[SoNE Ep XIV] Jedha - A strange sense

[Jannik]

This story takes place just after my last freebuild.

We had walked for two days from where the drop ship left us, finally reaching the city. My feet were so sore I couldn't wait for this mission to be over. When we arrived, it was soon obvious that the whole place was in lockdown, with the local population hiding inside their homes while Imperial Stormtroopers patrolled the streets. Faces appeared through cracks in boarded up windows, watching as we scurried between alleyways, hiding amongst rubbish in the streets. We had so far evaded the Imperial patrols, and had entered a more run down part of the city, with many buildings collapsed into rubble.

"Are you sure this is the safe house?" "I double checked the co-ordinates twice, this is it"

"Well it sure doesn't look very safe anymore! What are we going to do now Sarge?" "You two get in closer, see what you can find out.....but do not engage"

As usual, Dax was less than happy. "This is crazy...Cooper's unit are probably in a Imperial detention centre right now..."

Then the alien appeared behind the ruined building where we hid, his face all mouth in a silent scream. Dax started to raise his blaster while I had a strange sense as if I had been here before...not that I had ever been to this planet, but somehow I knew that the alien was a friend... "Its ok, we can trust him"  "I ain't trusting that thing, looks like he wants us for breakfast"  "I told you we can trust him"  "And what exactly are you basing your new found trusting nature?.....Jannik?.....You ok?"

I remembered now... The safe house reminded me of the kind of buildings they had in Jedha city, where I had visited as a child with my Uncle. And the alien... one of his kind had warned my Uncle and I to back out of the way as members of a strange religious order passed us. We had stood and watched dumbfounded as other tourists not so lucky as us had been dragged away to join their sect. This alien was definitely a friend.

Thanks for looking. Overview:

 

[LegoRacer1]

Those are some pretty good builds.

[ChiefPie]

Nice build.

[Kodan Black]

I like the safehouse, especially the air handler unit on the back. Nice rubble area too!

[Merc4Hire]

Excellent looking entry! I like how you managed to fit lots of details on the structure like the doorway design, the air handler unit, and the window bit. The rubble gives it that Jedha ruins feel and as does the religious order figures. Well done

[Tariq j]

Nice work! I like the ruins and the way the building has been angled slightly. 

[Forresto]

Love it! This feels wartorn and ancient and the angled building is to be commended! My favorite part, besides the story, is oddly enough the border you made underneath which gives the whole thing a very finished feeling! 

[VaderFan2187]

Just now, Forresto said:

My favorite part, besides the story, is oddly enough the border you made underneath which gives the whole thing a very finished feeling! 

Agree! It's simple but works really well.

[goatman461]

I hope you don't mind if I have a lot of opinions on this build since I've been working on Jedha on and off since the first trailer came out. I really like the build. It has a great sense of old-futuristic-post-apocalypse. But there are a few things I think are a little too clean or don't represent the source material as well as they could. 

First, I think it's too clean. There are a lot of sharp angles here and crisp shadows that could use some clutter and decay. On the roof ledge, maybe breaking up that line with varying levels of plates would help. I think the ground should be all dirt, or at least tan. Tiles are okay, but some variation in the elevation would help a lot. Especially with that cool border, I think you could have made a very interesting uneven base that captures the feel of Jedha's mesa 

The greebling on the side is great and very appropriate to the city, but the grills on the front are too simple. Even extending them with a 1x6 dbg brick would help, but there should be a lot of depth and "plumbing" to them. 

The offset of the doorway is good, but maybe lose the bottom section so it goes all the way to the floor. That would make it look older and less modular. 

On the minifigs, I go by a pretty simple rule: there are no buttons in Star Wars (and I've only seen one canonical cowboy hat, that I can remember). Those pilgrims are difficult, and I haven't figured out a way to do them, but Pombe's brickbuilt Muuns are a step in the right direction. The grills are an interesting thought, I might steal that with a little more integration with the bodies.

Good job. Hope this wasn't too harsh. I don't mean to be the jerk that craps over everybody's builds :) but I do want to give constructive criticisms where I think I could help. Glad to see Jedha on the map.

[Jannik]

Thanks for the comments everyone, and definitely not too harsh goatman feedback is appreciated (especially considering how epic your Jedha builds are). The building is based on a picture from the book "Rogue one - Mission Files". The rounding of the doorframe at the bottom is basically true to the picture, although the picture shows a much thinner frame. I was pretty pleased with the half stud offset on the frame, especially being able to replicate it in the ruined version. The grilled windows should have rounded ends but I couldn't work out how to build those. The picture in the book is fairly tightly cropped, so you can't see the scale of the overall building, it's probably a lot bigger than my version! I agree it is overall a bit too clean... As for the figures, I had an idea for the heads of the religious figures which didn't work out when I tried it so what I used ended up a bit thrown together at the last minute, I look forward to seeing how you manage to integrate the grills a bit better. And I never noticed about the buttons before, that is a very good point!

[goatman461]

Are there many more pictures in that book? I missed that and am always looking for more source material on Jedha

[Jannik]

No, the pictures are unfortunately pretty sparse and mostly just characters with plain backgrounds rather than scenes. There is a close up of Baze in front of the crashed X-wing and a few of the pilgrims with bits of fabric shelter above their heads, but the background is very out of focus and no other buildings are visible. The pictures of the tank show a fairly featureless sloped wall behind, with just a couple of small grills and some holes from weapons being fired at it. I'd give it a miss unless you find it very cheap... I only bought it because it was discounted and I was very disappointed to have not been able to find the visual dictionary that day.

[Artizan]

How is Jedha still inhabitable at this time time period? sure the blast from death star didn't destroy the planet but it very much destroyed any kind of living conditions for a couple of thousands of years.

[Jannik]

The flashback was supposed to be before the Death star attack