NiceMarmot

Thanks for opening up the voting to everyone. It does seem a bit weird, but it will allow for more votes. Perhaps you could count Mitgardians' votes as worth two foreign votes? Just so those numerous Avalonians don't overwhelm the voting? Or you could limit foreigner voting only to those who are true friends of Mitgardia, i.e., those who built embassies there!

I smell a rat! My second title (I think). I'm not sure why or who. Only thing I can think of is that I noticed the last name of character in the Historica 3rd Challenge back-story (Revolword) was 'Drowlover' spelled backwards, thus casting doubt on said historian's motives and veracity. As for who, it's probably one of the four Historica guild-leaders, or someone at their behest. Thanks for changing it! Was wondering when it was going to change, although I certainly liked the old one (Expert Cartographer).

I've heard a different version of that: Avalonians - love rules, cleanliness, and homogeneity Mitgardians - love beer, fighting, more beer, and craftsmanship Nocturnii - love power Kaliphlins - love money, freedom, and the good life (and they really only love money because it buys the good life) Take yer pick

Angeli, you really do have fantastic creations, and an instantly recognizable style. I wouldn't change any of that if I were you. Huge builds like yours are great, especially if you don't neglect the details and also take photos of them. But you could also build smaller if you think that will help people focus on the details. I think the only suggestion I would give you is to try to improve the photography. That's going to be challenging for two reasons: one you already identified (with huge builds it's hard to see the details), and secondly, your color and lighting schemes make it hard to photograph. The first challenge can be overcome by just making sure you take close-up photos of the details, which I think you are starting to do. I really enjoyed the close-ups of the Mirage Dragon MOC. The color and lighting issues are probably harder to address. I'm certainly no expert photographer, so I can't give good advice on this. But since this is the Internet, I'll gladly chime in with a few uninformed observations The black light is great for bringing out the (neon) colors, but sometimes it over-saturates the colors and it's hard to see the details. This is probably a matter of playing with the exposure until you get it right. Be careful with your background colors. Red backgrounds are difficult, especially with red bricks in the MOC, like your Tower of Ashaba. Red draws attention to itself, so people's eyes are drawn to the background, not the build. Plus with red on red, the MOC doesn't stand out. I think you want backgrounds that are a complementary or neutral color, and not as bright and saturated as the build itself. By playing around in PhotoShop or GIMP you can easily change the background hue and see what works best. With red or bright orange bricks, I think you need to be careful on the exposure. It appears to be easy to over-expose photos with these colors, and to over-saturate the color. Then you can't see the detail in the bricks. Maybe this can be rescued in PhotoShop or GIMP after the fact. Ensure that you get the best focus you can, especially on closeups. This is enormously frustrating unless you have a DSLR (which I don't. yet.). Even with the macro on, I am forever having to go back and take more photos because only when I uploaded photos to the computer did I realize that the closeups weren't completely in focus. This happens to everyone, and I've seen it in some of your closeups too. I suspect that the camera has an even harder time getting a crisp focus with your neon colors and darker lighting, but it's probably not impossible. Some of your photos are a bit dark. I realize you're trying to set an evil Drow mood, but sometimes it's hard to see the details because of the low lighting. Huge MOCs need a scale reference, otherwise people can't tell how big they are. That's why the horse or goat in the lower left of Llurth Dreir was important; it let us know how huge that MOC really was. Anyway, maybe someone with more photography experience can chime in with better tips. Hope this feedback is constructive. But I wouldn't change your style of builds. They're awesome, and they're you!

Very nice throne room. Who are the babes?

Yes, I noticed that. Reverse the last name. It occurred to me that because of that, perhaps this historian is not completely trustworthy...

I think the key here is to let go of the idea that this challenge represents a *real* episode in Historica's history, at least that anyone in particular's version of it is real. Perhaps think four hundred years into the future -- everyone knows that the crystals were actually found way back when, but there is no specific, authoritative history of how they were found, as those books were lost in the great fire of... Anyway, all we have now is lots of competing epic sagas passed on by the bards, each presenting a different version of who found what crystal and how. Personally, I believe that the version that has Gex finding the Water Crystal is the true story, but that one about Eduhalion is compelling too...

Avalonia might still be closed to new participants; I'm not sure. But Kaliphlin, Mitgardia, and Nocturnus are still open and welcoming. Pick whichever one you like, or ask for some assistance choosing.

DC - that throne room is completely awesome! The detailing is magnificent, especially in the second picture. What an inspiration. Any chance you'll take some more pictures and post it as its own MOC thread?

Exactly. How do you expect to sell goods to the Drow, mummies, or werewolves if you don't employ a few of them yourself? We've seen our sales of red wine to the werewolf community increase by 140% since we brought on Growlfargh (a werewolf himself) as our Merchant in Chief for Trading with Were-Creatures. Of course, his idea of adding a bit of goat blood to each barrel destined for them really helped too.

Yes, while Avalonia is busy building torture chambers and execution vignettes, we're building universities and marketplaces! All about your priorities I suppose. Although I am looking forward to building a historical battle scene vignette. There are way too many good ideas, and not nearly enough time nor bricks! Maybe I missed it, but I didn't think the actual details of the challenge had been posted yet, just the preliminary background story.

Yeah, what with all the torture and execution MOCs and now the Drow and Orc killing MOCs, it's apparent that the Avalonians are a pretty brutal, intolerant, and bloodthirsty lot. Guess that's how they rose to power so quickly. Kind of reminds me of Duloc (google it) -- all cute buildings, pretty flowers, and humans and elves. And get rid of all the strange creatures and riff-raff; we can't have the neighbors seeing them around! We southerners are a lot more relaxed about everything. Hey, why kill a potential future customer?

If I remember correctly from my old treasure-hunting days, you can sometimes tell whether you are near a Jivana Cusana by soft, low, eerie whistling sound they make, and the air will suddenly get colder even in the hot desert. Once alerted, you can usually sneak around behind where they are hidden and take them out with a blessed dagger, as they are not terribly intelligent. However they can be hard to spot at night since they are so black. Good thing they are always alone, otherwise they'd be real trouble. They usually only successfully get novice adventurers, or drunk ones who aren't paying attention. Anyone know where they come from?

In case you didn't see this in the Kaliphlin thread, I finally got around to posting pictures of the opening gala for my embassy, the Palace of a Hundred Scorpions. Some of Mitgardia's leading lights were in attendance! A great time was had by all. Unfortunately our portrait artist did not get everyone in his paintings, but he got a lot of them. For example here are a few pictures. See who you can recognize. Some people are in slightly different clothes, others removed their helmets for the party. Lists of the attendees pictured are in the main embassy thread. Palace of Scorpions Opening Party Palace of Scorpions Opening Party The embassy thread is here

Yes, I'll have to figure what those heads are and order some for myself. I don't think I have that particular head. Great point. Perhaps we should post our ideas for the overall history on the wiki, perhaps in the Kaliphlin History page, and people can add comments and so forth, and we can begin to hash out a common history. The history of Kaligem is up there now, but that's probably only one part of Kaliphlin's history. If I get some time today, I'll extract a summary of the Kaligem history and post it to that page, and maybe add a few more ideas of my own. I also think that the Kaliphlin history should not be too detailed and complete -- we want to allow flexibility for people to later insert their new ideas and MOCs.

I thought so too, but your most recent build (the Thinghall and the merchant's houses) really represents a serious divergence in style from Avalonia. That MOC, and others like Ecclesiastes' Gyhnran stave church (and his Elymas embassy), Rolli's Moria embassy, and perhaps the top half of my embassy, really set out a unique style for Mitgardia, and would look very much out of place in Avalonia. I think that there might be some potential overlap in style, but Mitgardia can definitely develop its style in a direction that diverges from Avalonia.

Really nicely done. I totally felt like I was back in Scandinavia! You did a very good job subtly varying the colors, especially the reds and oranges.

Kcaj, not sure about lipstick; I didn't see any. Maybe it was a bit of BBQ sauce from the roasted northern warg ribs? Here's a more frontal picture of you; unfortunately the focus is not so good on this one. In other news, my myth story is written; now I just need to find the time to build it. I think this is a great little challenge, and will help build out the history/legends of Kaliphlin. Really looking forward to seeing everyone else's stories. I was thinking that next, maybe we could do vignettes of a historical Kaliphlin battle. I've been itching to put my army to use!

Brilliant! LOL. Angeli, you're so modest! We love ya. And your amazing, crazy MOCs. BTW, the sea flora picture link is broken.

Wow! Where do you find the time to crank these out? You must not have kids or a job

I've heard that sour milk does the job on Grelves. I'm dating myself with that one; there was some old TV show or movie where aliens arrive on earth and they get drunk on sour milk. Can't remember what it was...

I finally got around to posting more pictures to my embassy, the Palace of a Hundred Scorpions. The big change is that I posted pictures of the opening gala. Everyone who's anyone in Mitgardia and Kaliphlin turned out for the ball, and a great time was had by all. Unfortunately our portrait artist did not get everyone in his paintings, but he got a lot of them. For example here are a few pictures. See who you can recognize. Some people are in slightly different clothes, others removed their helmets for the party. Palace of Scorpions Opening Party Palace of Scorpions Opening Party There are also a few pictures of the cellar, such as this one of the kitchen: Palace of Scorpions, Cellar, Kitchen The embassy thread is here

I've finally added pictures of the cellar, as well as of the opening gala. Check the first post, towards the end. More pictures on Flickr.

lol Great job overall. I like the gate. The wall is a bit smooth, but I've done ones like that too. You could add a pilaster on either side of the gate sticking out a bit, or a statue on either side of the gate, if you wanted to break up the smoothness at all. It still looks pretty good, and the pictures aren't bad for a phone.