mccoyed

The lava and black rockwork are awesome. I especially love that final picture. The trouble I see is just in how the very geometric castle walls clash with/draw attention to the rock work in a way that seems a bit jarring. I'd say just a bit more variety in the landscape would work wonders.

Thanks ME. I'm glad so many people are commenting on the head as it was by far the biggest pain to figure out. I made something like 5 versions and they were all WAY too big. The key here was how I did the beak, once that made sense everything else fell into place but our "chobo" bird is still an order of magnitude larger than I'd like. Chocobos are usally around the size of a camel and this is more like a dinosaur or something. Which is, I guess, appropriate. :P

Hi guys. I'm still just getting started as MOCer and one place where I'd say my skills are pretty weak is in spaceship/vehicle design. So far, I've looked at the work of many prominent MOCers on Flickr to get better at medieval builds for GoH and I've definitely seen a lot of space stuff out there, but I've never made a concentrated effort to practice that type of stuff myself. Can you guys point me to any tutorials, people to check out on flickr or brickshelf, etc? I'm looking for minifig scale stuff because I am planning for the Faction contest and am having... creative difficulties. I do like official Lego sets with spaceships, for inspiration and whatnot, and have built a few including the recent GotG Milano and the Avengers' Quinjet. I don't own and haven't built any of the big SW stuff. I'm hoping to learn more from other MOCers anyway but if people have some sets/instructions I should study that would be good too. This is The Tortuga only space MOC, I've made. It's a rough, junky build but I am proud of it in some ways as it was my first big MOC since getting back into Lego. You'll notice some non-Lego parts in there... my bad! I did not realize at the time and have gotten rid of all competing brands from my collection. Only TLG pure and some 3rd party non-competetive custom stuff now! Thanks all!

Very cool. As a recent recruit in GoH, I understand what you mean by the information load. I spent a lot of time looking at all the MOCs and back-reading the old threads from Book 1 before I ever joined. There's a lot to learn and you'll have questions as you go, but the group is very friendly and will answer anything. My gateway in was a progressive build project called Age of Mitgardia which encourages you to start with a basic build and then carry it through. Of course, I soon bit off more than I could chew with a ship project and then cross-built for another Guild's community challenge. Haha. Right now there's a relatively small challenge going called Mount Up!. The big story stuff is in a holding pattern while the next chunk is prepared. It's a great time to start up with GoH.

Great work. Love the little pig pen. Would love to see a breakdown of how you constructed that tent!

Heh, thanks! I only wish I had more of that mustard yellow! It does balance, but if you look close you can see that in this picture I've attached it's left foot to the base for convenience while I was moving the build around to take pictures and show my household. :P If you go to my my flickr (signature!), you can see pics of it without the base! Those mixel ball joints are super sturdy. They will revolutionize several styles of builds when they're fully adopted. I can't wait to see what they do to Mobile Frame Zero, where my AFOL bug started.

Very cool.

Thanks everyone! I snotted the land as an experiment to see if it looked enough like beach that would sorta disappear with a low tide. The lighter blue bits (I don't have very many or I'd have used them more) are to simulate depth so it looks more naturally like a low-tide environment where the water can easily lap over the sand anytime.

Thanks everybody! If you want to see more of how it was constructed, I can do more photos to show that. I haven't dismantled the chobo yet. I am thinking of doing a couple of freebuilds with it to show other ways it is used.

Ah. No, just the rider with a Brick Warrior helmet! So here's the Elusive Chobo!

Pictured: The Elusive Chobo With Rider, near a Wintergreen Tree circa Spring Thaw Being a flightless bird of prodigious size prized for its great speed and endurance as a riding animal. Known for its distinctive "wark" vocalization, its fondness for certain greens, and its tendency to shed its trademark yellow plumage in favor of coloring complementary to its surroundings. Habitat and Ecology The chobo favors the weather-locked valleys of south-east Mitgardia where the mountains protect slivers of green, rich land from the worst of the harsh climate. The chobo is an amazingly hardy beast, however, and is able to survive the harshest climates though breeding seems to become more difficult outside of the chobo's natural valley habitat. Some have speculated that this is due to the lack of a special root vegetable that seems to be heavily consumed by chobo during their breeding season. The primary diet of Mitgardian chobo is the leaves of the Wintergreen Tree. These trees are plentiful, reaching heights amenable to the reach of the chobo's long neck. Traditional Historican Usage The chobo lacks the agrarian temperament. Ranchers and farmers find them difficult to use as beasts of burden. The chobo is too hyper, furtive, and skittish about weight. However, they make superior racing mounts and are also used extensively by light cavalry, mounted scouts, and couriers. Chobo meat is considered a delicacy by some, though its eggs are inedible to most humanoids. The chobos feathers are prized writing quills, but often too large to be turned to this purpose. Their feathers are occasionally considered lucky or prized by southerners for their decorative qualities. Legends and some scholarly documentation exist to suggest that the chobo was once far more widespread in Historica. However, due to over-hunting or the delicacy of their breeding, the chobo has become rare and vulnerable. Some conservation-minded Mitgardians have attempted to promote the chobo to secure territory in warmer, more hospitable areas so that they can be bred. Some interest has been generated for the chobo's potential as a warfare mount, particularly some early evidence that they can be bred and trained for heavy, fast-moving cavalry of a caliber beyond the horse-mounted units favored throughout Historica. In Kaliphlin, chobo are highly prized for racing but do not seem able to breed in most of the region due to its arid, dry climate. Plumage Variations Chobo tend to be a bright yellow but one of their most legendary attributes is their tendency to breed offspring with different plumage when bred in a region of Historica outside their native north. In Nocturnus, red and black chobo have been seen. In Avalonia, green and blue. In Mitgardia, there have long been legends of white chobo adapted to the snow but a specimen has never been confirmed by the natural philosophers of the University of Petraeus.

A new free build from me. Just some fun I had experimenting with water and sand.

On A Tropical Island / McCoyed / Mitgardia

Poor Rolfi the Mitgardian sailor is trapped on a deserted island and boy is he hungry!

Sorry to double-post but I noticed a bit in the challenge description about "no aftermarket" parts. Does this mean BrickForge, BrickWarrior, etc? The reason I ask is because I have completed and photographed my build but I've used some BrickWarrior gear so I need to know if this is allowed, as is usually the case in GoH, or if I should swap the gear and photograph again before submitting. Thanks!

You live in the States and you didn't hear of a new Tom Cruise movie? That's honestly surprising.

Thanks Hammerhand! Yeah, the next battle I do may be more massive. The trouble is always having enough minifigs/gear to make it feel right. I struggled a bit with Caradoc's army on this one, actually. I have all the helmets in the world but not enough proper soldier torsos/armor pieces. Did what I could. I think one way to solve that would be to round out an army with peasant conscripts or the like. Here I used Mitgardian mercenaries and I think it was a good choice. I could always use Nocturnian races I have a lot of (LOTR/Hobbit orcs and goblins, fantasy era trolls, etc).

It sure is. Boy, did not realize when I posted that this thread would be so quiet. Nice builds though, bricktography.

Right now seems like a good time for something like this. GoH is kind of between major stuff so it's quiet hereabouts. Tough to even get much response even for a big MOC like my last one. Well, big for me anyway.

Good news. I'm not sure if I'll submit what I've built. Want to try a few other things first but thankfully there's plenty of time.

Are we allowed to submit entries that have been clearly inspired by outside fiction?

Great buid and story. Love the reversal with Anzar and Korrak having to fight together. I laughed and clapped inwardly at the crocodile dinner. Hilarious and appropriate.

Thanks Vlad and Scaevola! I struggled with the number of figs. I had A LOT more in reserve because initially, this build was going to be much bigger. What I decided was that I wanted to execute the idea of a turbulent melee of the kind you see in more authentic historical fiction and such. This was the closest I dared attempt at doing a conventional Shield Wall and counter-charge for the time being. I know the trade-off is losing coherence with all the limbs and weapons and crap going on, but I think the trade-off is a good one. My next battle scene will be smaller and more intimate, I think, so I can see what that's like! I think if others also remark about coherence or the scene being too busy, I'll take it as a lesson to put more emphasis on evoking the idea than trying to translate it.

So cool. Great presentation too. So far these builds for Mount Up have felt like the definition of how these builds should be done. Does that make sense? I guess I'm saying that this is going exactly like I imagined it would!

Thanks again! Actually, only the "viking" looking people are culturally Mitgardian really. Caradoc's insurgent force of former Hand of Corruption traitors is made up of warriors from all around Historica, especially the West (Avalonia and Mitgardia).