Winter Wonderland

Winter wonderland

This is every child's (maybe even grown-ups) dream: A landscape filled with snow perfect for wintery activities such as sledding, snowball making, castle building or just enjoy a lovely day out in the open air!

I welcome you in to this set which is made for playing and displaying a marvellous winter scene. You can hike up the slope to sled down. In the slope you can find a little bit of this and a little bit of that which can get hidden in the snow when plowing it into a pile!

On the slope side you have the snow wall built to give some shelter from the snowballs thrown from the other side of the creek. You can pass over the creek on the arched bridge. You can also take the more stealthy way across the plank further down the stream. I can see many children sized minifigures enjoying their winter day in this set. Although my pictures mostly have elves I don't want this to be a Christmas scene with a Santa or Elf theme but a set with regular people.

On the other side of the creek you find an epic snow castle with a long balcony on top to get a good view of the landscape. You can use the ice "prison" to lock opponents away from the snowball fight which also could get to epic proportions in this scene! There is however a secret way in to the prison if you only dig your way through the front of the castle, I mean it is made of snow so what's stopping you? ;)

Behind the castle walls you have the castle retreat with a fire to sit around, there is a well which sinks deep in to the baseplate to give it a nice depth. The castle is build partially on to a small hill top where you have the perfect lookout for on coming opponents. On the top of that hill rests a majestic tree of course with a small bird house. At the base of the hill there is a ruby cave where you can go exploring. I would like to build a light brick in to the side of the hill so you can light up the cave with its jewelry.

I can't remember seeing a set like this from Lego which makes it in to a perfect Ideas project. There are quite a few projects with a winter theme but none of them I have seen has the touch of a winter wonderland from a child's perspective. This could probably be designed to be built by two persons simultaneously (one side of the creek each) if you find a way to connect the two sides of the creek without taking the stability away. The way the baseplate is built in my design you can lift the whole set easily without it braking in the middle. The bridge gives it some stability with the technique I used. There are other different building techniques being used to create the castle wall and snowy hilltop and the slope also has a small tilt to it with joint elements underneath. The trees are a coming to live with layered branches and a thick canopy. I would like to make the trees somewhat more realistic considering when it comes to the leaves since trees usually let them go for the winter. The trees now have leaves still on them although I used the olive green color and the small leaves to make them appear like they are about to fall.

I think both children, collectors and regular Lego enthusiasts will enjoy this set. It is easy to play with and create different scenes in. The major issue I had getting in to the project was how to break all the white that has gone in to it with other colors that would naturally occur in a scene like this. The snow itself has some specks of light aqua in the round tiles. The stone hill gives a bit contrast together with the trees. The creek itself brings life to the landscape and on the inside of the castle the ice prison and fire gives it a touch of color. The ruby cave could be a little bit deeper to make it more exiting (also with the light brick mentioned earlier) but as it is now it still makes the hill come alive a bit more than it would without the cave. As a fun color detail there is a lesson to remember: Always stay away from the yellow snow!! Other than that the minifigures would be the color bringing the whole scene to life which is the main focus here in my idea.

My two girls at home was all about deciding which side the girls would have if they would have a snowball fight with boys long before the project was finished. The castle side was voted as that side when it was done! They are eagerly waiting to get play time with it. Here it has become a success already!