Elostirion

The two things I like most about this great contribution: The presentation of the crew. Wonderful minifigs and posing. And the use of plants and flowers. Especially the pink once next to the entrance are just beautiful. Very well done!

You deserve many more comments for this stunning MOC. Impressive temple ruins. Amazing vegetation cover all over the MOC. Great palmtrees, a nice expedition crew, and an absolutely terrific orchid (perfect colour choice for the MOC). The best part, though, for me is the overall atmosphere of the MOC, which is just outstanding. Such a great entry, I absolutely love it!

So many great details in this MOC, and I love how you depicted two seperate expeditions to discover the same place. I really love the overall style you introduced here and am really happy I got the chance to base my own MOCs on this very style. I agree that the ruins blend in nicely into the varying vegetation. Really nice. The orchid itself is splendid, I love it! And that panther on the rocks is a wonderful small addition that just underlines your love of details.

How dare you?! That poor little cat! I love those brushes you built and how the tiger emerges. The transition from the third to the fourth pic is fantastic. Nice story alongside.

What a neat little MOC, and those brickbuilt birds are superb!

WOW! Really nice work!

Just wow! This one has turned out absolutely fantastic. An interesting take on Jameston style: A true mansion, yet at the same time you can clearly see the stylistic and architecural elements of the town. And you even built a full interior! And what an interior that is! Magnificent, impressive, outstanding! And every single detail is perfect. The staircase, just perfectly done. Wonderful small library, great castle-like ambience from the dining hall, wonderfully clean kitchen with perfect choice of colours, and this singing hall is just lovely. So much to love here. That gatehouse is really cool as well, as are the pictures. Just wonderful. Really looking forward to the rest of your MOCs. :-)

Pretty damn clever, and your orchid is just wonderful! Really, really clever! Well done, well done!

Only found that gem now - what an amazing raft, just wow! FANTASTIC!

Another true beauty from you. Most certainly some of the best LDD vegetation I have ever seen. Great to see a reference to the cults of Cascadia included. :-) And lovely work to pick up the ruins-style. Just looking fantastic!

Such a clever approach to the challenge, and what a nice brickbuilt orchid. Perfect!

It's only a temporary residence, right? Those poor neigbours, though... Thank you for the kind words. :-) Thank you so much! :-) Thanks! I made quite some attempts at achieving the windows this way, actually. The plates are exactly just one stud behind. For the square windows I took the ones with some golden decoration on the glass, which might affect the visual density? But nothing fancy actually, just behind. (Though I mixed 1x2 and 1x1+1x1 each level. Feel free to copy everything as usual. The lamp designs are losely based on at least similar design I have seen here before. Thanks for the praises. Expedition will continue (already has, by now, actually). Trans clear for the win! But now that I think of it I should have added one layer of trans orange or two layers of trans black behind it to make it look really "complete". And thanks a lot for your nice comment. Thank you! Feel free to read on the two next chapters, which I posted last night. Yeah, Fontonajo's never die after all (well, actually some might, at some point, just for story purposes). And thank you so much for all the kind words! :-) Thank you, really appreciate it. :-)

I really like your approach of building a default Lego scene and then zooming in to brickbuilt plants and animals (which are really well done) - great work here! (Applies to all your MOCs for this challenge). Beautiful.

Great presentation of your company, especially the posing of Mr Higgs and the boys is outstanding. :-)

Neat small inn. Is that door brickbuilt? It looks wonderful! I really like how you have captured the style of Jameston.

Clever idea, and great presentation, actually. Especially the first picture really conveys the feeling of a heavily dense jungle in a huge MOC (which I asumme it is not, but that does not matter). Really, really cool!

Such an amazingly cool dragon. Absolutely bananas. I love it. The scene with its general ambience, and especially the houses and market booth are really well built. The paving of the street looks fantastic (never thought of using 2x2 round plates instead of tiles, but in this setting those are perfect). What impresses me most is how you have improved your presentation skills. Fantastic work here! Keep it up! :-)

I always found it very hard to MOC letters in LEGO - and you did an amazing job with yours. Great display of the parade as well, and man... that house is wonderful! Nice work.

I just realised I had never commented on the trial: Fantastic work! A great story acommpanied by well built and well presented MOCs. Very nice contribution, thank you!

I just realized that nations do not win anything in this challenge - was this intended? I'd prefer nations to be able to win something, and if it only be some titles?

Thank you! The first attempts at the golden orchid were absolutely horrible by the way, I started all over again at least four times before I (and my two advisors) were happy with the result. Also I just swapped the two pictures in my post, maybe that's better.

Category B: Category C:

After studying goats and frogs, the group had reached the further inward parts, which - while still verdant and mostly in jungle - were less humid than the westward facing mountainsides. "So what exactly are we looking for again, noble lads?", the doctor grubmled when they sat around a small campfire that Luca had just lit. "The hidden secrets of this island...", Luca do Figino replied. "And so how exactly does that help anyone, if we find secrets here in the wilderness?", the doctor insisted. "You as a doctor ask me, like... you really ask me what the purpose of doing research... exploring secrets... you must be kidding?!", stuttered a confused Luca. To which the doctor just frowned. Most conversations had been like that. The doctor, sceptical, critical and ill-mooded, while Luca acted like they alone were to save the world with their journey. Lady Ludovica remained rather silent, obviously struggling to keep up with the others on their voyage. And Barlo did all the dirty work while hating it, because he kept insisting that's his role in the company of the rich and noble. It was about time Juan changed some things about this. "My friends. We have journeyd far, further than anyone we know before us. We have seen much in those past weeks. We have come closer. And yet still I have a secret to share. I have not only come here to explore the flora and fauna of this island. Well, the flora, yes, but I can be more specific. I am certain you have all seen more orchids on this island than we are all used to seeing. Well then, I have heard rumours that the most beautiful orchid of the world is to be found on Celestia! And that is mostly why I am here: To find it! The most beautiful orchid, that ever was, or ever had been! So what do you think? Are you with me on that one?!" Juan Alfonso Fontonajo thought he had done a great job of motivating his group, but not in the slightest. Soon after a massive dispute erupted among them, to which The Doctor and Lady Ludovica were the only two to remain at their camp at the foot of some ruins which they had discovered. Stupid Fontonajo. All this expedition for what? An orchid? A flower? Hundreds and thousands of flowers were grown in the greenhouses each and every day. And this young fool ventured all the way up the mountains through the dangerous jungles of an unknown island... just to find one single flower? The Doctor had not thought that Fontonajo was this stupid... To forget some of his anger, he soon took his chance to explore the ruins more closely, and was quite astonished by the fact that he soon found footsteps. Most certainly of leather boots. Humans, civilized humans - most likely Halosians - had been here. The Doctor was no scout, but he guessed the footprints were no older than two days. Now where were his companions to share those thoughts? Interested to find who left those footsteps? Maybe @Bregir will be able to tell you more about it? Luca do Fignio had walked away. Stupid Fontonajo! He had come to Celestia to find the orchid, and take it away! And then what? Plant it in Nova Terreli so that it would perish there, in bad conditions? What a moron! The world was full of bad people, and he had once again joined one of them. And The Doctor, always in the worst mood. And Lady Ludovica never even said a word, and let it all just happen. And here now he walked, on that narrow path through those ruins, and... WOW! His mind stopped for a second, when he saw the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life. In a valley, in the highlands of Celestia, surrounded by the ruins of an ancient civilization, grew hundreds and thousands of orchids, in all the colours he could possibly imagine. That was... noone would ever be able to steal this beauty from Celestia. And right so. And he stood there in pure amazement, just staring at all those flowers which in their beauty would even cheer up The Doctor. And he was so caught by the beauty of what he saw, that he did not even notice the big yellow cat striding by further down the vale. Barlod had joined him when Juan had left the company in anger. Why would those fools keep arguing? Had the height made them dumb already? Was there not enough conflict in the world already? His life had become so much easier after he and his father had decided to withdraw from politics, and from their ambitions at the same time. He even had time to travel the world now. And he didn't even intend to take the orchid from Celestia. "Not even if it was made of pure gold", he thought, when Barlo touched his arm. And right there it stood, and Juan was most certain he had found it - the most beautiful orchid in the world - though he did not believe his own eyes. In a lowered department of the ruins of an ancient temple complex, in a masoned pit, here in the highlands of Celestia, there stood the statue of an orchid, certainly more than 6 metres in height, gleaming golden in the sun. Juan Alfonso Fontonajo had found it. Right here in the jungles of Celestia. "This is... beautiful! I will get us a shovel, mylord!", Barlo said. "We should better take a quill and write a letter to Queen Annetta, telling her about the orchid, and congratulate her to her choice of Celestia...", Juan replied. "And write to the Royal Society so they can protect it from the potential greed of Corrish statesmen?", Barlo said, with some uncertainty still n his voice as to whether he was allowed to say such things. Juan Alfonso Fontonajo just smiled at him and nodded. Finally Barlo started finding his confidence. The confidence, that in a new and free world everyone was allowed to voice their opinion, regardless of both origin and wealth. If it took weeks of travel through the jungle and a golden orchid in the ruins of an ancient civilization deep within the mountains to start changing the world - then it was all worth it. Some more pictures:

Starting from their house in Jameston, Juan Alfonso Fontonajo and his expedition had travelled into the inlands of Celestia. Their journey through the verdant and often humid jungles, up the mountains, had come with a lot of struggle. Fortunately, their company had been saved from harm of any sort, except some minor scratches from vines, or some bites from mosquitos. The trees had become smaller and smaller, and the jungles less dense and less wet, the higher they had come. That was somewhat relieving, and also gave great sight onto the lands around them and all the secrets they might be able to unveil. Yesterday they had followed some strange sounds, only to find that those were coming from two goats, running up and down the steepest rocks as if they were the most even grassland. Luca do Fignio raise from his daydreams and kept writing his report to the Royal Society of Natural Philosophy. "... must be the most astounding animals I have met in my entire life. I would tend to call them mountain goats but am afraid that simple name will not do their skills justice. A slope full of lose rocks may descent almost vertically, yet still those small runners will be able to just run it down, without ever doubting or without ever stumbling in the slightest. I do not see how a tiger, a jaguar or any other of the wild cats that are rumoured to wander the jungles of both Cascadia and Celestia - and rumoured I say because I will yet have to see one myself - might ever be able to catch pray on one of the mountain goats." "The small yellow frogs still leave me confused. I assume the first one I have seen must have been at a height of what I approximate to be roughly 2000 ft. above both Jameston and the sea level, not calculating the impacts circularity of Terra, which, for a rough estimation as mine, would not account for much anyway. The frequency in which we saw those frogs increased with increasing height, however we have never seen more than one in the same spot. Some of my companions have joked that it is the same frog following our ascent, but I highly doubt this. Neither does this frog make loud noises, nor did it show any other signs of special skills or treats, that would differentiate it from normal frogs. On my journey back I intend to catch one to continue my studies in further depths - whether those frogs carry poison, or excrete any fluids, and most specially why we have only seen them over a specific height - because I do not yet see any reason for this to be, except the fact that it is what we have witnessed. For now - with no further observations - I will continue and call this unknown species the Yellow Highland Frog, until I come up with a better name for its unique abilities, which I am most determined to unveil." And while Luca do Fignio kept writing his essays, Juan Alfonso Fontonajo was already planning the next steps of their voyage in his head.

UFF! Ehrm... yes. Just wow. Absolutely magnificent. Wonderful. Brilliant. Stunning. Outstanding. Nailed the challenge, the setting, most impressive execution and presentation. Awesome work.