Henjin_Quilones

In the shot above, I would just crop off the bottom part; yes, that will leave you with chopped off guards, but that is fine. It sometimes helps a scene to have bits chopped off that you might otherwise want to see.

Very nice! I like the blue motif you have throughout the build, in the stripes, the water, and the knights. The shrine itself is quite nice, and I do not mind the trashcan as a cup. I do think that the statue should be a brick or so higher, with the bottom dress part being extended a bit, because as it is now, the proportions are a bit off to my eye. I like the stained glass windows, but they might look better set into the wall a bit, rather than protruding out slightly as they are now. Finally, the decorative base makes the presentation nice and sharp! I like the notch running along it, giving it a subtle bit of visual interest.

I really like the different textures you threw in here to mitigate the "tan wall syndrome" that Kali builds sometimes get. I think that the sideways shield motif should have been continued at the top, though, since it leaves the top corner edges of the wall seeming rather bare. The 1x2 rounded plates with hollow studs look great in the wall, though, and the floor technique is really neat. Thanks for explaining how to do it! My only other critique is that the scene would look better cropped to leave out the borders; as it is, it is almost an immersive, all-LEGO scene, but the edges throw it off. The posing works well, though, and I appreciate the story. It would be a fun task to illustrate stories and legends of different peoples and tribes around the Guilds... a future mini-challenge idea, perhaps.

Interesting. Brickset's database must be incomplete, then, since it said it was only in one set. Perhaps the lime feather is available in other sets, then, too?

Thanks, SK! High praise indeed. I agree totally about the texture thing, and it really isn't my style or taste, though I can dabble in it occasionally. What do you mean about the rafters? I used the round columns because I thought it gave an attractive bit of detail, rather than just 1x1 square elements. I started with the round columns, actually, and went from there on the last Druidham build, and re-used them with slight changes here. The layers of 1xn plates and tiles above the columns is there for structural integrity, as the whole thing is pretty sturdy - the rafters are only connected on one side of the build, but hardly sag at all. Hopefully that answered your question! Thanks, I thought having the shelves in the wall would be an attractive feature, and people really like it, it seems. The "basic" feel is intentional, to a degree, because it is supposed to be a brand-new castle, so it needs to be shiny and squared off at the corners, rather than tumbled down and cracked. Thanks, en_zoo! HQ definitely moved up in the world, I think. The Elves of Mwamba were excessively generous when they left there, for a variety of reasons (including taking away an unhappy Elf princess to greener pastures), and they have had good fortune when it comes to attracting new citizens to their nascent realm. Of course, Druids and dragonriders have their own rules and traditions, too--some even stuffy, perhaps--, so it is not all liberation and such. Way better than Hesperia, though!

@Grover, a nice looking crew you have there! Thanks for posting them. @en_zoo, your question is a complicated one! Yes, things have changed, but how is unclear. I've had a related Avalonian minichallenge brewing in my mind for some time now, but waiting for BL orders for an intro build as well as planning around official all-Guild Challenges (the next one comes the 15th of this month) has delayed its implementation a bit. In Book I, Avalonia had a king, but he vanished in Book II and was replaced by two High Lords who ruled as stewards; that system failed during the civil war period - one of them all but vanished - resulting in a lack of any sort of centralized leadership during the Raavage crisis. I think we have something more like an interim council of lords for the time being (like what met in the Challenge I prelude), but we will get further clarity sometime in the next few months, once I get the minichallenge up and running, probably towards the middle or end of January, once Challenge II is winding down or finished.

The first pic in particular is too bright, from a presentation standpoint, but the build itself is pretty cool! I love all of the gulls around, making the coastal scene believable; I'll have to get some gulls before I ever try a harbor scene now. The abrupt vertical transition from dark orange to light grey is strange, but I don't hate it; I think if you had angled the transition slightly it would have improved the look a bit. I like the dark orange bit a bunch though; it reminds me of something I saw SK do a while back, and looks good here. I don't really like the lean-to; it seems too heavy and bulky for the supports, but perhaps that is just me. The figs here are spectacularly posed, especially the kid with the broom and the fish-whacker. The final thing I'll comment on is the water: as you say, it is too dark. Water, on its own, has no real color (unless it has dissolved minerals in it), but it shows what is beneath it or reflects whatever is over it- we commonly associate blue with it because of the reflection of a blue sky, but skies come in all colors. Deeper down water looks blue, too, but that is because blue wavelengths of light penetrate deeper into the water, so the reds are all gone under the sea. The dark grey water here is believable, but only (to me) as stormy water, with dark and overcast skies, which does not match the sunny depiction of the rest of the scene. Something brighter and bluer - maybe even trans-light blue, with the proper undertones - might look better. The scene as a whole is very lively, though, and is very enjoyable to look at! Good work.

The vignette is much better without the blue! I like how you continue to match the surroundings with the figs, as it really boosts the visual appeal of the vignette to have a simplified color scheme. Many builders make the mistake of thinking more is more with color, but here less is clearly more! I am glad to see the merfolk of Varlyrio being fleshed out more and more, and hope you will continue to bring us builds and figs! Good work.

I like the story, and I am glad that you decided to push forward despite being less-than-thrilled about the build itself. I've had to do that before, settling for a small vignette that I did not care much for just to get the story going a bit, filling in with extra dialogue to mask the build's inadequacies. As for your build, though, there are some good things going on, and the things that have already been pointed out. The door itself is the best thing about it, I think; it gets the gnomish-steam-punk vibe without crossing too far out of the Guilds' generally understood parameters (i.e. we don't condone steam punk, but there is some wiggle room for gnomes as long as it does not get too technologically explicit and keeps a sense of magic to it). The flowers and plants are all individually nice, but together, with so many colors, it tends to come across as too busy, despite being closer, perhaps, to what one would encounter in the wild - but I think real-life wildflowers have the advantage of being viewed in a wider context and blending into a more natural shade of green that complements them better. LEGO colors are their own thing, and correspondence with the real world is limited at best. The previous comments about the path are spot on, so I will not say more about that. Keep the story coming, and keep showing us the builds even when they are not perfect!

The textures of this build are certainly well done, with very nice stonework in the columns and the slopes in the floor. I think there might be too many windows for a cold-weather building, as there would be considerable heat loss from so many panes of glass around the room, even though it is a very cool effect. I also really enjoy the wood-paneled look of the wall, made with all of the tiles. Are those held in by anything other than tension and gravity? As for critiques, I will echo Kai and say that the lower POV shot looks better with the floor; bird's eye views seldom look good in LEGO, in my opinion, unless they are deliberately intended to convey a sense of position (someone looking down from a tower or hill, for example). Otherwise I think striving for something close to minifig perspective is best to allow the viewer to enter into the picture. As a benefit, it really does help the mosaic to blend into the surrounding floor so much better when the shot angle is lower, since many of the dark gaps disappear and it looks more like a continuous surface. My favorite part of the build, though, is the furniture. I really like the throne, the braziers are super cool (I might have to borrow the idea sometime - though it might look better if you put some of the cold people huddling around them for warmth), but the best are those candelabra in the back; I will definitely need to steal that design sometime! Nicely done overall, and some good fig posing, too.

The ground looks convincing for a lightly snowy landscape that has had people walking all over it for a while. The roof does seem like it should have more snow on it, especially in the valleys. In a really snowy climate, actually, I think the place the left tower meets the roof of the right-hand section would lead to problems, since all of the ice and snow would collect against the wall of the tower and lead to serious structural damage from rot and the mere accumulation of weight. Again, as always, a delightful balance of colors, and the architectural style is quite nice, a pleasant blend between all-out hypertexturalism and ultra-smooth surfaces. I appreciate how you filled the corners in the roof peaks this time, hiding the gap between the decorative trim sections; the sideways 1x1 looks good there. @Kai NRG, the green feather can be found in this set, at least, since I have it. It is for the Green Arrow's hat, and I think it came with three of them. *Edit: I looked at the inventory on Brickset, and it indicates that that set is the only source for feather so far. It also is the only source for the dark green forester's (Robin Hood) hat.

I like the shots you have here, and the story is nice, as well. The build itself is quite simple, but simple is not the same thing as bad! The tree thing confuses me, too, since it is always cropped in the pictures (what's on top - is it connected to something, like a vine, or is it a free-standing tree, or what?) and the bottom looks like it is just resting on the snow surface, making it very vine-like.

Very nice micro, SK! Glad you found a use for the boat design, and thanks for the shout out - though it's entirely possible I copied it from somewhere ultimately. I have a hard time keeping track of where I got this or that technique or idea, so it might be original, or maybe not! The differentiation in roof color between the town and the castle is nice, and the colors overall are crisp and clear. I think I am in agreement with Kai about the pink trees - they are nice enough, but they don't seem to match the rest in scale. Perhaps it is because with the way you did them, they seem to only have a shallow top canopy and not any lower branches, making the size of the pink flowers seem off. The rest is scaled beautifully, and I love your headlight brick windows, of all sizes. Well done!

This is pretty epic! I like how you used different greys (old light grey and new light bley, for example) mixed together, as it gives a subtle bit of aging to the appearance. The all-LEGO shots are great, too, especially the one with the forced perspective. I will say, however, that a lower camera angle will help the scenes become more immersive. For example, in the first picture, the viewer is peering down at the top of the flagpole, rather than looking up at the figs at the top of the stairs, where a person in the scene would be expected to be standing. In immersive, all-LEGO scenes, camera angle becomes even more critical to really sell the moment than in regular LEGO building. I would try to compose the build with the final shots you want to get in mind, so that you don't have to make odd choices at photography time because you made the foreground too narrow and thus you need a high-angled shot to crop out the exposed table surface beneath it. It is frustrating how wide the front of a build often has to be in order to not have bits of unwanted material showing through; the front portion with the steps would need to be probably at least three times as wide to get a really sweet, minifig-perspective shot of the build. Shooting from lower allows details like the excellent windows to come into the shots, too, resulting in less of the build effort going for naught. That being said, the build is awesome. I love the inlaid mosaics everywhere, the great use of different depths to create visual interest among all of the grey, the very cool and massive columns and angled beams, the wands used for chair backs, the scaffolding denoting the work in progress, and the great posing of the figs. Keep up the good work, and I hope my advice makes sense for the photography. All-LEGO shots is my current preoccupation in building, so it comes from a place of love, not judgement! I hope to see you doing more of it, and soon!

Small, crisp, precise, clean! These are your dwellings' hallmarks, and this does not disappoint. I love the use of colors, the balance of the proportions, and the integration of everything into the landscape. The joining of the roof elements at the ridgeline is surprisingly smooth. The one thing I don't particularly care for is the headlight bricks visible inside; a necessary accommodation for attaching the tiles to the outside, I know, but it mucks up the interior aesthetics a bit. By the way, if I were to vote for someone from the Guilds to be a LEGO set designer, it would be you, because your builds are typically small, compact, and sturdy looking (and sometimes even with play features), rather than delicate, complex, and sprawling; that translates better into playability. Just saying. Someday soon, perhaps, if you desire it and LEGO is hiring; God knows you have a portfolio that is thematically diverse and almost universally well-received by the fan community...