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r4canine

[MOC] Clone Ambush On Naboo

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Ambush On Naboo

Here, the clones are trying to scale a rock face with the hope of ambushing a droid camp near some ruins. Meanwhile, the Separatists are inspecting the ruins, with the help of a local archaeologist.

 

 

Been toying around with other themes for a bit, so I've not really made any Star Wars MOCs in a while, but I built this to get back into it. Tried some different rock and water techniques with it, as well as attempting an (admittedly pretty simple) cheese slope floor design for part of the ruins. Overall though, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

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Nice building technique, the cliff looks very good.

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Wow, that's awesome! When I have a look at your photostream on Flickr, I don't see any similar builds on there (some really awesome ship builds though: that AT-RD is both cute and kind of terrifying), so this is really great for one of your first attempts at rock building. I think the best thing about your rock work is in the shaping, and that on two levels. Firstly, I love the overall shape you gave to the rockface and the land. It curves around the land and seemingly tries climbing up the from the see there in the middle. It makes it look visually interesting and also very natural. In your creation, the land itself does not appear as a flat surface that was loosely dropped on top of the rocks as you see in quite a few MOCs, but a natural extension of the rocks that really seems to flow around the overall shape. Moreover, the incorporation of that little monument which is angled relative to the rest is awesome. Great stuff. Secondly, I think that within the overall shape of the rocks you also do some interesting things, especially with putting those bricks at very crazy angles. They're totally out of system, which gives a very natural look as reality isn't fully horizontal or vertical as well. Moreover, you manage to put some slopes around those strangely angled pieces which have a double effect. On one hand, they make the gaps smaller without totally filling them, which lets shadows create the illusion of jagged, natural cracks in the rocks and gives it more dimension than if the all holes would have been covered fully. On the other hand, they make for a nice transition with the pieces that are "in system", so that the shapes in your rock seem to flow smoothly and form one cohesive thing. These are definitely awesome elements you should keep using when you further develop your rock techniques!

On the other hand, I feel like there are some other things that could be changed on your technique which have the potential to make it even more natural. For example, the difference between shape and texture. If you look at any picture of a rock face or cliff, chances are that you can see a clear structure. It looks like the rock has some big shapes, with each shape covered with a smaller texture. You see that there is a difference between variations ons a bigger scale and those on a smaller scale. You already started working on those bigger scales, with the great overall shape I pointed out earlier, but I think you can take it further: more irregular lumps of rock protruding into the see as some sort of leg, for example. Create different levels of depth and angles, different larger surfaces which will carry the detail. Then keep the detail (the studs, the smaller slopes) smaller than those bigger features to keep your shapes readable. I see that you have done this already to some extent (for example with that piece of the rock face angled at 45°, but unfortunately its level of detailing is not realy coherent with the rest of the face), but I think you can exaggerate it more. Basically try to avoid making one big surface of detailing, even though that surface has already an interesting shape as it does now. I don't know if it's clear what I want to say, but in any case I think you can learn a lot by watching closely at pictures of rocks :classic:

That being said, it's still an awesome piece of work with some rocks that already look top notch. I wonder how far you can take those techniques to show us the beauty in Star Wars landscapes! I can already imagine you building this scene but with a mirror image of the rocks underneath the surface of the water, which would create an insane effect maybe, or some ruins of a broken bridge at the end of that path you built... So many possibilities, but I know that if you keep experimenting as you did here, you'll pull off something still more amazing in no time!

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On 6/1/2019 at 12:02 PM, ProvenceTristram said:

He's not even armed with a blaster? That guy better have the force, or he's toast...

Yeah lol, feel a bit sorry for him now...

 

22 hours ago, Reaper said:

Nice building technique, the cliff looks very good.

On 6/1/2019 at 1:33 PM, Retro said:

Nice cliff...Roger Roger.

Cheers guys!

 

11 hours ago, BEAVeR said:

Wow, that's awesome! When I have a look at your photostream on Flickr, I don't see any similar builds on there (some really awesome ship builds though: that AT-RD is both cute and kind of terrifying), so this is really great for one of your first attempts at rock building. I think the best thing about your rock work is in the shaping, and that on two levels. Firstly, I love the overall shape you gave to the rockface and the land. It curves around the land and seemingly tries climbing up the from the see there in the middle. It makes it look visually interesting and also very natural. In your creation, the land itself does not appear as a flat surface that was loosely dropped on top of the rocks as you see in quite a few MOCs, but a natural extension of the rocks that really seems to flow around the overall shape. Moreover, the incorporation of that little monument which is angled relative to the rest is awesome. Great stuff. Secondly, I think that within the overall shape of the rocks you also do some interesting things, especially with putting those bricks at very crazy angles. They're totally out of system, which gives a very natural look as reality isn't fully horizontal or vertical as well. Moreover, you manage to put some slopes around those strangely angled pieces which have a double effect. On one hand, they make the gaps smaller without totally filling them, which lets shadows create the illusion of jagged, natural cracks in the rocks and gives it more dimension than if the all holes would have been covered fully. On the other hand, they make for a nice transition with the pieces that are "in system", so that the shapes in your rock seem to flow smoothly and form one cohesive thing. These are definitely awesome elements you should keep using when you further develop your rock techniques!

On the other hand, I feel like there are some other things that could be changed on your technique which have the potential to make it even more natural. For example, the difference between shape and texture. If you look at any picture of a rock face or cliff, chances are that you can see a clear structure. It looks like the rock has some big shapes, with each shape covered with a smaller texture. You see that there is a difference between variations ons a bigger scale and those on a smaller scale. You already started working on those bigger scales, with the great overall shape I pointed out earlier, but I think you can take it further: more irregular lumps of rock protruding into the see as some sort of leg, for example. Create different levels of depth and angles, different larger surfaces which will carry the detail. Then keep the detail (the studs, the smaller slopes) smaller than those bigger features to keep your shapes readable. I see that you have done this already to some extent (for example with that piece of the rock face angled at 45°, but unfortunately its level of detailing is not realy coherent with the rest of the face), but I think you can exaggerate it more. Basically try to avoid making one big surface of detailing, even though that surface has already an interesting shape as it does now. I don't know if it's clear what I want to say, but in any case I think you can learn a lot by watching closely at pictures of rocks :classic:

That being said, it's still an awesome piece of work with some rocks that already look top notch. I wonder how far you can take those techniques to show us the beauty in Star Wars landscapes! I can already imagine you building this scene but with a mirror image of the rocks underneath the surface of the water, which would create an insane effect maybe, or some ruins of a broken bridge at the end of that path you built... So many possibilities, but I know that if you keep experimenting as you did here, you'll pull off something still more amazing in no time!

Don't know how long this took you to write but I gotta say thanks! I'll definitely bear in mind what you said and that idea of the mirror effect in the water is genius. Not sure whether I have enough parts to pull it off but it sounds really great. Definitely agree with you that I left some bits of the rock face a little too sparse though.

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