copied the design of your first Galleon, I must say I am still amazed by the galleon design you created and the colourscheme on your second ship is quite different from the first. So far these are the most beautiful and accurate Lego galleons on prefabs I have seen and I am still a little unsure how you turned from a landscaper into such a good shipbuilder so fast! What I really like is that you kept the hull in old brown, also the jumperplates. That keeps her lines very clean and so far I haven't seen anyone else (except me) doing this. The lanterns are also looking really nice and quite a creative design. You have also made very good use of the limited choice of pearl gold for the ornaments. However I do have a few minor points of critic here: I think the lines on the sails are too few and too bright, (the sails could be darker generally), the ratlines are too thin and the use of prefab masts is always a "no" for me since they are neither stable nor good looking Maybe it's personal taste, but I am also not so fond of the red and blue checker pattern on reddish brown. How in the world do you manage to pump out so many MOCs in such little time? I mean it's already extremely impressive with your landscaping, but in general shipbuilding should take more time. I'm currently finishing Guerrière and just making the sails took me almost a week (well, there's 31 of them ). I would really appreciate if you could share your secret about building at this pace without compromising your build quality. Actually I think this stern design is already really nicely done, or do you mean that you'll move away from the old style prefabs? I have a book "Spanish Galleon 1530-1690" and the ship on the cover (the Nuestra Senora de Atocha) reminds me extremely much of your ships, especially the stern. It was build in 1622 though. Anyway I'm always glad to see some variation in design solutions, so I'm looking forward to your new stern. It's always a pleasure seeing a MOC from you, thanks for sharing! Well, the idea was is to have 10 English ships against 10 Spanish. Obviously to do this takes a lot of parts and costs a lot, so I needed to design a ship that looked good, but not over the top on expensive details. This is the reason I went for prefab hulls and masts, as they are the cheapest way, even though they don't look as nice. This was also the reason I copied the same design as the first ship, as I planned to have 5 designs with 2 of each design and each one in different colour schemes. Its a case of trying out different colour schemes, some work, some might not, I agree the blue and red clashes a bit with the brown, but it serves as another colour scheme(don't forget I have to have 10 different ships, so some designs will look better than others As for new stern designs, I plan to build them all on prefab hulls, but ships 3 and 4 will have a stern that slopes inwards a lot more at the top, probably to 8 or maybe just 6 studs wide at the top. Again, this will give another variation amongst the fleet. Then I plan to not use the stern piece and instead build up from a hull piece to create another different variation for ships 5 and 6. I will have 2 flagships which will each be larger and have four masts. Its true, I have always been a landscaper and buildings guy, but I've always been quite lucky in that I have never had a problem when it comes to expressing what I want to do with Lego bricks, plus there are a lot of great ships and helpful tutorials here by members such as yourself, which I used to get an idea of how Lego ships are built. I basically looked at CGH's tutorial and changed it to fit the style of ship I wanted to build. I also used a lot of pictures of the Golden Hinde and other English Galleons, which I used to help get the shape as best as I could. As far as getting models built quickly, I've always been like that. I will be building one part and while i'm building that part I will be thinking 2 steps ahead and working out how to do the next bit before I get to it. So I just kind of keep going and things fall into place along the way. It helps that I set up a great storage system that suits my way of building and allows me to find what I need as quick as possible, a good music playlist in the background helps too! Once I have an idea I just run with it, the first ship took a bit longer, but once it came to the second one, I knew what I was doing and pretty much got the bulk of it done in a weekend. Thanks for your comment, I look forward to seeing your next ship!

The next post will be tomorro, will be showing different ways to build houses and placing them at angles on the landscape.

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I quite like the idea of a team build/competition where you have a team captain and 4 others, could be be interesting. On another note, I've just sorted out another 10 ways of building houses with unused techniques, should I just include them in my guide, or would they be better in another thread. I could do a a picture instruction of how to build a something like my forge if anyones interested.

Ah yes, 2MC did a great job on this as did he on all his entries that he built for the JRC2, and ended up winning the Master Builder award. If you are familiar with any of his work then you will instantly recognize his building style, as it shows really well here. The reason why it is fairly small is because the size limit was only 2 32x32 base plates. Great moc and well worth sharing here on CP.

This is what I like to see, someone who's not afraid to use lots of plant pieces This is very nicely done, I'm a big fan of countryside scenes and you have done a good job in making it look natural. The waterfall looks great as does the house and mill, its just a shame you couldn't swap them over, so the mill is at the top where it should be. Still, that's a small point and doesn't take away the fact that this is a great well built moc!

Another great moc Taz! The house is built into the landscape very well indeed, and I love all the details you have managed to add into it. If this is anything to go by, I think you should just go ahead and build the whole Shire, it would look fantastic!

Another great moc Sirens! Lots to like here, your figs are always nicely done, as is every scene and picture. Its nice to see others doing story's and tales with mocs. Keep them coming mate!

I think you have been doing a great job! Its always good to be able to have a closer look at older sets and ones you never had. Keep it up

I think you have done a really great job! It deffinitly has a cosey feel to it. The buildings are nicely done as is the barn roof and the one by the waterfall. Great job on the waterfall, I couldn't help noticing you used clear goblets for the waterfall, this is a great technique! Well done!

Yes I agree, I'd love to see more detailed and varied sets of armor and weaponry, but the kingdoms line has thrown up some good stuff and so has the mini-fig series, as I noticed we will be getting a roman fig, so things are looking good. I think either way, the next wave castle sets will be interesting no matter what direction Lego takes. We just have to wait and see.

Hang on a minute, what do you mean by 'cause I'm not derfel' im just like all the rest of you here, I build mocs, that doesn't make me special and I don't make out I'm special. I'm just saying if Lego was to tell me info on a theme and tell me not to say anything I would respect that. You can get in trouble for dishing out confidential secrets. I just think this info is best left for Lego to publicly confirm themselves.

Don't get me wrong, I think LOTR would be popular with kids, I'm just saying that if you put both side by side, more kids would pick Harry Potter over LOTR. That's why I think they may go back to a fantasy theme again. They could basically do LOTR in all but name anyway. We have already seen dwarves and Orcs, plus that elve mini-fig, so they could quite easily bring out another fantasy theme based around these. When you think about, Lego have already done something along the lungs of LOTR with the last fantasy theme. We just need an elf faction and you can pretty much make a good LOTR moc with what we have got. Still, no matter what anyone says, it IS speculation! Until Lego makes annoucment and confirms it, all we can do is speculate.

I don't mind licensed themes, but it's annoying when they replace other themes. Im glad there isn't a second wave of POTC sets as I do prefer classic pirates. But I'm oldskool, and im not in it for the sets, i usually live off bricklink everyday, but thats what i do. Unfortunatly their isn't a set that comes with 1000 dark green and dark brown 1x2 tiles, so I have to order. But then bricklink Sellers often charge a lot for a certain part, so it is sometimes cheaper to buy multiple of a set that has those parts. It's interesting watching this discussion over LOTR, as not one person has a solid bit of evidence at all. I spoke to a Lego designer at a recent show and he said he is not allowed to say yes or no, thats procedure of course. Maybe they will let me in on a secret, but then of course I wouldn't be able to tell Anyway, as for the whole movie tie-in deal, did the POTC line sell hugely well because of the Mouse house and Depp's movie? It probably did ok, but I don't think it was a huge success. POTC is no Star Wars. I think LOTR is more of an adult's wishlist theme rather than kids, that's why Lego chos Harry Potter instead of LOTR when they originally came out. Lego is mainly aimed at kids, and as great as LOTR is, if you asked a group of kids aged between 4 and 10 what they would prefer, they would choose Harry Potter over LOTR. Lego knows this. But hey, I'm sure I'm wrong, if Lego have changed their policy then I look forward to a SAW theme or maybe a Terminator theme, I'd love that.

You don't need movies for something to be 'in' thats nonsense. So what huge pirate movie francise was 'in' when the original Lego pirate line was out? Classic pirates was very popular an still will be weather there's pirate movies out or not. Pirates will always be a fascinating subject for kids and grown-ups alike no mater what. It doesn't rely on a movie francise that is already well past it's sell-buy date. It's the same with LOTR, yes it's a good story, not the greatest as it was mostly inspired by the Arthurian story which basically set up everything Medieval fantasy is based on. It would probably be a good theme, but short lived and pricey. Castle is a timeless theme and always will be, again, it's not a theme that needs an 'in' movie to make it popular. The idea of Lego castle sets was to make your own story up, and even though I would welcome whatever parts a LOTR theme would bring, I'd much prefer more a new range of Lego castle building on what we have. I think Lego castle has been really good these last years, we've pretty much had a lot of what we were crying out for, new human factions, new weapons, new animals, civilian sets etc. It has been good, and I hope to see more of this rather then over priced Liesenced sets. Still, like I said, if castle is put on hold and we get LOTR, I will still get some sets if the parts are good.

Sounds good! I've just spent the last few months working on brand new designs for both houses and castle, complicated, bit if I can pull the final test versions off, its gonna flip the castle world on it's head! Unfortunately it's costly, but I will probably add it to the guide anyway. As for offering to pay for some prizes, I going to message you later, need to discuss 1or 2 things