{"id":8301,"date":"2017-10-22T01:44:42","date_gmt":"2017-10-22T01:44:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brickbuilt.org\/?p=8301"},"modified":"2017-10-22T01:44:42","modified_gmt":"2017-10-22T01:44:42","slug":"minas-morgul-build-log","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brickbuilt.org\/?p=8301","title":{"rendered":"Minas Morgul: Build Log"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this post we’ll be taking a look at what went into creating my MELO round 6 entry, Minas Morgul: Heroic Rendition<\/a>. I started off by finding a good source image of the fortress to get an idea of the style of architecture, and what changes I would need to make to clearly show that it was a good location, not an evil one. Initially I was using an almost completely white color-scheme with just a few tan accents, but quickly realized that it looked very plain, and overall quite boring.
\n\"1\"
\nSo to spice up the colors, I added light bley on both the top and bottom of the walls. I liked this much better, and progress was quite quick after the change. Since Minas Morgul has a very pointy, angled architecture style, I used buttresses and angled walls to try and keep this effect.<\/p>\n

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Here the outer layer of wall and towers is completed. As you can see, many of the battlements are made using curved slopes; while the effect they gave was almost exactly what I wanted, we started to run out of them very quickly, because of how big the walls were. As such, I also used tiles in some locations to help preserve the curved slopes.<\/p>\n

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The second layer of wall came together swiftly, and I set them up approximately how they would be once the build was finished to get an idea of how it would look, if anything needed to be changed, etc.<\/p>\n

\"4\"<\/p>\n

\"5\"<\/p>\n

With the two layers of wall finished, all that remained to be built of the castle was the main tower that is placed centrally in the back. Once I found an effective technique for the round shape, it came together rapidly. The hardest part about it was the crenelations, as by this time I had nearly exhausted our supply of light bley curved slopes and wedge slopes. Wedge plates and cheese slopes made a good brick-built alternative though.<\/p>\n

\"6\"<\/p>\n

Alright! The castle is already done and I’m only about 5 days in! Oh yea… I still need to make the entire landscape for it…<\/p>\n

\"7\"<\/p>\n

To be honest, I didn’t really think that the landscape would take that long; at least, I didn’t until I saw how big it would have to be to hold the castle. Because it was so large, I split the base into two halves, so it would be easier to work on.<\/p>\n

\"8\"<\/p>\n

\"9\"<\/p>\n

Because lifting around the big chunks of wall isn’t exactly a great idea (due to them not being the strongest walls I’ve ever made), I made an outline of each of the towers and walls with plates. This allowed me to plan where I could have grass, and what would be covered by buildings, without risking destroying my castle.<\/p>\n

\"10\"
\nHere I laid out the interior pathway, and a little bit of grass around that.<\/p>\n

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And the second layer of wall is in place! Not all of the foliage around it is on just yet, but things are starting to take shape.<\/p>\n

\"12\"<\/p>\n

With both halves of the base connected, this build extended about 6-8 inches off the front of our desk. Very glad that I didn’t try to build it as one solid piece.<\/p>\n

\"13\"<\/p>\n

And the build is nearly complete! All that needs to be added are a few trees, some animals and figs, and a few other last touches.<\/p>\n

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With the trees, figs, flags, and other finishing touches added, it’s done. This is definitely one of my favorite builds I made for MELO, I hope you enjoyed this look at what went into creating it. And finally, here’s one last behind-the-scenes shot showing our photography setup.<\/p>\n

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\"ov\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this post we’ll be taking a look at what went into creating my MELO round 6 entry, Minas Morgul: Heroic Rendition. I started off by finding a good source\u2026<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8312,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[940,660],"tags":[2132,1686,60,286,1241,2129,62,102,2239,467,53,154,2238,126,14,2240,1475,8,1207,1946,2236,2128,49,412,2237,952,124,13,63,110,148,450],"class_list":["post-8301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-build-logs","category-john","tag-arrow-slits","tag-behind-the-scenes","tag-bridge","tag-build","tag-build-log","tag-buttresses","tag-castle","tag-creation","tag-crenelations","tag-curved","tag-design","tag-gate","tag-inside-look","tag-keep","tag-landscape","tag-layers","tag-layout","tag-lego","tag-lotr","tag-melo","tag-minas","tag-minas-morgul","tag-moc","tag-model","tag-morgul","tag-process","tag-river","tag-rockwork","tag-tower","tag-towers","tag-walls","tag-windows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brickbuilt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brickbuilt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brickbuilt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brickbuilt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brickbuilt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8301"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.brickbuilt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8359,"href":"http:\/\/www.brickbuilt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8301\/revisions\/8359"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brickbuilt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brickbuilt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brickbuilt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brickbuilt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}