NiceMarmot

Don't forget the Master Doorkeeper! (Or was a different courtyard? I'll have to dig out that book...)

Cara, I was at the Santa Clara store today (Sunday) and I don't think they had any light bley or dark bley 1x2s. However they did have 1x1 dark bleys bricks. And there were white 2x2x2 slopes and white 1x8 tiles, both of which would be very useful for Mitgardian landscapes. They also had dark bley (and reddish brown) 1x2 log bricks. Picked up a few white 1x4 arches too. And of course they had the usual useless bright orange and yellow junk. I have seen both of them there on that wall in the past year however, so keep checking.

I'd say open to anyone. If DG or DC or LG or Eccles wants to add to our university, I'm not going to say no. Heck, we'll even name the building after them. That said, I'd say that we encourage people outside the guild not to participate unless they're going to do a real quality job. And it's got to be somewhat Kaliphlin style. Plus we want 33% of the free build points they get for doing it! (Is that asking too much? We are letting them use our land...) In related news, I just bought two PoC Captain's Cabins on sale at Walmart today. Those map, globe, compass, and bottle pieces are perfect for a university room! Only problem is, I bought them as presents for my son, so I can't open them right away... Maybe I'll just have to think up a reason to give one of them to him this week. "Congratulations, kid! You flushed the toilet! Here, have a present to celebrate. How about this nice LEGO set? No you can't build it now, I've got to borrow it for a bit..."

Great scene! I can definitely see DC's influence here. And a really nice round tower. I don't think I knew of that technique before. I'm going to have to BrickLink those wedges. Although I'm not sure you want that studly young dude in the last photo walking around with no shirt on. At least not until you all are safely married. One minor C&C - you might want to lower the water level by a few plates or so. Right now it looks like it's going to flood. Usually rivers are in a bit more of depressed channel.

Sounds like my house (except we went east and to Canada). Yesterday I counted and I had 105 unread topics in this forum alone. Not to mention an unreal amount of LEGO sorting to do, thanks to kids school party here over the weekend. (Can't believe I have to share my toys with them ) Too bad you didn't hit the LEGO store at Downtown Disney, although their PAB wall is quite small if I recall. BTW, I just posted to the EB PAB Cup thread what PAB pieces I remembered from a weekend visit to the Santa Clara store. I think you live somewhere close by.

Oh, wow. That's looking really great, BB. Can't wait to see more photos. Really liking the castle's color scheme. And it looks like it has your usual superb landscaping! You should get a Master Gardener or Royal Landscaper title or something!

From the Santa Clara store on Friday: dark red 1x2s white 1x2x1 panels (4865) tan 1x4 plates tan 1x2 plates tan 1x2 45-degree slopes white 6x8 plates trans-clear 1x1 plates yellow 2x2 tiles LBG 1x1 tile with clip on top (2555) LBG Plates, Modified 1 x 2 with Clip Horizontal on End LBG 4x4 plates blue 1x4 plates white small picket fences (33303) white 2x2 slopes with computer screens reddish brown Windows 1 x 2 x 2 2/3 with Rounded Top They also had a bunch of stuff I didn't need, including: 2x4s in reddish brown, lime, and tan I think, as well as 2x2s in medium blue, lime, and orange, and the bigger white fence pieces, and 2x8 (or 2x6?) tan plates, and the panes for the windows (in pearl gold), and 1x1 round plates in trans-red and trans-yellow. And a bunch of other stuff, including the ever-present steering wheels on stands. If someone ever figures out a good use for several hundred steering wheels, please let me know .

7065 Alien Mothership off of Amazon, at 33% off. Was going to wait until it was 50% off, but I really need some of those 1x4 trans-light-blue tiles. The other day at the LEGO store I bought a PAB cup, a few CMF7s, and a damaged box Friends 3061 City Park Cafe for 20% off.

Ugh. I have 105 unread topics in this forum. That will take forever to get through! Makes it hard to vote when you haven't seen the MOCs . Might have to blow off work for a day, and just plow through them.

Whew! Finally back from an almost-European-length vacation, and can finally participate in GoH again. Unfortunately, I've missed the challenge deadline. I'm really bummed about that because I really wanted to enter all the major challenges (and I had some good ideas for this one). Maybe I'll build it anyway. But given the choice of entering the challenge or taking a three week vacation, I'll take the vacation (I know, where are my priorities?). Now I've just got to unpack, and then catch up on probably a hundred threads or so, and look at all our great challenge entries. Plus clean up my huge LEGO mess downstairs. And then start building again! Welcome to Sebeus and Abdas! (And any other new Kaliphlins I missed) Looking forward to getting to know you all and seeing some great builds from you. -Gex

Hello fellow guildmembers! I'm still on vacation, enjoying some R&R up in the lake country of the northern Rakath Mtns, but found a way to check in briefly here. I won't have time to read all the individual threads in the forum, but at least had a chance to catch up on the guild thread. Looks like there are some interesting new challenge entries brewing up. Can't wait to see them all when I get back in the second week of August. DaMaximus, thanks for updating the map; I'll make the additions to the master when I get back, so the colors and fonts match up, and repost. We're way overdue for an update to the maps anyway. And just a note to any potential new members out there -- there are plenty of great spots for your characters to inhabit (or for existing members to build in), such as Ras-al-Akhen, QueensCross, and various unnamed cities (in the Loop of the Qar-Akhen river, along the south coast east of Barqa, and where the Cedrica-Qarkyr road crosses the Lick of Salt). See the detailed maps on the wiki. And a hearty welcome to our new members! I look forward to meeting you all later, and will read up on your back-stories. -- Gex

Yoshi, welcome to the Southlands! We will do everything we can to make your time with us hospitable! If desire, you may find a suitable spot to settle down; there is plenty of room in the Siccus. Take a look at our maps, btw. We tend to be a little more tolerant of the Drow than some of the other guilds. We have some good trading relationships with certain Drow factions, and you'll see them occasionally in Kaliphlin cities conducting trade missions. So don't freak out if you see a Drow in downtown Petraea market or something. However, I think we are opposed to any Drow attempts to take power over all of Historica, and will defend the High King. Kayne - I think your idea sounds great. Go for it. BrickMaestro - I think we are supposed to create our own elementals, but it's probably OK if it looks a lot like the ones in the prelude -- that was my plan anyway. I may not get to enter Challenge 4 though. Work is busy, and as the weather is great, most of my free time is outdoors with the kids. Haven't touched LEGO in about three weeks (I know, heresy!). Plus we've got vacation coming up in late July and early August. I will try to whip something together, but it will either be lame, or I won't get it done at all. BTW, I don't think you have to create a huge MOC to make this challenge look good. Especially with the microscale requirement, as those tend to look good small. Take a look at my first Myth MOC; it's the smallest MOC I've posted (I think), but I think it's by far the best. /Gex

Really nice job! I like it a lot, and the forest and brewery look great. BTW, some of your pictures look incredibly clear and focused. You must be using a good camera and great lighting. Great job on the photography. Sorry to hear about the brewery though. I will send a shipload of my winery's Siccus Opus Select 2145 vintage to Avalonia forthwith. Red wine's better for you anyway.

Congrats on the LEGO haul for Father's Day! No LEGO for me, but a nice big (meat) smoker. My daughter has recently discovered smoked salmon, so I suspect she influenced my wife's choices. That's OK; I have no qualms about buying LEGO for myself. I am a bit disappointed in the sales in the past few months however; not many good buying opportunities... Challenge IV sounds like an interesting one; nothing like a bit of violence and destruction to liven things up a bit. I thought about just half destroying my embassy build and a few other MOCs and taking a picture of that, but I suppose I'll be a bit more creative. Perhaps I will still use the embassy as a free-build elemental destruction scene. As for the photography requirement, I think it's a good idea, as long as we don't set the bar too high. I use a four year old point and shoot with no special equipment other than a $4 piece of foamcore as a background (although I do use GIMP to retouch). I think the point is to push people to make at least a minimal effort to take a good photo: use a few lamps or go outside to get some decent lighting, use a sheet or foamcore for a background, get at least some of the photo in focus (learn to use that Macro function perhaps), etc. I don't think we expect everyone to have a fancy DSLR with multiple flashes and a special lighting booth and so on. But some of the pictures in the past have been pretty bad, and really showed a lack of effort and care more than lack of equipment. The bar is not that high -- with a sheet for a backdrop and decent lighting outside, even my old iPhone 3 will take a decent picture. Although the no-pets-in-the-background rule ruins my brilliant idea of having Fluffy the Giant Elemental Rabbit wreak havoc on downtown Albion!

ZC -- I can just hear your captain of the guard, yelling: "OK, who's the wise guy that stole half our bridge! O'Reilly! What did you do with the bridge?" Have fun at BrickWorld you all. We expect lot of pictures!

Yer signed up! Glad to have ya aboard! Welcome to the Kaliphlin Guild. Have a seat, grab an ale, and tell us a bit about yourself. Name, back-story, maybe a picture or two...

The build looks nice, with good details and scenes. And the story is good too. But as other have mentioned, better pictures sure would help. Looks like the lighting is good; you're outside for at least most of them. I find that taking pictures in the sun is not so good -- usually too bright with deep shadows and reflected bright spots. But taking pictures in the light shade on a sunny day is the best! As for a camera, I use a Canon Powershot SD980-IS, and it seems to work OK. It's about three years old, maybe four. I think any of the Canon Powershot or Digital Elphs would be fine, and I'm sure the Nikons are too. Probably any Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Sony, or Panasonic point and shoot in the $100-$300 range is fine. (Or buy last year's model for cheaper or used even) Just make sure you use the macro function when trying to focus close up -- that could be the problem with some of these shots.

That is totally me. I spend tons of hours on the first few things, and then rush the end in a big way. Like my challenge 3 entry - totally rushed the walls of the cavern at the end. BTW, SoT, great MOCs and wonderful story. Keep up the great work. You should totally make a book out of it and self-publish. I'm sure you could get help from all of us in GoH if there are tasks you don't feel comfortable with.

This is a great little ship, and really looks like a caravel! The sails and rigging are custom I suppose. Did you dye the sails? They look great. I've got to get around to building a ship someday. Finally bought a few hull pieces off of BrickLink.

Here's a slightly edited version of what I told DG about editing out backgrounds. These are instructions for using GIMP specifically, but the same concepts probably work for PhotoShop.

Ah, yes, the crushing sand-hug of death! A terrible way to go... He washed away, but then reconstituted himself down below in the caverns somewhere once the water drained away. Too late to prevent recovery of the crystal of course. But now, with no crystal to guard, he's freed to leave the caverns and roam the Siccus Badlands! And he's looking for that crystal, and whoever now controls it. And he's mad! So watch out Victor Revolword! I hear ya. I've got a bunch of half-built things too, and some ideas for more. I think I need to learn how to focus. Especially since the good weather is cutting into my LEGO time.

Hope you don't mind, but I did a quick photo-editing on one of your images, as it just called out to me to put the movie background into it: minas.tirith.ShaydDeGrai.microbuild by nice.marmot, on Flickr It's not quite perfect, as the two images (yours, and the movie one) are taken from slightly different distances from the city, so the perspective is not quite right, but it's close. Hope you like it, and feel free to use it. Great MOC, btw! Would love to build this one myself! EDIT: now with highlighting on the top of the city to try to match the movie shot's lighting.

Completely fabulous builds and great story, SoT! But... I gotta say... my sand golem from challenge 3 can totally kick that water and sand elemental's butt! Look at that puny thing! I'm going to go tell the Sandster to take care of these elemental wusses and this Wictor dude right now... Challenge Four - over before it began!

You have learned much and progressed far, my former padawan! Love the background and border on that second pic! Did you create the background or find it as a picture somewhere? Keep up the great work!

No problem at all. Some good MOCs have been done already with Bionicle monsters. Lord Flagg, sorry to hear about Kathryn's fate. Is there any hope that we can capture her and convert her back to her human self? In any case, this Revolword fellow will suffer a horrible punishment. We will drag him by his toenails through the Dune Sea. We will hold his feet and hands to the lava flows of Mt Erezhi. The desert vultures will eat his organs. The sand-worms will gnaw his bones. etc. You get the idea.