Mother! - The Lion's Eye Chapter 4 - Freebuild

[mccoyed]

Previously...

D'Gatto Family Estate, Illyrian

Kass decided to tag along and entertain Fel's group of unlikely companions. Not for the first or last time, it didn't occur to anyone to look up and spy the spy that watched them from the very rooftop of the D'Gatto family house in Illyrian.

"So I know it's not much to look at but you try being D'Gattos in Eastern Varlyrio and we'll see where you wind up living."

"Fah! No thanks."

"Let's just go inside, Kass. I can practically feel mother's eyes on me."

"It's... sort of roomy inside?"

"Well it was originally built for gnomes..."

"She's not a gnome!"

"Well, I could be a gnome."

"A human child? What's Fel doing carting a human child around Illyrian?"

"If she didn't tell you, I'm sure you'll understand if we keep our business to ourselves."

"Sure, sure. Anyway, I'll show you around. The D'Gattos deal in antiques. Well, some of us do. Here are some."

"Oooh. What are they?"

  "I don't know what they are."

"Can I pick up the statue thing?"

"Sure, why not?"

Meanwhile, Fel was face to face with Abelia D'Gatto, her mother. An imposing, infuriating woman.

"Felissa."

"Mother."

"Did you really think you could slip through Illyrian without me knowing?"

"You know, for a minute there, I kind of did."

"Have you learned nothing? Your father and I always know where you are."

"Don't bring him into this, I know he doesn't approve of you tracking your own children."

"Be that as it may, he understands what this family needs and right now it needs you to stop these foolish games and return home."

"Mother, we've been over this before. You have your interests and I have mine."

"I swear, when I was your age my mother would have slapped my bottom and married me off for such insubordination."

"Mother!"

"Sigh. Very well, Felissa. If you won't listen to me, then at the very least you need to be able to protect yourself while robbing the dead or whatever it is you're doing. Follow me."

Abelia led her daughter to an adjacent gallery. Armor and weapons were displayed there, equipment that Fel had not seen in years...

"This is... great-grandmother's."

"I had the tunic and armor resized for you, dear."

"But... I can't take this."

"Oh don't give me that. Your grandmother taught you how to use these weapons very much against my wishes. You may as well shake the dust off them."

"Mother... this is..."

"Don't lose your composure, Felissa. Stand straight now. You're a D'Gatto and I'll have you comport yourself as one."

"... sniff..."

...

...

...sometime later...

"I don't know, Abelia. Goldhorn is paying me a lot of money."

"But Goldhorn is not Varlyrian, much as he wishes to be. If you wish to stop scuttling along the rooftops and walk out in plain sight, you know who you should really be serving."

"Not that I care, but you'd really do this to your own daughter?"

"She must learn her place, Garm. You wouldn't understand the duties of a mother."

"Heh. You're a cold woman, Abelia."

"Do as I ask you and you'll find me a lot warmer in the future."

...

...

Builder's Notes:

Spoiler

-I'm not super happy with this build. I struggled with gaps due to the shape of the half-circle facade. There seems to be some rules about Lego geometry that I haven't mastered yet.

-Also didn't leave much room for interiors and the accompanying scenes, particularly the main floor roof. Having the house originally meant for gnomes is my way of covering my butt. :P-Garm is named after a dog/wolf from Norse Mythology. I realized a little while ago that "Garmadon" is the name of a player/character in GoH already on top of being the namesake of the Ninjago character. Oops!

-Not sure if this build qualifies for any of the Varlyrian challenges? Maybe an architecture one? Let me know!

-Next build will be where the adventure to the Sunken City finally begins!

 

[Henjin_Quilones]

You might not have left yourself that much space on the interior to work with, but you made the most of what you had. It is a good build to move the story along, nothing too fancy but nothing too small and plain, either. 1x1 rounds do wonders filling in gaps, and they also give a bit of architectural interest to the scene. I would say that the secret to building round-ish or at least non-square geometry is 1. practice and 2. cheese slopes, like in this build. Cheese slopes make everything happier. Cheese does, too, come to think of it. The half stud offset in the walls above is nice, adding some visual interest without taking up too much space, plus it adds texture to both inside and outside. The only thing that really stands out as not working for me is the shrubbery; it is too flat for its placement. If it were against the wall, it would be fine as vines, but being some distance away it just stands out awkwardly, lacking the depth that a stand-alone shrub typically has. But most of all, I am excited to see some of the Sunken City next build! I have distant dreams of building something in the Sunken City some day, but it won't be soon, as the backlog of my own story builds is getting a bit ridiculous; thus I hope you do a bang-up job on it, like you did for the "Stowaways" chapter. 

[zoth33]

Nice build.  The building has a more modern architecture feel to it.  I like the building and the street.  And of course the story is fun.  

[narbilu]

9 hours ago, Henjin_Quilones said:

You might not have left yourself that much space on the interior to work with, but you made the most of what you had.

I agree, good use of all the spaces you had. Love the building, especially the entrance of it. Well played story, keep it up.

[halixon]

Interesting story! I'm really enjoying the story so far.

[W Navarre]

Hah, never trust your mother!  At least not if she's a cat. Wondering where that will go!  Nice building! 

[Gabe]

Hooray, another chapter! I'm getting rather invested in your storyline.  

Although i know you are not completely happy with it, i think your build successfully sets the stage for your characters. I like the wall texture of the upper floor with the half-stud offset (Although part of me wants to see it on the bottom floor as well), the bay window and the splash of greenery out the front. Btw, that bow in the bay window columns (the 1x1 round bricks) near the roofline looks like it came about because you've gone from 10 studs wide at the base to 8 or 9 at the roof, which is an easy fix. 

Your ground floor is a little cramped but that is also easily remedied. I tend to make the floors in my buildings a minimum of 7 bricks high at minifig scale, and often make the ground floor a brick taller than those above them as it seems to make for more pleasing proportions. I think the part of your structure that could use the most revision would be the black roof on top of the bay window/tower - the shape is somewhat indeterminate and feels a little cut off. I would expect to see a round dome or something that rises above the roofline there, something that would have made a more striking statement. 

Looking forward to the next chapter already!

[mccoyed]

On 9/25/2018 at 1:48 PM, Henjin_Quilones said:

You might not have left yourself that much space on the interior to work with, but you made the most of what you had. It is a good build to move the story along, nothing too fancy but nothing too small and plain, either. 1x1 rounds do wonders filling in gaps, and they also give a bit of architectural interest to the scene. I would say that the secret to building round-ish or at least non-square geometry is 1. practice and 2. cheese slopes, like in this build. Cheese slopes make everything happier. Cheese does, too, come to think of it. The half stud offset in the walls above is nice, adding some visual interest without taking up too much space, plus it adds texture to both inside and outside. The only thing that really stands out as not working for me is the shrubbery; it is too flat for its placement. If it were against the wall, it would be fine as vines, but being some distance away it just stands out awkwardly, lacking the depth that a stand-alone shrub typically has. But most of all, I am excited to see some of the Sunken City next build! I have distant dreams of building something in the Sunken City some day, but it won't be soon, as the backlog of my own story builds is getting a bit ridiculous; thus I hope you do a bang-up job on it, like you did for the "Stowaways" chapter. 

Thanks for going so easy on me, Henj. Haha. I always dread/look forward to your feedback because you are so thorough and articulate in your critiques. Good advice about slopes, as well. I see what you mean when I look at that example and thanks for providing an example. I think I kinda panicked on the plants because I hate that drab sandy tan wall and needed to give some depth or something there. Stuff like that is why I'm not happy with this build but I want to move on and try something a bit bigger again.

On 9/25/2018 at 8:27 PM, zoth33 said:

Nice build.  The building has a more modern architecture feel to it.  I like the building and the street.  And of course the story is fun.  

True. It does feel a little too modern, huh?

On 9/25/2018 at 10:57 PM, narbilu said:

I agree, good use of all the spaces you had. Love the building, especially the entrance of it. Well played story, keep it up.

Thanks Narbilu. About the only thing I like is the entrance. :P

On 9/25/2018 at 11:14 PM, Windusky said:

Interesting story! I'm really enjoying the story so far.

Thanks Windusky!

On 9/26/2018 at 9:24 AM, W Navarre said:

Hah, never trust your mother!  At least not if she's a cat. Wondering where that will go!  Nice building! 

Stay tuned!

On 9/28/2018 at 6:28 AM, Gabe said:

Hooray, another chapter! I'm getting rather invested in your storyline.  

Although i know you are not completely happy with it, i think your build successfully sets the stage for your characters. I like the wall texture of the upper floor with the half-stud offset (Although part of me wants to see it on the bottom floor as well), the bay window and the splash of greenery out the front. Btw, that bow in the bay window columns (the 1x1 round bricks) near the roofline looks like it came about because you've gone from 10 studs wide at the base to 8 or 9 at the roof, which is an easy fix. 

Your ground floor is a little cramped but that is also easily remedied. I tend to make the floors in my buildings a minimum of 7 bricks high at minifig scale, and often make the ground floor a brick taller than those above them as it seems to make for more pleasing proportions. I think the part of your structure that could use the most revision would be the black roof on top of the bay window/tower - the shape is somewhat indeterminate and feels a little cut off. I would expect to see a round dome or something that rises above the roofline there, something that would have made a more striking statement. 

Looking forward to the next chapter already!

That's the best kinda praise, Gabe. I'm glad you like the story. I think my Koro stuff for Andromeda's Gates was in a similar vein, but with fewer characters and kinda more episodic for the most part. Not everyone on GoH would have seen that stuff so I'm glad I can do it here, especially as I'm a bit stumped on the next part of my Yureishima series.

Thanks for mentioning your scaling methods. I'm glad to see that kind of info because I have never really developed a set pattern for doing things but have long suspected that the best builders have rules like that because it usually leads to awesome results and provides a great baseline for further exploration.

And ugh, I definitely wanted to do a dome on that roof! I tried four versions but lacked the right kind of pieces. I also wasn't sure if I was going to do anything with that flat roof besides putting Garm up there. Ultimately, I forgot about it. :P

 

[soccerkid6]

Good combination of bley and tan  They are colors I like to use together but need to be balanced properly or it ends up looking strange.
The curved portion and half stud offsets work quite well. I think the inclusion of a bushy shrub by the streetside was a good idea, as otherwise that portion of wall would look very boring. As HQ said, a bit more depth to the shrub would improve it though.

And of course the story is excellent and promises plenty more adventure to come

[Gideon]

I really like your storytelling style!
I like the angled part of the facade and fact that the plant is not growing on the wall (as in most of the builds and in probably 100% of mine).
The rightmost part of the building however looks a bit strange without any windows and the bottom floor wall would have benefited from a tad of texture imho.
The photography is great! My only nitpick is that I like to have the photos uprighted so that vertical lines in the build are vertical in the middle of the frame.

[Grover]

Yay!  More story!  I like how simple this vignette is, yet how many scenes it can produce.  The interior is fairly clean, yet has some really nice detail to it.  I also like the guy on top of the roof looking down on the whole scene below.  Very nice, and I love the story!  I'm really interested to see how it progresses.

[mccoyed]

On 10/3/2018 at 6:35 AM, soccerkid6 said:

Good combination of bley and tan  They are colors I like to use together but need to be balanced properly or it ends up looking strange.
The curved portion and half stud offsets work quite well. I think the inclusion of a bushy shrub by the streetside was a good idea, as otherwise that portion of wall would look very boring. As HQ said, a bit more depth to the shrub would improve it though.

And of course the story is excellent and promises plenty more adventure to come

I'm sure your stuff is a big influence on color choice and balancing here. Hopefully it came out well.

On 10/6/2018 at 4:28 PM, Gideon said:

I really like your storytelling style!
I like the angled part of the facade and fact that the plant is not growing on the wall (as in most of the builds and in probably 100% of mine).
The rightmost part of the building however looks a bit strange without any windows and the bottom floor wall would have benefited from a tad of texture imho.
The photography is great! My only nitpick is that I like to have the photos uprighted so that vertical lines in the build are vertical in the middle of the frame.

Plants growing on walls is a medieval moc staple. :P

I agree about the walls. I built this thing around that half-circle facade and just never really figured out a way to do the other parts that worked "right". This build was frustrating and tedious because of how many variations I tried. There are some building techniques that I just haven't mastered which means I wind up doing some architectural stuff in overly complex or dysfunctional ways!

Can you elaborate on your photography comment? What do you mean about having the photos "uprighted"? Your photography is so good that I'm eager to absorb any tips you might have!

On 10/8/2018 at 8:33 PM, Grover said:

Yay!  More story!  I like how simple this vignette is, yet how many scenes it can produce.  The interior is fairly clean, yet has some really nice detail to it.  I also like the guy on top of the roof looking down on the whole scene below.  Very nice, and I love the story!  I'm really interested to see how it progresses.

Thanks! I have some plans but Halloween preparation has depleted my Lego time. Eager to get to the next chapter.