Of Dragons and Druids: Ch. 1

[Henjin_Quilones]

Of Dragons and Druids: Ch. 1

In the Hall of Druidham

 

 

Henjin Quilones sighed as he looked across the hall at his children. How much they have grown already, he thought wistfully. He could hardly believe that Gahlen was nearing his seventh birthday. Where had the time gone? Surely it was just last year that he and Galaria had been exiled from Hesperia by her father, the king, not even married yet and certainly no children on the way? Surely he had only returned from Bandari a few months back with a small toddler of three and a baby girl, only just turned one? Henjin shook his head wistfully. Emmalie was no baby any more; the five-year-old was the least Elf-like of his children, taking more after her Druid father than her Elf mother, and she followed him wherever he went. She was the only one of the children to study the in the Druidi Order, as Gahlen and the youngest, Lycaria, with her bright blue hair, were dedicated to the dragonriders of their mother and had already entered into a soul-bond with baby dragons. He loved his children deeply, and watching their play brightened his day.

The day was already bright, though. The sun streamed through the windows of the hall, reflecting off of the newly varnished table and the brightly polished tiles of the floor. It was new, the hall. It had only been completed a few months back, and already it had been used for important things. The leaders of Avalonia had met here to discuss the opening of Varlyrio to trade, gracing his table with their presence. That was just a few mornings ago, and already Henjin had heard rumblings of fleets being launched to seek the goods and markets of the far western Guild. Henjin would be sending no fleets, however, since he did not have a fleet, only a few small fishing boats that brought in their catch from the straights and channels between the Mystic Isles around Druidham. 

"We really must finish the guest-house next, Henjin," Galaria was saying, bringing his thoughts back to the present moment. How much had he missed of what she said? "We have beds open here in the main keep, of course, but many who might visit us have higher standards than a simple bed in a shared dormitory or a small, simply furnished chamber. It's not like we can offer them a place in one of the dragon's weyrs, where the riders sleep."

Henjin nodded. "This is true, Galaria," he said, stroking his beard. He had let it grow out since returning to Avalonia. "My only concern is that it will take manpower away from delving the storerooms and cellars. And by manpower I really mean Dwarf-power, since aside from Arkuhr none of us humans are much use working with stone, and while you may be soul-bonded to an Earth dragon, Daeara is more attuned to the living things on and in the earth than to the rocks of the earth itself."

It was Galaria's turn to nod in agreement. "True, it would take some Dwarf-power from the cellars, and harvest time is nigh upon us, so perhaps we should delay that; but we could at least shift the Gnomes over to building the bridge to the outcropping where we plan to build the guest-house. It will not be cold here for a month or more, I don't think, so getting the geothermal pumps going can wait a little bit. And besides, Injini has nearly completed it anyways. He said our rock formations here are not so different from the ones beneath Bandari, so he did not have to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, to get our system going like the one under the Hatchery or the Dragon Halls there."

"Very well," Henjin agreed. "We should get to work on the bridge, using the dragons to lift the slabs of stone in place according to the plan of Injini and Mvumbuzi. My Druids, especially Arkuhr, can assist with the stone shaping, at least the rough hewing, and perhaps we can convince Stenkarlek to shift his brother and wife over to the final shaping of the stones, while he and his father finish up the cellars."

Just then Lycaria gave a loud shout of pain and Gahlen came running over to his parents. "I didn't do it, Dad," he said breathlessly. 

"What did you not do?" asked Henjin suspiciously. Galaria went over to Lycaria to comfort her and see if she was hurt. Emmalie was holding her hands over her sister, muttering some Druidic words of healing. 

"I didn't push her head into the table when she was chasing after me after I stole her hairclip," said the boy sheepishly.

"Mm-hmm," grunted Henjin. "I need you to apologize to your sister for pushing her and stealing her clip. And you need to apologize to me for lying. And finally, I need you to go with Koeden to help Stenkarlek dig out the storerooms. He could use a small Earth dragon and even smaller boy down in the tunnels with him to help dig. And bring him this message that I am going to give you." He turned to the writing desk by the windows and began to write on a scrap of parchment.

"Yes, father," said Gahlen with downcast eyes. "I am sorry for lying."

"I forgive you," said Henjin, finishing up the message and handing it to his son. "Now go! Get your dragon and find Stenkarlek."

 

______________________________________

............................................................................

The first chapter of my Book III story! Not unlike @de Gothia, I have chosen to make the time between the end of Book II and the start of Book III for my story be the span of several years (about 8 in my case). Hence there are now kids involved. My inspiration for the story, at least for the dragon part of things, comes especially from Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series, one of my all-time favorite reads. I will be tying things in from my previous Chronicles of Hesperia, plus the builds I did for the Safe Haven challenge. And there will be dragons. Lots of dragons. My characters will probably end up in Varlyrio's Sunken City at some point, too. 

The build itself is the same as the one I used for the Prelude: An Avalonian Council, but the lighting is different this time, with the sole light source now being through the windows. I really like the way that made it look, even better than before. Plus, I adjusted the white balance to look more warm.

C&C welcome!

[Kai NRG]

The lighting just gets better!  Great to see this MOC again, it looks like a wonderful place for the children to run around!  One suggestion though - might be a good idea to double layer your straight walls with any color brick just so we're not seeing through the gaps between bricks as for instance on the right of the first picture.  In fact, it's not even necessary to build behind there, just draping a bit of cloth right over the build works sometimes.

I enjoyed the write-up as well!

[TheLordOfBricks]

Ah yes, great work here, loving the story as well. That lighting is just so good, so realistic... Keep it up Henjin!

[zoth33]

This is a great build with wonderful lighting and photography.  The floor and walls of the building really stand out.  The table looks great.  I like the hearth and the details inside like the split wood, the mantle, the chandelier, and the dragon on the wall.  The children playing really are a nice touch.  Great job.  

[Basiliscus]

Really nice work @Henjin_Quilones! It's always nice to see 100% LEGO scenes and it's easy to overlook how much you need to build out of shot just to preserve the effect.

I really like the windows and the small table with the dragon sculpture on it. And speaking of dragons, I love the dragon motif above the fireplace too, although it bothers my OCD a bit that the shield isn't perfectly vertical! 

My only feedback would be the central table is impressive but somewhat bare, it would have been interesting to see some dishes, maps, glasses etc on here to liven it up.

The characters are great and I look forward to seeing more of this story.

[mlongworth]

Love this build more with this lighting. Reminds me I need to tear apart my Hogwarts too I have plans for those windows.

[mccoyed]

This is one of the all time great interiors. Lots of details, but it's the overall effect that catches the most attention. Love the furniture and little touches like the statue in the alcove and the firewood stack.

[Gideon]

Fantastic lighting and overall great photography!
Oh, and nice build too

What lighting setup and camera settings did you use to get both the nice daylight look and the fireplace lit up like that..?

Another great example of that interiors are best made as separate builds in "true minifig scale".

[halixon]

Wow! Ofc we've seen the build before, but it's great! And the lighting is amazing! Also very nice use of the new harry potter fig pieces

[Henjin_Quilones]

On 9/29/2018 at 3:34 PM, Kai NRG said:

The lighting just gets better!  Great to see this MOC again, it looks like a wonderful place for the children to run around!  One suggestion though - might be a good idea to double layer your straight walls with any color brick just so we're not seeing through the gaps between bricks as for instance on the right of the first picture.  In fact, it's not even necessary to build behind there, just draping a bit of cloth right over the build works sometimes.

I enjoyed the write-up as well!

Thanks, Kai! I know I am re-using a build, but I wanted to use it for my own story and not just a prelude! I am thinking about decorating it for a festival or feast and shooting some more pictures, too, because it seems a shame that we so often build something, take it apart, and then build something entirely new in a different part of a settlement, even though so much of a fig's life would be taking place in the same locations day in and day out. I want my settlement to feel lived in and used, though! 

And I totally agree about the light shining through. I meant to do something about it, and then forgot until I was editing the pictures that I had meant to do something. Maybe if I take more pictures I will cover it up this time. 

On 9/29/2018 at 9:12 PM, TheLordOfBricks said:

Ah yes, great work here, loving the story as well. That lighting is just so good, so realistic... Keep it up Henjin!

Thanks, T'LOB! I hope to keep the story going here...

On 9/29/2018 at 11:17 PM, zoth33 said:

This is a great build with wonderful lighting and photography.  The floor and walls of the building really stand out.  The table looks great.  I like the hearth and the details inside like the split wood, the mantle, the chandelier, and the dragon on the wall.  The children playing really are a nice touch.  Great job.  

Thanks, Zoth!

On 9/30/2018 at 3:52 AM, Basiliscus said:

Really nice work @Henjin_Quilones! It's always nice to see 100% LEGO scenes and it's easy to overlook how much you need to build out of shot just to preserve the effect.

I really like the windows and the small table with the dragon sculpture on it. And speaking of dragons, I love the dragon motif above the fireplace too, although it bothers my OCD a bit that the shield isn't perfectly vertical! 

My only feedback would be the central table is impressive but somewhat bare, it would have been interesting to see some dishes, maps, glasses etc on here to liven it up.

The characters are great and I look forward to seeing more of this story.

It is necessary to build something much bigger than you anticipate to make sure that you don't have odd bits of the outside world spoiling the illusion. The first time I was photographing this build, I had to add more tiles to the foreground to keep it from being a mess. 

The dragon's shield won't stay vertical, no matter how hard I try! It shifts when I look away or something. The table is bare because the room is not being used for anything at the moment; all dishes from a meal would be already cleared away, and no one uses it as an office for there to be maps, so it is bare. If I make a feast scene, there will be food and plates on the table, though!

On 9/30/2018 at 9:59 AM, mlongworth said:

Love this build more with this lighting. Reminds me I need to tear apart my Hogwarts too I have plans for those windows.

The Hogwarts set was underwhelming as a build, but a great parts pack! I love these windows. This lighting definitely works better than the previous attempt. 

On 9/30/2018 at 2:50 PM, mccoyed said:

This is one of the all time great interiors. Lots of details, but it's the overall effect that catches the most attention. Love the furniture and little touches like the statue in the alcove and the firewood stack.

High praise, mccoyed! It is about the mood (and story) here, more than the build, which has already been seen.

On 9/30/2018 at 4:49 PM, Gideon said:

Fantastic lighting and overall great photography!
Oh, and nice build too

What lighting setup and camera settings did you use to get both the nice daylight look and the fireplace lit up like that..?

Another great example of that interiors are best made as separate builds in "true minifig scale".

Thanks, Gideon! There is a single light source with a 5000K LED bulb placed outside the windows shining directly in, with all other lights in the basement turned off. The fireplace is lit with two light bricks shining through a bunch of trans-orange and yellow pieces and up into flames. The camera was remotely triggered with no flash, with an F-number of 14, a 3.2 second exposure, and ISO on auto, which ended up at 1250. The key for this one was the white balance, which I kept at "outdoors in the shade" level (there was not a significant difference between the shade and cloudy WB settings, as I tried both to see). With a similar setup before, I had the WB on tungsten bulb, which gave it a cold, color-drained appearance that I did not like as much. I might be forgetting something as far as settings, but that is about what I had going on. 

On 10/1/2018 at 12:43 AM, Windusky said:

Wow! Ofc we've seen the build before, but it's great! And the lighting is amazing! Also very nice use of the new harry potter fig pieces

Thanks, Windusky! This one was about the story and lighting more than the build itself. 

[Gideon]

Very interesting to hear how the photography was done  

That the difference between “shade” and “cloudy” was so little it’s probably a sign that those settings are very similar in color temperature. I usually don’t bother about those settings as I shoot in raw, which means I can correct fine-tune the white balance in the computer afterwards  

But in a case like this where the color temperature of the light source matters it’s good to hear that you turned the rest of the lights off. 

One possible improvement would however be to increase the shutter speed significantly, as your setup seems to already allow for a long shutter speed there is no need to go into such high ISO numbers (ideally you should get down to 100-200). You can probably also relax the f-stop a bit too, as long as both the front and back of the build still remains in focus. But trading shutter speed for lower ISO is “free”  

[Grover]

Very cool.  I think the wyvern coat of arms over the mantle is still one of my favorite aspects.  The lighting is awesome.  I like the story with the kids and Henjin getting older, too.  Very nice work, as usual. :-)

[soccerkid6]

I too think the lighting is even better this time Very fun to see the interactions between Henjin and his family here
And those are some lovely chairs

[MaasEffekt]

Nice stuff as always! Congratulations!

Suspicious! Be wary people of Historica! This guy is shady! Let's sum it up! He came from a galaxy far, far away... Some kind of magic user. Impersonating a druid, tricks an elvish princess to fall in love with him. Immediately befriends the young and probably impressionable queen of Historica. Now, basically tells the Avalonian lords what to do, and when. Came with nothing, now he has big estate in the Mystic Isles, elvish wife, children, power, dwarves to do his bidding, and DRAGONS! Did i mention dragons, magic, elves? Plans to corrupt Varlyrio in the near future, and most importantly the Sunken City too! Probably wants the elvish stuff from there! Already been in the huge library of Hesperia! Who knows what he "borrowed" from there. It is a conspiracy! He wants to rule Historica, i bet! 

Not to mention this.:

The Grand Griffon Tavern by Henjin_Quilones, on Flickr

"Our queen" and her trusty friends! No yellow people there! Suspicious...

Nocturnus is watching YOU! 

Edited November 5, 2018 by MaasEffekt

[Henjin_Quilones]

On 10/2/2018 at 2:56 PM, Gideon said:

Very interesting to hear how the photography was done  

That the difference between “shade” and “cloudy” was so little it’s probably a sign that those settings are very similar in color temperature. I usually don’t bother about those settings as I shoot in raw, which means I can correct fine-tune the white balance in the computer afterwards  

But in a case like this where the color temperature of the light source matters it’s good to hear that you turned the rest of the lights off. 

One possible improvement would however be to increase the shutter speed significantly, as your setup seems to already allow for a long shutter speed there is no need to go into such high ISO numbers (ideally you should get down to 100-200). You can probably also relax the f-stop a bit too, as long as both the front and back of the build still remains in focus. But trading shutter speed for lower ISO is “free”  

You are more advanced in the art of photography than I am, clearly, Gideon! What is raw, and what benefit does it give? Also, what difference will it make if I lower the ISO? I will try it for my next build, but I am just curious what change in the final product I will see. 

On 10/8/2018 at 10:46 PM, Grover said:

Very cool.  I think the wyvern coat of arms over the mantle is still one of my favorite aspects.  The lighting is awesome.  I like the story with the kids and Henjin getting older, too.  Very nice work, as usual. :-)

Thanks, Grover! I like the coat of arms, too. It is meant to generically be Avalonian, with our Flight of Dragons. 

On 10/15/2018 at 12:50 PM, soccerkid6 said:

I too think the lighting is even better this time Very fun to see the interactions between Henjin and his family here
And those are some lovely chairs

Thanks, SK! I hope to show more of the family soon. I might have borrowed the chair design from you, but at this point I am not sure...

20 minutes ago, MaasEffekt said:

Nice stuff as always! Congratulations!

Suspicious! Be wary people of Historica! This guy is shady! Let's sum it up! He came from a galaxy far, far away... Some kind of magic user. Impersonating a druid, tricks an elvish princess to fall in love with him. Immediately befriends the young and probably impressionable queen of Historica. Now, basically tells the Avalonian lords what to do, and when. Came with nothing, now he has big estate in the Mystic Isles, elvish wife, children, power, dwarves to do his bidding, and DRAGONS! Did i mention dragons, magic, elves? Plans to corrupt Varlyrio in the near future, and most importantly the Sunken City too! Probably wants the elvish stuff from there! Already been in the huge library of Hesperia! Who knows what he "borrowed" from there. It is a conspiracy! He wants to rule Historica, i bet! 

Not to mention this.:

[picture]

"Our queen" and her trusty friends! No yellow people there! Suspicious...

Nocturnus is watching YOU! 

SHHH! You're not supposed to be paying attention...

[Gideon]

Just now, Henjin_Quilones said:

You are more advanced in the art of photography than I am, clearly, Gideon! What is raw, and what benefit does it give? Also, what difference will it make if I lower the ISO? I will try it for my next build, but I am just curious what change in the final product I will see. 

RAW is basically to save the sensor data without processing by the camera. For example it gives you the option to adjust the white balance in the computer afterwards.
These days with storage being so cheap, I mostly shoot in RAW+jpeg so that I both have a jpeg "best guess" by the camera and the "negative" to do my own post-processing on. Even if you don't today do any post processing, having RAW files saved of the best pictures you've taken is not a drawback for future use  
More reading: https://photographylife.com/raw-vs-jpeg

A lower ISO primarily lowers the noise in the picture, but I also think normally the dynamic range (the span in amount of light between darkness and brightness the camera can register before a pixel turns "fully black" or "fully white") increases with lower ISO. How high you can go in ISO without getting problems is very dependent on the camera, probably the quantity which improves the most with newer models. 
When using a tripod and any kind of constant light source on a steady object, there is no reason for not using the lowest possible ISO and increasing the shutter speed instead to get the desired exposure (not to much to turn any parts of the image completely white however!)

[Kai NRG]

48 minutes ago, Gideon said:

RAW is basically to save the sensor data without processing by the camera. <snip>

Don't convert me to using RAW please Gideon, I did that once already and it was such an extra pain!   Though it may mostly have had to do with not having the right software to really benefit from the capacities it offered.  What do you use to edit your RAW pictures?  I have the manufacturer's software which didn't strike me as intuitive and was an extra application to open and switch between...  Do you know of any open source/free image editing programs with (some degree of) RAW editing capacity?

[de Gothia]

Can´t figure out how I missed to comment on this one!

 

I eccho what Gideon says, true minifig scale makes this moc really pop out!  The lightning in the windows is pure magic!!

[The Last of Nergoue]

I love the lighting! 

[Henjin_Quilones]

On 11/5/2018 at 10:58 AM, Gideon said:

RAW is basically to save the sensor data without processing by the camera. For example it gives you the option to adjust the white balance in the computer afterwards.
These days with storage being so cheap, I mostly shoot in RAW+jpeg so that I both have a jpeg "best guess" by the camera and the "negative" to do my own post-processing on. Even if you don't today do any post processing, having RAW files saved of the best pictures you've taken is not a drawback for future use  
More reading: https://photographylife.com/raw-vs-jpeg

A lower ISO primarily lowers the noise in the picture, but I also think normally the dynamic range (the span in amount of light between darkness and brightness the camera can register before a pixel turns "fully black" or "fully white") increases with lower ISO. How high you can go in ISO without getting problems is very dependent on the camera, probably the quantity which improves the most with newer models. 
When using a tripod and any kind of constant light source on a steady object, there is no reason for not using the lowest possible ISO and increasing the shutter speed instead to get the desired exposure (not to much to turn any parts of the image completely white however!)

Thanks, Gideon. I'll try to put some of that into practice!

On 11/6/2018 at 2:17 PM, de Gothia said:

Can´t figure out how I missed to comment on this one!

 

I eccho what Gideon says, true minifig scale makes this moc really pop out!  The lightning in the windows is pure magic!!

Thanks, dG! I do prefer to work in "true" minifig scale when I can (there is a considerable amount of debate of what exactly constitutes minifig scale, of course, because they are definitely not human-proportioned) since I like the way it looks. I don't like my figs living in cramped quarters! 

19 hours ago, The Last of Nergoue said:

I love the lighting! 

Thanks, it's something I have been playing around with more, especially since seeing some of the  winning  entries in the Summer Joust. I'm starting to build for the camera more than for an in-person viewer now, taking into consideration views and lighting more than ever. 

[en_zoo]

Ahh so cool to hear some of you story, HQ! (I hope Galaria hasn't realised that HQ hadn't been listening.. we all know how dangerous those situations are! ) Nice that you used the same hall of that Avalonian meeting - it makes sense and it well intertwines your story with the more general one of the Guilds. As you and the others said, the lighting is awesome - I'm still struggling with photography as a whole, so I'm not even trying to imagine to work on that for now..