Book 2 - Challenge V Category A: On the lamb (Alliance)

[Grover]

Somewhere deep in the forests of Avalonia, a soldier of the black spire and his orcish minion prepared to ambush a rider for the alliance.

 

"What we smash, master?"

"Hush, Gulurk!  We are to ambush an alliance rider who has a secret message.  We have word that it will be a faun or an elf."

"Goat-man or pointy-ear?"  The orc chuckled.  "Will be easy!  Weaklings!"

The soldier nodded.  "Yes, they are weak.  We will trap him between this cliff and the tree.  He will have nowhere to go."

The orc snorted his assent and the two settled down to wait.

 

A moment later, the ground began to shake to the beat of hooves.

"Get ready!" the soldier whispered.  He and the orc tensed. "NOW!"

The soldier and orc jumped out to ambush the onrushing rider.

"Wait, that's too big to be a horse... GAAAAAH!"

Elris the faun looked back at the two black spire warriors that lay dead on the ground, trampled by his dire sheep.  "I think they were frightened of ewe, Mammoth," he said as he patted his sheep, Mammoth, on his thick wooly coat. "Really pulled the wool over their eyes!  I wonder if they even herd us coming?" he laughed.  "Oooh, that was ba-aa-aa-aa-d," he chortled in a sheep's tone at his own pun, as he rode forward with the precious message in his hand.

 

**********

I have been trying to improve my landscaping builds recently and worked on this tree and the cliff face.  I was pleased with the tree trunk but didn't really get the fullness of the leaves that I wanted.  I tried to make the cliff face imitate a limestone cliff with the horizontal ridges.  Not entirely happy with it, but it's a start I guess.  I am also trying to get better pictures and have been playing with lighting.  A few of the pictures I thought turned out well, but some of the others I didn't have enough light I don't think.  C&C, along with suggestions are appreciated.  Thanks for looking!

[Alfadas]

Nice entry! The tree looks really good, so does the cliff. Overall good entry!

[dathil]

The landscaping is really good indeed!

[Tezclatipoca]

Nice entry !

I like this humourisical twist ! 

I really like the tree trunk but I think the foliage could be more dense and more irregular with more inclined ones here and there IMO.

The cliff is fine. Perhaps some other techniques fit better to make layers of rocks but you did it well. Good job.

 

[Henjin_Quilones]

You did a good job with the cliff, as it was immediately recognizable as a limestone/shale kind of cliff to me. I also like the tree, though I might suggest doing something to obscure a few of the studs on the bark; not all, necessarily, but some, to make it less regular. The technique is nice and well done. More foliage is the answer to your issue of lack of fullness; when making trees you cannot, and I mean cannot, have too many of those leaf pieces. The more you can stack on there the better, especially on the upper canopy. My own next brick order will be leaves, since I need more myself. I do not like your brick-built bushes. They are too inorganic-looking to be satisfactory bushes, in my opinion. But the giant sheep (I'm assuming it's Duplo?) is a nice touch. 

[Captain Braunsfeld]

fine entry!

[TitusV]

Nice build! Very cool way of building a cliff, and I also like the bushes behind which the Spire troops cover  

[Grover]

18 hours ago, Alfadas said:

Nice entry! The tree looks really good, so does the cliff. Overall good entry!

Thanks!  I had fun with it.

14 hours ago, dathil said:

The landscaping is really good indeed!

Thank you!  I'm still working on it!

7 hours ago, Faladrin said:

Nice entry !

I like this humourisical twist ! 

I really like the tree trunk but I think the foliage could be more dense and more irregular with more inclined ones here and there IMO.

The cliff is fine. Perhaps some other techniques fit better to make layers of rocks but you did it well. Good job.

 

Thank you!  I try to make my entries humorous. :-)

Out of curiosity, what do you suggest for a more dense foliage?  I have tried before for dense foliage, but I have trouble with it getting in the way of pictures.  Any thoughts on this would be welcome.  I think your suggestion of trying more irregular and more inclined bricks is good.  Thanks!

6 hours ago, Henjin_Quilones said:

You did a good job with the cliff, as it was immediately recognizable as a limestone/shale kind of cliff to me. I also like the tree, though I might suggest doing something to obscure a few of the studs on the bark; not all, necessarily, but some, to make it less regular. The technique is nice and well done. More foliage is the answer to your issue of lack of fullness; when making trees you cannot, and I mean cannot, have too many of those leaf pieces. The more you can stack on there the better, especially on the upper canopy. My own next brick order will be leaves, since I need more myself. I do not like your brick-built bushes. They are too inorganic-looking to be satisfactory bushes, in my opinion. But the giant sheep (I'm assuming it's Duplo?) is a nice touch. 

Thanks!  I'm glad that you recognized the cliff!  I was hoping it was recognizable, but after you stare at something for so long, it sometimes seems like you don't know anymore.  I played with some of the studs on the tree trunk, but probably didn't do enough work.  I wanted at least some studs so that the bark was rough, but you're right, it is too regular.  As for the foliage, I used everything that I had in dark green.  Hopefully I'll have more soon.  Sorry you don't like the brick built bushes.  I was kind of happy with them, but I do agree that they're more mine-craft than the rest of the stuff I built.  I wanted to use sand green and didn't have a lot of parts, so as they say around here, 'you run what you brung'.  I thought they came off OK as holly-like bushes, although I could have added some red 1x1 round plates as berries.

The giant sheep is indeed Duplo, in my collection since the late 70s I think.  It is actually the inspiration for the build, as I found it and thought it would make a hilarious mount for the rider.

6 hours ago, Captain Braunsfeld said:

fine entry!

Thanks!

6 hours ago, TitusV said:

Nice build! Very cool way of building a cliff, and I also like the bushes behind which the Spire troops cover  

Thanks a bunch!  I will continue working on the cliffs, so hopefully you'll see more of them in the future!  Thanks on the bushes, too.  I thought they were kind of fun, and I had to work with what I had on hand in sand green, so I'm glad it turned out OK.

[Leonardo da Bricki]

Missed this earlier, its a great entry. So many puns!

[soccerkid6]

Now that is a dangerous mount!

Good work actually capturing a round shape for the tree trunk, and I think the rockwork does work fairly well as layered shale

[Blufiji]

Nice shaping of the tree and great use of color!

[halixon]

Love that stone cliff, and nice inclusion of the lamb! 

[en_zoo]

haha nice story! ^^ also like the rounded shape for the tree. I second HQ about the leaves, I've already noticed that even with only 1 year experience: the more, the better. I'm lucky to have found a local shop selling leaves at a discount, I'm sure you can find something like that too ^^

[Grover]

On 2/6/2017 at 2:40 PM, Leonardo da Bricki said:

Missed this earlier, its a great entry. So many puns!

Thanks a bunch!  I try to keep things funny if I can. 

On 2/7/2017 at 6:01 AM, soccerkid6 said:

Now that is a dangerous mount!

Good work actually capturing a round shape for the tree trunk, and I think the rockwork does work fairly well as layered shale

More's the pity that there aren't whole regiments of dire sheep!  Thanks on the tree, too.  I spent some time messing with it to get it looking right.  I'm glad that you like the rockwork!  I want to spend some more time working on it, as something seems off to me about it... seems like it was a good first attempt, though, and I'm glad that everyone seems to be able to recognize it for what it was meant to be!

On 2/7/2017 at 9:42 AM, Blufiji said:

Nice shaping of the tree and great use of color!

Thanks a bunch!  I am not an artist, but I am slowly figuring out how to make the colors work!

On 2/9/2017 at 8:58 PM, Windusky said:

Love that stone cliff, and nice inclusion of the lamb! 

Thanks!  I'm still learning, but I appreciate the comments!  The lamb is probably my favorite part.

5 hours ago, en_zoo said:

haha nice story! ^^ also like the rounded shape for the tree. I second HQ about the leaves, I've already noticed that even with only 1 year experience: the more, the better. I'm lucky to have found a local shop selling leaves at a discount, I'm sure you can find something like that too ^^

Thanks!  Glad everyone seems to be enjoying the humor.  Still learning, and I agree, more leaves = better.  I just got another 300 of the leaf pieces, so they will show up in future builds.

[LittleJohn]

Excellent build, Grover! The cliff is definitely recognizable, and with a little more refinement I think would look wonderful (though it looks quite nice as-is!). The tiny waterfall/stream is one of my favorite details, and I'm glad you made it come to the edge of the base. I personally rather like the brick-built bushes as well. And of course, the story is great

[mrcp6d]

I like this quite a bit. The cliff is well executed, the tree is cool, and the story (which, frankly, I often ignore) made me chuckle.  One thing I think doesn't really work os the transition from the "stump" section of the tree to the truck.  I like the studs as texture, and think they ought to have continued all the way to the ground (flaring out with additional plates or hinges or something) instead of switching to slopes.