My LEGO Ideas submission based on Ursula Le Guin's classic Earthsea fantasy series just went live on their website. If you're at all into LEGO (or sf/f novels), please consider supporting and sharing with your other friends who might be interested!

Earthsea Triptych / "The Adventures of Sparrowhawk" by Thomas Dickerson, on Flickr

The Court of the Fountain by Thomas Dickerson, on Flickr

Hunting the Shadow by Thomas Dickerson, on Flickr

Temple of the God-Brothers / The Painted Room by Thomas Dickerson, on Flickr

Oh man that's beautiful! I especially love how the different colored plates below the water make it look so realistic! The park looks great as well, how'd you manage to get the plates at all those angles on the bushes? I like how the temple opens up, the building is deceptively small for how large the space inside is!

Thanks! The water really benefited from some of the new angle pieces like the triangle 2x2 half-tile that allowed me to get very tight spacing with the larger plates.

Assuming you're asking about the little cherry trees, I used this technique, which combines a 6-stemmed plant base with a 2x2 round plate with hole in the middle, and the 1x2 plate variant that has a little tiny pin hole in the bottom of its underside stud.

Also - if you haven't read the books, it might not be clear since I didn't post the longer descriptions here, but the mosaic-ed space under the temple is part of a secret underground labyrinth, and there's a peep-hole in the treasure room that lets you look down through the floor into the room below (that stone on the right hand side actually slots back down into the floor).

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p.s. I hope I can count on your vote

Thanks for the clarification! Yup, I voted right after I submitted the post

Oh cool, if you tell me your LEGO Ideas username, I'm happy to follow you back!

Very cool! I supported as well!

Thanks so much! I just gave you a follow. Loved the calculator avatar

As I just posted on the LEGO Ideas page, looks great, and I love the detail techniques (the rocket tree, the water overflowing the levels of the fountain, etc.). Keep up the good work!

Thanks! btw, I feel the need to point out that the squirt of water at the top of the fountain is a snake.

Good work on the models they are very cool! I especially like how intricate and pretty the trees are with the tiny flower buds. You have my support for sure!

Thanks Cole, I really enjoyed making a bunch of different kinds of trees - 4 different "species". I think the birch was my favorite to build, followed by the apple tree in blossom by the temple, with its root going down over the side of the hill.

I thought it would be apropos that between your prompting and this project, I've started reading the Earthsea series.

Nice! I'm sure you'll breeze right through them.

btw here are two more renders in celebration of hitting 100 supporters (the first milestone) on the Ideas submission. Don't read the captions too carefully if you want to completely avoid spoilers (although there's nothing terribly earth-shattering, and in the tradition of licensed LEGO sets I've subtly changed things around)


Light Under The Hill by Thomas Dickerson, on Flickr


The Anger of the Dark by Thomas Dickerson, on Flickr

Ooh I missed this first time round, but these look super neat! I've signed up and supported

I read Wizard and Tombs many years ago but I've forgotten a lot of the details. Might be time to for me to read them again and finish the series.

Oooh, those renders look good! What do you use to create the light effect? Gimp, or something else?

Thanks .... "Banchor"? And I'd read the original trilogy in the past, but I really gained a lot on this re-read, and it's my first foray into the sequels.



Volumetric effects in Blender.

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Just to clarify, because I think I realized why you were asking, I only built this model virtually, so all of the images are rendered with Blender.

Okay, I see now. I usually use stud.io for the build and the render, then touch up the image in GIMP. I can see how using blender could definitely offer more possibilities. Keep up the great work and congrats on 100+ supporters!

I model everything in Bricksmith and then use the LDraw import plugin to get the models into Blender. I've also used POV-Ray in the past via l3p, but it doesn't shade triangulated geometry as nicely as Blender's importer.

I try to avoid Stud.io because it is subtly incompatible with the rest of the LDraw ecosystem, and now I'm in a predicament because I can't get this model into a form that's easily shareable on the Bricklink Studio Gallery

Made a video celebrating 200 supporters. Sorry for the vertical video - it started life as an Instagram Reel and there's only so many times I want to turn my laptop into a space heater with Blender.

Looking good! I particularly like the lighting effects.