Olympic Gardens

It’s a glorious summer’s day in the Olympic Gardens! Flowers are bursting into bloom, the breeze is light, and the citizens are enjoyed the beautiful golden afternoon. There are so many things to do in this beautiful diorama, including strolling by the elegant fountain, searching for hidden wildlife, and relaxing in the Garden Pavilion. The lady has just received a message on her phone from her best friend, the artist, to meet him at the park, for a portrait painting! 

This 2,737 piece display model is full of details and surprises: 

5 beautiful, brick-built cypress trees, growing from elegant fluted planters around the park. It seems like the bees enjoy buzzing around the leaves, see if you can spot them all! 

A large, domed Garden Pavilion complete with a grapevine, perfect for relaxing and contemplation. 

A large fountain presided over by a watchful statue, and graced by water lilies and other flora. Although adorned as a general, you may find a hidden surprise in a space-faring sort of way. 

Try and find all the hidden parts scattered around the build, including lost coins, magenta frogs, koi fish, and hiding insects! 

This entry was the most difficult build I have ever tried to accomplish. I had been trying out techniques for a dome, to augment another building of mine, when I decided to create a garden pavilion, and to place it into a different type of building. It was previously going to be in a European style modular building with a rounded turret and a large promenade, but the geometry was too complex. Angular building is terribly difficult for me, and I most certainly do not have an engineering degree!

I wanted this to be more of a stand-alone display model, hence the large, consolidated footprint. Although there is a more or less established storyline of the artist and the lady, there are many ways that this build can be customized and changed to suit your needs. Although this was not one of the cases where I chose a unique piece and then built around it, the technic drums in the cypress planters are one of those pieces that I wanted to build around and use to create something unique. 

There were a few minor adjustments that I had to make while building this design. The horns visible in the stonework underneath the balustrades were originally going to be teacups placed in a very cool pattern, but I didn’t realize there were collisions until it was too late, so they were changed. I also realize that the artist’s easel is floating in one of the photos, that wasn’t intentional, I couldn’t get it to go down any further without messing anything up!