Seaside Market

Between the harbor and the city wall, a small but popular market has managed to establish itself.

My biggest build yet with a wide margin. You can check out more picture of it at the bottom of this post. I also posted some of them on Flickr.

Inception

The idea for this build originated with me playing around with Technic pieces I had received in bulk. My original intent was to build a sturdy minifig display stand with as few pieces as possible. I ended up with a staircase design that gave me the inspiration for this build. I saw the design as a solution to a problem I have had with medieval cityscapes, how to clearly show all the town life and house facades of multiple streets.

I started to work on designing the build in LDD winter 2017 and worked on it virtually for a few months. Not until about August 2018 did I have the time to start building it with real pieces. The building process was drawn out for several reason so it took awhile for me to finish. During Easter 2019 was when I put the last final piece in place (just a few weeks before the early big Swebrick expo).

Design / Style

When making medieval scenes I like to build in a style that is reminiscent of the Classic LEGO castle sets. I like to use the classic bright colors which is the reason for the bright red roofs and bright solid blue water. I also try to keep the wear and tear on buildings reasonable. Some builder add a lot of it to create interesting textures on their buildings. Which is fine, but I think it needs to be justified. If the city is thriving the structures should look fairly well kept.

I also have a fondness of using regular slops for roofs instead of other more advanced techniques. I try to make them look as good as possible while still keeping the “old school” feel to them.

When designing the houses I decided that the three levels should belong to different socioeconomic classes, high, middle and low class. The top level got more unique designs and bottom ones got extra wear and tear. I also decided that that red roofs would be more exclusive than a black one so that’s why they are more common at the top.

I have more to say about the design and internal structure of this build but I’m saving that for future blog posts.

Recurring bits

• The scene is placed in the same city as in this build.
• The big boat is from one of my first builds.
• The nobleman character walking on top level is from this, this and this build (a micro build of the boat can been in the background of the last build.)
• The three adventures at the Inn are from here and here.
• The wizard and the accompanying nobleman can be found in some of the above linked builds and in many more. To many to link them all.

The chronological order of these builds is not fully set. Until I can create a complete story arc with them, I’m keeping all my thoughts about the time-line a secret.

Pictures from expo in Borlänge

The children loved the shark