My First Landscaping Project

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doctorsparkles
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My First Landscaping Project

Post by doctorsparkles »

I finished my first landscaping project this afternoon. It was more than a month in the making, and I ran into a number of setbacks, such as brick shortages and the last minute decision to include a timber frame house.
Brickshelf doesn't seem to be working correctly tonight (it won't let me upload anything), so I uploaded them elsewhere. I'll probably edit or post again later to give the brickshelf links.

Here is an overview picture. I started out by building the river, and I built the cave around it. Then I built the hill over the cave.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v607/ ... ure001.jpg

I started building the timber frame house without intending to include it in this model, but due to the inclusion of a cellar, I knew I would have to build landscape sooner or later. Since I already had landscaping in progress, I felt it was best to incorporate the two. That meant reworking the hill to fit the house in.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v607/ ... ure002.jpg

I really wanted to give the impression that the inhabitant of the house could very easily live off the land, so I included as many sources of food as I could think of. Here we have a strawberry patch...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v607/ ... ure004.jpg
And a small tree with a beehive hanging from it...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v607/ ... ure005.jpg
And an apple tree.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v607/ ... ure006.jpg

The first floor contains a small desk/table with stool, a cozy fire place and a cute little kitten. Aaawww! He's so cute!!! I just want to cuddle his little... *ahem* Sorry.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v607/ ... ure009.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v607/ ... ure008.jpg

The second floor is somewhat plain, and contains only a small bed with green and white quilt.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v607/ ... ure010.jpg

Here we have the cellar. Inside, you'll find an empty cauldron, casks of wine, a crate of supplies, a shelf with jars of preserved fruit, and some sp-sp-sp-spiders!!!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v607/ ... ure007.jpg

Like I said, I will eventually port these pictures over to brickshelf, and then I can give you a full folder view. Until then, only deeplinks are available.
Feel free to comment or criticize, and if you want any more pictures, let me know.
"Always do what you want, and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind." ~ Doctor Suess
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Dragonlord Esq.
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Post by Dragonlord Esq. »

Nice little touches, like the beehive. I really like the strawberry patch, too. Which set is the cat from?
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doctorsparkles
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Post by doctorsparkles »

Dragonlord Esq. wrote:Nice little touches, like the beehive. I really like the strawberry patch, too. Which set is the cat from?
Thanks. The little cart is this set:
http://guide.lugnet.com/set/6011
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Post by Dragonlord Esq. »

Nice cart (seriously), but I was wondering about the fuzzy little cat. :lol:
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doctorsparkles
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Post by doctorsparkles »

Dragonlord Esq. wrote:Nice cart (seriously), but I was wondering about the fuzzy little cat. :lol:
Whoops. Misread that. The cat was in some Belville set. I couldn't tell you which one it was. I also have a black one, which I'm sure also came from a Belville set originally.
Here's a list of the sets that the cat came in:
http://peeron.com/inv/parts/6251

Sorry for the mix up.
"Always do what you want, and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind." ~ Doctor Suess
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Umgarla
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Post by Umgarla »

That's some very nice landscaping you have done there. Especially the different plants and trees are very well made. ;)
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Post by erikut »

well to quoute metallica OH YEAHAEY (fuel) thats GRREATT (a comercial for some stuff i dent reemember) well anyway this inspires me to make some landscaping of my one well keep up the good work

BTW. nice cart and cat

Erik
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Post by Akuma »

Really nice work! I love some of yours ideas (apple treet, strawberry path, behive!!!).

The river and the cave is cool too (maybe your character could use the cave to hide something).

The only thing I think you should work more, is on house decoration.

Keep up the good work! I wish I had the parts do make something similar :(
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Post by Dragon Master »

Hello,

I do like some parts of this, and dislike some others.

I like how you included different resources for him to get his food. I suppose he could also fish from that river too. I especially like your beehive, but I think Sava's one is a little more user friendly.

I dislike the barness of the inerior in that house. I suggest adding some plates or titles in for the floors to live them up a bit. Or why not hang some things on the walls: weapons, banners, printed tiles, animal horns, etc.

Also, I do not like the tree growing over the river like that. Too mee that piece of land looks too thin to walk on, let alone a tree grow on.

I suggest doing away with the land over the river, and maybe build a bridge.

My finial suggestion is to build up the landscape one plate row over the river, instead of having it level with the river, it just doesn't look right. I also suggest making the river a little more bendy and wavy, to give it a natuaral look.

Good first try,

DM
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doctorsparkles
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Post by doctorsparkles »

Thank you everyone for the kind words and criticisms.
Akuma wrote:The only thing I think you should work more, is on house decoration.
Dragon Master wrote:I dislike the barness of the inerior in that house. I suggest adding some plates or titles in for the floors to live them up a bit. Or why not hang some things on the walls: weapons, banners, printed tiles, animal horns, etc.
Agreed. I'm actually not completely finished with the house, but I'd been working on this for so long and I finally reached a point that it looked finished that I just felt like showing it off. The upper floor originally had brown tiling on the floor, but I took them out to make it easier to put in furniture. It was such a pain to take them out that I don't think I'll be putting them back in again.
Dragon Master wrote:Also, I do not like the tree growing over the river like that. Too mee that piece of land looks too thin to walk on, let alone a tree grow on.
That area of land is actually quite thick (at least a brick thick in all places, but thicker in others). However, it's not so thick that the roots of the tree don't hang out the roof of the cave. Unfortunately, the picture I took that demonstrated this did not turn out well.
You're probably right that the land is not thick enough to support the tree though. However, I'm still rather fond of its placement.
Dragon Master wrote:My finial suggestion is to build up the landscape one plate row over the river, instead of having it level with the river, it just doesn't look right. I also suggest making the river a little more bendy and wavy, to give it a natuaral look.
I agree that I should build up the banks over the river a little bit. That will have to wait until I obtain more plates. An MOC is never finished until I get bored and start building something better...
As for making the river more winding, I figure that since that stretch of land is pretty much level, the river will in fact take the path of least resistance and go straight. Okay, so I didn't really have that in mind while building. I kind of just started putting down bricks and plates randomly to see where that would take me. I plan on eventually building more tracts of land to match up with this one, so hopefully the straightness of this particular stretch won't be quite as noticable.
Again, thank you everyone for your comments.
"Always do what you want, and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind." ~ Doctor Suess
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Post by Bruce N H »

Hey,

Very nice. I like the strawberry patch and the apple tree best of all. I agree on the bareness of the interior and the thin roof of the cave. The bed is nice. What is the round piece on top of the strawberry jars?

Bruce
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Post by KennDoubleN »

Hi. I really like the vegetation in your landscape, but I think the shape of the terrain could be better. The slope up to the house is fine, but the ground over the cave seems too flat. I think it would look better if it came to a crest, and perhaps sloped back. The river might also look better if it rose further back in the cave. Maybe throw a rock in the middle.

Anyway, let me complement you on the vegetation, though. I don't think I've ever seen that particular plant piece used as well as in your strawerry patch, and the beehive is a fantastic idea. The various trees are nice, too. All in all, for a first landscape project it's awfully well done.
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Post by Robin Hood »

Very good. I haven't ever done landscaping (at least not enough to be noticed) but there were two things that seemed a bit wrong.

One, as Dragon Master mentioned, was the roof of the cave. Frankly it looks way to skinny to support much. It looks to ba about a foot thick, which would not hold much weight if it were made out of earth.

Two, the ground could perhaps use some colour variation. Say add some browns, grey, and tan.

Still, a good first attempt. About as good (if not better) as my first (and so far one of two) landscape job.

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Post by doctorsparkles »

Again I would like to thank everyone for their compliments and suggestions. Due to the number of posts about the thickness of the cave roof and the placement of the apple tree, I moved the tree and thickened the roof to about 3 times its original thickness at its widest point. Also, the top of the hill is no longer flat. I am at a loss as to what to put up there now though. Because getting rid of the roots hanging from the roof of the cave (which I still don't have a picture of) would have been a huge pain in the butt (curse you, giant hands!), I added a small bush up there, but it still looks pretty bare.
I also added green plates on either bank of the river.
Bruce N H wrote:Very nice. I like the strawberry patch and the apple tree best of all. I agree on the bareness of the interior and the thin roof of the cave. The bed is nice. What is the round piece on top of the strawberry jars?
Thanks! I don't think I had ever seen a strawberry patch in an MOC before, and I think that those flower stem pieces and transparent red 1*1 rounds work rather nicely.
The bed is not completely my design. I'm not nearly that clever. I got the idea here: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=83707
As for the 1*1 on top of the jars, it's just a lid. It seemed kind of silly to me that someone would go through the trouble of canning fruit if he wasn't going to seal the jar.
KennDoubleN wrote:the beehive is a fantastic idea.
The beehive was another thing that I had never seen before (though according to a post higher up in the thread, Anthony Sava made one, but I've never seen it). This is not my ideal design for a beehive, but we're all limited by the parts we have available to us.
Robin Hood wrote:Two, the ground could perhaps use some colour variation. Say add some browns, grey, and tan.
You're probably right that some color variation would do this MOC some good, but not only do I not have the parts available, but mottling has never been and probably never will be my strong point. I have to consciously place things randomly, which is incredibly difficult for somebody who likes things neat and uniform. That's one of the reasons this project was such a challenge for me.
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Post by Bruce N H »

doctorsparkles wrote: As for the 1*1 on top of the jars, it's just a lid.
Those are just simple 1x1 round plates? Hmm. They looked like small round tiles to me--either due to the poor focus or the lack of contrast I can't see the studs.

Here are Anthony's beehives, BTW:

Image

And here they are in context:

Image

Bruce
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