Most of my dwarven models have a fair bit of trial and error involved in the build process, and Danyel’s House was no exception.
I wanted angled sections at each corner of the square building, and had learned this technique from building the Disney Castle.
The inverted slope fits smoothly between the adjoining walls, and I thought this would work perfectly for what I had in mind.
I used two layers of plates to rough out the size of the house, and placed a higne plate in the center of one wall to allow the building to open up.
The only issue with that corner technique, was how to cover it up on the interior side. Then I realized 2×2 facet bricks mirrored the outside angle nicely.
Here was my first try at the corner columns.
While it didn’t look too bad, I wasn’t happy with the slight gaps visible between the column and regular walls.
I developed the walls using layers of SNOT tiles, and inverted slopes to make pointed arches.
After some fiddling with different part combinations, I found a setup that eliminated the gaps around the corner columns. Here’s a look at my modified version of the disney castle technique.
While the 2×3 plate itself doesn’t sit tight against the adjoining walls, adding some plate with rail on top works perfectly.
At this point I also realized the building would look better with a thick foundation to better balance the solid walls over the arches.
Which also allowed me to continue the SNOT tile layering on the bottom edge, and add small buttresses to the corners.
The sideways studs around the bottom two studs of the house made it easy to add steps up to the door.
And then I had to figure out what sort of window to use! Here are the first two options I experimented with.
Before moving onto these two using only bley.
And finally settling on the right option below to add more color with the stained glass.
With most of the exterior figured out, it was time to furnish the interior. I had a lot of fun fitting in the various items of furniture. You can also see that my hinge point ended up being located in the center of the chimney. It’s an old trick to place the hinge point a few studs outside the walls, which allows for a lot more flexibility in the wall design. As obviously nothing can extend past the hinge point, or your building won’t open.
The roof was the most frustrating part of the build. Below are several rough ideas I attempted.
Besides the technical challenge of building a four sided roof, I was not at all pleased with how the shape was looking in relation to the rest of the building.
Eventually I settled on a simple studs up cheese slope design. My first thought for capping the columns was statues of dwarves.
Which fit pretty well with the roof slope, but didn’t look quite right.
So I decided on a simpler bit of decoration.
And the last thing to be built was the rocky base, which I recently posted a tutorial on.
I hope you enjoyed that look into the build process for this dwarven house, and feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions.
Danyel’s House: Build Log
Most of my dwarven models have a fair bit of trial and error involved in the build process, and Danyel’s House was no exception.
I wanted angled sections at each corner of the square building, and had learned this technique from building the Disney Castle.
The inverted slope fits smoothly between the adjoining walls, and I thought this would work perfectly for what I had in mind.
I used two layers of plates to rough out the size of the house, and placed a higne plate in the center of one wall to allow the building to open up.
The only issue with that corner technique, was how to cover it up on the interior side. Then I realized 2×2 facet bricks mirrored the outside angle nicely.
Here was my first try at the corner columns.
While it didn’t look too bad, I wasn’t happy with the slight gaps visible between the column and regular walls.
I developed the walls using layers of SNOT tiles, and inverted slopes to make pointed arches.
After some fiddling with different part combinations, I found a setup that eliminated the gaps around the corner columns. Here’s a look at my modified version of the disney castle technique.
While the 2×3 plate itself doesn’t sit tight against the adjoining walls, adding some plate with rail on top works perfectly.
At this point I also realized the building would look better with a thick foundation to better balance the solid walls over the arches.
Which also allowed me to continue the SNOT tile layering on the bottom edge, and add small buttresses to the corners.
The sideways studs around the bottom two studs of the house made it easy to add steps up to the door.
And then I had to figure out what sort of window to use! Here are the first two options I experimented with.
Before moving onto these two using only bley.
And finally settling on the right option below to add more color with the stained glass.
With most of the exterior figured out, it was time to furnish the interior. I had a lot of fun fitting in the various items of furniture. You can also see that my hinge point ended up being located in the center of the chimney. It’s an old trick to place the hinge point a few studs outside the walls, which allows for a lot more flexibility in the wall design. As obviously nothing can extend past the hinge point, or your building won’t open.
The roof was the most frustrating part of the build. Below are several rough ideas I attempted.
Besides the technical challenge of building a four sided roof, I was not at all pleased with how the shape was looking in relation to the rest of the building.
Eventually I settled on a simple studs up cheese slope design. My first thought for capping the columns was statues of dwarves.
Which fit pretty well with the roof slope, but didn’t look quite right.
So I decided on a simpler bit of decoration.
And the last thing to be built was the rocky base, which I recently posted a tutorial on.
I hope you enjoyed that look into the build process for this dwarven house, and feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions.