NiceMarmot

I'm liking that waterfall a lot. Where does the water go? And that tower on the front left has a really nice Avalonian feel. Keep up the good work.

I have no idea, but I used four PoP Fight for the Daggers in my marketplace for Marja-Rhytaville, and no one complained. I did modify them slightly, and added some marketplace people and scenery. I don't think you'd get a lot of praise if you used standard sets for a challenge entry, but as far as building out a town goes, I think that would be fine, especially if you modified them slightly.

Yup, that's Yosemite Valley. Picture is taken from Inspiration Point or the view from the tunnel below it, as you enter the valley from the Wawona road on the west end. There's a tunnel through the mountain, and immediately after you come out of the tunnel, there's a parking lot and vista point with this view. It's pretty incredible. The big cliff on the left is El Capitan, which is a really big deal in rockclimbing. In the middle you can see Half Dome in the distance, and that's Bridalveil Falls on the right. Ansel Adams has a fairly famous photo taken from this point too. It's probably one of the two most famous views of Yosemite Valley, the other being the view from Glacier Point (see this photo).

I'm not planning on getting any Friends sets. But I'm sure some of my male minifigures wouldn't turn down a date with a figure that actually had some curves and breasts! I'm sure someone will do something like that. They're probably working on it as I write this. I imagine there are plenty of funny stop-motion videos involving Friends minidolls already on Youtube. Yeah I started all-yellow, but you just cut yourself out of too many good minifigs and sets that way, and the kids don't care, so we abandoned that stance pretty quickly.

That's sweet! Love the tilework and all the colors. We need you in the Kaliphlin Guild. This would totally fit in.

No way, those jumpers are only $0.05 each on BL! Check the price of those dark blue arches, and you'll see why I recommended you get 100 of them.

Then you clearly need to use about 100 of these pieces in dark blue in whatever you build. That will give you a very Kaliphlin style. No less than 100 of them.

No problem there. Kaliphlin accepts all races and creatures, even fleshies. We'd even accept Friends My 'army' (such as it is) is probably about half fleshie anyway...

Meteor Strike game at Target, on clearance for $10.99. Turns out to be a pretty good parts pack.

I think Friends is all about Marketing. I believe girls will play with LEGO if it's in front of them, especially if it's an interesting set to them. In my (admittedly anecdotal) experience with my daughter, my wife, and my kids' female friends, they tend to prefer sets from themes like Kingdoms and Harry Potter, and are less interested in things like Hero Factory and Star Wars (although one of my son's female friends is a huge SW fan, so it does happen). And they will play with them, sometimes endlessly. My wife and daughter love our Mill Village Raid. If we had a MMV or Hogwarts, they'd probably love that too. And I think TLG knows that girls love these types of sets. However, girls aren't going to play with sets they don't have. And they're not going to get LEGO sets unless Mom or Dad or Granddad go down that aisle in the store and buy them. And I don't think Mom goes down the LEGO aisle in Target, TRU, or Walmart when they're shopping for toys for little Hannah. I certainly haven't seen many moms dragging their little girls down the LEGO aisle in the store. And putting a few more female minifigures into a Ninjago set isn't going to make that happen. So I think Friends is all about getting Mom and Aunt Katherine to notice LEGO as a viable option for little Hannah. And even if Kingdoms or HP sets were in the Barbie aisle in the store, I don't think Mom would pull them off the shelf, because she thinks her little girl is a princess, and those sets aren't going to resonate with Mom's mental image of her little girl. This is all about getting Mom to pull a LEGO box off the shelf in the girl's toys aisle, and asking Hannah whether she would like it, and having Hannah respond "Yes!!". So TLG creates some new, well-designed Town sets, in colors they know will appeal to Mom, modifies the minifigure design to make it more modern and similar to other dolls Mom has bought for Hannah, and dresses it up in nice purple packaging. Now they can get the retailer to put it in the Barbie aisle. And when Mom walks by, she'll say, "Wow, look at that! Isn't that cute! I love that little kitty and hedgehog!" And TLG is betting that once Hannah gets a few Friends sets and signs up for the LEGO Club, they can market City/Town and HP and whatever else to her too. I'm all for TLG putting more female minifigs into standard sets, but I don't think that helps them much get girls playing with LEGO. I hope they do it anyway, and I think they will because it will help girls transition from Friends to other themes. So in my mind, the whole controversy is totally misplaced. Friends is not targeted at girls. Friends is targeted at people who buy toys for girls, especially moms.

Not asking too many difficult questions is our specialty in Kaliphlin! Of course, some of the other guilds say that's because we only have sand between our ears... As a privateer, you'd actually be one of the more honest and upstanding members of the guild. Most of our members probably have more checkered backgrounds than that...

The outrigger and the double mast go very well together -- it's mostly a Pacific-islanders style. Search on "outrigger sailing canoe", and you'll see tons of examples. Examples:

Wow! This is fabulous. I certainly didn't expect something this cool when I clicked on a 'fishing boat' post. The design of the boat is great and I really like the masts and sail. But what puts it over the top are the awesome waves! Having built a sand dune recently for an MOC, I appreciate how much work and how many bricks those waves take. That's a seriously large number of medium-blue slopes! BTW, it may not have been easy, but I think the sail turned out very well. Would it be possible for you to post a picture showing a close-up of the boat's main hull? I can't really see all the details of the construction in any of the shots. Maybe it's just my aging eyes... There's a closeup of the outrigger in one shot, but the main hull is a bit of out-of-focus in that one.

Dugal, yes, that's definitely the magnificent old myth that my grandpappy used to tell me when I was growing up... Except his version of the story had it that Ji'Teel was Ji'Fall's adopted son, a child of his second wife, the evil sorceress Zahtana ni-Urufa, who was beautiful, seductive, flattering, and silver-tongued, but untrustworthy, cunning, and evil to the core. Zahtana, jealous and worried that Ji'Fall might designate a nephew as heir instead of her son, plotted against him and turned Ji'Teel against his stepfather. Ji'Teel was buried in the sands, still clutching a golden idol of Bonash that he had tried to take from the temple. But legend has it that Zahtana had herself imprisoned in a magical vault of crystal that was buried beneath the sands, asleep and awaiting a time when Bonash and Ashroth's power was truly diminished and she might rise again and once again take power in Historica. At least that's the version I always heard. Who really knows? Gex

Ah! Thanks for the clue. Upon further review, it appears that Captain Blackmoor has visited recently. Not sure if CallMePieOrDie qualifies, as he's a Duke.

First title: Expert Cartographer! Probably given by SI-mocs or one of the other Historica Guildleaders because of the maps I created for the Kaliphlin Guild, as well as perhaps the guide on mapmaking. Not sure how I'd figure out who gave me the title... Thanks so much for my first title!

I like it. Our own dusty Atlantis. Obviously when the sands swallowed it up, a great treasure was lost, buildings gilded in pure gold, windows made of diamond, etc. We'll need a good back-story about how it was lost, something to do with upsetting the gods probably. As for the name, Kaligem is good. We might also choose something that pokes fun at those who seek it, like Kalifolli, Guudluk, Kaligone, Nevrfownd, Dissuhpeerd, or Kalikluless. "Old Wazir? Yeah, he's such a fool he's still out looking for Kalikluless."

I'd say that Lost Vega is absolutely real. I try to get there at least once a year and enjoy the shows and the magical light show over the Strip, and lose a bit of money playing some four-black-wombat. I still think that game is rigged... However, LV is lost, at least to those outside of the Kaliphlin Guild. Therefore it certainly won't be appearing on any maps. No problem there. There's plenty of room in Kaliphlin, especially in the deserts. Feel free to position Al'Derak somewhere, and I'll put it on the appropriate detail map. If you position it somewhere generally in the middle of Siccus, and say that it's within 250 miles of Lost Vega, then that probably means that LV could be almost anywhere. Gex

Once again, Rasputin, you've really nailed it! Great vignette and story! If we ever have a vignette challenge, no one else will enter because we all know you'll win it!

Damaximus -- A few comments on the Kaliphlin list on the first post: Na Ghitan (in the Spice Islands) is being settled by CallMePieOrDie. I'm not sure if we've seen an MOC there yet. Marja-Rhytaville is a small village / hamlet across the bay from Messahmuk, and as such probably doesn't even deserve to be on this list. It certainly isn't big enough for an embassy. Messahmuk however would be large enough for embassies and trade delegations. Although I haven't built anything actually in Messahmuk yet, I was thinking that area would be Gex's home base. I would think that embassies are welcome in all our major cities: Petraea, Barqa, Ras-el-Akhen, QueensCross, Eastgate, Stone Town, Berigora, and Qarkyr. Berigora, Eastgate, and Stone Town have settlers so far (Gabe, SkaForHire, and robuko respectively) so people should probably coordinate with them. I think the other cities are pretty wide open at this point. I think the Tower of Me're Dee is reasonably close to QueensCross, so I'd suggest that any embassies be put in QC. As for locating embassies near Fonzy's White Tower in the NE, we should probably wait for a city/town to be founded somewhere there. Actually there is an unnamed town where the road north from Qarkyr crosses the Lick of Salt river; that's probably the closest town to this tower, and embassies should probably be in the town. Thanks for coordinating all this. BTW -- I think I'll be looking for an embassy location in Mitgardia eventually. Haven't had time to work on anything, but have some ideas, and might get a chance to build next week.

Rasputin, no problem at all; go ahead and build. I like the idea of the Temple of the Mad Monks; I believe I was taught by several of them in high school as a matter of fact... There's certainly no need to ask me before building in an area. I'm not big on claiming an area / town either, but it is natural for people to want a home for their characters. Here's the way I think this has been developing in Kaliphlin. I wouldn't say these are rules, just my perception of the way things have developed so far, and some proposals for the future: It's OK for your character to have a home town or base If you build an MOC or vignette in an unnamed area, you can name the area If you build an MOC somewhere, you can name some of the unnamed geographical features nearby. You can also add nearby geographical features, as long as they fit with the local landscape. If you have a home town, you probably get to create the primary back-story / history for that town. Other people can add to your town's history, but should keep within the outlines of the primary story. Anyone can build an MOC anywhere, without asking permission of anyone. Many people, if building in someone else's hometown, will want to inform the other person first, and ask for feedback, but that's not strictly necessary. If building in someone else's hometown, try to keep within the general outline of the 'look' of their existing MOCs and fit into their existing back-story. We don't carve out plots of land like some other guilds. You're welcome to settle in an area, build MOCs, and even exercise a certain degree of political influence and control on the area, but we're not carving up the Siccus into little fiefdoms with borders and so forth. In part, this is because we've got a lot of land and not so many people, so there should be room for all. It's also because this is about building with LEGO, not empire-building. None of us could possibly manage to build more than a small town out of LEGO, much less an entire province. Petraea, Barqa, and Qarkyr, as the largest cities in the Siccus, are more 'open' cities, meaning that no one person should control their story, look, etc. If you want to make one of these cities your hometown, that's great (we need some builds and history especially in Barqa and Qarkyr), and you can even set the back-story for a neighborhood. The Master Cartographer is a bit reluctant to add and name features to the maps unless you've built an MOC or vignette in that area. Unless your idea/name is so great that it just has to be on there. Like I said, these aren't rules (because I'm in no position to make rules), but just my opinion on the unstated way things have been done so far in the Guild. Feedback and discussion welcomed.

Ooh, envious! Have a great time. Plenty of MOC inspiration there.

Yes, GIMP does allow you to do some transformations to text, and similarly, you lose the ability to edit the text after you transform it. I'm not up on all the possible transformations, but you can at least rotate it and have it follow a path.

(work in progress) Step by Step Example In this example, I'm going to create a detailed map zooming in on a portion of a map that I've already created. I've selected the area on the existing map that I want to zoom in on, and GIMP tells me that the selection is 390 pixels wide by 272 pixels high. I'm going to do a 4x zoom, so the new image will be 1560x1088. Select File > New, and then enter the dimensions and hit OK. Then you'll get a new image with one transparent layer called Background. Fill the Background layer with white: Make sure that your current background color is white. Then, with the Background layer active, click Edit > Fill with BG Color. Flip back over to the existing map, and click Edit > Copy Visible. That copies the visible currently selected image, no matter what layer is currently active. Go back to the new image. Click Edit > Paste As > New Layer. This pastes the copied image in as a new layer. Rename the new layer something like 'Original Map'. You can rename layers in GIMP by double-clicking on the layer name, or right clicking on the layer name and choosing Edit Layer Attributes. Scale the Original Map layer by 4x. Make it the active layer. Then click Layer > Scale Layer. Enter in the new dimensions (1560x1088 in our case). The Interpolation method should be Sinc. Hit the Scale button. You may have to move the layer around so it lines up correctly with the image boundaries. Zoom in a bit (300% should be enough) on the upper left corner of the image, and use the Move tool. Next, duplicate this Original Map layer. Right click on the layer name, and choose Duplicate Layer. Change the new duplicate layer's name to something like 'Original-Faded'. We're going to use this layer as our primary guide for drawing the map. We'll make it faded out so we can easily see what we draw on top of it. But we'll still have the original, unfaded version to reference if we need to. Click the eyeball next to the 'Original Map' layer so that it doesn't show anymore. Fade out the Original-Faded layer until you can still see its features, but it's so light and faded that you'll easily be able to see anything drawn on top of it. Typically I'll play around with the Colors > Hue-Saturation and Colors > Brightness-Contrast tools until it looks right. Try the Hue-Saturation tool first, increasing Lightness by 100 and decreasing Saturation by about 70. Then use Brightness-Contrast, increasing the brightness by about 85 or so. Play around with it a bit. You want it to look something like this: Now create your layers, one on top of the other. Starting from the Original-Faded layer, add Shoreline, Shore Gradient, Ocean, Rivers & Lakes, Mountains, Forests, Deserts, Other, Cities & Roads, and Labels. Or whatever layers you think you'll need. All the new layers should be transparent, and they should all be visible at first. Now we're going to do the shoreline. Make the Shoreline layer active, and zoom to 100%. Make black your foreground color. Choose the Paintbrush tool. Play around with a variety of brushes and sizes until you find one that looks good. I tend to choose "Circle Fuzzy (05)" and set the scale somewhere in the 70%-85% range. Trace the shoreline, adding more detail as appropriate. Remember to keep the scale in mind -- you can't have a mountainous cape that's only 1/4 mile wide really, or a 40 mile wide bay won't really make for a snug harbor. Ragged shorelines imply a lot of rock; smooth curving ones imply beaches. In a lot of areas, you'll see smooth curving bays with rocky, ragged capes between them. Check out Google Maps to a feel for how real shorelines look. Don't worry about being too accurate when tracing; it's not expected that the high level map will exactly correlate to the detailed one, especially in fantasy mapmaking. Don't forget to add islands and stuff as desired. There's probably a lot of detail that will be on this map that's not on the higher level map, so you'd don't have to follow the high level map's shoreline exactly. You'll probably want to put in more little inlets and bays, and more small islands. You'd think that now that we have the shoreline done, we should work on those shore gradients. But I like to do those later, in case I need to adjust the shoreline later or add some more islands. Once you do the gradients, it's very hard to adjust the shoreline without redoing the gradients again, so I tend to do those almost last. Next up will be either the mountains or the rivers; it's really up to your preference. Whichever one you choose will somewhat define the other. I'm going to do rivers first. Make the Rivers & Lakes layer active. Choose the Paintbrush tool. Once again, play around with colors, brushes, and size until you get something that looks right. I tend to use a dark blue (about R-43, G-58, B-115 on a 255 scale). I usually use the same Circle Fuzzy (05) brush that I used for the shoreline, but at 100% or so to get a slightly wider line. Sometimes I'll use the 07 size for the lower parts of a river and the 03 size for the smallest streams. Remember to make big, lazy turns in the river where the gradient is flat, and smaller, more jagged turns where it's steep. I don't like to put every little stream on the map; it really could clutter things up. For lakes, you've got basically two options. First, for really big lakes, you can use the 'shore gradient' method to fill them in like the oceans. Second, for smaller lakes and ponds, you probably don't have enough room for the shore gradients to be effective, so you should just fill them in with a color like medium blue. I like using GIMP's Blend Tool to produce a gradient of color for the lake. Select a medium blue for the foreground color, and leave the background color white (or choose a very light blue). Select the inner part of the lake using the 'magic wand' or Fuzzy Select Tool. Then use the Blend Tool. Choose the Foreground to Background (RGB) gradient; this will produce a nice gradient going from your medium blue to your background color. Choose the Shaped (spherical) shape; this will ensure that the gradient goes outward from a center point and also follows the shape of the selection. The click and hold in the center of the lake, drag to the edge of the lake, and release. You should get something like this (don't worry about the dashed lines; that's showing the current selection): (more to come later...)

Oh yeah! I know how that goes. Just went up to BL to order a $0.04 piece or two, and oh-look-what-else-they've-got, and the next thing you know you've spent $130!