Kaliphlin at Work - Day 2: Qarkyr Box Gardens

[Kai NRG]

Kaliphlin may be a war torn, battle scarred guild, but here as elsewhere, ordinary hardworking people bring everyday beauty to lives throughout the Siccus Badlands.

I followed @soccerkid6 and @LittleJohn's tutorial for the cobblestone technique, tweaking it a little so I could incorporate some double cheese slopes!

The box gardens were a fun challenge with some half stud offsets.  In the end it was great getting to use so many foliage pieces!

You can see (and read) more about this creation and get a look behind the scenes here at my blog!

This is my first contribution to the Kaliphlin at Work collaboration, thanks for looking!  Comments, criticism, and comments that sound like criticism are all welcome! 

[zoth33]

Nice perspective.  The architecture is lovely.  But the gardens are great, I love the use of the horn in the sand green fern type pieces I never thought of doing that pretty clever idea for a flower.  The use of ninjago pieces and feather pieces is also very neat.  Great job.

[Gideon]

Lovely flowers and overall excellent photography  

Great idea to have the main shot through the row of arches.

[adde51]

Nice one, great idea with an all-lego scene and really nice shot through the arches. The lighting works very well too, adds to the serene feel of the whole garden. Well done!

[Basiliscus]

Great job on the plants and flowers, they look very realistic. Love the all LEGO shots, particularly through the pillars, gives a nice sense of perspective. This Kaliphlin at work thing is not too bad at all! 

[Muakhah]

The perspective through the pillars and the angles really make it seem that this garden is tucked away in some courtyard.  The cobblestones and boxes are wonderful and the plants look as if they are bursting with life.

Looking at this is like a lesson for me on how to use tan bricks properly.

Also the link to the behind the scenes shots really helped me understand the overall shape and layout, with very good advice for my own future builds and photography.

[Grover]

Uh oh!  Here come the Qarkyr Kaliphlinites on a building frenzy!  I love all the details that are in the gardens, including the use of the droid arm as a tool, and the SNOT tiles as flower boxes.  Interestingly, the LBG wall syndrome here could have been repeated in tan, but you have enough texture to it that it looks just fine.  The photography is very intimate, too, which is awesome.  I would like to see a pulled back shot of the whole build, but I realize it's probably an open vig.  Great job!

[Henjin_Quilones]

I love the all-LEGO scene! It is a kick that I am on lately for interior builds, myself, and I am glad to see others trying it, too. I enjoyed the zoom-out picture on your blog, because when you do so the whole illusion disappears, but that makes the shots you show here all the better. The vibrancy of the vegetation contrasts so well against the muted tan of the background/foreground. There are some nice part uses in there, too. I especially like the small toolbox with the bucket handle in the bottom of the 1x2, the pale light green nipples as flowers, and do I espy an upside-down dark brown Minecraft head used as a flower pot in the back?

My one critique is one that I think you gave to me on my interior scene - put something behind the wall to prevent unwanted colors and light from showing through; the 1x1 round plates in the wall allow bits of green and blue from somewhere else to peek through. It's not that noticeable, but it is something to look out for. But again, great job on the immersive scene. Looking forward to more!

[Kai NRG]

On 11/2/2018 at 11:08 PM, zoth33 said:

Nice perspective.  The architecture is lovely.  But the gardens are great, I love the use of the horn in the sand green fern type pieces I never thought of doing that pretty clever idea for a flower.  The use of ninjago pieces and feather pieces is also very neat.  Great job.

Thanks zoth!  I got the horn idea from @Full Plate. 

On 11/3/2018 at 5:48 AM, Gideon said:

Lovely flowers and overall excellent photography  

Great idea to have the main shot through the row of arches.

Thanks!  I was looking around for medieval style garden pictures, saw one shot through arches, and knew instantly that I'd have to do the same thing!

On 11/3/2018 at 7:17 AM, adde51 said:

Nice one, great idea with an all-lego scene and really nice shot through the arches. The lighting works very well too, adds to the serene feel of the whole garden. Well done!

Thank you!  The arches were neat to work around, as they could block important details but also helped me get more in the picture on the edges without building so much!

On 11/3/2018 at 10:49 AM, Basiliscus said:

Great job on the plants and flowers, they look very realistic. Love the all LEGO shots, particularly through the pillars, gives a nice sense of perspective. This Kaliphlin at work thing is not too bad at all! 

Thanks Basilicus!  I had a great time experimenting with lots of different green colors for the plants here!

On 11/3/2018 at 11:30 PM, Muakhah said:

The perspective through the pillars and the angles really make it seem that this garden is tucked away in some courtyard.  The cobblestones and boxes are wonderful and the plants look as if they are bursting with life.

Looking at this is like a lesson for me on how to use tan bricks properly.

Also the link to the behind the scenes shots really helped me understand the overall shape and layout, with very good advice for my own future builds and photography.

Thank you!  The key for me when building scenes like this is to be sure to pause frequently to look at it from the final angle.  Sometimes it's even handing to take WIP shots from that angle, to help you get a feel for what will end up in the final shot and what won't!

20 hours ago, Grover said:

Uh oh!  Here come the Qarkyr Kaliphlinites on a building frenzy!  I love all the details that are in the gardens, including the use of the droid arm as a tool, and the SNOT tiles as flower boxes.  Interestingly, the LBG wall syndrome here could have been repeated in tan, but you have enough texture to it that it looks just fine.  The photography is very intimate, too, which is awesome.  I would like to see a pulled back shot of the whole build, but I realize it's probably an open vig.  Great job!

  I really had to think a while about the back wall, I was afraid if I built it in tan that would be too much of one color.  But then I realized that precious little of that wall would end up being visible in any case, and the most important thing about it was for it not to be distracting.  There are quite a few pulled back shots on my blog (though as you guessed, it's far from a finished build!) but here's one too:

1 hour ago, Henjin_Quilones said:

I love the all-LEGO scene! It is a kick that I am on lately for interior builds, myself, and I am glad to see others trying it, too. I enjoyed the zoom-out picture on your blog, because when you do so the whole illusion disappears, but that makes the shots you show here all the better. The vibrancy of the vegetation contrasts so well against the muted tan of the background/foreground. There are some nice part uses in there, too. I especially like the small toolbox with the bucket handle in the bottom of the 1x2, the pale light green nipples as flowers, and do I espy an upside-down dark brown Minecraft head used as a flower pot in the back?

My one critique is one that I think you gave to me on my interior scene - put something behind the wall to prevent unwanted colors and light from showing through; the 1x1 round plates in the wall allow bits of green and blue from somewhere else to peek through. It's not that noticeable, but it is something to look out for. But again, great job on the immersive scene. Looking forward to more!

Ahhh!!  A dose of my own medicine!  I even thought about that at the time, but didn't have anything handy and it didn't seem noticeable.  But I'll have to be more careful not to cut corners in the future.  

Yes, that is indeed a Minecraft head!  They're fun to sneak in every now and then, got a pretty out-of-the-system cube shape.

Thank you!

[W Navarre]

This is really pretty and Kaliphlinian, the way you set it up also creates a very convincing effect! 

[de Gothia]

You Kaliphlins really have a great storm of mocs heading to GoH! 

 

The behind scene is so great to watch and get some ideas how to photograph your mocs to make them even more intresting to watch at. 

 

I like the boxes for the flowers aswell as your way of presentation through the arches! 

 

Keep it up Kaliphlin! Love these!!

[TheLordOfBricks]

Ahhhh, nice work! Love the grey floor with the garden boxes! The gardening tools are also really nice. :)

[en_zoo]

Nice work here, Kai - lovely vignette with a lovely the Kaliphin-feel  Cool use of the Snyder-cobblestone and really nice veg gardens! How does it feel to use green? Remember that awesome tree-hugger's feeling?

[Kai NRG]

On 11/5/2018 at 10:19 PM, W Navarre said:

This is really pretty and Kaliphlinian, the way you set it up also creates a very convincing effect! 

Thanks W!

On 11/6/2018 at 4:14 PM, de Gothia said:

You Kaliphlins really have a great storm of mocs heading to GoH! 

 

The behind scene is so great to watch and get some ideas how to photograph your mocs to make them even more intresting to watch at. 

 

I like the boxes for the flowers aswell as your way of presentation through the arches! 

 

Keep it up Kaliphlin! Love these!!

Thank you!  More is on it's way! 

17 hours ago, TheLordOfBricks said:

Ahhhh, nice work! Love the grey floor with the garden boxes! The gardening tools are also really nice. :)

Thanks man!  I had fun with the little gardening details, in fact I did several of those - like the Minecraft head flowerpot and the toolbox - before I even started on the rest of the build!

4 hours ago, en_zoo said:

Nice work here, Kai - lovely vignette with a lovely the Kaliphin-feel  Cool use of the Snyder-cobblestone and really nice veg gardens! How does it feel to use green? Remember that awesome tree-hugger's feeling?

Thanks!  Oh, green is good, when there's lots and lots of tan to keep it in it's proper place.   

[mccoyed]

Nice work and I especially enjoy seeing the full build as it reminds me of film sets where you often are convinced you're looking at a room in a house but it's really a very contrived cutaway. The illusion is what matters!

[LittleJohn]

Beautiful scene Kai, the shot through the arches is just wonderful. The flowers add the perfect touch of color to the scene, and there are some really clever piece usages throughout - do I spy a Ninjago bandana even? Great idea to incorporate the cheese slopes into the cobblestone design too!

[soccerkid6]

Great composition with the low wall and arches in the foreground. Excellent choice to use nougat for the garden boxes instead of reddish brown or dark brown
Plenty of neat plants to admire in the gardens, and I'm glad our cobblestone design was helpful. The added cheese slopes are a nice touch. I hadn't even thought about how useful the free floating design would be for when you need to make streets adjacent to angled buildings

[Kai NRG]

On 11/9/2018 at 3:42 PM, mccoyed said:

Nice work and I especially enjoy seeing the full build as it reminds me of film sets where you often are convinced you're looking at a room in a house but it's really a very contrived cutaway. The illusion is what matters!

Thanks!  From the builders point of view, these are some of the most rewarding builds if they can be pulled off, since the final photographed product is so different from what you've been seeing the whole time. 

17 hours ago, LittleJohn said:

Beautiful scene Kai, the shot through the arches is just wonderful. The flowers add the perfect touch of color to the scene, and there are some really clever piece usages throughout - do I spy a Ninjago bandana even? Great idea to incorporate the cheese slopes into the cobblestone design too!

Thanks LJ!  Yes, three of 'em actually!  In fact they looked so good with the magenta flowers inside them (speaking of which, you can't really see that in any of these pictures... well that was an oversight on my part!) that I intend to use the combination again as soon as possible!

16 minutes ago, soccerkid6 said:

Great composition with the low wall and arches in the foreground. Excellent choice to use nougat for the garden boxes instead of reddish brown or dark brown
Plenty of neat plants to admire in the gardens, and I'm glad our cobblestone design was helpful. The added cheese slopes are a nice touch. I hadn't even thought about how useful the free floating design would be for when you need to make streets adjacent to angled buildings

Thank you!  I try to avoid using brown for dirt and wood in the same creation... although, after all, I didn't use normal brown for dirt in this creation anyways, but I was contemplating it. haha  In the case of this MOC, the angle didn't matter so much as you can't see what immediately abuts the only angled wall anyways, but that's definitely a useful bonus to the free floating technique!  And as far as the cheese slopes go, it was mostly an is-that-really-all-the-2x2-round-tiles-I-have?? reaction - had to eke them out with something.   Adding an extra layer to all the round pieces was a pain though.  Well no, actually, the pain was taking it off afterwards. 

[Gabe]

Beautiful scene Kai! I think composition of the second shot is my favourite, highlighting the planter boxes and the great details like the mincraft head pot and small brickbuilt basket. The repeating arches make a great backdrop too. 

[Kai NRG]

2 hours ago, Gabe said:

Beautiful scene Kai! I think composition of the second shot is my favourite, highlighting the planter boxes and the great details like the mincraft head pot and small brickbuilt basket. The repeating arches make a great backdrop too. 

Thanks Gabe!  That's got to be one of my favorite shots too, even though it leaves out the minifigure.