Style books

Buildings and props

A cottage is as wide as it is tall; a naust is tall and narrow. One rule per village, one ornament per building.

Inside

Six buildings on a grey ground: a turf cottage, a bakery with a pretzel sign, a tile-roofed half-timber house, a windmill, a round gate tower with banners, and a well.
Inside: turf in Solengen, tile on Møllebakken, every window lit, one painted ornament on the door or the sign.
  • A cottage is as wide as it is tall (width to height 1 : 0.9 to 1.1); the roof is 45 to 55 % of the height.
  • The ridge sags, the walls bulge, nothing leans (0 degrees).
  • Doors are round-topped and 1.3 times the princess's height; every window is lit.
  • A foot of round honey stones up to 1/6 of the wall.
  • One roof material per street. One door colour per building from the accents; one rosemaling ornament, on the door or the sign.
A low cottage with a thick turf roof sprinkled with daisies, cream bulging walls, a blue round door, two lit windows with rose shutters, flower boxes and a bench, on a round pad of grass.
Mesh reference: Stue. The roof is half the height and sags like a loaf.

Outside

Six buildings: a boathouse with a boat, a long red barn with a ramp, a storehouse on stilts, a log hut, a watchtower with a lit fire, and a stave church ruin overgrown with lupins.
Outside: tall and narrow or long and low, never square. A cold grey foot, a steep roof, one warm window, one carved ornament in the gable.
  • Tall and narrow (height at least 1.4 times the width) or long and low (length at least 2.5 times the height). Never square.
  • A foot of cold grey stone at least 1/5 of the wall's height; a roof pitch of 50 degrees or more.
  • A lean of 2 to 6 degrees, away from the zone's wind.
  • One colour per building from its zone's palette; mid values only (no wall under luma 0.15).
  • Exactly one warm window toward the nearest way, visible from 60 m at night.
  • One carved ornament, in the gable. Wear is moss, silvered wood and a mended board.
A tall narrow house on a high foot of grey stones, tarred slate-teal planks, a steep turf roof with moss and buttercups, a carved sun wheel in the gable, one warm window, a barrel and two crates.
Mesh reference: Fiskerstue. Mid values only: the darkest wood is a mid slate teal.

Do

  • Name the darkest tone in the prompt: "the darkest wood is a mid slate teal, nothing near black".
  • Make every part solid: a creel is a solid barrel, not see-through wicker.
  • One window warm, toward the way.

Never

  • Graves, spikes, broken glass, black tar, a door hanging open on darkness.
  • Thin or see-through parts in a mesh reference.
  • Square footprints outside, leaning ones inside.
A near-black, gritty fisherman's house with see-through wicker creels.
Rejected: near-black wood, gritty and grim; see-through wicker cannot mesh.
The outside building sheet in one dark brown, with gravestones around the church.
Rejected: all one dark brown, gloomy; gravestones round the church.

One rule per village

VillageShapeRoofWallColourDetail
Solengenlow dometurfcream plaster, timber framesky-blue doorsflower tubs, bunting
Møllebakkentall gablered tilehalf-timberblue framesawnings, signs
Vassenden (Nordalen)tall narrowturf on tarred planksupright planks on stoneslate tealnets, creels, a boat
Sørgården (Sørmarka)long lowturf or shinglered boards on stonebarn red, cream househay racks, fences
Fjellfoten's hutslow heavyturfsilver-grey logsgreywoodpile, hides, an axe in a stump
Fjelletstackedstone slabdry stonerock greyflag, lantern
Alvheimround, in a treeliving woodbark, moonstonesilverrune light, hanging lanterns

Props

The same six props on each side: a lantern post, bench, signpost, fence, barrel, well. Inside: honey wood, oversized, bevelled, a painted scroll, butter light. Outside: silvered wood on a stone foot, taller, leaning a little, a carved wheel or knot, ember light. A prop outside is weathered and still in use; the sheet's lower row has more moss than a thing in daily use would.

Twelve props in two rows.
Top row inside, bottom row outside.