Minas Tirith

Lord Felix · Post by **Lord Felix** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 3:24 am

It got found on Eurobricks to very nice reviews

Very nice.

The Blue Knight · Post by **The Blue Knight** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 9:59 am

Congrats on the attention. Some time ago I worked out how big a Minas Tirith MOC would have to be in order to be minifig scale accurate and it was something like 28 feet high, and over 35 feet at the base. Your version is an outstanding compromise between size, accuracy and minifig compatability, and as such very well done indeed. You have included many many great little details. I know it was mentined before, but the shield sign post is my favorite. I would call this the best Minas Tirith I've seen. One of the best full scale castle MOCs in some time. I am also a Tolkien fan and have tried my hand at a few things. Even though it's not seven levels and several other possible nitpicks, I think you have achieved something really special here.

Tower of Iron Will · Post by **Tower of Iron Will** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 3:27 pm

Bruce N H wrote:Hey,

This is an amazing creation.

I'd love to see you stage other scenes in/around Minas Tirith, particularly from the battle, like Gandalf vs the Witch King at the gate.

Bruce

Wow, what a MOC!

Yes, oh yes, you must have the above scene plus if you bought hoards of the new orcs and make some Oliphants, man my mind can't stop thinking of the possibilities with this masterpiece. Way to set the bar very high with this one.
-Tower

Astuanaks · Post by **Astuanaks** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 4:16 pm

Thanks for al the nice comments.

Indeed, there are only 4 levels to my city. Obviously I thought about having more, but at the given footprint 4 levels is best. More levels would have meant a lot less room for buildings, which I considered to be too much of a sacrifice.
For those wondering about the size: the total footprint is 96 by 144 studs. On both sides, the bastions stick out 8 studs beyond that.

AmperZand wrote:I see you have the wizard from set 5614 The Good Wizard as a healer/herbalist. Nice touch!

Yes, that was a last minute addition. I saw it in the toy shop, and bought it without a second thought. I had planned to use the white beard (Majisto came during my dark age...) for Gandalf, but in the end I did not like the look so much.

Bruce wrote:I'd love to see you stage other scenes in/around Minas Tirith, particularly from the battle, like Gandalf vs the Witch King at the gate.

That is exactly what I had in mind! I hope to recreate the battle in three stages:

Siege in progress; confrontation between the Witch King and Gandalf; arrival of Rohan at the edge of the battle field
Death of Theoden; Eowyn and Merry defeat the Witch King
Arrival of Aragorn and friends with reinforcements from the south (no Army of the Dead for me, thank you)

Tower wrote:...if you bought hoards of the new orcs and make some Oliphants,...

Oh yes, that is on my mind too. Only, I have not found the new orcs locally yet. I do have about 60-70 minifigs ready for "orc-isation", so that should do, I imagine.
Also, I used my very last grey brick in the background rock, so I am contemplating making tan oliphaunts. What do you guys and girls think about that?

Stefan

Aliencat · Post by **Aliencat** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 5:52 pm

Astuanaks wrote: Only, I have not found the new orcs locally yet

Great news! They're out here now too!

Tower of Iron Will · Post by **Tower of Iron Will** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 9:34 pm

Astuanaks wrote:Thanks for al the nice comments.

Tower wrote:...if you bought hoards of the new orcs and make some Oliphants,...
Oh yes, that is on my mind too. Only, I have not found the new orcs locally yet. I do have about 60-70 minifigs ready for "orc-isation", so that should do, I imagine.
Also, I used my very last grey brick in the background rock, so I am contemplating making tan oliphaunts. What do you guys and girls think about that?

Stefan

Tan Oliphants would work, with baskets for the archers with red ninja masks.
-Tower

Lord · Post by **Lord** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 2:13 pm

I really liked the way you made the brick built longbows I also stumbled upon this technique. I mostly use them for my orc archers because they look thrown together with bits of bone. Hope you continue to make more LOTR mocs.

Quickblade22 · Post by **Quickblade22** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 4:16 pm

Absolutly brilliant. I had the oppurtunity to be the first to reply and am glad that I waited, because I wouldn't have been able to express what everyone else has said so far. Thanks for making this MOC. You added to my belief that the new knights are perfect for LOTR. Is the barding a sticker over existing barding, or a customized paper? I hope you had as much fun "playing" with this MOC as it looked to build. I think my favorite thing about this is the Lego-esque scale it has, if you get my meaning.

MrTS · Post by **MrTS** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 5:08 pm

Really cool moc. I have to agree with bruce on those rooftops. Thats really clever build and it looks superb! Nice work.

Blue Monarch · Post by **Blue Monarch** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 5:03 pm

Love it. The colors and detail on everything is breathtaking. Gotta love a white castle.

Gumby · Post by **Gumby** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 5:44 pm

Awesome rendition of Minas Tirith! I'm glad you were able to include as many details as possible without being too ambitious. I'm sure many Minas Tirith projects didn't make it past the planning stages.

Astuanaks · Post by **Astuanaks** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 8:11 pm

Gumpy,

about the scale and planning of the MOC:
I spent a lot of time making ground plans for various sizes. Initially, I wanted to have something about 1.5 times larger (3 by 3 grey base plates), with 5 levels. But after some quick estimates of the required bricks and available space on the table, I settled on the smaller size of 2 by 2 grey base plates. (later on, I made the outer wall a little bit larger than that)
Even then, I underestimated my supply of bricks

Quickblade,
The bardings are stickers over the existing bardings. And yes, I also think the new knights work well in this setting. I get the impression that someone at TLC is putting pieces in our hands with the goal of seeing a lot of LOTR MOCs.

Norro · Post by **Norro** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 10:32 pm

I really like those roof tops pointed out by Bruce, and the overall scale, as has been mentioned on EB, is a lovely combination of grand and playable lego. Good work!

God Bless,

Nathan

Blueandwhite · Post by **Blueandwhite** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 1:38 am

Gumby wrote:Awesome rendition of Minas Tirith! I'm glad you were able to include as many details as possible without being too ambitious. I'm sure many Minas Tirith projects didn't make it past the planning stages.

I'm sure many Minas Tirith projects don't make it to the planning steps

. Seriously, this is a project that not alot of builders would want to take on. That being said, you've done a marvelous job of capturing the feel of Minas Tirith while keeping it a relatively moderate size.

FishRfine · Post by **FishRfine** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 6:57 pm

this is AMAZING! im making all my minifigures bow for the day to your amazing creation!

Classic-Castle.com

Minas Tirith

oh... my... god!