The following was posted by "Derfel Cardarn" on Eurobricks.com discussion forum.
Hello there!
Right, its time to get this mill finished!
I'm basing the design on one of my previous mills that I built which is one of my personal favourite mocs. I was really happy with the design, so I thought I would use parts of it here.
To start off, we need to get the main large doors made. These are quite simple and consist of a 2x8 plate and a 1x8 plate joined together to make a 3x8. On top of that we add some brown tiles and a brown jumper plate to attach a door handle on. On the other side, we strengthen the doors with some 2x3 plates and add to 1x1 clip plates, as seen in the picture below.
Then, we need to build a pillar the same height as the doors using a combination of 1x1 bricks and 1x1 clip plates. We attach two pole/stick pieces to these. This will enable us to clip the doors onto them.
You can now see the doors clipped in and put into place.
Next we need to make the frame of the door. We will do this in dark brown, and make the vertical supports first. This is done the same way as the woodwork in the house at the begining of this thread. A simple task of using four 1x1 bricks with stud, with two 1x1 plates between each one. We can then connect two dark brown tiles to this as seen in the picture below.
Then place in position either side of the doors.
We then need to build 2 pillars of 1x1 round plates with a headlight brick at the top of each one. These need to be the same height and level as the doors and dark brown tiles.
Then we add the horizontal top part of the door frame. For this we use two 2x6 dark brown plates with tiles on top. We can then also add the 2 lanterns which clip into the headlight bricks on either side.
Then its a case of building up the outer wall of 1x1 round plates and remembering to add some tiles here and there to break them up. It should now look something like this.
Now is the time to start adding some interior if that is what you want. You could also use Power Functions to make the wheel turn, but that's up to you. I have just added a very basic interior as its not going to really be seen.
Next we turn our attention to the right side of the building. As you can see I have built up the landscape to the building add have started adding a small storage shed on the side.
Now you can see the shed complete. This was built in the same way as I have said earlier with a wall of normal bricks built behind the 1x1 rounds. The door is built the same way as I showed you earlier, but instead of connecting it with clips, it is attached to some 1x1 bricks with stud, which are holding it up from behind. The roof is attached using 1x2 plate hinges, with half the plate built into the wall, and the other half attached to the roof. This allows us to create a slope with the roof.
In the next shot, you can see that I have started to build up some more rocks on the side of the building like I did with the waterfall. Again, these are simply done with different slope pieces stacked to get the right effect. Also note that I am building up the black wall of the base to match the landscape so we still get a nice neat effect when we view the moc from any angle.
Now you can see I have built up the wall of 1x1 rounds to the needed height and added some headlight bricks spread out across the top. These are used to connect the roof supports. You will also see I have added some foliage. I have used dark green tree pieces here because I plan to build a large tree which means this side of the building will be shaded. Therefore the only plants that would grow would be shade loving plants, so dark green ivy is what we get.
Now we turn our attention to the front. As you can see, I have started to build with some white bricks going up in a diagonal pattern with the 1x1 rounds. I can then attach a tile onto the white brick with the stud, and this will split the two colours and give a nice effect. We then have to do this for each corner of the building at the front and back.
Then we add a whole row of headlight bricks on their backs and attach tiles to the outer studs. This will allow the tiles to sit at the right level above the 1x1 rounds.
Once that is done at the front and back of the building, its time to finish off the upper part of the interior. Again, I have just done the very basics, consisting of a tiled floor, a table and some barrels. I have also added in some arch pieces which will help support the roof.
I have also added the windows and fixed the upright tiles in place using the 1x1 brick with stud. All this is explained and covered in the begining of the thread under the basic house building technique.
Next we have a picture of the left side of the building with the water wheel. I have built this up the same way as I did on the right side. This time I have used more foliage for climbing plants. The plants that are beneath the water wheel are dark green, as these would be constantly wet from the splashes of the wheel. This means its more likely to be moss, weed, and alge, so dark green is best to use. Then above the water wheel we use a lighter green, as these are growing from the rocks and up onto the building.
Now, in this next picture, you will see that I have added most of the roof and completed the white section with the window. The roof parts are very simple to do and don't need explaining. The only thing to take note is to not overlap the roof bricks over the window side of the building, as we will be attaching the gable ends which you can see taking shape at the top of the roof. Again, the way to make the roof is all covered earlier in the guide.
Next, I'm going to show you a very simple and effective way of making small trees. We will be covering larger trees later in the guide, but smaller trees or young trees can be made simply with brown flex tube. All you need to do is get a few pieces of flex tube and use a Lego elastic band to tie them together at the bottom. You can use as many flex pieces as you want, but 2 or 3 work best for small trees.
Then we start added some tree pieces to the flex tube. You should be able to clip some of the tube between the leaves of the tree pieces to strengthen the flex tube pieces more.
Once you have put on enough tree pieces and your happy with the shape, you can then insert the bottom of the flex tube into a normal brown 1x1 round. This will now allow you to stand the tree anywhere. If the tree is larger and more top heavy, you may need to insert it into a 2x2 brown round for more stability.
Then all we need to do now, is put the tree in its desired place and then add some plant pieces around the base to hide the elastic band. As you can see in this picture, I have placed the small tree in amongst the creepers overhanging the water fall.
Now we have a view of the front of the finished mill. You can now see the effect of the tiles that were connected diagonally between the 1x1 rounds and the white bricks. It gives a nice look to the building, making it look simple but elegant. I have used dark brown 1x12 plates on the gables to give a nice all round dark brown effect on the top half of the building. I have also added a chimney, which is easily done by leaving a gap when stacking the roof bricks and then filling it in with 1x1 round bricks after.
You will also notice the custom sacks I made by the main doors. This were just tea-dyed cotton, wrapped around a mini-fig head and then tied at the top with brown string. Easily done and looks effective.
Here is a shot of the right side of the building with a better view of the custom sacks. Note that I havn't placed the roof supports on this side yet, they are just 1x1 normal rounds slotted into the headlight bricks under the roof overhang. You will also notice I have begun building up the hill behind the building, but this will be finished in the next section.
From this shot you can see we are now starting to achieve an overgrown look. The idea is that the mill should look well established, as if it is growing out of the hill. But, we still need to do more work building up the hill to give more of that effect.
This shot shows a nice view of the creepers growing up from the rocks and onto the building. It is important that the waterfall has lots of plants overhanging it so it gives the appearence that the water is appearing from nowhere. So there is still work to be done here, but its starting to come to life bit by bit now.
Finally a shot looking down the waterfall to the small bridge.
So, the next step will be to complete the rest of the hill and backdrop behind the mill, and try to make it all blend in with plant life. This whole side of the moc will be the more natural overgrown side, as the other side will consist of the main village and will therefore be full of buildings and muddy trackways.
A lot of people will look at this guide and think 'I havn't got enough bricks to build something like this'. Well that's not the point, as you can build some very detailed smaller mocs on a 48x48 base plate using this guide. If you look at a lot of my recent mocs, particularly my CCC entries, you will see they were all smaller builds constructed on a 48x48 base plate. Yet they weren't any less detailed then this one. So don't be put off just because this is going to be a large build. Im only making it large so I can cover lots more parts on different buildings and landscapes. To be honest, I stopped building large mocs a while ago, as at the moment I have much more prefered building smaller, its quicker, you can get more mocs built and it doesn't take an age to take them all apart. Having said that, I forgot how much I enjoyed building on a large scale, and I'm now going to really push this moc to see just how detailed and natural it can be. Its early days and there's still quite a bit to be done. But I said I'd make a Medieval Village and that's exactly what I'm gonna do
As usual, the next post will be up asap.
Thanks for reading
DC
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