[ESL - FB] MAESTRO Headquarters

[TitusV]

This is my fourth freebuild this month. If you like it, then any approvals are welcome.

Elysabeth and Matteus have just arrived in the little hamlet now called Elysabethtown.

"Why is this hamlet wearing my name?"

-"Honey, consider it a birthday present. And there's something else you have to see."

"Waw, what's that?"

-"The headqarter of my company. And the best thing is: as long as your new town-hall is not build, you can rule from here."

"My new town-hall?"

-"Didn't I say that? You will be mayor of this town, when we get a charter. But please come in!"

"This is the entree-hall. To the left, you've got a little shrine for the Oleander gods. NOt that we're believers, they just don(t want to trade if they can't pray. Silly people."

"To the right, there's a little statue of Maxim I, founder of the MAESTRO trading company."

"And under us, you've got the cellar. There we store some goods, always nice to trade. And when these goods are weapons, they're also nice to defend. And of course the famous apple-cider of our Minister of Agricultural Development: Felipe."

"And then we go upstairs, where Lord Maximilian is waiting on us. He's trying to find the right person for an exploration mission."

"Ha, Elysabeth. Congratulations on your marriage and your new mayor-ship. What are your plans with the town?"

-"I'm going on that exploration mission."

"What..."

Matteus: "But Honey..."

-"No. I'm going. Prepare that ship we got from the King. When I've drawn the plans for the new fort, we'll leave."

-----------------

My King. I promised you two MOCs, and I always keep my promises. Here you've got them.

Your humble servant,

Elysabeth of Drondil

Sorry for the bad pictures, lighting is very bad in Belgium. CC very appreciated!

Additional images

Edited January 10, 2016 by TitusV

[kabel]

As much as I like the build (I really do, I think it's great and you're improving really fast) I think your pics are a disaster. Why don't you take your time and take some more decent pics outside during the day tomorrow? No need to rush things!

[Maxim I]

Yeah, lighting is really a pain in the megabloks here in Belgium lately... Maybe if you got saturday some time during the day, try to redo it :)

So many things to like in this MOC! The small statues are a very nice touch. The meetingroom upstairs is also topnotch (The flag really stands out!). The cave is how a cave should be

so just like Kabel, the only remark is the photography

[Gideon]

Very nice roof! I also like the overall shape of the building a lot

You don't have to tell a Swede about the lighting conditions this time of year... we almost don't have sunlight at this time And I almost always take my pics around or after midnight when the rest of the family is asleep so I really have that problem all year round...

My solution since a long time has been to use a flash for all my Lego photography. What I never do however is point it straight at the MOC, usually I bounce it off the white roof to get a nice soft ambient light for the MOCs. If you point the flash directly at the MOC you get nasty reflections and shadows...

If you don't have a camera which supports an external flash, a couple of ordinary bulbs with the same color temperature plus a tripod (to enable long exposures) works as well. In the first pic you managed to create quite nice dramatic lighting when you didn't use the flash

Maybe try to build on your lighting setup based on that?

[Bregir]

Lightning aside, I really like this build. The porticoed outside is a definite higlight and the tour of the inside is a nice way of presenting it. You have a lot of great interior detailing.

For some reason, I am not really sold on the way you did the roof, though. Seems a bit too busy, I guess.

Overall, nice addition to BoBS!

And death and damnation to the gods of winter, who allow us so little light here in the cold north!

[Vedauwoo]

I really like the ambiance in the first shot, personally....

In general, I would suggest perhaps some artificial lights....they used to call them "Hot lights" but now that we have CFL's....they are not nearly as "hot" as the incandescents were. They are also no where near as "harsh" as flash lighting can be....

You don't need "photographic" ones, standard desk lamps do quite well.....

I use a setup like this, with a ~48" sheet of white background paper just pinned to the wall.... (and, yes, that is my front entry door...I have to be sure the dog has done his duties outside before setting up....lol)

Gives results like this....

I usually shoot with my iphone 5s.....and use the "snapseed" app to adjust minor variations in brightness, shadow levels, etc...it also has a handy "lens blur" effect which is great for blurring out background details and emphasizing your subject...

Edited January 9, 2016 by Vedauwoo

[Gideon]

In general, I would suggest perhaps some artificial lights....they used to call them "Hot lights" but now that we have CFL's....they are not nearly as "hot" as the incandescents were. They are also no where near as "harsh" as flash lighting can be....

You don't need "photographic" ones, standard desk lamps do quite well.....

I use a setup like this, with a ~48" sheet of white background paper just pinned to the wall.... (and, yes, that is my front entry door...I have to be sure the dog has done his duties outside before setting up....lol)

[...]

Gives results like this....

[...]

I usually shoot with my iphone 5s.....and use the "snapseed" app to adjust minor variations in brightness, shadow levels, etc...it also has a handy "lens blur" effect which is great for blurring out background details and emphasizing your subject...

Thanks for sharing! That's a great setup and the results prove what I'm trying to say over and over again that great pics are much more about the lighting and background than the camera

[TitusV]

Thank you all for the kind comments and photography tips, especially Vedauwoo for that! I updated the post with images I took during the day!

[kabel]

Much better now! I don't know which Microsoft version you have on your comp., but on my new computer a have a nice tool that allows me to crank up the light artificially. It turns out that that works really well too! Anyway, the King approves!

[Captain Dee]

I waited to comment, and I must say the additional photos are much better - but I do like the lighting in the very first one. This is a nice warehouse and the overall shape is really good. I like all the arches and columns but then I always do. The interior is really neat and has some good details. Keep it up.

I approve.

[blackdeathgr]

Aha! So that's the hive of your evil eslandolan merchants!!! I like it! Hehehe. But shouldnt it have a vault or something? ;)