mccoyed

Haha well, by now you guys know I featured him in my Archery Phase 3. :P

Great build. I'm so jealous of your photography/editing skills. So much white but the colors remain crisp and even. I can't begin to imagine how to pull that off. Everything else is great too and I have to echo Narbilu's comment about all those figs and still the build doesn't feel messy.

Welcome. Also, my Archery Phase 3 for all who haven't yet seen it.

After a few months training with Asbjorn, Alva Tyrnsdottir felt ready to take on the world. The jarl thought it better if she took on her peers, first. The world could wait. It was customary to hold an axe-throwing tournament at least once a year. The tourney is only open to the young, usually boys who have not yet earned their arm-ring. The rules are simple: each thrower gets three axes and thus three throws. Two throwers at a time, each getting a single throw alternating throw until all axes have flown. Alva is the only female participant in more than a generation. Though proud of their old traditions, many of Arnarvhall's folk understand that tradition is a sword that cuts two ways. Thus, Asbjorn feels no regret knowing that his tutelage may have given Alva an edge. After all, the looks and whispers she's had to endure would have put her at a disadvantage. Now things feel a bit more even. Arnarvhall's axe-throwing tourneys are something of an event in Mitgardia. Every so often, famous faces from throughout the Guild will make an appearance and cheer on the Arnarvhall youths, inheritors of one of a skill that is now widely considered a relic of the old ways. See if you can spot the celebrities! Hint: most but not all are up on the high dias, watching the action alongside Jarl Asbjorn and his wife Frelaug. These lads are not overly interested in famous folk. All their attention is on a young, eligible woman. It is customary for marriageable daughters to be trotted out during public events like this tourney. Sometimes the attentions of a particularly bonnie daughter can be enough to throw an otherwise canny axe-thrower off his game. Standing behind the lass, dressed in the traditional white of married Arnarvhall women, is her disapproving mother. Though he would never admit it, Tyrn cannot help but smile in pride as his daughter throws. It is his responsibility to judge the contest from the ground, sounding his horn to mark the change of throws, and the change of throwers. This doesn't mean he can't have a favorite contestant. Behind him, one of Arnarvhall's smiths keeps the throwing axes sharpened, putting aside axe blades too warped to be used for the day. Alva's opponent cannot maintain his composure having missed two of his throws to Alva's one strike. He can't help anticipating the taunts once everyone sees that he is to be beaten by a girl. The daughter of the housecarl Tyrn, a great warrior, but a girl all the same. Alva refrains from grinning. She maintains the composure that Asbjorn taught her was an essential skill of any warrior. Later, when her father trains her in close-quarters combat, she will forget the lesson. For now, she remembers it very well as her second axe flies for its target. Thanks for looking! C&C completely welcome as always. Hopefully no one feels left out that I couldn't include their sigfig. Would love to have included more but pieces and space and you know how it is. :P Here's Phase 1 and Phase 2.

Wyndor's gonna be popular this week...

Awesome build. Love the brickbuilt troll and what an inventive idea for a tavern, by the way. Not sure I love Black Widow's body in Historica but from a distance I suppose it just looks like she's wearing black leather.

Thanks Gary. I hope someday that Jackdaw Quinn can rob your character blind!

Hehe. Yeah, that's what I was going for. I played with some other designs but they didn't look right.

Amazing. Haven't seen many castle builders use a studs-out 1x2 for masonry like you have here. It works so dang well I'd expect to see it a lot more in the future. I'm definitely going to try it myself.

Yeah. You aren't situated very well to be a MOCer either logistically or based on temperament. I'm the opposite in temperament: I never keep a Lego build together for very long, especially purchased sets. I don't think displaying something that is essentially mass produced is all that special but that's me. I never had a collector's mindset exactly, and only feel the need to collect stuff I can use or offers some sort of direct feedback. Takes all kinds, though, so don't feel bad about your way of looking at it. Maybe you'll change your mind someday and try some MOCing.

Haha "Kackdaw"! You could be right about the cheese rug. I am definitely going to try it again sometime soon and see if I can find a better height. That said, I don't mind a subtle difference just because of the rug effect itself. I actually do like the texture of this build's floor as is but I'd like to do something similar on a larger scale because I suspect it'd look better. Thanks for the advice though. I definitely like to "talk shop" whenever I post a build! There's so much to learn and try.

I may still try it if you don't mind me improvising some!

This is really nice. Can I brickbuild this for you? I may, just may have the pieces needed. EDIT: Oh crap. Except that gold dome. Don't think I have anything like that :(

Haha I love this!

Thank you. Thanks SK. Glad you had a chance to take a look. I'm stoked about this character haha. Not enough thieves in LoR or GoH, if you ask me. Thanks Be.

I started a similar thread. The moderator there went off on his own to make... something. I wanted to do a Guilds of Historica style thing more than Heroica, but I don't think there's much demand or enough people to do it together. I don't think just one person should be responsible for the lore and stuff, so I'd like to get more people together (at least enough for a few faction leaders to plan stuff at the outset). Like with Lands of Roawia, I think such a thing could be set on another message board w/ a strong presence on Flickr. Dunno if there's enough interest, though. I'm not sure I understand. Why not use Bricklink? More importantly, what do you mean two sets together? Surely if you keep your pieces organized, you can always rebuild them with the correct pieces?

Is that necessary? It's not a bad idea, but I'm already 3 in and I've seen other "series" in separate threads on the Scifi forum. Like Missing Brick's Aliens builds.

Note to moderators: Please note that these Dark Tower builds are part of a science fiction/fantasy adaptation series I'm doing based on novels by Stephen King. In spite of their "Wild West" iconography, they are not "Historic" themed builds. Please do not move this to the Historic forum and, if you see this, please consider moving my first thread in the series back to Scifi where it belongs. Thank you.

GoH is pretty loose about those kinds of restrictions. Heck, I'm the only non-Nocturnian to participate in Warlords of Nocturnus just because so many people assumed it was a closed community build. Ha, I say!

TWENTY YEARS!? Man, we'll be building Lego out of smart matter using telepathic nodes attached to our foreheads by then. Lego will be an amorphous intelligent gelatin that can transmogriphy into any shape we need so you'd just buy bags of goo. Set your sights in the nearer future bro.

Agreed. I don't part for builds. I probably could have improved a build or added more ideas if I had looked at my entire collection for inspiration, but I usually run with a visual in my head and then hunt down pieces that I think will be appropriate. I make Bricklink orders more to patch my collection with stuff I don't have enough of, basic plates and bricks of certain colors, and to get accessories and minifig parts that are either: a) cheap b) needed for an idea I have c) something I don't have but like I respect the heck out of people who LDD and then build gigantic layouts that take months or years and require incremental BL orders to sustain. I respect it but I don't think I could ever personally do it. Who knows though.

What a great use of what I premuse is Metalbeard's metal beard?

Thanks but I can't take too much credit as I closely followed the Classic Castle tutorial.

The cheese mosaic is meant to be raised a little for a rug/carpet effect. Does it not look good? :( The raven comes from the CMF Series 12 (I think?) Scarecrow. It pops off the hat! Thanks Gun. Thanks, it's my first cheese slope mosaic, actually!

Gorgeous build. The proportions are wonderful.