My Winter Village Project

inklingbricks

Thanks for the kind words about my designs everyone :) @hayduke The prices people have got back to me for the Gingerbread House range from £92 through to £118, with somewhere around the middle the most common. 

milamber

I bought one of the Friends Chalet sets cheaply earlier in the year with a view to rebuilding it in more winter village friendly colours. Still a few adjustments to make, but think it's turned out quite well.

eMJeeNL

I did (partly). did 2 BL orders, and will order the rest at BnP this weekend (already tried during the week, but the site f****d up again); will turn out at around €110-120 for all the bricks.
Mind you, that is after i raided my own collection (about 250-300 parts, nothing really special).

tamamahm

@milamber
Very nice! I did something similar as well last year with the chalet, although I do not recall the color theme I used. I really like trying to repurpose sets for the winter village. 

Switchfoot55

Loving all the updates already! My prep has been pushed back due to a trip to Disneyland with the family. Not complaining!!!

That said, I have a lot of building to do when I get back. Several mods to existing creator sets, a friends Chalet, a second train to include, and a new table to build to display it all. CAN'T WAIT!

LuLego

Too early to share?

milamber

LuLego said:

Too early to share?

Far too early. Far too good as well. Now I've not only got to re-assemble all mine, I've got to improve them too :)

SumoLego

@LuLego - that's a lot elves.

LuLego

62 elves to be precise!

SumoLego

If they unionize, your labor costs will skyrocket!

Bosstone100

@LuLego. That's awesome. Is that your original design or did you purchase those directions? 

I only picked up 12 elves and I thought I overdid it. Now I realize i was just slacking. Have to find some penguins too.

LuLego

Thanks @Bosstone100
It’s my own work - I just started building (without plans) although many ideas and techniques,  I borrowed from other sets:
The window arches and front door are obviously from the original Santa’s workshop.
The stained glass window idea came from Arkham Asylum.
The rooftops method from the WV Bakery.
The tower from Disney Cars Bentley Breakout.
The balloon from the Friends picnic set.

I started it a long time ago and it evolved as I became obsessed! Whenever I saw a set, my mind was automatically assessing the set to see if ideas would work for a winter village.

I was building this throughout the summer and snapped up Christmas themed pieces and minifigures much cheaper back then.

The interior is detailed too but I didn’t want to slow down the forum with an overload of photos!

eMJeeNL

LuLego said:

Too early to share?

Okay. You just won the WV-internet.

just wow.

SumoLego

The Elf bi-plane is the best.

sid3windr

Aha! Now I remember where I got the inspiration to build my own santa hot air balloon! Nice job @LuLego !

LuLego

LuLego

The elf plane is a modified #31076
As soon as I saw that set, I knew what it was going to be used for!

@sid3windr the hot air balloon is nice but originally I wanted to change #41184 but it was just a bit too expensive. I think that set would look amazing in Santa’s colours.

milamber

LuLego said:

The elf plane is a modified #31076
As soon as I saw that set, I knew what it was going to be used for!

@sid3windr the hot air balloon is nice but originally I wanted to change #41184 but it was just a bit too expensive. I think that set would look amazing in Santa’s colours.

I have a #41184 for exactly that, but reckon would have been cheaper to bricklink the lot than change the colour of the existing set, after taking the purchase cost into account as well. It's really only the gold and a bit of cream that can be retained.

LuLego

^ that’s where my thinking had got to. I even got as far as creating a ‘wanted list’ on BrickLink but I think when the cost was over £40, I changed my mind. 
I’m sure it would look amazing tho. Those gold railings look so fitting to the style I’m trying to capture.

milamber

LuLego said:

^ that’s where my thinking had got to. I even got as far as creating a ‘wanted list’ on BrickLink but I think when the cost was over £40, I changed my mind. 
I’m sure it would look amazing tho. Those gold railings look so fitting to the style I’m trying to capture.

The other issue was the availability of the 18969 balloon part in a decent colour. Red is fine, but really only white available which is remotely suitable to partner it and that not ideal. A nice dark green would have been nice. I've just harvested the gold pieces for something else. It was worth the purchase cost just for those anyway.

mustang69

Not sure if I should try to follow @LuLego 's awesome Santa’s Workshop but here goes. I was finally able to finish up my Christmas Mansion over the weekend. Here’s a few pics. There’s still a few things I want to update/change.

I need to get replacements of the inverted roof tiles by the chimney on the inside, for some reason I didn’t realize I ordered white.

The round grey 1x1 plates and the tiles over the side porch need to be updated to white. Guess I wasn’t paying attention when I was redesigning the haunted house and didn’t update those.

If they ever come back in stock I want to get earth green window frames for the windows and replace the trans clear wall elements. Bricklink sellers have them at way too high of a cost for my taste.

I want to add stockings over the fireplace, add a couch to the main floor, add a bed to the upstairs and a wardrobe.

I want to change the white fences, 6047813, on the front porch to the more detailed 6097236 fence pieces.

I also need to add some snow details around the outside.

I need to get more white lightsaber blades for the rail along the roof, the BnP site was out of them.

Still need to add one more gold nose cone and 1x1 round plate to the top.

Need to replace the white hinge pieces in the chimney with grey.

I’m also considering expanding the front gate.

Hope everyone enjoys it :)

(my apologies if the files are too big! I tried to resize them smaller)

Astrobricks

SumoLego said:

If they unionize, your labor costs will skyrocket!

If that happens, you just fire them all and hire South Pole elves at half the rate.

milamber

I've just started my MOC winter church. Seem to have spent more time sitting and thinking than actually building. Trying to use bricks I have rather than buy any more in which makes it more difficult. Plan was to map out the whole bottom layer in bricks first, then build up from there, but seem to have fully completed the entrance porch instead.........so I have an entrance porch and doors stood proudly on the base plate and nothing else so far.

Switchfoot55

@LuLego - Absolutely fantastic! I LOVE the creativity!

@mustang69 - really great redesign and re-purposing of an awesome set. It has me thinking I may need to do something similar in the future (distant future most likely). 


I got back from a week at Disneyland and my wheels haven't stopped turning since then. Yesterday my kids and I knocked out three sets: #31048 (Lakeside Lodge-winter-fied quite a bit), #41323 (Friends Snow Chalet), and #31080 Modular Winter Vacation. 

We also redesigned #41129 Amusement Park Hot Dog Van to tone down some of the brighter colors and pulled out a Hot Dog Cart Poly bag (a few more to come too). 

(Has anyone worked the Amusement Park Hot Dog Van into a building instead of a car? The scale just won't work in its current form as it's as big or bigger than a few of the sets I've already built).

I also started some work on the actual table that will hold the display. New table, a bit higher up so my 9 months old won't be able to wage war against the village. It'll likely be multi-tiered if I can figure out the best way to do things. 

It'll be an all out assault on putting sets together over the next two weeks. It has me rethinking taking everything apart last year... But, much of my joy of Lego comes with the building process, so it's not all bad. 

LuLego

milamber said:

I've just started my MOC winter church. Seem to have spent more time sitting and thinking than actually building. Trying to use bricks I have rather than buy any more in which makes it more difficult. Plan was to map out the whole bottom layer in bricks first, then build up from there, but seem to have fully completed the entrance porch instead.........so I have an entrance porch and doors stood proudly on the base plate and nothing else so far.

Apparently, Sir Christopher Wren started the same way and encountered the same problem with the doors to St Paul’s!

Keep us posted with your progress as I’d be keen to see it, as I’m sure others would too. Whenever I see a church MOC I always stop for a closer inspection.

milamber

LuLego said:

Apparently, Sir Christopher Wren started the same way and encountered the same problem with the doors to St Paul’s!

Keep us posted with your progress as I’d be keen to see it, as I’m sure others would too. Whenever I see a church MOC I always stop for a closer inspection.

We share the same first name, but that's about as far as any comparison goes. My architectural skills are zero.

Actually the biggest issue is scale. I built the porch to minifig scale, then realised the church would need to be some colossus towering over the winter village if it was to look correctly in proportion. I have a 15.25" by 13.25" baseplate which wasn't going to be nearly big enough which was crazy.

I was attempting to build the church to broadly the correct design for an English church, but now realise why all the MOCs I've seen are well out of proportion. It's simply not possible to do that and have it fit in with the scale of the rest of the winter village sets unless you make it microscale. So back to the drawing board.

I have a new (smaller) porch......

I'll certainly post some pictures as I go along, but it might be a few days before I have anything remotely worth sharing.

milamber

After several false starts it's finally under way. So different to building from instructions. The number of times I've had to take it back apart to put in a specific brick I didn't know I needed at the time. Now waiting on a bricklink order. I simply couldn't do everything with what I had.

Switchfoot55

I've had a bit more time to build, though lots more to go. I've also considerably rethought my layout, so we'll see how that ends up coming together!

First photo is of #31048 and #7346 with some snow added. Not sold that #7346 is ultimately going to work as the scale seems massive compared to the sets I've been able to put together. We'll see once I get some of the official WV builds put together. 

SumoLego

That Hot Dog stand is way, way out of scale.  And frozen hot dogs doesn't sound that appealing.  The Seaside House looks fine to me.

Kev80e

I've spent far too long looking through this thread . Some amazing stuff guys. Think I need to do this next year. 

Switchfoot55

^^ @SumoLego, I completely agree about the scale of the Friends Hot Dog truck. I plan to rework it into a smaller building as opposed to the larger vehicle. Not to mention that standard minifigs barely come up to the counter height. 

Any recommendations or inspirational MODs/MOCs I could use for a revised Hot Dog stand?

Also, what's not appealing about frozen hot dogs?

Russell844

Turn it into a stand selling monkey tails?

SumoLego

Switchfoot55 said:

...Also, what's not appealing about frozen hot dogs?

Cold ketchup.

Bumblepants

@Switchfoot55 check out the hotdog stand in the Ninjago Movie Garmadon shark mech set.

milamber

Also #30356

eMJeeNL

SumoLego said:

That Hot Dog stand is way, way out of scale.  And frozen hot dogs doesn't sound that appealing.  The Seaside House looks fine to me.

When you go to a Wintervillage in a German town (a real one), the Wiener/wurststand (so not hot-dog, but ey, whaddoyouwant) is a integral part of it... I'm actually lusting after a currywurst now...

Coming to think of it, it'd be really cool to build a Schwenkgril: 


With one of these in the middle:

Switchfoot55

Some modifications. Opinions on scale?

TheOriginalSimonB

Looks good to me.

eMJeeNL

Cool; scale is good for me.

Maybe add some muted colours (Dark Red or Green or something) to the top/bottom to make it blend in a bit more? Some greens to make it more season-y?
BTW: something strange is going on on the topfront of your cottage!

Switchfoot55

Thanks for the feedback. I was wanting to make it more wintery, but ran out of time last night. I'll add some embellishments. 

The top front of the Chalet is from my 3 year old daughter. She's been playing with it for HOURS every day. The state of it tends to be disheveled at all times. 

Switchfoot55

I didn't end up working on the hot dog stand more tonight, but did manage to add these two to the table:

tamamahm

@Switchfoot55
The yellow house is my fav of your new ones so far. That is pretty awesome. 
I have not started putting ours up, but unlike last year where I had a ton of new items, I think all I will have new this year will be the firehouse. 

DadsAFOL

OCLUG 2018

colay

LuLego said:

Too early to share?

Holy Jingle Balls! That's awesome.

Trouble is, with that many elves around, do they have to share things, or do they get elfish?

And surely feeding all of them, santa must have huge jingle bills. Either that or he won the lottery and is very welfy. One thing is missing. How do they get between floors, I cant see the elfevator. I'll see myself out

benbacardi

^ Don't forget the massive Elf and Safety issue you've got on your hands. I'm sure they're all snowed under with admin. They probably never get any time to chill! 

milamber

Church is moving on. I've spent some time figuring out the wall height needed and making the roof structure. Left that for now to get on with the interior. I've added a font in the far side of the entrance since, but think the interior is more or less ok. The far end is going to be a challenge as I want a stained glass window.

Switchfoot55

^That's coming along really nicely! I may have to steal some inspiration in the future from that. 

milamber

Just noticed some white showing through under the pews. Hadn't noticed that until I looked at the photo. Need to grab the grey tiles. Tiles needed on top of the railings as well. Esy to overlook small details.

Switchfoot55

I'm kicking myself a bit as I was recently at the Downtown Disney Lego Store and they had the 2x2 LBG tiles on the PAB wall. How I didn't walk away with a handful of large cups worth is still blowing my mind. 

They'd certainly come in handy for a project like this!

milamber

Yep, plenty of grey. Roof beams up now and roof fits fine. End wall with stained glass to do now which might be a challenge.