goatman461

The first thing I notice about this entry is that over half of it is irrelevant for the episode. If the TIE were just part of the landscape or ambiance of the scene it would help your score, but unlike AG, we're not tacking on points for adding extra vehicles. Keep in mind, just like in a test at school, you should answer the question asked. It doesn't help to show the teacher how much you know about Napoleon when the question was about Charlemagne. For Ep XIV, the task was to "show a scene from their player's home planet," not build a TIE variant On the TIE, the structure of the arms looks familiar, but the shaping is good and TIEs are related so if you got some techniques from a set or another builder, that's ok. I think you're using too large of parts in the back, so you're missing out on a lot of spaces where you could add greebling or give the shape a smoother transition. As is, it drops off suddenly, so I'd give it some pipes or vents to ease that transition. The wings are very plain and the dots only suggest some kind of structuring or greebles, rather than building them. I'm not sure that rounded wings fit into my interpretation of Imperial ships, but if you're going that route, they should probably have a convex curve instead of being completely straight. You could use curved slopes and hinges to get this shape. On the building, it's hard to judge those diagonal textures in LDD, because I don't know if it's just a byproduct of the rendering or something that would come out in real bricks. It's also difficult to judge since we don't really see many solid homes on Jakku except in San Tekka's camp, but as a SW build generally I think it's a bit too simple. Pillars coming out of the walls, awnings, domed or flat roofs would help. Aside from the diagonal pattern, there's just not much character to the building that would make me associate it with Jakku, or any planet. Ruins are hard to do because you have to consider the whole structure and remove parts in a way completely different from how you would normally build it. So, first you should focus on creating elements that can be integrated into a whole building, like unique windows (not panels), sliding doorways (without handles), greebling that looks like necessary machinery or utilities, colors that would be available to the builders (along with that, highlight colors that compliment what you choose for the main palette), and ledges, awnings, and roof tops that fit the theme of the rest of the culture. If I were stuck working in LDD, I would read everything BEAVeR has ever posted on it, specifically rendering. A bad render looks instantly offensive and I think LDD builds are already starting from a deficit. Bob de Quartre is another one to pay attention to, especially his Ep. IV (?) build; it took me a while to realize that was LDD.

Are there many more pictures in that book? I missed that and am always looking for more source material on Jedha

I noticed the curtains, they look great. Maybe for the grass you could do a steep hill in green plates to give it some interesting depth, then a couple of small trees or bushes made from battle droid arms growing out of the side. The building to me looks like it would have a nice, windy view, so I picture it on top of a hill or cliffside

I think this is a very bold and interesting choice for a homestead on Takodana. We haven't really seen much feudal/medieval/castle-themed architecture in SW like this, but it makes sense. I do think you could have made it a little more SW while keeping the castle-theme in the brick and windows. Some type of greebling/technology/wiring would have been good. At least some hint of space tech. The build itself is good. I like the way you kept the vegetation low and not too over grown, yet thick and diverse. I think there's better techniques for water and we could probably go with something besides LEGO blue. I think you also missed an opportunity to do some nice tiles for panels with your dock, and maybe a small speeder at the end of it (Takodana looks like it might be difficult to travel on foot) Great job. Be sure to get into the Imperial PM so we can strategize and post WIP shots.

I've been showing this build to friends as a great representation of Lah'mu. The black sand is perfect and the color saturation really helps the feel. I like the grills on the building, but some of the roof and greebling on the machinery looks a little sloppy to me. On the greebling, I think color blocking is very important so a few small changes would go a long way. Great job.

There are elements in here that look like good representations of Coruscant, but when I'm looking at them, I have to crop out the unfinished sections of your moc, or your wall, or batman, or even rotate the entire picture so it's oriented correctly. Since we're not there with you to look at what you've built, you need to carefully consider the framing of your shots and what you want us to see. It's fine to have roofs unfinished, but don't stick your best greebling next to them. Also, building facades is fine, but don't use big open windows so we can see that there is neither a floor or finished interior wall. So really, you have to plan your shots from the very beginning and fill in the lens that we're using to view your build. You kind of did this with the shot with batman (wrong forum), as it shows a nice alley with a colorful sign, but you didn't shoot the entire height of the build, so we missed out on the other features of your buildings. I hope this helps and is not overly critical. There really are some great features, like the top section of the taller building and the red and yellow signs.

I appreciate your enthusiasm for the stories, but I'd much rather see a single shot of a really well done 4x4 square than minifigs on a wide open base. If you do want to focus on story writing, I think you should explain the action in your story rather than having us try to imagine the scene around the characters. Think about the pictures that accompany novels, they don't show everything that's going on in the story but instead set the scene to immerse the reader

I really like the depth of the hallway and structure of the building. It feels very open and representative of a culture appreciative of a nice climate and the touches of color are great. But, I think the vegetation/flora could use some work. It's just not enough to have green plates represent grass (or whatever would be underlying a flower bed), whether it's suppose to be completely flat or not. Also, just like slopes don't have to be used for every sloped wall, it's much more interesting to get away from LEGO grass/flowers being the only thing that can represent flowers, especially on an alien world. When I look at my builds I try to find places where I can fit in some NPU or new technique that can catch a lot of attention. To me, those flower beds could have been a great spot to make the build really interesting and completely blow the judges away. It also wouldn't hurt to do some background removal and color correction to make the scene pop.

I hope you don't mind if I have a lot of opinions on this build since I've been working on Jedha on and off since the first trailer came out. I really like the build. It has a great sense of old-futuristic-post-apocalypse. But there are a few things I think are a little too clean or don't represent the source material as well as they could. First, I think it's too clean. There are a lot of sharp angles here and crisp shadows that could use some clutter and decay. On the roof ledge, maybe breaking up that line with varying levels of plates would help. I think the ground should be all dirt, or at least tan. Tiles are okay, but some variation in the elevation would help a lot. Especially with that cool border, I think you could have made a very interesting uneven base that captures the feel of Jedha's mesa The greebling on the side is great and very appropriate to the city, but the grills on the front are too simple. Even extending them with a 1x6 dbg brick would help, but there should be a lot of depth and "plumbing" to them. The offset of the doorway is good, but maybe lose the bottom section so it goes all the way to the floor. That would make it look older and less modular. On the minifigs, I go by a pretty simple rule: there are no buttons in Star Wars (and I've only seen one canonical cowboy hat, that I can remember). Those pilgrims are difficult, and I haven't figured out a way to do them, but Pombe's brickbuilt Muuns are a step in the right direction. The grills are an interesting thought, I might steal that with a little more integration with the bodies. Good job. Hope this wasn't too harsh. I don't mean to be the jerk that craps over everybody's builds :) but I do want to give constructive criticisms where I think I could help. Glad to see Jedha on the map.

I think one thing to consider when you're working with a somewhat plain structure is what techniques can you use to break up the monotony. For making a sloped wall, it makes sense to use sloped bricks, but that doesn't give you much room to add occasional greebling, some damage to the wall, or different angled slopes in the wall. If I were tackling a Scarif bunker, I'd probably have a couple of ridges or pillars with sloped bricks, but the majority of it would be some kind of SNOT technique with dbg or lbg tiles. The doorway looks good. You might consider some kind of pattern or construction with plates instead of bricks to give it an interesting texture or some kind of stripe that would suggest where the door opens. The beach has a nice natural curve to it, but could probably use a second layer of plates to give the bunker more elevation. I know parts get used up really quickly doing that kind of technique, but try to consider what tan plates will not be shown and use an alternate color for the underlying plates. The grass also looks naturally bunched. As you get more vegetation, that technique will have a big impact. The tree could use a little bit of a bend to look more natural, which you can do if you don't run a bar down the middle of the rounds (or if you use flex tubing). Finally, and I hope I haven't been overly critical or too wordy, get some poster board and prop it against the wall. You can set your MOCs on the paper to hold it in place and get a nice curve along the back side. A light box is also a good investment ($20 on Amazon) and some directional lamps. Then some quick cropping and color correction in GIMP, and you've got some professional looking shots. I hope this helps. PM me if you have any questions. Great job. Welcome to SoNE

Credits to Bob

Cool details on the building. I think it would have helped out a lot to get more of the building built to help define the space we're looking at. Sometimes it's hard to imagine what the rest of it would look like, so all the great details are a little lost.

The lettering is really cool. I do get more of a strip club vibe from the building, maybe because of the intense red color, but it could be that my mind unnaturally goes there when I see your building style (I have no idea how I would get that impression) :) A more muted color scheme may have helped, but I like what you were going for with the architecture. Great job with the brick-built figs

Great job filling out the planet and working in the different color scheme. Those foliage and sunset shots are amazing!

Thanks. I think my friend's temple is really what steals the scene. I'm going to work on adding a mechanism to rotate the AT-ST's head and probably another small alley between my buildings (left of the temple) before BrickFiesta in July in Mesquite, TX. Hope y'all can come see it.

Fantastic job! I love how unique this building looks, but also how well it fits into the world. Two minor areas I'm not crazy about is the straight line of dirt/sand in front of the rotated tile plaza, and the floating foliage in front of it. But, that section of trees in the back and the amazing details on the building make this a phenomenal build

Thanks guys. I'll get some shots of the speeder when I get home. At BrickUniverse OKC this weekend the temple and buildings on the right are my friend Dwight Neal's. I got the idea for the round panels on the back of the speeder from an old gian speeder moc I found through Google. Will link when I get a chance. But It reminded me of the pope mobile, which would be perfect for uppity Jedha (or Tython) tourists

Planet?

I never thought I had a place to go for the leave time I had accrued. Regardless, the Empire quietly discouraged taking time so it was just as well that I didn't have a family to go home to. Then the sergeant asked if I was heading back to Tython for the break. Tython? Why would I go there? Turns out the Empire knew more about me than I did. Apparently my family left to colonize Tython after ditching me at the academy. The weather was suppose to be erratic, but better than it had been in centuries. Besides, it would be nothing the Zabraks weren't use to. When I got there my sister was the only one happy to see me. I wasn't allowed to stay. My mother had died. She was mostly human and couldn't take the climate. My father blamed me for forcing the family to move.

Be sure to correctly title your builds (and generally, read all of the rules so you don't get DQ'd on a technicality). All entries must be posted as a new topic in the Nar Eurbrikka subforum, the title prefixed by, "[SoNE Ep. XIV]" and the Planet depicted (For example, "[SoNE Ep. XIV] Wobani - Slumming It Home") The appropriateness, accuracy, and creativity involved in your interpretation of the identified planet will weigh heavily in the points you are rewarded. Also, the deadline is quickly approaching. Be sure to get your builds posted in time. Below is a link to the latest time zone to hit midnight. https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/usa/baker-island

Nice Bloodlines pull

Location: Traig IV - E10 Tags: Civil Building, Vehicle, Spaceship A new sun rises over the Andromeda Galaxy. A strange red and green yin-yang kind of sun with shareholders and fringe benefits. From the galaxy North where the primitive pirates marauding hordes were vanquished... To the galaxy South where dishonorable robot samurais were rounded up to answer for their crimes... Alliances between men, aliens, corporations, and kingdoms were forged and tested... and blood was spilled. But Executive John Hannibal of the Octan Corporation can only look forward to this new day. One with his family finally by his side, where his friends have always been. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Epilogue: "Hank" (Dr. Igorvich's assistant) - Dah, yes, your sources are correct. The doctor did restore Executive Hannibal into new body, but was only partial copy. Full version is still in robot head, along with pesky AI, Dora. Most important, dis version contains Hannibal's soul and dat of AI, very interesting, unique. Igorvich likes to keep the souls, more fun to torment I should think. But we travel light and need favors. You take, we square later. Igorvich will be in touch.

Credits to Bob, please

Location: Arium Major - F10 Tags: Civil Building [Kevin, Octan HR] - ...that's great, John, really great. So I've got you booked with Dr. Igorvich for tomorrow morning, Axis time, of course! Ha ha. The facility is in one of our designated legacy buildings in history Arium Major. Red building, can't miss it. Super quaint and cozy, you're going to love it. This is really going to be great for you John, I'm so jealous. Your company insurance plan is picking up all of the expenses, naturally, right. Ha. Apparently the good doctor already has the perfect body ready for you. And you'll be ten years younger! What a deal! Really, sooo jealous... [Hannibal] - Are you sure we're not jumping into this a little too quickly? I haven't heard back from Lu yet and... [Kevin] - John. Do you know how valuable you are to this company? Would I risk the well being of one of our own executives? Here's the thing... Now, this is me taking off my beat up ole HR hat and putting on the dusty PR hat... We really can't have any more face swapping incidents like last week. I'm told poor Mr. Nole is still having nightmares and those blessed children on their way to the life sciences museum... That is not the face of Octan we'd like to project throughout the galaxy. But, John. We're going to make things right for you. Dr. Igorvich is renowned in the field of neurosynthesis. It's going to be a quick procedure. In and out, and then guess what... I just booked you for an exclusive bit of R&R on Traig IV! And, I can't say what it is, but there is a really special surprise waiting for you there... Oh, geeze, I've said too much already... Gosh dern, just... You go get yourself fixed up and great things are coming your way, John. You'll see. HR, Out!

I got a Watto and Wicket that way a while back and have used them in SoNE. It's probably a "modified"/"non-purist" way, but I don't see a problem with it as long as you don't use those holes in their head to some kind of advantage. I see the ban on customs as a way to level the playing field and make sure that everybody has the same "deck of cards" available; and people could go pick up a keychain as easily as buying the true minifig.