mccoyed

Agreed about the speeder's size against the base, but all the elements are really well done here. Love the design of Z-5 as well.

Great elements here. A lot to look at it. For me, the winner is those redesigned TIE fighters. Great idea and color scheme.

Nice. Some great perspective shots and having a BF2 reference helps this feel rooted in SW goodness.

Oh man, I'm glad to see you here Pombe. Great first build. Love the "red light" panels. That's inspired. Also plenty of great greebling on the lower part. And very cool figs. This one has it all. My favorite detail is the junk you put in those trans-lt. blue bricks. Gives that sewer effect but is one of those thankless tiny details that is hard to pick out, yet very rewarding if you notice it.

Great build, iffy base, but it's "wolves"! That camel is super impressive.

Wait. Maybe one of us can be Ramirez and the other can be McLeod. No need to fight!

This is very cool and another nice addition to the stuff you've been doing. Bringing a whole city or town to life with all these builds that show off different buildings and institutions is a great idea and it's awesome to see you throwing yourself into this, since it'll set the pace for Varlyrio builders who come after.

This is a good looking build, especially because the angles imply movement and action quite nicely. I wish Kabel was still here to tell me if I am right to think of this as a "sloop" or if it's a "skiff" or what. :P

I actually tend to really like straightforward architecture like this, including the masonry bricks. Uniformity and blocky, squarish aesthetics fit both Lego and real-world fortifications pretty well and it's really easy to go from "highly textured, nicely detailed" to making peoples' eyes bleed. I think this is well done and the interiors are just a bonus.

I think the issue I see when I look at the color palette is the same one that a lot of fairly detailed, high quality builds have: they include a lot of green, but no other colors. With this many shades of brown, a balance of colorful foliage seems like it would be nice. The build itself is top notch. Maybe you're too hard on yourself. :P

Another Ithorian enters the stage... THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!

This was a big problem in AG but we can wait and see if it is an issue here.

Nice presentations in these pics. I also think Krue has tons of personality and the epistolary storytelling style is a great idea. Keep it up!

Thanks. I can't take credit as someone else started the trend on Andromeda's Gates back in the day. It was so widely adopted that I'm not sure who originated it. I use it all the time now, even on GoH.

Good story and nice collection of figs. Also like to see big, expansive builds like this.

Same. Might be done within the week, but it's a big 'un so might not.

Great entry to challenge B. Lots of stellar storytelling and a focus on details in the build. My favorite detail is the wooden gates.

Very cool presentation. Don't think I've seen anything quite like it on GoH.

Hey, you explained your views fairly well. Don't be hard on yourself. If you like Tolkien, I strongly recommend The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany and The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay. Both have a similar approach to fantasy, namely a romanticism in both language and approach to ideas and events. Elfland in particular reads in a peculiar way, almost like a supernatural dream.

Could be an interesting ethical question to consider in a story/build: when, if ever, is it okay to trade the lives of some people for the lives of others? An interesting side-note is something I don't see discussed often, but a version of that question is essentially the thematic focus of Avengers: Infinity War.

Nah, that's all good stuff. Especially the linguistic use of "ves" as being credited to Tolkien since I wasn't sure about that (but did remember he fought his publishers over something to do with dwarves). Your comment about "deeper faerie" reminds me of pre-Tolkien stuff like The King of Elfland's Daughter (love that book). I will say that Elves in Middle Earth are supernatural beings roughly similar to the similarly "not gods" denizens of Alfheim (Ljosalfar) in Norse mythology. The word "aelf" probably has its origins in Old Norse "alfar" or "alfur". This is where Tolkien gets his "elves", so it's a common misunderstanding that he was the originator of the idea of elves as relatively human-like (in terms of stature) super-beings. Having said that, we don't know much about the Norse concepts of elves and there is disagreement, for instance, about whether "dark elves" are actually a thing. Googling it will give you all kinds of bad results cribbed from pop culture, further complicating the issue. Tolkien wasn't big on taking credit for stuff he used (particular Beowulf, from which he borrowed rather liberally), but his fanbase occasionally has a tendency to do it for him. That's probably more a product of people overvaluing originality, though.

The classification or taxonomy of fairytale and mythological beings is fairly difficult and popular culture makes it even worse. It's especially hard in societies that are a hodgepodge of different root myths, of which the British Isles are a grand example. Elves are sorta god-like beings of "divine light" in Norse Mythology so it's fair to say they are a pretty straight lift. Dwarves are more difficult since different translations and storytellers came up with different versions and origins. Sometimes "Svartalfheim" is considered the realm of dwarves, or dark elves, or neither. That's just an example. Dwarves as craftspeople is definitely from Norse myth, though what exactly "dwarves" are supposed to be is subject to debate. Tolkien basically used them as a stand-in for Scotsmen much the same way that Hobbits are a stand-in for pastoral English country folk which Tolkien somewhat idealized. Orcs, I think, were Tolkien's for the most part. They are also a mixture of different mythological monsters and creatures, though, and the word "orcs" comes from "orcneas" in Beowulf. At the end of the day, this stuff is messy and Tolkien was an expert, merging the Norse constructions with other fairytale creatures and beings from Welsh, Irish, and other Celtic lore as well. I think "elves" as explicitly diminutive is commonly considered a construction that came later, like Santa Claus as we know him now, to sell cookies and coca cola. But that depends on whether you think the term "elf" applies to this or that creature from this or that mythic tradition. Or what even comprises a mythic tradition when so few "original" sources exist. Or what you think the etymology of "elf" even is.

That wasn't a criticism, Rogue. I meant that anyone familiar with drow from their source material would recognize the shorthand and not feel that they are a strong counter-example to the norm of not having intrinsically evil races in GoH. Wholesale in that case means that they are basically unchanged, so it's safe to presume that their "evil" is cultural. I even think I recall someone making a "good" drow character but maybe I just see little baby Drizzts everywhere I look. But to be fair, Tolkien lifted elves and dwarves (not exactly wholesale) from Norse mythology. They've since grown well beyond his conception of them and personally, I like the diversity of "takes" on these fantasy races that are represented in GoH.

These things come up from time to time. Hopefully they can be settled in a friendly private debate. :P