Check out this amazing LEGO Winter Village MOC by Tan Tile
November 14, 2014
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My jaw dropped when I saw this incredible Winter Village MOC (My Own Creation) from Tan Tile, a fellow Australian LEGO blogger. I definitely had to share it because it’s such an enormous and wonderfully designed winter village, packed with neat little details.
The Winter Village theme is one of my favourites and I’m fortunate enough to have all of the sets, which is why his design resonated with me – I would totally do something like this if I had the time, space and enough bricks to pull it off! Soon, I always say!
The display is absolutely massive, with its dimensions coming in at three 48 x 48 and one 32 x 32 baseplates wide and two 48 x 48 baseplate deep.
I had a quick chat with Tan Tile over email to find out a little more about his Winter Village and how it all got started!
Jay’s Brick Blog: Your winter village display is massive! How many bricks do you estimate it took to create the entire display?
Tan Tile: Haha yes, it’s it is quite huge. Luckily we have a dining table big enough to display it till Christmas.
How many bricks? Tough to say but I would estimate about 15,000 to 20,000 pieces all up. There are about 600 of Medium Lavender 1 x 2 plate hidden within the structure and twice that many 2 x 3 Yellow plates that we got when Coles had the Friends animals sets for $1.25 each. We brought several hundred of those sets just for parts. (200 of those you can see in our 200 Likes MOC we made for our Facebook page) . Thinking about it more I am probably underestimating the amount parts used.
How did you design and plan your winter village?
Honestly it was all just sitting in my head. What I saw in my minds eye is what came out for real in brick form. I first placed the sets I had built on the table to get a rough guide of where I wanted to position them, and I just stated to build.
I didn’t know If I was going to have enough pieces for this project and I just built each 48 x 48 baseplate as I went. Once I pretty much had what I wanted on each section done, I moved onto the next one. Only once I was happy with all 8 sections did I add the finer details. The whole thing is modularized and each building is easily detectible like a floor on a modular building.
Did you get help with the construction/design of the winter village?
Yes I did have help with the construction, the whole family got involved. My Wife (Tash) helped with finding parts in our collection and also giving me permission to “yes you can open that set just for a handful of parts, LOL.
Tash also built a few extra Winter Village bonus sets that have been given away the past few years from LEGO.com in October and November of each year. My kids (Chloe and
Jaspa) helped with choosing the minifigures and also built the 10245 Santa’s Workshop with me. They built the Elves, Reindeer and Sleigh, the little Christmas tree and I did the rest. I even had my parents involved sitting in the lounge room with the grand kids, colour sorting 3 LEGO XXL Towers boxes for all the white parts, haha. My parents even went out and brought Police sets and the Camper Vans for white plate and a few green logging trucks just for the spruce trees 😀
Are there any specific elements, scenes or buildings that you’re particularly proud of?
For some reason I was really proud of how I built the bridge going over the creek. I had that done before I even decided to add a waterfall (another highlight). It all works so nicely and I couldn’t be happier!
The look out was also a standout for me. Many times I thought about putting the bakery in front of it (just because I was really pushing for room as I hadn’t worked in the Santa Workshop properly into the display) and I’m glad I didn’t. The Bakery would have hidden the lookout.
I’m also extremely happy with the way I added the “Where’s Wally” element to it. There are 8 hidden elves and 5 reindeer that Santa has lost hidden in the village. The kids absolutely loved that idea and they cant keep it a secret and want to tell anyone who is looking for them where they are. I also really enjoyed inverting and colour changing 10229 Winter Village Cottage. I have even had comments that they prefer my tan version on over the original. I like it better too.
Lastly, what Winter themed set would you like LEGO to release for next year?
I would love a re-release of a Train, but with a Train Station. The 10173 Holiday Train isn’t really classed as a Winter Village sub-theme set (although it did kick it off) but that’s what I am hoping for. I am also hoping that LEGO go back to adding Spruce Trees and Light Bricks to their Winter sets that’s lacking in the new Santa Workshop set. Or maybe a Tavern and a Fishing Shack with a pier over frozen water.
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Hope you enjoyed that little bit of insight into Tan Tile’s massive Winter Village display. For more pictures of his set, feel free to check out his Flickr album which has more closeup shots of the many different scenes and minifigures living in the Winter Village. Be sure to also check out his blog, Oz Brick Nation for more cool insight into this MOC and like his page on Facebook!
