don leopold

Port of Barqa

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Previously story : Journey to Historica

After a long journey on a fishing boat, Leopold and Michael arrived in the port of Barqa.

All their luggage are put on the quay of the harbour.

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"Where shall we go to continue our quest? We have to find a guide or something." Michael said to Leopold.

On that moment a commander of the famous city guard of Barqa is walking to the two brothers.

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"Hello strangers, my name is Abdel Harbori, i am the commander of harbour guard, can i help you ?"

The two brothers are a little bit suprised by the commander because he looks rigorous but he talks very friendly.

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Leopold said "We are going to visit our family who lives here in Kaliphlin" He did not want to tell him that they are looking for their father who was sold as a slave, because he don't know on what side the commander stand.

On board of the fishing boat the captain told them about a civil war, so they better be careful what they are going to say.

"There are a lot of different people who lives in Kaliphlin, where are you coming from?" the commander asked.

"We are coming from the Lowlands, thats a land far away to the northwest of Historica" Michael said.

The commander smiled and said "I know a few people who come from the Lowlands too !!! Very nice people."

"Where do they live ?" asked Leopold

"I don't know exactly where they live, just follow the oil road to Petraea then you pass a little village with nice church build in a tipical architecture." The commander said. "Have fun in Kaliphlin !!!"

Michael and Leopold want to buy some horses and the need a guide, but first they admire the beautiful city of Barqa.

This part of the harbour is only for fishing boats and boats who carry food. So in this part of Barqa are a lot of merchants who sell there merchandise on the street.

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This is Tarik Tunas who is a fishermen, he catching the fish in the night and sells them on the streets in the morning.

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This man wants to buy some fish of Tarik and ask him if he want to clean and filleting them.

That is no problem for Tarik, he can do it in a minute.

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Look at this men in his purple suite, this is Sheik el-Paraffin. He has a good business in oil.

He just buy some vegetables with his cook who must carry all the stuff.

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This is Talut el-fruit and his wife Ananas, one of the best greengrocers of Barqa. He always makes a lot of fun when he is selling his fruit.

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Have you seen the new lighthouse with the latest invention ??

We all know the big lighthouse of Barqa situated on a small islet outside the mouth of the Arkbri river (made by Gideon) always using a big fire !!

But this lighthouse has only one oil lamp and behind it there are a few curved mirrors to make the light bigger !!! Isn't that great !!

Barqa is using both lighthouses, this little lighthouse is especially designed for the little fishing harbour and the big one is for the other harbours.

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Have you meet the womans of Barqa already ?? Look how pretty they are !!!!

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... I'm stunned! :drool: The architecture of the larger building is marvelous. You're setting a very high standard for other folks starting builds ... :tongue:

The names are a great laugh. Bravo!

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That architecture is AMAZING! I love all the minifigs, and that's a nice use of tatooine as a roof!

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Wow! This is a very nice rendition of the harbor of Barqa (which I've been thinking about building for several years but not gotten around to yet :wink:)

I like the overall design but especially the amount of detail you've put in there and the excellent minifigs! (Which torso did you use for the sheik...?)

I will update the Barqa HSS registry to include this build. My lighthouse was a challenge entry so it was not eligible for filling the Nautical category but this would count :classic:

Edited by Gideon

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A great build, with the Kaliphlin atmosphere I've started to love

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Gorgeous start to your builds for GoH :wub: The medium blue and white checker pattern stripes look lovely, especially with the slight offset and the recessed panels are great too :thumbup: Great use of medium dark flesh on the smaller building, I like how you used reddish brown as an accent color there. Tons of details in the streets, and above with that lush garden too. Keep up the good work!

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Excellent build! I really like your figures and parts selection for them (the Shaggy hairpiece and the purple LotR torso are my favorites - I had been trying to think of some use for that Torso). Also a great build overall, and excellent photography!

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Very nice build with lovely architecture and color-scheme, DL, and, as others have stated, your minifigs are excellent, and the whole scene has a great bustling atmosphere! Great job! :classic:

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Fantastic build! The colors and architecture styles are great, I especially like the domed building but the tan building is really cool as well with the white and blue stripe! The garden on top is fantastic! Great work all around - keep it up! :thumbup:

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Gorgeous build, Don! :wub: That tower is fantastic and I love the blue and white checker pattern around the buildings :thumbup:

Excellent work with the smaller building too, the medium dark flesh and reddish brown go very well together. Looking forward to seeing more of your builds! :classic:

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What an impressive start into GoH! You definitely understand the Kaliphlinite architecture. Really beautiful. I love how the vegetation is hanging above the wall.

It's interesting to see two vikings in Kaliphlin. Reminds me on Harald Hardrada's time in the eastern roman empire.

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Now that's how you introduce yourself!

Such a vivid and lively build, a real treat to look at! The story is a lot of fun too. I think you will make a great contribution to Kaliphlin.

And yes, those ladies are lovely!

One suggestion: your photography overall is top-notch, but I think you may want to adjust your white balance settings. The colors look a little off, I think playing with the WB settings will help the colors stand out even more.

Welcome to Historica!

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Great build, I would suggest a little more texturing at the top of that tower on the left, a 1 x 2 log brick in there would, for me complete what is already an excellent model.

As ME said, the colour balance is a bit off in some of you photos, more specifically the colours are too warm to look realistic, particularly in the 5th image down. As well as adjusting the white balance in camera when you take the photo, most photo editing programs have a tool that adjusts the colour temperature, if you experiment with that it should fix any minor colour errors that the camera has made.

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Congratulations on getting your photo on Flickr Explore! :classic:

One suggestion: your photography overall is top-notch, but I think you may want to adjust your white balance settings. The colors look a little off, I think playing with the WB settings will help the colors stand out even more.

I agree, the white bricks have a yellowish look. The fact that the background has been edited to an un-biased gray probably adds to this impression.

Shooting in RAW makes it a piece of cake to correct the white balance in post-processing. Especially if you take a picture of a reference you know is white or even better gray. (I use a 18% gray card nowadays for calibrating my WB which I then can apply to all pictures taken with the same setup. Previously I used a folded white paper at the edge of the frame to calibrate each image in Picasa.)

Otherwise it is as ME said good to play with the WB settings in the camera to match the color temperature of your light source(s). I've found that large amounts of tan can mess up my metering, especially with my old Olympus that was a problem.

Edited by Gideon

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One suggestion: your photography overall is top-notch, but I think you may want to adjust your white balance settings. The colors look a little off, I think playing with the WB settings will help the colors stand out even more.

As ME said, the colour balance is a bit off in some of you photos, more specifically the colours are too warm to look realistic, particularly in the 5th image down. As well as adjusting the white balance in camera when you take the photo, most photo editing programs have a tool that adjusts the colour temperature, if you experiment with that it should fix any minor colour errors that the camera has made.

I agree, the white bricks have a yellowish look. The fact that the background has been edited to an un-biased gray probably adds to this impression.

Shooting in RAW makes it a piece of cake to correct the white balance in post-processing. Especially if you take a picture of a reference you know is white or even better gray. (I use a 18% gray card nowadays for calibrating my WB which I then can apply to all pictures taken with the same setup. Previously I used a folded white paper at the edge of the frame to calibrate each image in Picasa.)

Otherwise it is as ME said good to play with the WB settings in the camera to match the color temperature of your light source(s). I've found that large amounts of tan can mess up my metering, especially with my old Olympus that was a problem.

Thanks for the tips, I agree my pictures can be a lot better. The problem is that i use lamps who are standing in the living room, and the colors are a bit yellow. :hmpf_bad:

I also use a white sheet as a background, look at the original picture below.

And i use GIMP to change the background, i must try more options of GIMP to change the colors a bit like BrickCurve said. That i think is the easiest way.

26061056530_849176006c.jpg

Wow! This is a very nice rendition of the harbor of Barqa (which I've been thinking about building for several years but not gotten around to yet :wink:)

I like the overall design but especially the amount of detail you've put in there and the excellent minifigs! (Which torso did you use for the sheik...?)

I will update the Barqa HSS registry to include this build. My lighthouse was a challenge entry so it was not eligible for filling the Nautical category but this would count :classic:

The purple torso is from Ori the dwarf, you can find him in set 79010 the goblin king battle.

I used his head also in this moc for Talut el-fruit the greengrocer. :classic:

lor045.jpg?2

What an impressive start into GoH! You definitely understand the Kaliphlinite architecture. Really beautiful. I love how the vegetation is hanging above the wall.

It's interesting to see two vikings in Kaliphlin. Reminds me on Harald Hardrada's time in the eastern roman empire.

Thanks for the complments, the two brothers are not vikings but more like batavians.

They are looking for their dad who was a prisoner of the vikings and he was sold as a slave in Kaliphlin.

Edited by don leopold

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Great moc!! I really like the feeling and atmosphere you have in your build!!!

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Thanks for the tips, I agree my pictures can be a lot better. The problem is that i use lamps who are standing in the living room, and the colors are a bit yellow. :hmpf_bad:

I also use a white sheet as a background, look at the original picture below.

And i use GIMP to change the background, i must try more options of GIMP to change the colors a bit like BrickCurve said. That i think is the easiest way.

It's actually not the color of the light which is the problem, unless you have mixed color temperatures which you have a hint of at the left side of the backdrop where there is yellowish incandescent (?) lighting and bluish natural lighting (looks like it's coming from a window?).

I would suggest that you ensure that the whole build is lit with light of the same temperature.

But the issue is that the camera is not adjusting the light correctly (either because the auto is misinterpreting the light or that you have it set to another setting which is not working out well).

Based on your Exif data it looks like you have a Canon PowerShot SX160 IS and in that case the white balance settings at your disposal are the following:

http://www.manualsli...ck.html?page=84

I would suggest either the "Tungsten" setting if the bulbs are incandescent, or "Flourescent" if that is the light source (or maybe even "Custom" if you want to fine-tune your white balance setting).

The alternative (the way I do it) is to adjust the white balance afterwards, but in that case you should shoot in RAW as otherwise the camera will throw away a lot of the color information as it saves the jpeg with the wrong white balance setting)

I made a quick attempt at changing the white balance of your build using Picasa, where I set the background close to the build on the right side as the reference (where the build shadows the blue light and the background is only lit by the incandescent lights).

It might be possible that GIMP has a similar tool, but my old workflow before switching to Lightroom, was always to treat my RAW files in Picasa to get the exposure right before continuing with things like background removal in GIMP.

It of course then makes the bluish light on the left very pronounced, but I think the colors of the bricks (which seems to be primarily to be lit by the artificial light) come out better. If you then were to replace the background it would look more natural with the neutral gray background.

Barqa_harbor_adj_500.jpg

Compared to the original picture from flickr:

26061056530_849176006c.jpg

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Based on your Exif data it looks like you have a Canon PowerShot SX160 IS and in that case the white balance settings at your disposal are the following:

http://www.manualsli...ck.html?page=84

I would suggest either the "Tungsten" setting if the bulbs are incandescent, or "Flourescent" if that is the light source (or maybe even "Custom" if you want to fine-tune your white balance setting).

The alternative (the way I do it) is to adjust the white balance afterwards, but in that case you should shoot in RAW as otherwise the camera will throw away a lot of the color information as it saves the jpeg with the wrong white balance setting)

I made a quick attempt at changing the white balance of your build using Picasa, where I set the background close to the build on the right side as the reference (where the build shadows the blue light and the background is only lit by the incandescent lights).

It might be possible that GIMP has a similar tool, but my old workflow before switching to Lightroom, was always to treat my RAW files in Picasa to get the exposure right before continuing with things like background removal in GIMP.

It of course then makes the bluish light on the left very pronounced, but I think the colors of the bricks (which seems to be primarily to be lit by the artificial light) come out better. If you then were to replace the background it would look more natural with the neutral gray background.

Thanks for your explanation about settings for white balance and thanks for the link. I am going to practice with this information.

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