Gabe

Mitgardia5rs_140616 by Gabriel Thomson, on Flickr] Runa Hoskuldottir spoke the words of leaving with care and reverence, asking the gods and the ancestors to bless the journey they were about to embark upon. The man by her side stood silent, but he made the offerings at the right time, as she had instructed him, the coins of passage falling into the sacred bowl in a pattern that promised fair winds. The ritual over, she turned to look at him, smiling. “Well Erland, we shall have no trouble until we reach the mainland at least. A good start.” Erland lifted his careworn face to meet her eyes. “Perhaps I am the trouble on the road. I know your father doesn’t approve of our betrothal, and how can I blame him? He knows next to nothing of me, and I cannot remember enough to quell his fears. Perhaps Sigurd was right and they should have left me to be claimed by the waves, at least that way your family would not be deprived of you in this hour!” Runa snorted impatience. It was one of the things he loved about her, how little patience she had for his doubt and self-pity. “Don’t talk nonsense, betrothed. Do you think I could remain deceived about your true nature after months of nursing you back to health? You are a good man, I know it, and when we find your family, you will know it again too. As for Sigurd and Bjarke, they are superstitious fools to think that you are ill-omened just because they lost their best fishhook the day they found you floating in the wreckage of that ship. The gods are not responsible for their carelessness!” Erland smiled. “Well, perhaps it shall be as you say. But we certainly won’t have fair winds to the mainland unless we move soon, no matter what the gods say. Is Olaf ready to go?” Runa reached down to stroke the stocky grey cat at her feet. “Come then Olaf! I have packed a snack for you on the boat.” He miowed in response and trotted down the steps toward the jetty, with the couple following close behind him. To be continued… So i hope this will become a bit of a multi-build storyline... it started mainly cause i realised just how little of Historica i'd built in, and i wanted a reason to roam about a bit. I'd never built in Mitgardia before now either, so i just had to kick things off there. But i do want to build more in Peregrinus as well (which has been woefully neglected by me), so the story might become slow going! Mitgardia1.3rb_150616 by Gabriel Thomson, on Flickr] Mitgardia1.2r_150616 by Gabriel Thomson, on Flickr] Mitgardia1.7rs_150616 by Gabriel Thomson, on Flickr] Mitgardia1.6_150616 by Gabriel Thomson, on Flickr] Mitgardia7rs_140616 by Gabriel Thomson, on Flickr] Mitgardia6rs_140616 by Gabriel Thomson, on Flickr] Mitgardia10rs_140616 by Gabriel Thomson, on Flickr] Hope you have enjoyed my first foray into building north of the border... thanks for looking. C&c welcome as always!

Sweet, ok that's one post down then! Thanks again guys. Haha it's been so long, i had to refresh my memory about how to post images on Eurobricks... Anyway, here is the link to the topic: Abovetheclouds - Merchant's lift 1 by Gabriel Thomson, on Flickr] Now to get onto posting the Mitgardia moc...

So this is an old moc... a really old moc! I started building it originally for the Sultan's Gate community build in mid-2014, but then got sidetracked onto other things and ended up missing the comp deadline altogether. Eventually i returned to it and finished it in Jan 2015. I always meant to post it in GoH once i had finished, but a demanding work schedule meant that this plan ended slipping through the cracks - whoops. Finally this year i find myself with more time and got around to making a new build to return to the guilds with (more on that later), and realised to my embarassment that this one never got posted! So this clearing the decks to some extent. So anyway, this is the description i wrote up for my version of Sultan's Gate's merchant's entrance: Often trade entrances into cities in Historica are modest affairs... not so however in Sultan's Gate! The cities strategic location has seen flourishing trade down the centuries, which has made some merchants very rich indeed. This allowed the powerful merchant's guild to commission the lift many years before, completed in the grand style to advertise the wealth and power of the city. Goods that are perishable or particularly valuable are often sent by lift to avoid the treacherous climb up the escarpment. The lift is very safe with only a few losses, mainly from overbearing merchants ordering it's use on high wind days. (A local legend has it that a giant roc once bit through the lift chain and made off with the entire box, but this has never been substantiated.) A ride in the lift to the ground and back again is a rite of passage for many of the young thrillseekers in the city, who often try to stow away or bribe the guards for the experience. Above the clouds - the great merchant's lift of Sultan's Gate by Gabriel Thomson, on Flickr] Abovetheclouds - Merchant's lift 4 by Gabriel Thomson, on Flickr] One of the things i was keen to try out with this build was a style of angled rockwork that was pioneered by Torgar. It was perfect for creating narrow sloping ledges on the cliff face. The long cloud base was an afterthought as i had committed to exhibiting this at Brickvention (a Lego show in Melbourne, Australia), and had to soak up some more table space. I think the asymmetric composition really helped it in the end and it was great to be able to crack out one of my great eagles in a moc for the first time! Abovetheclouds - Merchant's lift 1 by Gabriel Thomson, on Flickr] Abovetheclouds - Merchant's lift 2 by Gabriel Thomson, on Flickr] Abovetheclouds - Merchant's lift 3 by Gabriel Thomson, on Flickr] I was really inspired by images of the Manitou cliff dwellings while i was building, so i wanted to have different levels cut into the cliff, where people would be living etc. I incorporated lights into the interiors where i could as well. Abovetheclouds - Merchant's lift 6 by Gabriel Thomson, on Flickr] Abovetheclouds - Merchant's lift 5 by Gabriel Thomson, on Flickr Abovetheclouds - Merchant's lift 8 (back with lights) by Gabriel Thomson, on Flickr] Abovetheclouds - Midnight Tower by Gabriel Thomson, on Flickr] The lift itself is actually remote controlled using PF, which was a first for me. It took a little trial and error to get it to run straight, but was a lot of fun to build and operate,especially at Brickvention. I would stand away from the table and activate it wherever kids came up to touch the lift - seeing them trying to figure out how it was moving was quite amusing! IMG_0496 by Gabriel Thomson, on Flickr] Anyway, thanks for checking out my (very late) build... c&c very welcome!

Thanks so much guys for the warm welcome back! Btw, i've been racking my brains trying to remember if i ever posted my Sultan's Gate build here... i have the niggling feeling i just posted it on Flickr and then forgot about posting in the guilds, whoops. So question: would you guys consider it too late to post here now as a free-build? It's over a year ago since i built it...

Hey all; Been meaning to get back into GoH for a while, sorry it's taken so long to get around to it! I've got a new free-build to post, i'm just fixing up the photos now and am planning to post over the weekend. Anyway i just wanted to poke my head in the forums again, it's been too long. Hope you have all been going well, it's good to see GoH still thriving! Gotta dash cause i'm going out to dinner with the in-folks... ttyl guildies.

Ah, that's brilliant, just what i was looking for! Thanks so much! I'll remember that about the part numbers the next time i go searching for something too. Sorry about my newbie errors in this part of the forums, as i say, i'm just starting to get my feet wet with MLcad.

Hi, i'm not sure if this is the right place to ask as it's about the LDraw library, not LDD, but here goes. I've recently started teaching myself to use MLcad as i want to learn how to publish instructions for models, but i'm having problems finding some of the newer elements. In particular i cannot seem to find the Mixel joints 6043656, 6043639 and 6039482 (Lego ID#). The related element 6039479 is there under plates (1x2 plate with ball joint-8), but just not the others. I've updated the library and tried searching for the part numbers using the "find" function, but it doesn't look like they exist in the library yet?? Can anyone confirm this, or if i have somehow missed them, please point me in the right direction? Many thanks! :)

Intense! Great build and story Ska, I always enjoy your battle scenes. Looks like the Desert King forces "did a Bradbury" (An in house reference for all the aussies out there!) to win this one, but will they have the forces to defend the town themselves?

Yep, that's the idea Maxim!

Eh, it seems to me that gods are just men that have got above themseves a bit. Crumbs, if every deathless being in Historica called themselves a god, we'd be knee deep in them!

:laugh: You can talk, siding with that tinpot desert despot!

Yeah that's true... it does look rather unbalanced at this point, and i am one of the latecomers too. Fair enough, count me on the Ulandis team then! I shall probably make a new character for the campaign, as Lord Sansael is not thrilled by the Ulandians' high handed ways in the waters around Peregrinus, or of thier plans to forbid trade with Nocturnus.

May i sign up for the High Council please, or Ulandis if that is too full. :)

Oh hey everyone, sorry i've been away so long! Work has been pretty punishing to my schedule and it's been hard to find time to myself when i haven't been exhausted. Great to see the Kaliphlin challenge up and running - the wargames look really exciting! I better sign up i guess. I might become a bit sporadic if work gets hectic again, but i'll try to stay active if i can. Oh and welcome to Kaliphlin Adair! Berigoria welcomes you. ps. Oh hey, just noticed that i have a new title now! Sweet!

Gosh, that's one fancy looking barn! Very inventive roof design - how on earth did you manage to get so many of the Elrond chair backs? The repeating pattern looks great. I'm less convinced by the bar thatching - the hump in the middle of that section of the roof makes it look rather messy. (There has to be a better way to attach the bars and droid arms to avoid that i'm thinking?) But overall the level of inventiveness and experimentation in the build is impressive.

Sweet statue vitreolum, it has a ton of character! Love the hero pose. Great parts usage too for the beard texture, so unexpected but the regularity of the pattern works really well. At this scale and level of detailing this certainly qualifies for advanced SNOT - UoP +1 for both catagories.

Beautiful David, i love the studs-out tree. The roof is a unique shape as well. Best of luck with your assessment and hope you have fun at the Auckland Brick show - great work getting this beauty done in time.

Welcome to Kaliphlin Cookiesdad! A mage school sounds sweet, and the Wither woods is a rather underbuilt area still so it's good to see ppl take it on. Look forward to seeing what you come up with! Big is not always better.. small can be awesome dude. Have a look at some microscale by builders like Siercon and Coral or lisqr if you don't believe me. Size in a moc is of much less importance than composition and level of detail. You can pack a heap into a footprint as small as 8x8 studs - just treat it as a challenge! Oh and Gideon i hear ya about wishing you had more hours in the day to build - i find myself wishing i didn't need to sleep sometimes, just think of all the building i could get done...

Sad to see you leave Simon, happy trails and best of luck with your years service. Hopefully we will see you bringing the awesome mocs here again someday.

Nice shape to the seating, but i also like the way the minifigs inhabit the scene. Nice one and congrats on your first build in Kali! This Ruadh looks like quite a lively place. This may be the first amphitheatre in Historica, although i did build a similar structure in the UoP grand lecture theatre. I can agree with you that making a semi-circle with tiered seating is certainly a challenge!

So beautiful Cesbrick - so much detail and some wonderful organic shaping going on. I really love your use of colour - the lighter blues really pop against the dark blue roof and shutters. Great work!

Which one is the new fence piece, i can't see it in the images? Ahaha i think i can guess... That slip would have been title-worthy for sure! Yeah, totes, the new foliage colours are great. And then there is the carrot leaf in brown, the gothic half aches in tan, dark red and brown, the gold minifig wings, the scissors, the trans-purple bricks and loads of purple and med azure generally, plus the new hair peices. I'm also wondering if the flower stalk in the tree in "Fairan and the crystal hollow" is a new part - looks like it attaches more than three flowers?

Hey all; sorry i've been away for the last little while, work has just been kicking my butt energy-wise. Great to see so many amazing mocs coming out of the guild, although it's a bit intimidating to know where to jump in and start commenting again! Gideon, the pic of your table at Skaerbaek looks very cool - great to see all your builds together. I'm getting excited about challenge III - i've just realised Mitagardia is the one guild i haven't built in yet, looks like that is going to change soon! On a side note, what do ppl think about the "Elves" theme for next year? I had a sqiz on Brickset and was pleasantly surprised. Some interesting parts and colours in there i thought.

Woah, such great builds to kick off the challenge - way to go Ecc and Kabel! That castle is just breathtaking in it's scale. Since i was on the side of peace and humanitarian aid in the last challenge, i figure i should be on the side of chaos and carnage in this one... put me down for the dwarf side please!

Aw thanks, Glad you like it! Thanks Emma! Haha omg, now i can't unsee the santa hat either, cheers for that! I know what you mean about the front claws, i tried a few different things but i seem to recall that everything else i tried mucked up the scale of the beast somewhat. Thanks mccoyed! Yeah i had a few ideas for this challenge as well. A mounted stingray was one of the ideas i regretfully set to one side to work on this. Cheers SK! Yeah the division between the white and the brown on the griffin's head is a little abrupt, i'll grant you. (i'm still seeing that santa hat.. damn! ) Ok, with two requests for a separate pic of the griffin by itself, i'll try to get something up today.