Book II - Nocturnus: Guild sign-up and Discussion

[TitusV]

When going Nocty, I personally really like the dark red - dark orange - dark tan (- olive green) combo. Dark green goes fine as well.

The best thing to do is to browse this forum a bit and search some Nocty builds you like. See wich colours they use, and use them yourselves  

[Umbra-Manis]

I'll agree with jaapxaap. Purple everywhere. And Dark Red. 

[Jacob Nion]

6 hours ago, Lazer said:

Hello!

I would like to build some kind of building in Nocturnus, and i would like to ask for advice about colors!

I checked out some colors, and that their prices usually not too high on BL, but not quite sure that they would look good together. I need some color combos!

I like sand green for example, but Avalonians use that, so i skipped that one.

So these are the colors i like/ would like to work with in my Nocturnian buildings/ MOCs.:

Lime, Olive, Orange, Dark Brown, Reddish Brown, maybe dark red, but if you have a totally different suggestion, i am open to that as well.

For example, do you think that lime would go well with orange in a building? A little cabin in the swamp or something. Or both of them too bright? Not natural? Can we speak of natural in a dark fantasy world? Maybe Lime and Reddish Brown? Olive and Reddish Brown?

Thanks in advance!

It really depends on what you want to depict. But first of all, there is no restriction what colours to use. Sometimes even very different colours can go well together. 

We have many different styles in Nocturnus, regarding both landscape and architecture. If you like lime green, there's already a large variety of builds in which lime is used to depict the Moruth swamps. There's really no limitation here; you can build a forest wirk pink and purple trees, or more natural colours like olive tan and brown, or go with the good old lava field of black and dark bluish grey. 

And regarding architecture, just look the differences in style of Shadowmere and Skavenport, or Angeli's drow cities, or all the black, Mordor-like towers. As long as it's not as fancy and clean as Avalonian buildings I would say everything can fit.

Maybe you should not start with colour choice but instead with your character. On which Adventures shall he go? Where does his quest lead him? Then imagine the place you would like him to visit. And then finally you can think about colours.

[Blufiji]

12 hours ago, Lazer said:

Hello!

I would like to build some kind of building in Nocturnus, and i would like to ask for advice about colors!

I checked out some colors, and that their prices usually not too high on BL, but not quite sure that they would look good together. I need some color combos!

I like sand green for example, but Avalonians use that, so i skipped that one.

So these are the colors i like/ would like to work with in my Nocturnian buildings/ MOCs.:

Lime, Olive, Orange, Dark Brown, Reddish Brown, maybe dark red, but if you have a totally different suggestion, i am open to that as well.

For example, do you think that lime would go well with orange in a building? A little cabin in the swamp or something. Or both of them too bright? Not natural? Can we speak of natural in a dark fantasy world? Maybe Lime and Reddish Brown? Olive and Reddish Brown?

Thanks in advance!

As far as building styles, we definately have a variety styles, ranging from traditional dark fantasy, to some outlandish approaches. Look at the various cities, as Jacob suggested. Darker tones of colors are generally used, but any color could work. Kyrath is a city full of purple accents and tones and it works well.

[MaasEffekt]

Thanks for the tips guys!

Yesterday i downloaded the LDD, because i wanted to try it. This is what i came up with.:

houseswamp by Lazlow Lockhart, on Flickr

houseswamp2 by Lazlow Lockhart, on Flickr

houseswamp3 by Lazlow Lockhart, on Flickr

Please, tell me what do you think?

[Exetrius]

4 hours ago, Lazer said:

Thanks for the tips guys!

Yesterday i downloaded the LDD, because i wanted to try it. This is what i came up with.:

-snip-

Please, tell me what do you think?

Hmm, okay, I get the unusual colours idea. I like the general shaping, but I have a few critiques:

• Lime and Magenta (especially in combination) are too bright for the stuff Nocty houses are made of, in my opinion. Even though there are many liberties due to GoH being partly fantasy, when it comes to buildings, I think natural colours should be used. In the modern era that we live in, bright and artificial dyes can be applied to anything and are inexpensive, but in Historica, it's a different story.
• Because the walls and roof are perfectly smooth, the building appears modern. I'd recommend adding extra texture, to create a more 'imperfect' look. 
• I wouldn't use the same colour for the walls as for the roof, especially if you don't really have a texture to distinguish between those two features.
• Speaking of features: a good integration of features starts with a proper separation of them; you cannot just place a window or door in a wall, you'll need a framework for it first. The corners of houses are often defined by some sort of vertical feature, which is structural support for the roof, but also breaks up the wall in sections and keeps these sections together. The better you define your features, the more realistic your building becomes. 

[MaasEffekt]

Thanks! I am trying. What do you think about this.:

hut001 by Lazlow Lockhart, on Flickr

I have no idea about the roof. Or how to build it. Okay, i saw a lot of mocs, but still no idea.  Maybe purple color, with those little slope 30s, a small angle roof?

In that little cave thingy under my hut, i would like some kind of basement.

The idea, is that around the house there is swamp, and the cave is on a little piece of rock, and earth. I will decorate the rocks more, but i think that will be the last step.

Update:

hut001_6 by Lazlow Lockhart, on Flickr

hut001_7 by Lazlow Lockhart, on Flickr

hut001_8 by Lazlow Lockhart, on Flickr

hut001_9 by Lazlow Lockhart, on Flickr

hut001_10 by Lazlow Lockhart, on Flickr

hut001_11 by Lazlow Lockhart, on Flickr

Edited January 10, 2017 by Lazer

[Exetrius]

7 hours ago, Lazer said:

Thanks! I am trying. What do you think about this.:

-snip-

I have no idea about the roof. Or how to build it. Okay, i saw a lot of mocs, but still no idea.  Maybe purple color, with those little slope 30s, a small angle roof?

Update:

-snip-

Yeah, that's more like it! Great improvements on all mentioned points!  The decorated window frame with closable hatch is particularly nice and the roof looks fine. 

Another suggestion: make the base/floor of your cottage more than one plate thick (or give the illusion that it is).

 

On another note, I caught up with a whole lot of story material yesterday, mainly the Challenge V preludes. And, darn: it was epic!   Pretty excited to start building an entry!

Also, Jaapxaap and I did a collab recently, you can check it out in this thread: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/145807-collab-zotharian-swamp-houses/ 

 

[Jacob Nion]

Well, I have to partially disagree with Exetrius about the colour question @Lazer

First of all, there are really no restrictions about what style or colour you can use. And Guilds of Historica is as much fantasy as we make it. Sure, we all love castle building and medieval/ancient reminiscences from a large variety of cultures; but it is up to you what you make of it. 

In a world full of magic there could surely be lime green roofs. Shouldn't be a problem. Could be dark spooky glooming of a cursed house. 

But of course there's something like aestethical harmony. E.g. a pink castle would be a hard task in Nocturnus.

That does not mean any certain colour is forbitten. Many impressive builds work because someone was brave enough to mix unusual or at first glance unfitting colours. So feel free to try out new things. 

We shall not forget that one of the major aims of GoH is to help new builders increasing their skills. Take inspiration from existing mocs, but don't be too shy to figure out your own style. 

I really liked your first LDD attempt. Especially the shape of the roof and the barbs on the walls. But I don't know if all the slopes you used are actually available in lime green. 

Regarding the colour, you should ask yourself what you want to depict; is it supposed to be a regular unmagic hut made of wood and stone? Then I would definitely go for more natural colours. Or is it some sort of special material e.g. nocturnian blood oak (I came up with this right now) so that the timber would be (dark) red? 

You see what I mean? Always keep in mind that lego bricks are not the construction material that people should see when looking at your work. They are supposed to depict the material your build is made of. That means texture is a bit more important than colour. 

You could really use any colour to build a castle wall as long as it looks like a castle wall and people would recognize it. 

Same about wooden structures. Building a wall out of brown regular bricks doesn't make it look like wood. You'll have to use tiles or textured bricks. 

 

Tis' be it for now. I didn't intend to write a whole book here. But I hope it helps a bit. 

...nevermind what do I know? I'm just a human sized talking rat.

Edited January 11, 2017 by Jacob Nion

[Exetrius]

4 hours ago, Jacob Nion said:

 But of course there's something like aestethical harmony. [...] Regarding the colour, you should ask yourself what you want to depict; is it supposed to be a regular unmagic hut made of wood and stone? [...] Always keep in mind that lego bricks are not the construction material that people should see when looking at your work. They are supposed to depict the material your build is made of. That means texture is a bit more important than colour. 

Thanks Jacob, I couldn't formulate formulate it as well as you did here. This is a really valuable tip for practically any builder! 

[gedren_y]

The Nestlands Clans Ambassador to Nocturnus, Fleshmage Neord Bloodmane, decorates his walls with pinks. They are the pinks of living flesh, but they are pink. He sits upon them as well, around his worldviewer. Wish to see?

The Nestlands produce many pigments and dyes. By trading or theft, there is color to be had.

[Henjin_Quilones]

5 hours ago, Jacob Nion said:

E.g. a pink castle would be a hard task in Nocturnus.

(Not to pick another fight on the Nocturnian board, but...) On the contrary, my Rat-Friend, I can think of little more diabolically Nocturnian than a well-executed pink castle...populated by Elves and Friends minidolls. I would rather face a ten thousand-strong force of drow or orcs than a few smiling faces of minidolls. If Raavage had an army of those fiends, he could easily destroy all of Historica in one single blow. Furthermore, I am sure that somewhere in the lavender waters of some Darklands swamp of the realm there is such a force and fortress, waiting to unleash the forces of cute despair.

At least my tight-wearing Avalonian imagination believes as much. 

[Exetrius]

56 minutes ago, Henjin_Quilones said:

I can think of little more diabolically Nocturnian than a well-executed pink castle...populated by Elves and Friends minidolls. [...] Furthermore, I am sure that somewhere in the lavender waters of some Darklands swamp of the realm there is such a force and fortress, waiting to unleash the forces of cute despair. 

Sounds like a challenge! I do have about eighty-something 2x3 pink bricks, who knows... 

[TitusV]

I think you already improved a lot when comparing your second to your first build!  

As for the colours: I'll leave that up to the real Nocturnians here  

[Jacob Nion]

Aye, @Henjin_Quilones that sounds like the croodest abomination the swamps could unveil. 

But really, I did contradict myself here; of course pink can work great aswell, as @gedren_y already pointed out. With the right backgroundstory. 

Just think about a certain character from a popular fantasy novel who wears a pink coat of arms depicting a flayed man.

 

[MaasEffekt]

Thanks for the input everybody!

Today i've made some BL orders, and i will build that second house. The little hut in the swamp. I only have money now for the building itself; the swamp will have to wait a little bit.

Also, i couldn't find every brick in that color, and shape, so i had to make some small changes. I hope it will turn out nice. Plus, i will try to work on the floor/ base, but right now i couldn't buy tiles, and stuff in reddish brown.

I had an idea, because i couldn't buy enough dark purple slope 30s for the roof. What if i put some of the roof slope 30s in black color? Like it was damaged, and repaired with different color or something.

(How can i put someone's nick in my post, so that he/ she can see, that i mentioned him/ her? The dark red thingy around their name.)

Edited January 11, 2017 by Lazer

[Henjin_Quilones]

32 minutes ago, Lazer said:

(How can i put someone's nick in my post, so that he/ she can see, that i mentioned him/ her? The dark red thingy around their name.)

Just type "@" and start typing their name. A list of users should drop down. It should look like this:

 

[Exetrius]

40 minutes ago, Lazer said:

I had an idea, because i couldn't buy enough dark purple slope 30s for the roof. What if i put some of the roof slope 30s in black color? Like it was damaged, and repaired with different color or something.

Good thinking! You could also diversify with 1x2 purple tiles for example. I made a house with purple roof once, I had to pull out almost any purple piece in my collection:

You can see that not everything has to be perfectly and uniformly covered. Here's a more recent roof that I did, as another example:

[MassEditor]

Hello new and old members, looks like things are getting quite exciting around here!

@Jacob Nion Great advice all around, your comment on integration and segregation (about building techniques, not schools) was especially apt. Should be a very helpful read for new Nocties!

[Tilenull]

My entry for category a in Challenge V:

 

[Angeli]

Hi guys ;) Remember Warrior beauty contest and Drow gladiator games (damn, I haven;t coded in years! :))

Well, we (the Drow) have something new for you

For pr, we are making some event so people can have fun and be merry
In truth, we are searching for The Champion we are going to corrupt and use for our evil plans, but we will not admit this openly :)

Either way, it is going to be fun ;)

What I liked about Drow Gladiator games is that I used 32 edged dice to find out who will win; and if the result was 28-27, then it would be a tight fight, winner passing trough the edge of his teeth, but if the result was 30-1, then it was something embarrassing, like the looser tripped over his cape ;)

And every fight had a story:

********************************************************

....VS....

Golden golem VS Ramzes

2:1

When those two combatants entered the sends of arena, they were at home. Sand. But the fight did not last long: Ramzes used some kind of oil and his blade burst in flames. With intent to melt down the gold of golem, but "golden golem" was just a name, and golem caught burning blade with his left hand, and knocked Ramzes with the other. He just turned, and left the arena. Great fighters, golems, but poor showmanship :) Golem to the next round!

....VS....

I've built an arena, and found piece of armor or something that gladiator had on the picture, and represented it in the arena like something lost during the fight, if the gladiator lost :)

And we had some nifty prizes

This month, we will make something similar, with some crazy prizes :D
The idea will be that all can be part of the contest, and that it is easy to build for it - just a minifig.
Maybe we will make Signing contest, or Bard fighting contest, or just another gladiator games, we will see

But there will be some CRAZY rewards for the first place
The winner will be chosen randomly, so everybody have the same chance, and all, including admins and moderators, can be part of the games (except one, who will oversee the dice process :) We will ask someone who has no interest in castle :EGO themes at all, someone from Star Wars, or something far fetched like that :)

So, we have few days to find out what prizes the winner will get, and what type of contest to make, where minifig is enough (Special talents show, knitting contest, spelling contest under the full armor and war gear, Fashion designer of battle gear contest (purple your war gear" or something funny and interesting:)

We will have witty comments, so I will encouraged you to leave few sentences of history or pretences or anything I will use later for the story

and we will need contestants number that can be championshiped, so, "Power of two": 

 2 / 4 / 8 / 16 / 32 / 64 / 128 / 256 / 512 / 1024 / 2048 / 4098 / 8196
btw, if we do get to 8196 contestants, the prize will be new Death Star set:D
What the hell, it will be if we get 1024 gladiators participating :D

And the most important, although this is purely for fun and joy, prices will be such that the winner will be able to equip the whole smaller army

I will provide the prizes, and maybe someone will jump in also ;)

Let's give it a few days to talk about this, and then start with the contest!

Drow rule supreme!

 

[Tezclatipoca]

Great idea !

It is nice to see you're back with a new contest ! Even if the Drow are looking a new puppet to control, it is nice to see this event. I am really happy to see it and be probably participate (did I really encouraged the Drow... ) 

[Isundir]

Greetings,

Some time ago I travelled to these lands of Historica to join up with the Avalonians, I managed to build a few things but due to my ongoing battle with depression I quickly was rendered inactive on all of Eurobricks, although recently (the start of this year) I managed to pick my bricks back up and found new strength to build.

After an itch to build new fantasy themed MOC's again, I developed a new story, continueing the tale of my sigfig now on a dark malicious path. For this I would like to ask if there is any possibility to make a one time switch to Nocturnus.

And if understandably not possible, if instead at least I would be allowed to be a part of no faction at all and just freely build and post my stories set in the world of Historica.

Due to my struggles I regardless can't promise to be active for any given time, although currently things are more or less on the right track.

[MaasEffekt]

Hello Nocturnians!

My swamp hut will be ready soon! 

I have a question. Do you think that this backpack is "lore friendly" to use in GoH? Or is it too modern? Cannot recall, if i've seen it on any of the MOCs around here.

Edited January 21, 2017 by Lazer

[Exetrius]

46 minutes ago, Isundir said:

Greetings,

Some time ago I travelled to these lands of Historica to join up with the Avalonians, I managed to build a few things but due to my ongoing battle with depression I quickly was rendered inactive on all of Eurobricks, although recently (the start of this year) I managed to pick my bricks back up and found new strength to build.

After an itch to build new fantasy themed MOC's again, I developed a new story, continueing the tale of my sigfig now on a dark malicious path. For this I would like to ask if there is any possibility to make a one time switch to Nocturnus.

And if understandably not possible, if instead at least I would be allowed to be a part of no faction at all and just freely build and post my stories set in the world of Historica.

Due to my struggles I regardless can't promise to be active for any given time, although currently things are more or less on the right track.

Nocturnus welcomes all who have chosen the path of darkness! 

Hello Nocturnians!

My swamp hut will be ready soon! 

I have a question. Do you think that this backpack is "lore friendly" to use in GoH? Or is it too modern? Cannot recall, if i've seen it on any of the MOCs around here.

Certainly, no problem! I'll be happy to see your swamp hut! 

Edited January 21, 2017 by Exetrius