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Hi
My name is Ricky, I’m 39 and a life long fan of LEGO. I’ve never been active in the LEGO fan community and thought it was time to change that.Growing up my favorite themes were Castle and City and then got into Star Wars when LEGO got the license. I got into the modular series with the Palace Cinema and that has become my new favorite theme/series. I’ve also gotten into Harry Potter recently, with the new Hogwarts Castle modular sets.
Castle is still one of my favorites and recently
during quarantine I have gotten back into it getting out and rebuilding my old sets and buying a few new
ones. There’s some sets that came out during my teenage years that I really regret now having not gotten then. Also doing quarantine I’ve been working on setting up a modular city and doing my first MOCs since childhood. Turning Sanctum Sanctorum Showdown in to a modular Sanctum and Indoraptor Rampage at Lockwood Estate into a modular museum.That’s pretty cool. I have a modular conversion expansion of the City Pizza van sitting in a corner of my storage room. That’s a side project. I’d like to convert the Octan Gas Station into a modular and also build an upscale car dealership showroom modular.
How do you feel about aztecing? This is a term I’ve heard in modeling circles where elements and materials of slightly different shade are patchworked over a surface to provide a more textured look. I think this works well on castle walls and on city buildings too, and it’s one of the rare good uses for older, yellowed parts any builder may have.
What do you think, @rlbricky?
Hello Ricky, and welcome. Apparently we have been unusually slow to respond to this one, so I don’t want you to think we’re an unfriendly bunch. At least Rich was more on top of things.
As you might’ve guessed, everything is canceled right now cause of covid. But there’s still some discussions going on on the website here, so feel free to look around and join in.
How do you feel about aztecing? This is a term I’ve heard in modeling circles where elements and materials of slightly different shade are patchworked over a surface to provide a more textured look. I think this works well on castle walls and on city buildings too, and it’s one of the rare good uses for older, yellowed parts any builder may have.
What do you think, @rlbricky?
Hi Rich
Funny you should mention that, I just watched a video last night were the builder mentioned using different shades of gray to give his MILS roads more texture. I have not hear the term “aztecing” though, I’ll have to remember that. As for how I feel about aztecing it would bug me in my own build depeding on the colors. If it was a mix of light bluish gray and dark bluish gray I don’t think I would mind. In the video I was watching it was light bluish gray mixed with the old light gray, that I could not due. They are so close in shade but the old light gray looks very yellow and dirty when it’s next to the light bluish gray. It might be OCD but I think it would drive me nuts, my eye goes right the old light gray bricks.
Hello Ricky, and welcome. Apparently we have been unusually slow to respond to this one, so I don’t want you to think we’re an unfriendly bunch. At least Rich was more on top of things.
As you might’ve guessed, everything is canceled right now cause of covid. But there’s still some discussions going on on the website here, so feel free to look around and join in.
Hi Benjamin!
No worries, it’s 2020 nothing is going as expected. I’ll definitely check out some of the discussions, I love to talk LEGO.
Rich, in castles, the “big gray wall” is a common problem. I don’t know my example below counts as aztecing, but I used different colors to break up the continuity of these walls. People like Walter and Micah are much better at this because they also use textures to break up solid colors to make them more realistic-looking.
I did the same with the Hogwarts Great Hall. Dark Tan, Brown, Sand Green, Dark Red, Dark orange, Light Grey, Dark Grey, and Black, are all great colors to use for this purpose. It breaks up the monotony of the same color and gives texture and age to an exterior wall.
I did the same with the Hogwarts Great Hall. Dark Tan, Brown, Sand Green, Dark Red, Dark orange, Light Grey, Dark Grey, and Black, are all great colors to use for this purpose. It breaks up the monotony of the same color and gives texture and age to an exterior wall.
Does anyone have photos of the Great Hall MOC that illustrate this?
Hi Greg
Rich, in castles, the “big gray wall” is a common problem. I don’t know my example below counts as aztecing, but I used different colors to break up the continuity of these walls. People like Walter and Micah are much better at this because they also use textures to break up solid colors to make them more realistic-looking.
That MOC looks great!
That use of different color bricks to break up the walls look good and don’t bother me, it’s clearly intentional.I did the same with the Hogwarts Great Hall. Dark Tan, Brown, Sand Green, Dark Red, Dark orange, Light Grey, Dark Grey, and Black, are all great colors to use for this purpose. It breaks up the monotony of the same color and gives texture and age to an exterior wall.
Didn’t you do a wall like that using browns, reddish browns, the darker oranges, and a bit of black, @timf? I seem to remember one of your builds doing that… or was it @whitesidewjw’s Castle Smithy build? I don’t remember.
Rich, in castles, the “big gray wall” is a common problem. I don’t know my example below counts as aztecing, but I used different colors to break up the continuity of these walls. People like Walter and Micah are much better at this because they also use textures to break up solid colors to make them more realistic-looking.
Yep! That’s aztecing!
I know @whitesidewjw uses ingots as beveled bricks, and this is really effective on circular towers because the raised tiles distract from the hinged connection points behind this stonework greeble. It also gives the surface more depth and a sense of being heavier. Or he’ll use palisade bricks and the 1×2 bricks with vertical slot, or add in some other SNOT irregularities carefully distributed.
This triggered my learning experience building rock walls. Normally, I’m big on color blocking, but there, since this is clearly meant to be a background element, I like to keep the color solid and use carefully calculated slopes atop BURPS and LURPS to cut down on the brick I need and to make parallel contouring along one axis. So it’s a related approach because it’s an opposite level of thinking. Big Gray Wall is still a problem, but I rely on shaping instead of color there. The differences in building philosophy are neat, which is why I like to compare and contrast.
I think, in both cases, careful distributing of the brick available is the key.
Hey @rcgrier3406, what do you do on your castle builds to avoid Big Gray Wall? I like some of your techniques too.
Thanks, it is based on a building in Hartwood Acres which is an Allegheny County Park.
Huh.
After looking at the reference, you even accounted for the different size of bricks actually used in the real McCoy. *I* thought that you’d done it with plates versus brick as the main color to make the aztecing more subtle and sparse. I didn’t consider using specific elements as aztecing amid larger elements of solid color until now. That’s a neat approach that can save some brick depending on what’s available. This is a different way to think about proportions: as differing brick sizes overall.
Either way, that’s pretty neat.
Hi, my name is Karen. Im a life long fan of LEGO. Ive been back into LEGO for 18 years. Ive gotten many friends and family interested. I tried joining before and run into issues. I set up a dedicated email just for this.
Hi Karen, usually people start a new thread to introduce themselves, but this works too. What neighborhood are you from and what type of building do you like to do, ie. kits, original creations, trains, spaceplants, other major themes …
A dedicated email? Just for your LEGO hobby? I’m impressed actually. Makes it easy to compartmentalize things.
Welcome @karen-d!
Does anyone have photos of the Great Hall MOC that illustrate this?
There are some pics of @timf’s Hogwarts Great Hall in the Gallery under Santa Trolley 2018! To view them, click on the “Gallery” link at the top right corner of this page, and then go to page 4 of the Gallery and click on “Santa Trolley 2018”. The pics of the Great Hall are near the end of this slideshow.
@rcgrier3406, what do you do on your castle builds to avoid Big Gray Wall? I like some of your techniques too.
@zaximillian, here’s a good example of a couple of ways I’ve dealt with the big gray wall issue on my Hogwarts MOC. For the circular towers, I intermixed rounds with bricks both to be able to build it circular, and to break it up both in the main section and in the top cantilevered sections. This could be used on a straight wall section as well. Like most of us I’ve used profile bricks, but my preference is to use ingots to give a “raised block” look, sometimes in a set pattern, and sometimes intermittently as can be seen here.@rcgrier3406, what do you do on your castle builds to avoid Big Gray Wall? I like some of your techniques too.
@zaximillian, here’s a good example of a couple of ways I’ve dealt with the big gray wall issue on my Hogwarts MOC. For the circular towers, I intermixed rounds with bricks both to be able to build it circular, and to break it up both in the main section and in the top cantilevered sections. This could be used on a straight wall section as well. Like most of us I’ve used profile bricks, but my preference is to use ingots to give a “raised block” look, sometimes in a set pattern, and sometimes intermittently as can be seen here.I dig the use of 1×1 round bricks to make the curves more flexible. I think we worked out some stud length diameters for circular towers at The Art of The Brick show?
Anyway, I also like the little cheese slopes on the roof to break up the studly expanse. You didn’t need many, as it turns out, to make that effective!
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