Henjin_Quilones

The woman leading the patrol must be cold--her lips have turned blue! Nice mech, though. A good use of Mantis colors.

Hangar 6 Location: C09 - Orinshi Tags: Spaceship Note to judges: the hangar itself is largely re-used, with the only changes being the reversal of the 9 for a 6 and some crates being rearranged, and thus should probably not be judged... The previous story: "Alright, Explorer Quilones, here we are," Commander Gorn was saying as the two men approached what was hopefully the correct hangar this time. "I have read the list properly and switched no numbers around this go around, see," he said showing the list to Henjin. "Very good, Sir," was all the annoyed explorer could say through his gritted teeth. The walk from 9 to 6 had been an unpleasant one, filled with inane chitchat about the commander's niece-in-law's newest child over on Lorstan II. Who cared that he could walk by the time he was two months old and could form complete sentences by four months? But the first sight of the ship through the hangar bay doors took Henjin's breath away and banished all negative thoughts he had been having about Gorn. Maybe the commander was not all bad... When they were inside they could see the lead engineer overseeing a technician putting the final touches on the exhaust piping. "No, no, two turns clockwise, you moron!" the engineer shouted. Engineers were always like that, Henjin realized, bossing everyone else around as though they did not know how to do their jobs. "Of course, Sir," said the technician. "But isn't this the reverse polarity exhaust filtrator, Sir? Thus having the coupling joined with counterclockwise turns?" "What?" asked the engineer in some surprise. "No, it isn't...wait, let me check...darn, you were right, Jim, it is counterclockwise." "Wow, is that one of the new models of walkie-talkie you have there," said Henjin to break the tension in the room. "One of the ones without the bulky handle and antenna?" "Why, yes, it is," said the engineer proudly. "They're calling them 'smarttalkies' with a really neat touchscreen and all of that, of course. Fit into a back pocket and everything." "Of course," agreed Henjin, looking down at his clunker of a field device. "So, is the ship ready for me?" "Sure is," said the technician, drawing a glare from the engineer. "You wanna start loading her up?" Henjin went over to the hatch and climbed up the ladder, putting his stuff inside. The backpack and walkie-talkie took up hardly any room in the spacious hold, so he was quickly out again and going over the checklist with the commander, ready to head out on his first off-world mission with the Kawashita Group in his brand new spaceship. What would he name her? He did not know yet, but it would have to be properly epic, like Tantive V, The Century Eagle, Servant I, or The Executive. Something cool like that... More pictures:

The shield is from the CMF knight of Series 15, I think. I like the implied detail of the back, Vlad. The tan slopes do not tell much, but they allow the imagination to create more details of a roofed city, or perhaps sandstone mountain slopes, behind them. The doorway is nicely done, too, a rather Moorish shape. On the whole, though, I must echo Exetrius's comments about it being rather plain and simple, with such a crude base and unelaborate wall. Hopefully it will be as he said and you start building bigger things again with greater regularity!

Yes, that link is more or less what I mean. That is the general idea, at least.

I think perhaps it is the fact that you have a bit of dark brown here, a bit of dark orange here, a bit of dark red here, and the rest all regular reddish brown that causes what I mean. If, perhaps, you could find a way to make the trim dark brown and the walls regular brown, or something like that, it would look better. At very least I would get rid of the other shades being randomly mixed in without much rhyme or reason.

I love the staircase inside! That is my favorite detail by far. It definitely has the same look and feel as Leanan Manor, but since that one was good, and this one is a bit bigger and better, that is no problem. (And it has an interior!) The roof on this one is actually an improvement on the other, in my opinion, and I like that you made the stone on the edge decorative and more gradually sloped using those 1x1 plates with clips. Good work as usual, SK! My one quibble is with the vines on the back, as they seem either superfluous or insufficient; that is, there should be more of them or none at all, in my opinion, to either keep the overall very clean look that you have presented or to make it look older and more run down. As it is, it is a bit too much in the middle for my liking.

Wow, ME, epic throne room! Beautifully done, as usual. Keep these things coming. I especially love that floor! Though if those leaders are all that stands between Raavage and the rest of Historica, and Raavage has the map, I do not feel entirely safe...

I love all of the lime green in that interrogation chamber! Good work!

Definitely reminds me of Felucia...

I fell asleep last night contemplating different Lego roofing techniques, and it occurred to me that I had some feedback to give to you about your roof. When I first saw it it seemed strange that I could see the sides of the shingles (when looking at the gabled end) with the uneven gap underneath. I realized that the reason it seemed odd was that there was no end board to hide it and make the whole thing look a tad prettier/more complete. I forget what the technical name for the end board is (rake, maybe? I know I read it in the UoP guidelines somewhere) but I think including one here would have cleaned up the shingle edge on the gable and made it look a tad nicer. It still works the way it is, but I think it would be better if it had that board (rake?).

Darn! I was hoping the Roomba-bot would pull off the upset...

I love that space-semi truck! The shipping container is excellent, too. Great work!

I put my main comment in the next section, where you have the overview, but I just want to reiterate how much I like your story, and especially the way that you illustrate the action by changing small things in the scenes (like minifig faces). Great work!

Very nice, En_zoo! This looks great. I'm glad you have that overview picture at the end, as I was curious to see the whole thing instead of just the closeups. You've done a great job with your foliage, and I think I like this forest even better than your last one. The big tree is the best. The story is what sells it, however, and it was a bunch of fun to read it. The different faces that you use throughout added a great deal to the story, as you managed to illustrate the different emotions of the characters quite nicely. I have only a few points of criticism. First, the olive green bushes in the front aren't working for me. They seem like a few leaves dropped in a pile instead of the carefully-wrought trees that you have in the back. Second, I'd get rid of the small pine/fir made with the flower stalks, as they just don't look very good in my opinion, and you don't need it with everything else you have here. And third, while you did a great job of making the shack look run down and dilapidated, it would be nice (from a visual standpoint) to have more contrast in it; three shades of brown mixed and matched make for a hard-to-see building. The details fade away into obscurity. Otherwise, though, this is great! I love what you can do from an arborial perspective, and I can't wait to read more of your story! Keep up the good work.

Hangar 9 Location: C09 - Orinshi Tags: spaceship "Well done, Explorer Quilones, well done," Commander Gorn said as the two men were walking down the corridor towards the hangars. "The bosses are happy with you, I must say, quite happy. You've made a crucial discovery of some Awesomnium right in the nick of time." "Thank you, Commander," Henjin replied. He liked Commander Gorn, though he wished the man would stop being so condescending. And those red epaulets did not look good with his complexion, not at all. "Now, Quilones, you may be wondering why I've had you pack your things. Well, we've got a little surprise for you," the commander continued. "A reward, so to speak." "Sir, I was just doing my job," Henjin protested. "I don't need any reward." "Fiddlesticks!" Gorn yelled. "You deserve a reward. Come on. I'd like to show you your new spaceship. Let's go take a look here in Hangar 9, shall we?" The commander led the way into the hangar as he said this, showing Henjin a sleek ship with one of those really cool trans-red canopies and twin Magellan-class propulsion-drives. "Wow, Commander, that is some ship!" exclaimed the intrepid explorer. "I ought to be able to get to any part of the system in no time with this thing!" Commander Gorn maintained his usual grim expression but said nothing, gesturing towards the ship. Henjin approached, looking to see where the cargo bay was so that he could throw his backpack into it. Suddenly, Henjin found himself lying on his back, his bag of belongings flying across the smooth floor of the hangar. From his new position on the tiles, he could see the back of a man running up to and climbing into the spaceship. "Hey! Who does that guy think he is?" shouted Henjin angrily. "That's my ship!" Commander Gorn merely coughed, perhaps blushing slightly. The pilot was in the ship and beginning to close the canopy. "Commander Gorn!" shouted Henjin. "Aren't you going to stop him?" "Er, no, sorry, Explorer," the commander muttered as the ship flew off. "I seem to have read the list wrong. Hangar 9 was for Spacer Rick's new ship; yours is in Hangar 6. I seem to have flipped the numbers in my head somehow. It happens to me all the time, actually." Angrily Henjin picked himself up from the floor of the hangar. "Shall we go to Hangar 6, then, Commander?" "Yes, yes, of course," replied Gorn. "By the way, Quilones, you know who your celebrity look-alike is? Peter Quill--Starlord! You look just like him, except for the hair, of course." Henjin merely grit his teeth, muttering low enough that the commander wouldn't hear it, "Pettr Quilones was my uncle..."

Why blue? Because I have a bunch of blue spaceship pieces and nowhere to build with them right now...

Welcome, Tyndale! You are just in time for the final chapter of Book II, which is very exciting. Make sure that you post a picture of your sigfig and, if you want to do so, claim your territory. But you have chosen wisely, coming to the best guild. Glad to have you!

The jungle is very lush! That looks great. I also love how you made the Kawashita ship look older and crashed and incorporated it into the landscape. It makes me want to see it wholly intact, however. A very nice build.

Great work, Maestro! Your builds continue to progress so beautifully. The influences of both LD and DC are evident here, and I think you are beginning to master the style and make it your own. The house, in particular that roof, are splendid, and I love all of the fun angles. The trees, too, are lovely and complement the house. Really I think the only thing I do not like is the grass. I'm not quite sure exactly what bothers me about it or how to improve it, but there is something off, in my opinion, about the grass. The stream running through the grass, with the rocks on the banks, looks good, the bridge looks good, the farmer with his scythe and the scarecrow all look good, but the grass needs something. Maybe smaller plates? Maybe some 1x1 round plates on the path? A bush or shrub? I don't know. What I do know is that everything else is excellent. Good job!

I love this gate! The part that really sells it, to me, is the curved wood over the doors, combined with the excellent stonework. The heads set on spears are great, too. I also like how you made the path, though still snow-covered, look different from the rest by using 1-stud width tiles instead of other white pieces, creating the illusion of wheel tracks. My one bit of critique is just that your camera work is always a bit dark, making it hard to see the delightful details. I have no suggestions for fixing it, since I am not much better, but that is where the build could use the most improvement.

Looks great, DG! Glad to see you back with a build. The dragon on the side is fantastic! I love all of the different levels and all of the activity that you have depicted here, from the rat-infested dungeons up to the bat-infested rafters, and everywhere in between. There are two minor areas where I think the build could be improved, though. The first is the street; since everywhere else you have taken extreme care in tiling it so nicely, I was a bit disappointed to see how bare and almost incomplete the street texture looked. More 1x1 round plates or tiles, different tans and browns and greys mixed in there, would improve it tremendously, I think. The second is the chimney; this is more of just a practical thought, rather than quality critique, but it just seems like it should have bigger or at least more openings at the top given the number of fireplaces using it down below. The two 1x1 rounds just seem inadequate to handle the venting of such a large building. That being said, it is impressively large and exquisitely detailed. SK himself would be proud, I think, of the various floors and the care that you took in crafting the interior. Well done! [edit: I see that SK replied while I was typing this up, and he is proud...]

Ahh, so epic! I love this. The fog is terrific, though I am somewhat sad that it obscured the old house. Looks great, but now I am terrified for all of Historica. How can any of us sleep in our beds tonight knowing that Raavage is on the brink of recovering a relic of such power?

Nice job with this build! You found a way to make it look like the skyscraper roofs that I always see in the movies and yet spacey too. Those light bley 1x1 bricks with bars work surprising well, giving the impression of some sort of built-in satellite/antenna setup or cell phone tower. My favorite part is the quarter of a landing pad that you included, though, giving the build a feeling of connecting to a larger whole. My one bit of criticism is that I think the Octan logo would have been better done using SNOT and set into the floor that way, as it would let you do better curves and finer lines, rather than the tiles that you used. But other than that it looks very nice.

I just joined last week, so my opinion may carry less weight, but much of Robuko has expressed seems about right. What attracted me to the game first and foremost was the idea that I could build within and interact with an already-created galaxy, similar to the idea that there is a significant amount of history in GoH that can give meaning and weight to a castle build. I did not just want to build a spaceship, I wanted to build a spaceship with a purpose and within a collaborative context. The problem that I have is that the setup encourages builds that are practical but not beautiful; what I mean is that I need to build on planet X to get resource Y, and it needs to include vehicle Z to get the maximum amount of points with all of the right tags, but I just really wanted to build a spaceship... It feels too strategic and not just about building awesome stories in space. Some may disagree and say that the strategic element, the desire to win and get more resources, is what keeps them going, but I do not feel that way (I always hated Risk and Monopoly, too). I would rather have a story and build the best things that I can, that are going to push me further in my skills as a builder, and get constructive criticism in return to build even better things in the future, rather than be rewarded for a fig on a plate, or a few pieces slapped together without thought for aesthetics. Others may disagree, but that is my two cents.

It is good to see some SNOT-work on the roof of the main compound, and I think that you did a good job angling one of the towers to keep it from being all perfectly square. I also quite enjoy the uneven roofs of the towers, where you have not fully pressed down your tiles; it creates the appearance of age and weathering, which is nice. Sand green and light bley look good together. As far as some areas for improvement, I will point out two: first, as ME said, I would avoid using the "brick" texture bricks too much in a wall, as they end up looking awkward, and next to the sand green bricks of the same size they do not quite work; and second, the ground could use some more texturing. This latter area is both difficult and easy to fix, as you basically just have to put down a bunch of plates and bricks in such a way as to imply some terrain, but you must also have enough plates and bricks to do so. The buildings look good, but it would look better as a whole with improved terrain. But welcome back!