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Bracari

AoM - Farm - Phase 1

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Sir Loth Strongarm walks through the Apple Orchard of his family's homestead and reminisces on the past.

He lost his wife, daughter and most of his family when a volcanic eruption destroyed his home village, while he and his two eldest sons where on a mission patrolling the high passes of the mountain ranges that surround Bluevale. Luckily his youngest son, Stenon, survived the natural disaster.

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He stood by his Lord, Brius, when Brius' brother tried to usurp his place. In the ensuing conflict both his eldest sons died in combat. Although victorious Lord Brius departed to the Capital leaving Loth Strongarm as Steward of Bluevale and protector of its people, the few that remained after the hard times fell on Bluevale.He trained his youngest son as a tracker and warrior as himself, to one day replace him.When his son married Skyra they settled in a small clearing on the slopes of the northwestern mountains of the vale.In the intervening years the farm has grown and prospered and so has the family. Strenon now has three children of his own, Robb the eldest son, a daughter named Yura and the boy Tarrys.

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Returning his thoughts to the present and to Lady Eleanor, Lord Brius' grand-daughter, who is returning to reclaim her dominion of Bluevale. He sent Stenon and Robb to escort her party through the mountain passes. They should arrive soon and one thing he is certain of is that life in Bluevale will change yet again.

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A few more photos can be seen at https://flic.kr/s/aHskDb2fP2

Any comments are welcome. Pretty new to this world and eager to learn and improve my skills.

Edited by Bracari

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First, welcome to GoH!  I have only been here 1-2 years myself, but I am always happy to see new people join.

Very cool build!  I like the overall color choices--makes the orchard seem lush.  Also, the use of the colored plates on the trees rather than full apples suggests to me that it's still early before everything is ripe (particularly the inclusion of the lime green).  I think it's great that you took into account the height of the trees (apple trees are shorter than normal which many people forget) and that they are in rows.  The path inbetween shows a lot of use of the orchard as well.  I like how you built technic bricks into the base so you can connect it to other plates later.

As for suggestions, one thing that helps the eye is to keep the level of the path lower than the surrounding grass.  Throwing down brown plates on a green baseplate to indicate a path seems OK at first, but then when you look at it, it seems funky.  In real life, we walk on grassland to beat down a path, and the path is then lower than everything around it.  Here it's about level with the surrounding grass.  If you have enough brown, you could make a base of brown then build the green grass on top of that, or simply build up another layer of grass.  For larger scale builds, like the Tradesmeet, or the linking together of smaller builds, like TheStad did in Visiting Sorgheim, I think you can get away with much plainer pathways and grasses, as the scale of the build makes these things blur into the background much like the focus on a camera for a large landscape shot.  However, on small builds, you'll notice that people want more detail in the grass, path, etc.  Even in TheStad's individual builds for Visiting Sorgheim, you can see the many comments where people wanted to see more rocks, flowers, etc., and it wasn't until they were all linked together that people focused more on the larger build.  With this in mind, you could add some small rocks (1x1 grey plates or tiles, 1x1x2/3 cheese slopes, etc.) scattered about the path, particularly on the sides, maybe a larger 2x2 grey plate/brick of some kind in the grass somewhat overgrown to act as a rock, or a tree root across the path to add a bit of texture.  Even more ambitious, you could add some slope to the build, although realistically, an orchard is probably pretty flat, so that may not look great.  I like your choice of sand green as well, but the bright green under it seems like new growth, which is usually on the tips of plants, so I'm not sure what to think of it exactly.

Hopefully I have not gone on too long here--great job, and I hope to see more of you around!

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Thanks for the comments, this is exactly what I was hoping for.

Yes, I kept the trees short thinking of that and it's still early/middle of the season so the apples are not fully grown.

I agree that the path could be lowered and the base green colors switched. Darker below the lighter one, the plates aren't sand green that's just a trick of the lighting and post-processing. Unfortunately, don't have enough light green except big plates, could use reddish-brown for the base instead with green on top. I actually took out some detailing as it seemed too 'busy' and I didn't want to overdo it.

This is part of a larger farm moc idea so the technic connections are there for a reason. :wink:

Thanks again.

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I like the apple trees, especially the way you scaled them to a minifigure as far as height. I'll echo Grover about the path, and the way it should be lowered a plate or so below the level of the grass. I also think that the trees would look better with more foliage (this is something I almost always think about trees made in LEGO), since right now they seem a bit sparse compared to a real tree out there in the world. I never have enough foliage pieces myself, so I understand if this is the best your collection allows, but in the future I think that investing in more foliage is something that will never be a mistake (one of these days I'll take my own advice, too!). There are ways to improve photography, as well, but I am not the best one to give advice there. You need @Gideon or someone of his caliber to set you on the path to excellent MOC photography. 

But this is a great start in the Guilds, and I look forward to what else you can make!

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This is an admirable first build. I think having a bit of a base frame around the edges would help increase the "production value" of the build without costing you too much in additional pieces. There are some nice smaller details here: the walking stick, the extra pieces on the tree trunks to give them some texture, the use of overlapping and non-uniform plates to break up the stud pattern. Good start.

@Henjin_Quilones as someone who struggles with trees, can you point me at some good ones hopefully with some tips on how to make 'em?

Edited by mccoyed

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Welcome to Historica...

Nice representation of your agricultural trade. Hope you will have a lot of fun here!

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Nice sigfig and neat surroundings :thumbup:

Some low-hanging fruit (pun totally intended :wink:) on the photography front would be to take a step back and rather zoom in or crop, than placing the camera (phone?) this close to the build, as that magnifies the front. I would also recommend holding the camera straight or straighten the picture in post-processing, think that a vertical line through the center of the build should be vertical, and then let the vertical lines towards the sides slope equally away to each side. (which is also lessened by stepping back and zooming in).
Try also to use less harsh light to avoid the reflections and the prononunced shadows. Simplest great lighting setup is to be outside when it is cloudy or be in the shade :wink: 
I do however like your nice clean background, that's a good start. To take it one step further would be to instead bend the background smoothly to avoid the edges/corners.

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Welcome here! Great start here! 

 

Some more stones or epbbles on the grass and road perhaps :)

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Glad to see you getting off to a quick start in the guilds! I certainly get an orchard aesthetic from the small and orderly placed fruit trees :thumbup: I like the few plants you added using the new small 3 leaf element with friends flowers on top.

You've got plenty of good suggestions already, and I'm looking forward to seeing your future models :sweet:

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On 8/20/2018 at 12:03 AM, Henjin_Quilones said:

I also think that the trees would look better with more foliage

I agree, you can never have enough leave parts :laugh:. I am still building up my collection and when thinking of other mocs I want to do I find I am missing so many parts the leaves get forgotten when ordering.

On 8/20/2018 at 6:16 AM, mccoyed said:

I think having a bit of a base frame around the edges would help increase the "production value" of the build

This is 1/8 of the planned farm layout, a daunting task for a newbie :wacko: but i like the challenge. I think your advice is good, as I am going to build it in sections I think I'll incorporate some kind of border (even though they'll be temporary) when each section is completed. Will, certainly, give the individual sections a better look than the exposed connection substructure.

 

On 8/20/2018 at 7:43 PM, Gideon said:

Try also to use less harsh light to avoid the reflections and the prononunced shadows.

Seems as I was doing it completely wrong. I was using as much light fixtures as possible from different angles to flood the build and get rid of shadows. You're advice is great and I'll spend a lot more time with the photography settings in my next build.

@Grover, @Henjin_Quilones, @mccoyed, @Gunman, @narbilu, @Gideon, @de Gothia, @soccerkid6,

Thank you all for the comments and advice.

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No worries. I get why you went borderless. Those technique pieces in the base should have told me that you're doing a layout! D'oh!

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Welcome to the Guilds, Bracari! You're off to a great start already. The trees are very well done with the various slopes used at the bottom to make roots, and the apples are nice too. Looking forward to seeing the rest of the farm! :classic:

On 8/20/2018 at 1:16 AM, mccoyed said:

 

@Henjin_Quilones as someone who struggles with trees, can you point me at some good ones hopefully with some tips on how to make 'em?

Isaac, myself, and a few guest contributors, have done several tree tutorials on Brickbuilt. The first 6 posts on this page show them all. Derfel Cadarn also covers a few designs in his Guide to Building a Medieval Village. Hopefully some of these are useful to you :classic:

 

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5 hours ago, LittleJohn said:

Welcome to the Guilds, Bracari! You're off to a great start already. The trees are very well done with the various slopes used at the bottom to make roots, and the apples are nice too. Looking forward to seeing the rest of the farm! :classic:

Isaac, myself, and a few guest contributors, have done several tree tutorials on Brickbuilt. The first 6 posts on this page show them all. Derfel Cadarn also covers a few designs in his Guide to Building a Medieval Village. Hopefully some of these are useful to you :classic:

 

Thanks LJ. I definitely use Brickbuilt a lot for inspiration but until recently I kind of didn't want to use other builders' techniques if that makes sense? I was always wondering what the etiquette on crediting people was. We can talk more about that in PM if you have thoughts, that way I stop hijacking Bracari's thread. :P

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Welcome to the guilds!

I have to second Grover's long post on the pathway, which could use some extra detailing, but aside from that I like the build, especially the trees :thumbup: 

As I spot a few technic bricks with hole in the base, may we expect the build to be expanded? :moar: 

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