Hinges, baby! Or: the Provisional Potions Classroom MOC... Part Three: the MOCcing of 76431
A REVIEW and MOC (My Own Creation) in three parts...
This is the third and last entry in a three part series reviewing the official lego Harry Potter summer 2024 wave's 76431 Hogwarts Castle: Potions Class and introducing gingerwitch's (MOC) modification thereof.
Today we'll look at gingerwitch's MOC of the Potions Classroom, from the official lego set 76431, and see what difference a couple more hinges might have made.
As a reminder, here once more the model of the original set that I built on mecabricks, complete with the substitutions I was forced to make. This is what we'll be starting with.
So from the previous two posts, we've determined that 76431's two primary flaws are a lack of ingredients as room decor and the missing curved bit. How about we add another set of hinges along the straight back wall and see what that does for us?
version one: extra hinges, extra shelf
I've also thrown in some extra ingredients in the "door" archway in the back wall. (An open passageway there might make sense in the context of the new Great Hall set, as is, it's mostly just an area to store the Professor's podium and Snape himself.)
Other considerations: The canonical room feels cluttered, so it's worth experimenting with taking the ingredients almost down to the floor, and not just for the archway shelf. The effect of more potions ingredients could be achieved by adding some underneath the experiment bench and in the original built in shelf.
version two: extra hinges, extra shelves, extra ingredients all the way down to the floor
I think I would refrain from adding ingredients underneath the "wooden" bench in the next wall segment to the left to give it a little breathing room. It's probably also a good idea to make the shapes match in the respective shelves (as they do in the movie set), including those in the built in unit from the original. Another idea might be to have unified colours in a row to make up for the lack of variety in shapes. For example, bottom row, blue & green, next level red & orange, a third yellow & clear or light orange... Or something similar. The "ingredient" containers (transparent coloured cylinders) underneath the ingredients bench don't have "lids", so I would probably use that approach under the experiment bench as well, and if so, I'd extend it to the new archway shelf, too. Note: the lowest level of the archway shelf unit can't hold more than one cylinder because of the hinge. Making the lowest level reddish brown breaks with the light grey convention, but as the work tables and ingredients bench all have reddish brown in contact with the floor, it doesn't seem too out of place, more in keeping with the furniture.
Another snag is the built in unit to the right throws the shelf levels off by one plate if it uses a light grey base followed by a reddish brown shelf. Using reddish brown as the lowest level would most likely be visible from the sides, however, at least if the build were robust, so that's not a good alternative. A better one would be to skip the "wood" on the lowest shelf and store ingredients on the "ground" as is done beneath the experiment bench. It's worth a think.
Other changes: the wall mounted stirring rod is now black so it can do double duty as the stovepipe. The experiment set up for Felix Felicis on the little bench is now also black, because the canonical labware was generally darker. A metallic dark grey might even be preferable if all the parts are available.
I didn't change the colour of the ingredient cylinders stowed in the ingredients bench, as they echo the contents of the containers above. It was a nice detail I didn't have the heart to alter, although there is something to be said for making all the cylinders match...
detail of version two: extra hinges, extra shelves, extra ingredients all the way down to the floor
And for contrast:
detail of version one: extra hinges, extra shelf in the archway, and the ingredients on it
Another possibility for more ingredients is to have a second fold out shelf of ingredients containers to mirror the original built in one. It could be on hinges and fold out from the archway where the lectern gets stashed. I don't see an advantage to doing it that way, however. We're forced into the archway shelf to try to make sense of the wider hinge piece. The simple shelf as above solves that, complicating it with yet another hinge doesn't offer any particular advantage. Thing to watch for if contemplating it: it can't extend further into the set than the fixed version does in the build above if I don't want to ruin a detail / feature I am quite proud of: when the ingredients bench is hooked into position as in the original set, it keeps the back wall of my MOC rigid and allows the now square set to slide into the intended slot under the Great Hall.
And that's it. Some small, but I think impactful changes. I'll probably make a parts list once I know which parts are in the original set to begin with. As is, at present it's only a mod of guesswork. I hope you liked it.
This is the third and last entry in a three part series reviewing the official lego Harry Potter summer 2024 wave's 76431 Hogwarts Castle: Potions Class and introducing gingerwitch's (MOC) modification thereof.
Today we'll look at gingerwitch's MOC of the Potions Classroom, from the official lego set 76431, and see what difference a couple more hinges might have made.
As a reminder, here once more the model of the original set that I built on mecabricks, complete with the substitutions I was forced to make. This is what we'll be starting with.
So from the previous two posts, we've determined that 76431's two primary flaws are a lack of ingredients as room decor and the missing curved bit. How about we add another set of hinges along the straight back wall and see what that does for us?
version one: extra hinges, extra shelf
I've also thrown in some extra ingredients in the "door" archway in the back wall. (An open passageway there might make sense in the context of the new Great Hall set, as is, it's mostly just an area to store the Professor's podium and Snape himself.)
Other considerations: The canonical room feels cluttered, so it's worth experimenting with taking the ingredients almost down to the floor, and not just for the archway shelf. The effect of more potions ingredients could be achieved by adding some underneath the experiment bench and in the original built in shelf.
version two: extra hinges, extra shelves, extra ingredients all the way down to the floor
I think I would refrain from adding ingredients underneath the "wooden" bench in the next wall segment to the left to give it a little breathing room. It's probably also a good idea to make the shapes match in the respective shelves (as they do in the movie set), including those in the built in unit from the original. Another idea might be to have unified colours in a row to make up for the lack of variety in shapes. For example, bottom row, blue & green, next level red & orange, a third yellow & clear or light orange... Or something similar. The "ingredient" containers (transparent coloured cylinders) underneath the ingredients bench don't have "lids", so I would probably use that approach under the experiment bench as well, and if so, I'd extend it to the new archway shelf, too. Note: the lowest level of the archway shelf unit can't hold more than one cylinder because of the hinge. Making the lowest level reddish brown breaks with the light grey convention, but as the work tables and ingredients bench all have reddish brown in contact with the floor, it doesn't seem too out of place, more in keeping with the furniture.
Another snag is the built in unit to the right throws the shelf levels off by one plate if it uses a light grey base followed by a reddish brown shelf. Using reddish brown as the lowest level would most likely be visible from the sides, however, at least if the build were robust, so that's not a good alternative. A better one would be to skip the "wood" on the lowest shelf and store ingredients on the "ground" as is done beneath the experiment bench. It's worth a think.
Other changes: the wall mounted stirring rod is now black so it can do double duty as the stovepipe. The experiment set up for Felix Felicis on the little bench is now also black, because the canonical labware was generally darker. A metallic dark grey might even be preferable if all the parts are available.
I didn't change the colour of the ingredient cylinders stowed in the ingredients bench, as they echo the contents of the containers above. It was a nice detail I didn't have the heart to alter, although there is something to be said for making all the cylinders match...
detail of version two: extra hinges, extra shelves, extra ingredients all the way down to the floor
And for contrast:
detail of version one: extra hinges, extra shelf in the archway, and the ingredients on it
Another possibility for more ingredients is to have a second fold out shelf of ingredients containers to mirror the original built in one. It could be on hinges and fold out from the archway where the lectern gets stashed. I don't see an advantage to doing it that way, however. We're forced into the archway shelf to try to make sense of the wider hinge piece. The simple shelf as above solves that, complicating it with yet another hinge doesn't offer any particular advantage. Thing to watch for if contemplating it: it can't extend further into the set than the fixed version does in the build above if I don't want to ruin a detail / feature I am quite proud of: when the ingredients bench is hooked into position as in the original set, it keeps the back wall of my MOC rigid and allows the now square set to slide into the intended slot under the Great Hall.
And that's it. Some small, but I think impactful changes. I'll probably make a parts list once I know which parts are in the original set to begin with. As is, at present it's only a mod of guesswork. I hope you liked it.