NiceMarmot

Thanks for the report. I thought about going with my 5 yro son, but am glad I didn't if it was a total zoo. Maybe next year I'll go as a full participant and attend the sessions on Saturday and maybe Friday. Then you can see all the stuff probably without the masses of people on Sunday. BTW, those guys (BayLUG or whatever they're called) usually display several other times during the year, like at MakerFaire in San Mateo in May and in Palo Alto at Christmas.

I like it a lot, but the head of the bed looks a bit too thick to me. The foot of the bed looks great. I also like the headlights with the 1x1 round plates on them; nice look.

Really awesome, Gabe! I think you've really nailed the Kaliphlin look here! It's pretty much all fantastic, but the best parts for me are the amazing mosaic and that great arch over the doorway! The arch is the perfect shape, and the colors really make it stand out, and I think the white round bricks do a great job outlining it. And I've really got to get off my butt and try a mosaic sometime. I also really like the rows of gold 1x1 round plates set into the walls; a really nice detail touch there. Did you try leaving the 1x6 plates off the ends the roofs to see what that looks like? Just leaving the ends of the round bricks exposed? Was wondering if that might look more realistic. Any chance we'll see what the rest of the house looks like sometime?

Gabe, that looks fantastic! I'll have to post in the thread... Thanks! I didn't expect that Eurobricks would give me my first experience in songwriting, but widening horizons is what this is all about I guess... Yes, I am having trouble with the ideas for this one too. Glad to know that I'm not the only one suffering from a block on this challenge... Exactly!

Thanks! I'm very happy with it too; I think it's easier to put something compelling together on a smaller scale like this. As for the "moon and star", I'm surprised you didn't recognize the smaller of the two moons on our world , but maybe it's so foggy up in Avalonia that you all don't see night sky much? Thanks for the compliments! This is my first forced perspective, and somehow I think it turned out really well. I'm planning on making about four or five other vignettes for this story. However, I'm a bit worried that they won't rise to this one's level It's 16 wide at the front and the night sky is 20 wide at the back (basically it's 16 wide all the way back to the night sky. It's 30 studs total front to back - 8 for the foreground, 20 for the microscale, and 2 for the night sky. I originally built the sky as 16 wide also, and then realized it needed to be wider. There's a picture on Flickr that just shows the microscale build. The photography worked out OK, even though it was just a point-and-shoot. As for how it ends... well it's a myth, not a fairy tale...

SkaForHire - Good luck finding a new place. What a pain. Hope that you still actively post here even if you're not building. I finally stole the camera back from my wife and took a picture of the first vignette of my myth. OK, so I'm a week late and don't even have it all done. But we'll just count it as a free build for Kaliphlin then. Here's the thread for the Myth of Tiafra and Garnafuxo Myth of Tiafra & Garnafuxo: Garnafuxo woos Tiafra This is my first forced-perspective build, as well as my first microscale. I think it went fairly well. Those are the towers of the city of Messahmuk, then the moonlit Muktifra Bay, and mountains in the far distance. I purposefully kept the foreground architecture simple so as not to distract from the background view and the story. BTW, I took the liberty of deciding that our world has two moons; makes it so much more interesting. More to come as soon as I get a chance...

Well, I'm way too late for the Kaliphlin myth challenge, and I've only got one of the vignettes built, but here it is. This is an old myth in the south central Kaliphlin. It explains where the Muk River comes from, as well as why the ground is so good for red wine grapes, and why there are so many lightning storms in the mountains. The Myth of Tiafra and Garnafuxo Long, long ago, when the southern Siccus was dry, empty, and flat, there lived a very beautiful princess named Tiafra. Not only was she beautiful, she was gracious, innocent, and sweet. It was said that she was as beautiful as the dawn, as sweet as honey, and as innocent as newly fallen snow. However, she was also sensitive, and somewhat emotional and impulsive. She had been raised to control her emotions, and not succumb to her impulses. Her beauty and pleasant nature did not go unnoticed; she had many suitors, and as was her way, charmingly kept them all at arm's length. However, such beauty and charm is not just attractive to earthly creatures; she was soon noticed by Garnafuxo, god of lightning and trickery. Hargzild, spirit of the earth, also desired her, but he is too shy to pursue her. Garnafuxo however, who is quite hideous to human eyes but can be charming if he applies himself, is quite lustful, and decided that he must have the beautiful Princess Tiafra. And once he decides on something, he never gives up on it. Garnafuxo, knowing that he is hideous to humans, changed his appearance to that of a handsome prince, and appeared to Tiafra. Introducing himself to her, he used all his charms and wiles to try to seduce her. She graciously and charmingly resisted him. At first, Garnafuxo was encouraged by her charming responses to him. He feted her with wondrous banquets and took her on moonlight cruises on the bay. However, he soon realized that he was making no progress with her. He pulled out all the stops, and took her to the shrine of Al-Garbez, on top of Mt Bundar, where the view of the city, bay, and mountains is said to be one of the most beautiful in Siccus. In this setting, he poured on the charm, giving her gifts, flattering her, flattering her friends and family, using magical tricks to impress her, all to no avail. Her refusal was steadfast. Garnafuxo unsuccessfully woos Tiafra at the shrine of Al-Garbez Myth of Tiafra & Garnafuxo: Garnafuxo woos Tiafra Garnafuxo was enraged. He had never been refused like this before. His resolve hardened; he would have her no matter what it took. And clearly, what it would take was his specialty: trickery. In his lair, he changed back into his natural appearance and then went back to the world. He seized the Princess Tiafra (who did not recognize him), took her to a desolate area, and imprisoned her on a rock floating above a river of molten lava! He then conjured a vortex of flame of to envelop her and entrap her. Trapped by a hideous monster, surrounded by flame, with the heat rising every minute, the princess was fearful for her life. All seemed lost! Was there any hope? Would anyone help her? Garnafuxo traps Tiafra in a vortex of flame over lava Myth of Tiafra and Garnafuxo, scene 2 More to come...

Well, I'm no good at music at all (and probably no good at lyrics either), so I'm going to steal a well-known tune and write new lyrics for it. So here's an old sea chantey from the south Siccus coast. Fearsome Fightin' Sue was a legendary pirate of the Southern Ocean, known for her fearlessness, bravery, violent temper, and general malevolence, as well as her lusty exploits in beds all over the south coast, Gorr, and the Spice Islands. Most songs about her are way too ribald to publish here, but here's one of the more tame ones. The Ballad of Fearsome Sue and the Whale (To the tune of the Gilligan's Island theme song) Just sit right back And ye'll hear a tale, A tale of a fateful trip, That started from this tropic port, Aboard this tiny ship. Her name was Fearsome Fightin Sue, A pirate none too bright. She set sail with her motley crew To steal, plunder, and fight. Steal, plunder, and fight. Her ship was nam'd the Savage Shrew; She leaked from ev'ry plank. The sail'rs were elves without a clue Named Billie, Guff, and Frank. Billie, Guff, and Frank. Two days out there weren't no breeze, The ship was wrapp'd in fog, "Row!" said Sue, "and we'll ply the seas. Onward you scurvy dog! Onward scurvy dog!" Guff saw a black shape; he want'd t'evade But Sue gave him a whack. She curs'd, "Don't be so afraid! Now you fools let's attack! You fools let's attack!" Frank lept up and prepared to board. Guff said, "That be a whale!" But his sage advice was ignored Crazy Frank's wits did fail! Poor Frank's wits did fail! Frank jumped right into the whale's mouth And ended up in its gut No unluckier soul in the south Than Frank the crazy nut! Frank the crazy nut! With the beast's tail the ship was swept, The Savage Shrew was doomed. On rugged rocks the ship was wrecked, Sue and crew were marooned! Sue and crew marooned! The ship set ground on the shore Of this uncharted desert isle With Fightin Sue, Billie 'n Guff too. But poor ol' Frank, Mentally ill, Is captur'd still By a whale, which ends the Tale Of Fearsome Fightin Sue Wow, getting the meter right was a lot harder than I'd imagined. This songwriting stuff isn't so easy... I might have to make an MOC about this one... Add it to my list of builds.

Tiles do look a bit clean and shiny, and perhaps not worn and rough enough for an everyday medieval look, although they'd be fine for a banquet hall in a decent sized castle. Remember that labor was very cheap back then, so having a crew of people to maintain the formal, public rooms of a castle would not have been extraordinary. And larger castles certainly would have had tile floors in fancier rooms instead of wooden planks (I think). In my embassy, I did some alternating reddish-brown and dark tan tiled floors and I think they looked pretty good, and not too shiny. Or you could try the SNOT log brick look that Sirens-of-Titan recently used in his Elven Shrine story. I thought that looked really nice, and a bit rougher than tiles. Another technique that would probably look good is using a lot 1-wide brown tiles set on their edge (and therefore not actually fastened to anything, just resting on their long narrow edge within an overall frame). That would probably look like plank flooring instead of tiles. At three tiles to a brick, each edge of a tile would be somewhere around 4 inches or 10 cm wide, which is about right for some floorboards. (I hope my description of this technique makes sense...)

Really nice job on this one. The great landscaping is instantly recognizable as yours, and the buildings are very nice too (especially the window treatments). But as others have said, it's the fun party and all the little details that put this one over the top. All our best to the happy couple. Where are they honeymooning? The beaches of the Spice Islands in Kaliphlin are especially nice this time of year.

Robuko, thanks for the building technique ideas; I'll incorporate them into the list. Yes, it would get cluttered. I like your Kaliphlin Architecture Academy idea. I'm not big on titles, which was one of my concerns about the badge idea. But some sort of levels or degrees from an 'academy' might work well. I'll have to think about it some more...

Not too late at all. I'd recommend you read the first post on each guild, and then maybe the last few pages of each guild thread to get a feel for the guild and its members, and then pick a guild. Once you've chosen, post in that guild's thread, announcing yourself and your character's name. If you can add a back-story for your character and a picture, that's even better.

Since the 3rd challenge was announced, I've been keeping a list of general techniques that I've seen in MOCs, to perhaps try to expand my repertoire for the challenge. I thought I'd share what I've got so far in case anyone else is interested, and also to see if anyone has some ideas about what could be added to the list. I realized that there are a lot of techniques that I've never tried, or haven't been terribly successful at, and I ought to make note of them. Techniques, in no particular order SNOT in general angled / off alignment builds (rotated, not aligned with base) round walls and towers the half-timbered look 1x1 round plate walls / "the Derfel Cadarn look" mosaics 'stained glass' brick-built creatures forced perspective landscaping (sand/dirt terrain, greenery, trees (in various styles), rocks & cliffs) water (flowing, still, waterfalls, waves) different roof styles (slopes, plates, tiles, 1x1 round bricks, ...) fancy architectural detailing furniture different door and window techniques SNOT tile stonework modular builds different scales (microscale, macroscale) NPU, innovative use of pieces Other, non-building, techniques photography (creative lighting, depth-of-field techniques) photo-editing (backgrounds, borders, text) LDD story-writing scene composition Some of these I feel like I've already done fairly well, but a lot of them I haven't. And GoH is just the place to encourage me to use some of these. It would be cool if we had something like 'badges' for these. You'd get a 'badge' for a technique when the guild decided that you'd really nailed in an MOC. Then you could put the badge icon in your sig or something. Add creating badge icons to my list of things to do someday... Any additions to these lists?

Yes, in general, they do. Duplos are 2x the size of LEGO, so a 2x4 Duplo is a 4x8 LEGO. Not all of them fit together, for instance Duplo bricks will fit on LEGO plates, but not vice versa. Great MOC btw. I can see that I'm going to have to go buy some large brown radar dishes now...

Great job! Nice waterscaping and sand, and a really good horse. A really good story too, with excellent riddles. I got the first one, but not the next two. An excellent myth/legend! Any chance of seeing an MOC of you in the cave?

No problem at all. I think we all know your style now -- you disappear for a day or two, and then you do a big post with lots of comments to catch up. It works fine. No need to apologize. That job thing does tend to get in the way. I wouldn't be able to post nearly as much if I wasn't working from home most days now. Well, don't feel that you need to respond to absolutely every post, especially all my inane ones... The state of the guild is merely a reflection of its great leader! (And its members too) Jeez, you sure do squeeze tightly for a little guy! You're absolutely right; it would be a bit thin at this point. I wrote my story and got the first vignette built, but no more, and my wife has been hogging the camera. I'll finish it eventually and post it. But we probably do need a few more stories. I'm sure people will build other ones outside of the challenge. Robuko/Rasputin Jones is probably good for a few more; good stories seem to be his specialty. Great idea. I've really fallen behind on the maps. I'll try to devote some time this week to updating the detailed maps and posting them to Flickr and the wiki, and linking to MOCs from them. It's not that hard. Then after that, I'll work on a print-ready version of the main map.

Yes, I've noticed that we are fairly chatty in this thread, in a good way. I know I can count on you all for some insightful and amusing commentary almost every day. Maybe it's the guild personality. Kaliphlin and Mitgardia both have just over 45,000 views in their threads at this point. But we have 200 more posts, or almost 30% more, than Mitgardia. We must be fairly sociable, whilst they are the stoic, taciturn Scandinavian types.

Nicely said. We all go through ups and downs in participation, mostly because of other demands on our time. While we'd (probably) all like to see tons of comments on our MOCs (it bumps them, and validates our effort), I'm not going to be upset if you don't comment. (I might be upset if no one comments at all...) Likewise, if I didn't post on your thread, it's probably because I was busy with work, I thought your MOC was good (but not unbelievably innovative), and I couldn't see anything I'd do differently. And actually, it's pretty annoying when someone goes through 30 threads and posts a comment on each one stating 'Great MOC! I really like your work!' and bumps them all up as unread for no real reason at all.

I might have a PQ battlepack or two stashed away somewhere if you want to distribute more prizes...

Seriously! BTW, S-o-T, you should publish this as a book. You've got most of the text already, and the illustrations too. Or you will once you're done.

Awesome! Great wyrm and really nice landscaping. And I know how tedious making those sand dunes is.

Abū Alī, that's a great myth! I really like the story, and the MOCs really fit well with it. I had stuck Erezhi on the map originally because it seemed like a cool idea to have a 'Lone Mountain' in the middle of the desert. Thanks for supplying a back-story for it! Good to see you posting here again. Keep up the good work!

Wow cool ideas and WIP pics, folks. Jeez, I haven't even begun to think about challenge 3 yet. Still recovering from challenge 2 I suppose. BTW, my embassy was hit the other night by two 'earthquakes', registering 5.0 on the Kid Age scale (which is equivalent to > 9.0 on the Richter scale). They caused significant but structurally minor damage to the upper floors, but unfortunately, the cellar was completely destroyed, razed to the bedrock, and its pieces scattered over a large area. The two 'earthquakes' were severely reprimanded and made to clean up. Alone, earthquake number one would never do something like that, but put him together with his friends and all common sense goes out the window. (My wife reminds me that someone else was very similar when he was a kid...) Rebuilding on the cellar has started. Ugh. I don't know if I'll be able to complete the myth mini-challenge on time. I've got the story totally nailed, and builds roughly planned, but haven't started building at all yet. Job and kids to blame as usual, plus the weather in NorCal has been so great these past few weeks, we've been outside a lot. Can't really complain about that. I'll get it built sometime and post it, but not likely by tomorrow night. Maybe I can build one of the planned vignettes and post it tomorrow so at least the story gets started. I was thinking about taking all the myth pics and stories, and putting together a "Myths of Kaliphlin" photo book using a service like Blurb or Shutterfly. I was going to add some decorative elements to the pages, and borders around the pictures, plus a table of contents, and credit each of your characters. Would anyone else be interested in getting such a book? Usually they seem to end up in the USD $20-35 range. And let me know if any of you don't want your myth included.

Been looking forward to the next installment. I haven't read through it yet, but these pictures look great. I really like the third picture, with the SNOT log brick floor and the stained glass behind the turntable bases. The first pic is really nice too, with the landscaping and the curved roofs really standing out.

Khorne / Mittenlander -- fabulous campaign post! You really nailed it. Had me laughing the whole way through. Although you better hope the gazetteers don't find out about that time you vacationed in Avalonia and put your pet chimera in a crate on top of the covered wagon's roof for the entire journey...