A mystical treasure awaits those who can find the shrine

You might imagine that the golden crystal in the centre of this scene is the treasure of the shrine, but I believe the true treasures are all the crazy building techniques that Grant Davis has used in his Mountaintop Shrine. From a distance it may look like nothing special and the foliage on the periphery is nothing new, but a closer look will have you looking for your jaw somewhere under your desk (or under a bus seat if you are reading this on a mobile device).

Mountaintop Shrine

The very composition and colour choices are great for setting up a bright, positive and somewhat cartoony atmosphere, but that is only the first thing to draw your attention. This attention is retained by amazing building techniques I have hinted at in the previous paragraph. Starting with the obvious, the cobblestone wall behind the shrine uses all sorts of round pieces from ends of bars through small ball joints to 2×2 tiles and more to achieve a highly realistic effect. But there are more subtle details too. For instance, you can see that the path leading towards the shrine is not just tiles connected flatly to the base, but is in fact irregular, as if damaged by centuries of disuse. Another subtly irregular thing is the left pillar (built out of frying pans stacked on one another!), which is standing at an angle. One more unique thing and the last I noticed myself is the tree, using the new leaf pieces set in such a way that they make a coherent treetop.

In the video the builder shares some inside information about the techniques (quite literally) and also shows that the creation may not be as fragile as it appears at first glance…

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