Henjin_Quilones

I have never posted a Star Wars MOC, but this might get me to try my hand at something. I certainly own enough SW sets and pieces...

The relevant section of the rules is here: To re-phrase the rule, the size restriction is 1296 studs (36x36=1296); thus, if your creation occupies a footprint of less than or equal to 1296 studs, you should be fine. Now, I would not advise building anything 1x1296, but dimensions as extreme as 18x72 are theoretically possible (if we follow a pattern based on previous challenges) or irregular bases that have a stud count of 1296 or less. You posted as I was beginning to reply! You are correct that 33x44 is off-limits for Cat. A, but you could use it for Cat. B if it fits the prompt. You do not need to hit the extreme upper end of the limit, after all.

I added a third in January, and it is possible to still build with three; I might have less time than before, but I still get some things done! I feel confident that you can do the same. And hey, the kid is worth the sacrifice of build time anyways. Congrats!

@Louis of Nutwood, welcome to the Guilds! You chose the coolest (or should I say coldest?) guild, even if you did not choose the best!

A: 3-7-10 B: 2-8-7

You are welcome to build in any guild, and you are free to create characters anywhere you want. Your sigfig, of course, cannot be a citizen of both Mitgardia AND Avalonia, but you could have relatives in other guilds, or friends, or business contacts, or a long-lost uncle's former pen-pal's college roommate's next-door neighbor's aunt-in-law, or even a complete stranger that you could, in the future, tie into your storyline should you so choose. And you could build something depicting them. The guild to which you belong (in your case, Avalonia) would still get the free build points for your build, even if it depicts something somewhere else in a far-off land. But there is no limit on the styles you can build, or the geographical range in which they can be situated. Does that clarify?

Hello @Odoaker, and welcome! The first thing to do is to pick a guild (which, by you posting in the Avalonia thread, I assume you have done). The second thing to do is to post a picture (like the one in your profile picture) and the briefest of biographies for your significant figure (or sigfig), which is the minifigure that will serve as your avatar in the role-building forum of the Guilds of Historica. The biography should include the name of your sigfig, and probably something about where he/she is from, and what he/she does for a living, but it does not need to be elaborate (though it can be, if that's what you want). Posting the sigfig makes you an official member of the guild, and after that, just keep posting! Make comments on other builders' posts, post your own builds, join in conversations, or whatever suits your fancy.

Thanks, en_zoo! Sometimes simple pieces, used in the right way, create the most elegant solutions. The space was very cramped, trying to fit an imposing and lofty structure on a 32x32 base! As to the light, you are right: I had lamps shining in each of the windows, which does make the sunlight's direction confusing, but when I tried it with just light shining from one direction there was not enough light inside to get clear photos. The quality of the picture is worth the confusion, in my opinion. And those pointy ears do belong to a certain amnesiac I know who lives in Avalonia... Thanks, dG! My first attempt at lighting the build failed, but because your build was so epic I had to do re-shoots and try again with different lighting. So thank you for inspiring me to try harder to get good shots!

@Grover, @en_zoo, and @TitusV, I'm just happy to see all of you here when you can show up! This is a supportive place, regardless of your level of activity. LEGO is a recreational hobby for most of us, after all, and it is what we do just for fun. And sometimes there are other, more important things to do, even just for fun. So go take a walk among real trees, not ABS ones (or whatever plastic the leaf parts are made of; I'm pretty sure it is not ABS, in fact)! Study for classes! Read books, or write them, watch movies, go to work, spend time with the kids. Travel to exotic lands. And don't feel guilty about it.

You are welcome! It seems, from my almost three years here, that there are really only five or so members truly active at any one time; who those five are will change, but most of the people on the Guild member list are either already gone from the guilds, are busy with other building, or just check back in every once in a while due to the busyness of life (*cough cough* @TitusV). Sad but true! At least Avalonia has been more active of late than the other guilds, I guess, if that is a positive. The next challenge should help. And summer probably will bring out some more builds, as people gear up with the Summer Joust and find ways to incorporate them into the guilds, or spend time back home from school, back with their collection of bricks. But who knows? I look forward to seeing those MOCs!

Emphasis on "old"!

Congratulations to King de Gothia as he mounts the throne!

Well, I guess I'll call it, then. Congratulations to @de Gothia, whose claimant has officially been crowned King of Avalonia! All hail King de Gothia! All hail King de Gothia! All hail King de Gothia! (and all hail Albion, Lord of Sionnach and Benoic!)

The voting period ends today, which somewhere in the world is in about 11 or 12 hours! So get your final votes in! So far we have only 5 Avalonians voting for the next king (with two abstaining), out of 26 in the official Guild tally. We can do better, I think! I'll be generous in interpreting the deadline... (And if at least one person could vote for my entry, that would be nice! I mean seriously, I think we all know Lord de Gothia will be the new king (and want him to be, as well), but does it have to be unanimous? I've got feelings too...)

You can even do it now on Flickr, with their photo editor. The crop/rotate function will let you adjust the lean a bit.

Thanks, I was going less for Dwarvish and more for Gothic, perhaps, but I can see what you mean. Thanks, Grover! The dragon head is actually copied from one of my smaller large dragons (which has not been photographed yet) so that makes sense; I was going for a slightly caricatured dragon, in the spirit of the Gothic gargoyle, and this is what I came up with. If I had had two of the Viking heads, I would have done something similar to dG, but alas, only one makes things seem imbalanced. And I did not feel like ordering another one. I am particularly pleased that you like the lighting, as it was a major struggle to get right. And one of my joys is adding as many architectural details as I can, so I am glad you like them! Thanks, Servertijd! Hopefully I did Wilfred justice here. Thanks, kahir88! The only thing keeping the tiles on the columns from standing straight is my fingers reaching in there to place minifigs, and then me not noticing that they are off-kilter until after the picture was taken, and then not being able to get any other shots with the same level of clarity (I took six or so with the camera in the same place, with the light the same, and everything, but only the first one, with the tiles askew, was in focus); this is a problem only because each tile is held on by a single stud, since I ran out of jumper plates to secure them better to the rest of the column. Nudging it even gently will get them out of whack. As for the dragon, I was deliberately not going for a realistic style, as it would not be possible for me at this scale; instead I was hoping for a more gargoyle-esque shape. I did experiment with larger wings, and, as you suggest, they did indeed take up too much space. With only 32x32 to work with, there was only so much I could do with scale! Thanks, grandeur is something I was shooting for! I got the idea for the balcony when visiting a large basilica church and saw a balcony over the side aisles. Thanks, Kai! I almost went taller, too, but decided against it... Glad you like the light, and the pillars, too. I like the look of how they turned out, too.

Good job going all-LEGO for the shots (great minds must think alike, I guess) and I love the light shining through the windows; I am both happy and sad to have given you the inspiration, as your competitor. I was hoping your build would be bad, so I'd have at least a shot at beating the legendary Lord de Gothia, but you disappointed me by building something beautiful. The restrained use of texture is nice, and I really like the arches behind the throne with the guild colors under them. My favorite touch just might be the dragon heads on those pediments, though; I wish I had two of them! (I ordered two from BL for the intro build for the challenge, but was only shipped one; hence I put a chalkboard-type thing in front of where the second would have been, but I didn't think I could get away with a similar move again...sigh). The tiling on the floor is a nice nod to DC's throneroom, where he had a very similar pattern, too. My only real objection is that I don't see Henjin anywhere. He would have wanted to be there, for sure. Those are just the best. I love them.

The tower is nice, especially the SNOT sides of the top, and the trees are nice, and the simple touches on the ground fit well with the rest. Getting some brighter pictures will help presentation, and even subtle things like rotating the image slightly to make the center post of the tower fully vertical will improve it even more.

Beyond the obvious need to clean up the background and get some crisper pictures, I like the build a lot! There is quite a bit of vegetation, which is always nice to see, and the shrine itself is nicely integrated into the environment. Unlike Grover, I am not sold on the multi-colored foliage; I think keeping each tree limited to one color of leaf, maybe two, would improve things, rather than up to four or five colors. But that is just me, and maybe you really like the way it looks; in which case, do what you like and make it yours! But definitely get a clean backdrop, whether a poster board, a sheet, even just some sheets of printer paper taped together (not ideal, but better than nothing) and try to fiddle with the settings on the camera to get something clearer, to better show off the lovely build. I hope to see more from you!

The birch trees are really nice, and I love action of the fellows running along there. I like your use of color with the flowers and the various greens in the undergrowth. I'm not completely sure about how I feel about the separated scene; on the one hand, I like that it gives you a greater sense of space with limited bricks, and it is kind of artsy; but on the other hand, it does make the scene feel incomplete. I think I lean more towards liking it than not, and the content more than makes up for any arrangement issues I might see. Good work!

I like these SNOT trees better than the ones for Zan's story, and I think you did a good job of mixing a bit of dark brown here and there. The greens and browns are nicely used, but if I were to make a suggestion, it would be to have more flowers in the undergrowth, but only in a few colors (like the red and yellow you already have there, just bigger patches); this would lend some brightness and vivacity to the build without affecting the brown and green balance. Again, it is fun to read about more of Conrad's crew, and the action is always well-illustrated.

The base is the highlight here, for sure, with the very nice SNOT snow. Perhaps some larger curve slopes would look good in there, and maybe fewer straight slopes, as the curved edge looks more organic. Also, some work on photography would be good to better show off the build, since when you are building for an online audience a build is really only as good as its presentation (we don't have the luxury of admiring it from all angles, or seeing the details crisply, unless you show them to us, after all). But I really like what I see, and look forward to seeing more!

Good job using regular red in terrain! The tree is also better than some of your recent ones, with a more irregular shape, which is nice. The story is fun, too.

Nice story, and the builds complement that quite well. The action of the fire and Conrad's evasion is great. The forest is also visually much cleaner, without all of the extraneous colors, which allows the eye to focus more clearly on the action. I do agree with en_zoo that some of the trees are too regular, with perfectly straight sides and too many right angles, but that is something pretty minor and fairly easily fixed. I really like the way you are fleshing out your crew!

Both final entries are now up: King Wilfred Sigurd King de Gothia Voting will end next Sunday, April 21st AD MMXIX. We shall have a King at last!