Ready to see behind the scenes of what went into building Imladris?
Let’s get going!
I knew I wanted a waterfall in the scene, and that was one of the first things built. By mixing studs up and SNOT sections I tried to get a more natural look for the falls.
Here are a couple building experiments I tried early in the build process. While neither ended up in the finished build, I rather like the left design
An angled bridge over a gorge was another detail I thought would look nice, so I tried to find a smooth way of incorporating the 1×4 arch. Here you can also see how the gazebo was attached with a 2×2 round ‘donut’ tile and 2×2 jumper plate under a dark bley 2×2 brick.
The rockwork was based off the same style as what I used in my previous Rivendell model, only using olive green for moss this time.
Sand colors are some of my favorite to use for Elven settings, so I stuck to sand green and sand blue for most of the highlights on the stone buildings.
The bley roof on the sand blue building was just a place holder as I tested out how 2×2 tiles worked there.
Structures incorporated into the landscape are a signature Elven component in my mind, so I included several buildings built right into the mountain side. On the right I placed the largest building where I thought it might end up. It uses five long bars with handle for the front pillars which was my favorite detail in the whole scene.
Getting pretty close to done, though I still had a lot to figure out on the right end. Originally I wanted to have a grill brick stairway at the front of the large building, but was unable to get a smooth fit due to its height on the landscape and the small amount of terrain in front of it.
So I settled on some sideways cheese instead. Attaching the five long bars with handle took some experimentation, but bar with clip stuck into cones ended up working well.
Now all the buildings were in place, and I just had to finish the mountain! With micro scenes it’s especially easy to place and move buildings, so I try to experiment with lots of different layouts until I find one I’m very pleased with. In this model I tried a lot of different options for the right most building before settling on this.
I could have ended the mountain at about this point, but I figured a bit more elevation would give a better composition.
So went up a few more bricks which definitely looked nicer.
I did experiment with adding trees to the scene, but ultimately could not find a design that was suitable – partially due to being a bit low on micro tree parts at the time.
And here’s a look at some of the various buildings and designs I table scrapped while working on this project.
Thanks for reading, and let us know if you have any questions or suggestions for new posts!
Imladris: Build Log
Ready to see behind the scenes of what went into building Imladris?
Let’s get going!
I knew I wanted a waterfall in the scene, and that was one of the first things built. By mixing studs up and SNOT sections I tried to get a more natural look for the falls.
Here are a couple building experiments I tried early in the build process. While neither ended up in the finished build, I rather like the left design
An angled bridge over a gorge was another detail I thought would look nice, so I tried to find a smooth way of incorporating the 1×4 arch. Here you can also see how the gazebo was attached with a 2×2 round ‘donut’ tile and 2×2 jumper plate under a dark bley 2×2 brick.
The rockwork was based off the same style as what I used in my previous Rivendell model, only using olive green for moss this time.
Sand colors are some of my favorite to use for Elven settings, so I stuck to sand green and sand blue for most of the highlights on the stone buildings.
The bley roof on the sand blue building was just a place holder as I tested out how 2×2 tiles worked there.
Structures incorporated into the landscape are a signature Elven component in my mind, so I included several buildings built right into the mountain side. On the right I placed the largest building where I thought it might end up. It uses five long bars with handle for the front pillars which was my favorite detail in the whole scene.
Getting pretty close to done, though I still had a lot to figure out on the right end. Originally I wanted to have a grill brick stairway at the front of the large building, but was unable to get a smooth fit due to its height on the landscape and the small amount of terrain in front of it.
So I settled on some sideways cheese instead. Attaching the five long bars with handle took some experimentation, but bar with clip stuck into cones ended up working well.
Now all the buildings were in place, and I just had to finish the mountain! With micro scenes it’s especially easy to place and move buildings, so I try to experiment with lots of different layouts until I find one I’m very pleased with. In this model I tried a lot of different options for the right most building before settling on this.
I could have ended the mountain at about this point, but I figured a bit more elevation would give a better composition.
So went up a few more bricks which definitely looked nicer.
I did experiment with adding trees to the scene, but ultimately could not find a design that was suitable – partially due to being a bit low on micro tree parts at the time.
And here’s a look at some of the various buildings and designs I table scrapped while working on this project.
Thanks for reading, and let us know if you have any questions or suggestions for new posts!