NiceMarmot

Good luck cleaning up Ras-el-Akhen; you'll need it! Nice builds; +1

Well, I've got about four ships, but have never posted them. (Picked up two LotR Pirate Ambush on clearance last November!) Will have to get them customized and posted. But seriously, we're not going to invade Mitgardia. We need their beer and gold; they need our wine and black oil. Unless of course they kidnap Kai. Then we would launch an invasion that would make the fleet sent after Helen of Troy look like a couple of toy boats in a bathtub.

Wow, this is great. Love it -- very elvish. Lots of great details throughout. +1 on all the UoP subjects

That picture is not too bad. A bit out of focus; you might want to try using the Macro feature on your camera. Some white foamcore board, a white sheet, or even a piece of white paper really helps as a background (I've even used paper towels a few times). Outdoors in light shade is the best -- if it's too sunny, you can create some shade. There are lots of threads on Eurobricks about photographing LEGO.

That's what I thought. But I'm not nice enough to pass up an opportunity to crack a joke

"adult oriented"? I must have missed the forum for all those adult-oriented MOCs . Can't believe I'm messing around with castle MOCs instead... (Although I do actually remember one really good adult-oriented MOC someone made about two years ago… It was sort of a what-is-he-thinking, what-is-she-thinking type of cartoon build)

Most builds should go into their own thread. The exceptions would be only if you're building for a contest/challenge that specifically asks you to post in the contest's thread, or work-in-progress photos (which should go in the guild thread), or really small builds or vignettes that you feel aren't worth their own thread (which should go in the guild thread also), but those would be pretty small. EDIT: By the way, re photos, I've found that shooting outside even on a cloudy day delivers better photos than shooting indoors. A cloudy day outdoors is way brighter than most indoor shots, unless you have a full-on photo setup with multiple, diffused lights. And avoid using the flash at all costs, as it leaves big splotchy reflections on the bricks. If you search around on Eurobricks, you'll probably find whole threads devoted to tips on taking photos of LEGO. It definitely took me quite a while to start to get it right, and I've probably got a long way to go.

@Ska - You can use the horizontal rule BBCode, like this See? Looks fairly nice. Although wide. It's a [, then 'hr', then a ], without any spaces in between them (and no quotes either).

I know I shouldn't bump an old post, but I'm just catching up on these entries, and wanted to tell you that this is fabulous! I really love the color scheme and design, and the part usage is excellent. I'm going to steal a whole bunch of ideas from this… I think we need an Asian guild in GoH, or at least an Asian city. Perhaps we could make MikeS's Okatowan (from his Inside Kaliphlin postcard) the default location for Asian-style builds...

Nice job. Good gate design, and I like the addition of a tree. The medium-dark-flesh and white colors are a great combo. Suggestions for the build: 1) a bit more desertscaping on the ground would help break up the monotony of the tan baseplate; even some 1x1 round plates or 1x2 plates scattered around would help give it a bit of texture, and 2) I think another 3 layers of bricks above the gate would give it size it really needs to be a city gate. As it is now, that swordsman over the gate almost looks like he's standing on top of the door. The perspective in the first photo is great. But that second photo -- need to re-shoot that one, too fuzzy (but you knew that)! And you should probably get a few pieces of foamcore board (available at Michaels, and plenty of other places) to use as backgrounds. And if you shoot outside, on a sunny day, but put the MOC into light shade, you won't get those glaring light reflections.

Photos of Gex: Tafik Regex Marmota by nice.marmot, on Flickr Gex Marmota by nice.marmot, on Flickr More biographical information available on the wiki, including a parts list. EDIT: Wow! With that post, I'm a Count! Woo-hoo!

Very good point. I should try to comment more on MOCs, especially newbies'. I used to comment a lot on MOCs but fell behind over the summer and have pretty much stopped, and now only comment in the guild threads. I'll have to make more of an effort going forward.

Not sure if it 'belongs' to him, but Kayne was the one who incorporated it into his stories. It was the location for his Challenge IV entry, and also mentioned a few times in other stories of his.

Good enough. I'll get it on the map. Now time for some builds in Carn!

Excellent! I'm really liking your visit to Barqa so far. Perhaps you should do an extended tour of Kaliphlin? Or at least a few good WitherWoods builds on your way back?

@Kai -- I think you should be an engineer or statistician! What happened to Damaximus? I think he was going to be away from his bricks for a while, but I thought he was still going to post. Gabe took a big break for a while; that's why he wasn't in the top seven on the old thread, but he's been fairly consistent otherwise. Interesting that Robuko and Kayne made it into the top seven in the old thread, as neither is very chatty, but they've both been around consistently since the beginning, so that's probably why. Gideon is a fairly consistent poster, but just wasn't around early enough to get into the top seven on the old thread. He's a great asset -- consistent posting and lots of great builds! Unlike me -- I'm sporadically chatty, but rarely get time to build.

Thanks. We do seem to get along pretty well. You need a few well-timed trips to the PAB wall at your local LEGO store, and you'd be swimming in tan bricks! As for the monsters… well, there are plenty of dark, evil things lurking in deep in our mountains, hidden in the swamps, or in remote desert wastes...

Yeah, I had some of the same feelings. For instance, Basiliscus, who was off to a great start with Stone Town and some of his phenomenal early builds, but seems to have disappeared about a year and a half ago. Some people do come back though, like Gabe. I'm not so concerned about the people who sign up, post a sigfig, and then disappear; it happens a lot. But the people who have an initial flurry of activity and then fade away are more of a bummer (recently NightStalker and runmymouth come to mind).

Hmmm, well, we'll probably have to move them out of Lost Vega, or they'll starve. Not much in the way of brains in that town, in either the customers or the staff... Regarding the maps, what do you think we should do about some of the towns that have never really had MOCs? There are some towns that were staked out by guild members long ago, but nothing has been built there, and the member hasn't been around in a long time. For instance, Belt Mutanji was discussed in this thread by thecolossus, but I don't think an MOC was ever built, and he hasn't posted on GoH in about a year. @Mike S -- did you ever build anything in Adskhan, or place a story there? Do you want to keep it named Adskhan, or free it up for someone else to name? If you're going to use it, no problem, as there are plenty of unnamed towns on the maps, or places for new towns. By the way, for newbies or people looking to establish new towns or position a story/MOC in a remote area, I'm certainly open to changing the geography on the maps, especially in remote areas. In other words, if you want me to add a river, or some mountains, or forest, or move / remove something, to fit with your story for a particular place, just let me know. As long as it's not a huge change, and not inconsistent with the existing surrounding landscape, it shouldn't be a problem. Cartography in our medieval age is not an exact science.

Not much input on the maps, so I'll post the work-in-progress as it is, and you all can react to them and (hopefully) give me feedback. I'm sure I've missed stuff. (I apologize for the huge post) kaliphlin-map by nice.marmot, on Flickr I think this overall Kaliphlin / Siccus map is inaccurate in its portrayal of Avalonia and the area around Cedrica. I'll take a look at revising that section. But the Kaliphlin part should be accurate at a high level. Western Kaliphlin kaliphlin-west by nice.marmot, on Flickr South Central kaliphlin-south-central by nice.marmot, on Flickr North Central kaliphlin-north-central by nice.marmot, on Flickr South East kaliphlin-south-east by nice.marmot, on Flickr North East kaliphlin-north-east by nice.marmot, on Flickr @TheUtilityBelt32 -- I'm not totally sure what you're asking for, but that area has already been defined a fair amount. Look at the South Central map. Messahmuk is the home city of my character. I can certainly place additional stuff there, and you're welcome to base your character there. But there are also lots of areas on the map with no one living there too. If you look at the detail maps, you'll see lots of towns (the red dots) with no names. And even some of the towns with names have no characters residing in them.

Lol I second that! Cue the zombie and mummy puns... The mummies were just wrapping things up for the day… After losing a/his hand at the tables, the zombie went to the sports betting room, but his camel was dead last. Later he was hungry so he went to see a manure seller to trade sh*t for brains! OK, those weren't nearly as good. I'll have to work on it a bit more...

Yes, Mitgardia is definitely on a roll. So much so that I tried to blatantly steal the good AoM idea for our UoP degree program. And you all are rolling in new members, as is Nocty. However, we're content to play the long game. Yes, it's quite a day for the Kaliphlin thread post count! Keep it rolling! Not that anyone is really watching the post count or anything. This reminds me of the Nocty thread getting boosted by 50+ replies when the big pumpkin pie discussions were going on. Sounds good. I'm fired up to do some mapping! And does anyone else want to suggest places to be added to the overall or detail maps? It happens to the best of us. Most young Kaliphliners have spent a few days wandering the desert wastes pursuing mirages. But we usually have the skills to survive. I'll send some people out to look for your guards. But if they've stumbled across Lost Vega, well, there's probably no hope. We'll send them back penniless yet satisfied.

Well, since we implemented our new NSA thread watching software here in Kaliphlin, we can directly siphon off the thread information without it showing up as a view! Don't ask me to explain how; it has something to do light signals sent by the PGTC's heliotropes being split by diamond prisms, and some code breaking by Dr Leibniz, and somehow reprocessed camel dung is involved... Well that's probably because most of the Nocty discussion is taking place in the challenge thread or in the team PMs. We're still getting regular shipments of enchanted pumpkin pie down here in Messahmuk. But we're supplied from Nocty by sea; perhaps those Black Spire types are not focused on disrupting sea traffic.

Did anyone notice that we have more replies to this thread than the Avalonia thread has? 581 to 575? I think that's a first! Avalonia is falling apart I suppose. Go Kaliphlin!

Just Kaliphlin. I also did one of the maps of all of Historica.