Grover

I like the irregular base and its cutout as a quarter. Makes it look like a showcased piece. The stairs made of the SNOT slopes looks great, too. I think my favorite trees are the small ones made of the small limb elements on the sides of the scene. Good job keeping the wind direction consistent in the torches and the flags: the little details really matter. One thing that can help photography when you have a facade like the tower is to put a piece of cardboard behind it to block light that comes through. I am enjoying the story and look forward to more!

Love the guy with the tongue sticking out of his mouth gather honey. Hilarious! Could be interesting to see if they ever make those 1x1 round plates with hole through the stud in yellow or orange. It could be very honey looking piece. The photography is good, too. I like the closeup shots that bring the viewer into the scene. It's a fun, quick little build that does a great job getting the story going. Look forward to more!

I want to see these forums thrive and do well. Although it makes sense to categorize each theme, I am concerned that over-organizing the posts into sub forums will diminish traffic. There are very few western builds. How many subforums do we need? GOH MOCs Roman Greek Medieval Reniassance Miscellaneous This is a reasonable question, as I don't see enough builds outside of medieval to populate their own forums. If have a subforum that gets 1 post a month, is that worth it?

For my CMFs, I use glass jars. You have to be careful to avoid the lids with plastisol, however, as this is PVC and causes problems (same with rubber seals on mason jars). Cardboard can invite bugs or mice over time, and is not waterproof (more of a problem for sails, string, and stickers). I tend to use large PP or PE bins for bulk parts storage and Ziploc bags for sets that are broken down and haven't had any issues. Depending on the manufacture of the bags and their constituents, there may be issues.

Poly(ethylene) and poly(propylene) are fine. The problem comes when you have materials that outgas badly, such as PVC or PMMA (aka acrylic). These release lower molecular weight oligomers or sometimes mers, which cause problems with the ABS (generally partially dissolving it) and can ruin it. If you are worried, you can always look up plastics suitable for high vacuum. Those that are don't outgas much and are likely good for storage. Those that are not suitable for high vacuum are probably not good for storage.

We shall agree to disagree then. I do not find value in splitting the Historic forums into MOC and non-MOC, and am afraid that we will lose traffic if we try to organize that way, but it doesn't bother me much either way if everyone wants to reorganize the Historic part of the forums. I do think that lumping the GOH MOCs into the regular MOCs would be a bad idea, however, as it would make it difficult to find the GOH MOCs properly for story coherence. I also disagree that the GOH MOCs are not clearly presented, as I find them to usually be more clearly presented that non-storyline MOCs here, so quite the opposite view point! I do I appreciate your civil discourse and well-thought out responses, as there are members in other forums who are not very polite, and I think it's great that we have differing opinions and can have a rational discussion. Thank you for that! As for GOH, I personally find that having a consistent storyline can help drive and preserve builds. Tolkien invented languages, and part of his reason for inventing Middle Earth was that he knew that a language without a culture would die (e.g., esperanto). He wanted his world's culture, even if fictional, to preserve his languages. In the same way, I find that my builds are more memorable and help to inspire others when they are part of an ongoing story, so I build in GOH. I respect that not everyone sees things that way and certainly not everyone is into roleplaying, which can turn folks off, too, but I am happy to have a place in which I can present a story with my builds. I am not really into the scorekeeping aspects of the game, so were I to build for BOTBS or Andromeda, etc., I would not pay much attention to scoring. I know that digresses a bit, but I think it also helps illustrate the delineation between GOH and the other MOCs, so hopefully that was worthwhile.

No. MOCs for those who have signed up for GOH go in the GOH forum. Everything else goes in this forum. As you said, there are people who do not want to have to sign up for GOH for their MOCs. Thus, their builds go here. BOTBS is much the same way on the pirate forum I expect. My invitation was for you to come look at the guilds on GOH since you said you never go there, unless their being part of a role playing game really turns you off. There are some excellent MOCs in GOH that you're missing out on if you never go there, and you usually get great feedback. I don't know if you MOC and want feedback on your builds or prefer discussing non-MOC themes on the boards. It depends on what you want.

Really beautiful work. Love the dark green against the other colors. The sloped roof against the square house is awesome looking, too. The texture is pretty busy, but it makes a lot of sense if it's from a rural area where they'd use whatever they have (as opposed to a large well-funded castle project with multiple quarries and stonemasons where they spent a lot of time and money shaping stones just so). Look forward to seeing your next build!

Wow, what a nice MOC! I love the rockwork. It looks very natural with different levels, and the flowers help it feel more organic. The tower is also excellent. Great color choice, and also nice use of the offset plates to look like some stucco is falling away to reveal the great beneath. It appears to me to be more of a later construction (a 19th c. castle for instance) due to the crenelations, which appear to be more vestigial than functional, but I could be wrong if you were going for more of a classic castle feel, which you definitely hit with them. Really beautiful work, and I love the flowers near the corner of the building. Look forward to seeing more of your builds!

I think I need to build one of these now! What a great use of parts to make a fantastic looking dragon! Great job!

Very well done. I love the homage to the old classic style. Reminds me a lot of the Black Monarch's Castle. The brickbuilt grey on the black looks great, and the tree is very nice (I can't remember who made those originally, but I think they were around here). Nice job!

Love the trees! The leafy green at the top looks great, probably one of the better trees that I have seen in quite a while. The whole scene is quite clean and well done.

Very well done. The lighting is really superb. I assume you clipped tiles to a net for the ceiling? The buttresses on the ceiling are particularly well done and look like they were a real pain to get together! Thanks for sharing!

If you like looking at some great MOCs, you should visit GOH. If you like discussing non-MOCs, this is probably the right forum for you. I prefer looking at and commenting on MOCs. I came to these forums to get feedback to improve my building, not really to discuss non-builds much, although I occasionally do (see this thread!). Thus, I don't really come out here to the historic forums much except to occasionally look at MOCs. I would also say to each their own. If it's one step too far to share a MOC just to sign up, for some people, it's also one step too far to click on a sub forum to look for discussion or MOCs for others. Thus, to each their own. I, for one, will likely never read the main historic forums again if the MOCs are put in their own separate subforum. I found this thread just looking for MOCs.

Welcome! Enjoy your time in the frozen lands of Mitgardia. Look forward to seeing your MOCs!

Is there enough traffic to warrant a separate sub forum for MOCs vs. discussion? I don't typically see that here. It may be different on the Pirate forum, but I rarely go there. I am also less likely to start reading more sub forums. The more I have to click, the less likely I am to read the forums or comment. I spend most of my time in GOH but my second most read forums are the historic forums here. If I had to click to yet another sub forum, I would probably not bother. Distinction between GOH and the rest of the forums seems all right, as the GOH is exclusively MOCs (no discussion outside of sticky threads). Although there is a roleplaying aspect to the building, it's not terribly stringent and if you wanted to, you could just build a bunch of freebuilds and never participate in the challenges or develop a story. The only real requirement would be to sign up for a particular guild so they get points for your builds. There's a lot of really excellent builders there, too, and some great feedback.

Challenge V. You can enter one of the categories on your own and need a team for the other. Team building thread here: https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/176708-challenge-v-team-building/

Is Discord that VOIP thing that gamers use? I'm much more likely to post on here than actually talk to people, as my schedule is a mess, but if it's something you want to do, maybe others are interested?

I agree, I have found that it's cheaper to get everything you can from B&P and then buy the extra on BL to part out a set. Parting out is expensive in my opinion, usually cheaper to buy the set together unless you're willing to sub expensive pieces. For actual bulk buys, BL can be cheaper, but that means you're looking for a very specific piece in high quantity (I have bought several thousand of one part trying to get pieces for a MOC before, and if you do your homework and find a seller selling for cheap, you can definitely save over new from TLG.

It is recommended to not let the bricks get above 40°C (104°F) when washing, or they can come out of their tolerances. Harsh cleaners like bleach are likewise not recommended. I usually wash in slightly warm (35°C) water with some 3% hydrogen peroxide for sterilization, with a few drops of dish soap. If you have oils or dirt caked on, as @hagridshut mentions, it helps to scrub them with a soft bristled brush first. I then strain the pieces, rinse with filtered water to remove any hardness, and let dry spread out on a tray. If you have a fan blowing on them, it speeds up the process, as does a large salad spinner.

Wow! I'm surprised you didn't win the competition. Love the whole thing! The roof and its decorative edge are standout, if you ask me. Love how its set at an angle to make the base feel less regular. The little lime green tree is great, and the attention to detail picks up some really nice accent work in the bushes and the tudor styling. Personally, I like the tan, as I think it complements the red nicely. I think a brighter color (white, light yellow, light blue) might make the red roof stick out, but it blends well with the browns here. Very nice, and I hope to see more!

Welcome back! Great to see a build for Lady Eleanor again! Very nice watchtower! Reminds me of one of the watchtowers from Skyrim. Really nice use of an irregular height base. That's not terribly easy to do, and it looks great here. The rockwork looks good, not too uniform, and the roof looks solid. Overall a very nice build. For your map of Bluevale, could you do a microscale, perhaps a bit bigger than the forced perspective micro/nano scale that you did when Lady Eleanor was looking down into the valley (the Clifftop riders build you did a while back)?

Great to see your sigfig and his family again! Love the cart idea and the eggs. Great job with the grasses springing up between the stones, too.

Outstanding! Really brilliant work. It'd been a while, so I had to go back and re-read the previous parts, but the story flows nicely, and I love the characters. You have a good eye for building minis. The lighting is unbelievable. It looks like sunlight pouring in through the windows and completely natural! I love that you can see detail in the window lattices in the shadow. One of my other favorites are the braziers on the wall. It's quite a challenge to get them to hang at an angle like that and they look great. Doors, tiles, all very nice. The map on the table looks like it was really frustrating to build, but it came out great! Kudos, and keep up the outstanding work!

Wait until you start building medieval. You think $30-40 per car is bad? How about a cart drawn by 4 goats? That's a $160 cart and it doesn't even have an engine!