Gabe

Gosh, thanks for the congrats Gex/NM, Master Redlake/Ogre, i did see our guild leader's Cedrica throne room make an appearence on Flickr a few days ago and guessed something was afoot, but the overall win is a huge surprise! So many amazing towers were built for the challenge and Kaliphlin certainly had some of the most colourful, intruiging and innovative, so congrats to all of us i say! :thumbup: I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with for embassies!

I'll be exhibiting, just getting my castle layout together now. This will be only my 2nd BV - i came last year but i didn't show anything. I can't wait, it's going to be exciting!

Wow, what a ripper! Just superb work, so imposing and grand. Incorporating the trebuchet is a masterly touch - and the fact that this beast of a war engine doesn't look too big for the walls just reinforces the epic scale of this gatehouse. I'm certainly looking forward to seeing your continued build on the other side of the moat!

Great ship, very well done on a tricky hull shape! Sirens-of-Titan raises a valid point with the masts and sails though, and you look like you could use a few more brown oars. Although with Vader on board, you could probably force propel the ship along!

Thanks for the great review KristofBD, i've been wondering how long it would be until someone posted one of this beauty. Nice to see that the side building on the right hand wall has sand blue bricks rather than the light blue of the promo pics. Actually, come to think of it, it still looks like light blue on the box and instructions! I wonder what's up with that?

Amazing work on The Winchester and congrats on the publicity! I just went and supported the project on Cuusoo - one more down, 9295 to go... best of luck!

I had a squiz through yr brickshelf folder and i see what you mean, but it doesn't bother me at all - and it really helps give it that wonderful sense of slippage and disintergration that makes it such a powerful piece. Possibly one of those occasions where "playing against the rules" (self or other imposed) really pays off - terrific!

The rock angles and the deteriorating interior on this just blow me away - great work! I can't stop looking at the front right hand section with the leaning wall and grassy section running diagonally to it - just works so well.

I'm with everyone else in saying "dat bridge!" :wub: I rather like the angled door into the crypt too, a smart and economical way of depicting the scene. Bring on chapter 6, i'm loving it!

Great topic! My picks would be Nya from Ninjago, Anubis gaurd from PQ, crab warrior from Atlantis, the mermaids from POTC (i can't pick one over the other! ) and the maiden from the Mill Village Raid. All stunning, much needed and imaginative figs.

Omg, a brick built scrolling function - you just broke my brain. Amazing work, congrads on being front-paged!

Lol, that'd have to be me too, i love the deconstruction/sorting phase far too much. Some could even say i moc to sort!

Good stuff, sounds like you're on your way already! Just remember when mixing styles - they don't have to be one on top of the other nessacerily (though that can work as well), you can also mix styles of ornamentation, arches, materials, furniture etc - just think, what would a homesick Mitgardian do to make an unfamilar place feel more like home?

Well, if i were in your place i'd think about the various ways i could approach building an embassy in another guild. You could always use your Mitgardian style of architecture and transplant it to a different setting, or you could go completely native and have a go at building totally in a Kaliphlin style, or you could attempt some kind of hybrid style that fuses the two cultures. (which might be the most interesting option!) One thing you should definitely do is check out what mocs (if any) have already been built in the area where you are going to build your embassy. Consider the landscape too - if desert, is it going to be sandy desert or more rocky? Is the area heavily built up? Are there bodies of water nearby that you could incorporate into your build? etc. If that still doesn't give you some starting points, i'd google some architectural styles that might help get you going - try Turkish, Arabic, African, Indian, Egyptian, also perhaps some Mediterrainian cities for ports etc. As for a colour palette, don't just get stuck on tan - white is also effective, as well as dark tan, bleys, nougat, brown and gold for accents. Accents of other high colour are also appropriate, and maybe consider the pastel or sand colours (if you have any) to simulate colour fading under the hot sun. Regarding parts, if you have any of the PoP sets then they will fit right in, but it's fine if you don't. Just research what you want to build, maybe make a small layout sketch to get it clear in your mind, and go for it! I hope that helps somewhat, i look forward to seeing what you come up with!

Aw shucks, thankyou, o great guild leader! Now that i've got this little boat out of the way, i was thinking about going to the other extreme and building a warship... (After BV and my embassy build of course) I haven't yet built a large ship worthy of the name and the challenge is irresistable!

Kayne, i really like this little outrigger, with it's weather-vane like sail and sturdy looking shape. Very imaginative indeed. I'd love to see it in action, skimming across the dunes, with a bowspray and trail of churned sand in it's wake! Your forces in the last pic look great as well.

A masterpiece and a masterclass all in one! Thankyou DC for sharing your skills with us mere journeymen and women (journeyfolk?), your guide will be an invauable reference for many a MOC to come. ps. I think the mill is my favourite building, but then i'm a sucker for river scenes!

Wonderfully colourful town, SkaForHire! I love the bathhouse, the striped roofs and the stairs up to the watchtower. The sign is a hilarious touch too! Your photos are fine, plenty sharp enough to make out everything, but the whole image suffers a bit from the busy background. If you can even hang a white sheet or something behind the model when you photograph it, that would help isolate your image heaps.

Wow, you're certainly settling the pace and standards for the embassies to follow! I love the tiny stretch of landscaping out the front of the structure, it does heaps to indicate the feel of the surrounding environment. The windows on the round tower are rather beautiful as well, and i love the bustling courtyard. Well done!

Lovely little scene deGothia, the crumbling stone wall and the asymmetrical roof work really well for me. I agree that the off-square placement of the house gives it a lifelike character as well.

Ooh, i must have missed this in the pre-xmas rush... what a beauty! Love the detailed interior and the cute henhouse.

Nice little village! I especially like seeing the the various stages of progess as it grows. I'm intruiged by the modular base to your "medium-sized boats", it looks like it could be quite versatile. Are you planning to build the village in bricks at any stage, or is going to be LDD all the way?

Damn SkaForHire, i love that myth! Just a wonderful backstory. Now we just need to illustrate it in bricks! Kayne, i love your catamaran - very inventive use of parts for a sail. Looks almost as if it were from a Terry Prachett novel! I've just finished a Kaliphlian catamaran of my own - synchronicity, hey? More pics of it can be found in this topic. Cheers everyone, great to see so many new guildmembers arriving - welcome to you all!

Wow, i didn't expect so many lovely comments so quickly! Thankyou everyone, i'm glad that you like my little tempest-tost boat. Heh, yeah, it is a serious amount of blue slopes, it's true! I did a proof of concept design for a wave in the middle of last year and it turned out very well, so i went and bought a heap of second hand blue bricks with the intention of doing a scene like this. This is the first time i've cracked them all out and i have to say, i'm rather pleased with the result! Although the coverage of the bricks never go as far as you want them to... i would have thought i'd have enough for 3 baseplates coverage at least, but i was running out of certain slopes already by the time i was done here. Back to BL before i do a really big ocean scene i guess... Here is the best pic of the main hull that i have atm - the waves do hide quite a bit of it unfortunately. but it does give you an idea of the V-shaped structure of it and how the cuved bow is achieved. I'll prob be taking this apart soon for my main BV display, but i'll take some more pics of the boat on it's own before i do. Nooo, don't scrap your boat, Kaliphlin needs more boats! Also i love seeing everyone's different boat designs, especially with respect to sails and rigging etc. As NM says, many traditional outriggers have twin masts. I based mine on traditional Sri Lankan fishing vessels and they have this particular mast/sail configuration. Thanks, i think my favourite part is the net trampoline hanging between the 2 hulls - great to see it getting some love! Ahaha, all Peregrinian fishermen have Lord Sansael's express authority to spear the bugger for crimes against cinema, should he be so encountered! Thanks Khorne, i did have a similar thing in mind. We have a huge Mazu statue here in Melbourne (on the Maribyrnong river) , so i thought that i would like to build some similar sea deity shrine for Peregrinus as well - it would make sense that seafarers would carry a small carven image of thier protector before them to guide them safely home again. Thanks robuko! Fitting the boat to the waves was the hardest/most frustrating part i think. The number of times the trampoline fell apart as i removed the boat to tinker underneath it to get a better fit! I did think a bit about adding more spray btw, but it didn't seem quite right as the boat is in the trough and generally you'd get the most visible spray when cresting a wave. I agree that some ripples at the stern might have been a nice addition though. To me the Atlantis creatures are like the pixies of the ocean - seldom seen and quite often mischieveous without outright hostility. They might tangle the lines and nets of the fishermen for a laugh, but they would never allow themselves to be caught!

Yes, the deep water off the east coast of Peregrinus has the best fishing grounds, but the weather can certainly be unpredictable! Ah, the sail - well, i had a bit of a struggle with it, tbh and the battered look it has pretty much reflects that. I've heard of ppl dyeing thier sail cloth with black coffee, but i only drink tea so initially i tried that. I left it soaking for half an hour but it didn't do much, so i decided instead to coat the sail in diluted PVA glue and then paint it with a wash of acrylic paint (burnt umber, to be precise). The PVA bit went very well, i left it to dry over my fitness ball, which meant it dried in a "billowing" shape, and the stripes on the sail were from the impression on the ball as well. But the wash was less successful as the PVA coverage was a bit uneven, which led to the paint blotching on the areas with less PVA. So i spent quite a bit of time trying to rinse out the worst of the blotching and then tone it down further with a coat of white acrylic paint. (Maybe i'll just ask my housemate for some of his coffee next time i try this!) Thanks fellow guildsman!