Grover

Outstanding! Love the color choices here. The dark blue accents with the greys and tans are awesome. I like the mix of traditional and SNOT stone work, too--it's a nice departure from the studs up that is seen a lot. The sand green and dark green work well together, which I hadn't really considered for small patches like this before. The minifig posing is spot on. A lovely little build all the way through. Look forward to more!

Nice! I like the expansive nature of the scene, with the stream, bridge, house, field, and stables. These are some rich farmers, though, with buttons on their shirts and a stone house! I really like the tiled dark tan roof on the house and stables. The trees and flora look great as well. If I were to nitpick, I would suggest that a bit more random detail be added to the ground (rocks, etc. in the path and fields). The use of color is great, too--the light blue and pink are nice highlights that are not overdone. I look forward to more of your builds!

Although it is usually not allowed to count challenge builds for HSS, Category B overlaps directly with the Military category for HSS. Might we be able to count Category B for both?

As @Henjin_Quilones has said, welcome @Odoaker! I hope that you enjoy yourself here. Once you post a sigfig, there are a lot of things to help give you some ideas if you would like. First, there is the Historican Settlements, which not only gives you some ideas for builds, but once you complete the minimum requirements, puts your settlement on the map. There's also the Avalonian tasks (the first post of this thread). Then there's the global challenges, which should be starting again in May (look for prelude builds soon). Then there's the doctorate of Historica, which is hosted by Kaliphilin but open to all. Of course, as HQ says, you can do what you'd like too: freebuilds are always welcome. Build a joust, a keep, several scenes with minimal scenery and just minis and dialogue.. whatever you want. The guilds are a lot less structured in that sense than some of the other games on the forums here.

I would say thanks to you as well, HQ. You are doing a great job keeping things moving here despite the low turnout for most activities. My life has moved back into its normal pace, so I'm left with about 1 hour a month to build; I've been lucky so far this year. I can still hop on the forums here because I have access on my phone, but getting actual access to my bricks is another thing entirely. Oh well. I'll keep on as best I can.

Congrats! I think it's going to be a lot of fun to see de Gothia running around in other people's builds as the new king! And don't take it too hard, HQ. En_zoo had a brilliant build and was shutout by dG as well--I think dG was meant to be king. :-) Your build was great, and has inspired me to try to make some more expansive builds, or at least those that have an expansive feel like yours.

If you want to try and look at scale, in a real sense, you can scale to the height of a minifigure. Based on traffic lanes, the average automobile is assumed to be 1.75m wide. If you base scale on a minifigure , then the math works out to a car width of 5.2 studs, and a lane of traffic typically is from 2.7 to 4.6m, or ~8-13.7 studs wide. Thus, there are significant variances in the sizes of cars and lanes in the world, so it probably won't look that crazy until you get to the upper size limit of the lanes for cars that are in real life much smaller. Usually it's the big box trucks that fill the lanes, not the smaller cars. The other problem will be the proportion of most of the buildings, as they are small to the proportion of a minifigure in most cases, and thus, by extension, to the cars as well. I'd be of the mind to build my city, and then remove any cars that seem oddly proportioned to the eye.

Awesome! I really like the new trees you're trying. I think the studs out kind of looks like bark, and mixing these in with some of your other trees helps add some variety to the woods (I find it also saves on bricks). The mini posing is great as usual, and the story flows well. I like the understory in the forest, especially the dark green and brown. I see little changes here and there in your building style, and I think the builds are becoming more appealing/realistic (not that the ones before were unappealing, just that little changes here and there smooth things out to the eye). I like the mushroom, reeds, and even the rabbit there! Nice job!

I like the classic ones best, but the counterchanged falcon is outstanding.

@de Gothia Superb work by both entrants, but my vote has to go to our founding member for story.

Awesome! I love the cleanliness of the build with the floor design, the contrasting greens behind the throne, the guards, etc. The new square windows look great, too. I would like to see larger pictures (which I did on Flickr) as the throne room doesn't quite have the expansive feel that I would have envisioned, but I know that's hard with a 32x32 requirement. The dragon heads on either side of the throne are great, and the white flowers are a fantastic addition. I also like the inclusion of the carved runes at the base of the throne. Well done!

Very impressive! I like the detail in the hall--the columns, the arches, the minis in small recessed areas... all outstanding. The lighting is phenomenal, too. I immediately thought of some of the old gothic cathedrals in Europe, with morning light streaming through the windows. The amount of detail here is really staggering, with the tilework on the floor (that appears subtle from the angles of the shots but is probably very noticeable from above) and the details around the run to the throne. The dragon behind the throne is a little lost with all the people, so I'm glad that you included an extra picture without all the minis. It's decent, although I think the head style works better for the large-scale amazing dragons that you build; here it seems that space was a premium and it's hard to miniaturize the head (where Derfel's use of the Viking dragon head pieces tends to help). In any case, it's a great build, and I love seeing all the sigfigs in there! Very cool of you to include all of them as best you could. Great job!

So many great details! It reminds me a lot of a jungle setting, and I like the elven feel to it. It definitely has an Avalonian feel. As others have said, a cleaner background can help. Even just a bent piece of white posterboard can help clean up the background a lot. I like the multi-colored leaves and the heavy ground cover, too. Nice job!

Hilarious! I like the idea of the scene. The tree and bush are nice and I like the mini posing. The lighting on this one is better than your other pics, although you could probably still use more. It's amazing how much light you need for some of these things. I found lighting to be the most challenging part of my builds. Great job, though, and I look forward to seeing more!

Very nice work! I like how it's simple and elegant. The curved tiles at the bottom of the tower suggest some roundness that would otherwise not be there, and the tower itself has enough detail to appear realistic without being too detailed. I would again suggest some more light, particularly from the front, to help brighten up the picture. Great job, and keep up the good work!

lol, that's funny, and true!

I'm good with whomever @Servertijd chooses to build for Wilfred Sigurd. I am doubly happy that we get to see your throne room, @Henjin_Quilones, as your builds are always fantastic and I would hate to see one of them go to waste!

Nice work! The irregular SNOT base is superb and even gives a sense of the mountainous area that the house is in. The short trees are well done, too, and seem appropriate to the area, given the shorter coniferous trees usually found in high elevations. The heavy snow on the house roof is very nice as well, and the whole scene gives me the impression of deep winter. If I were to offer any suggestions, it would be to get more light on the photo. Depending on your camera, you can play with the f stop and ISO settings, or, you can flood the build with light. In any case, very nice work!

By the way, my apologies, as I was remiss in congratulating you on your newest addition to the family! That's a huge life change and wonderful as well. Best of luck with everything, and I wish you as much sleep as you can get! As for the tournament: Bracket tournaments do not work where the victor withdraws and chooses someone else to take his or her place. If you had wanted HQ and Cinnatus to take your place, you should have forfeited to him before voting concluded in the last round. I have a few suggestions of options that I hope remain fair to everyone: 1. You forfeit to de Gothia (I still think de Gothia should have to make a build to claim the throne in this case, but that's up to the powers that be). 2. You ask for an extension for time to build (this may not be feasible with a new child, as you will soon find that you have no time for anything!). 3. If (and only if since this was not agreed upon in the first place) everyone here agrees, you choose a champion to build for you. This person (be it HQ or whomever) would have to build with Wilfred Sigurd for you, like choosing a champion for trial by combat. All of us who were eliminated were eliminated fairly by vote and thus our stories and builds were not chosen by the majority and are no longer in play. To choose one of us who was eliminated would be unfair to the rest and to the spirit of the tournament at large, in my opinion. Others may have different suggestions, so let's hear them all, folks!

I think by standard tournament rules, if you withdraw after you’ve won your bracket, de Gothia would win by forfeit/default. I still think we should make him do a build to secure the throne, though. ?

What a fun story! I like how you have open-ended text that lets the viewer look at the build to determine exactly what's going on. It leaves a lot to the imagination and still leaves it open for you to do something else with down the line. I would have never thought of the red wedges being good in a build, but they look great here! I especially like the red spreading to the leaves on the bush. I think it's a great use of narrative to explain why there are red leaf trees in a deciduous forest in the middle of the summer. Nice work!

Nice work! I like how you have all the stories of Conrad's band. Maybe you could put a link to all of the threads when you're done? The interior shot is great, that same training facility we saw for Lok, so I won't comment on that again. The forest scene is nicely done, too. The floor with all the dark green is impressive--that's a lot of dark green!--and it looks good against the browns of the trees. The other flora (bushes, etc.) look nice, too. I especially like the birch-type trees on the edge of the scene with the dark red. If they are meant to be a fantasy-type tree, it could be interesting to explain their history at some point. The only suggestion that I could have is that the main deciduous trees could be modified. On the one hand, you could add more leaves if you have them to make the trees more full, but considering that an archer would have to see through them, it seems that the forest is not dense, so the lack of leaves makes sense. That being the case, spicing up the tree trunks with other techniques could help provide some variety. Some tree techniques, like the droid arm technique Full Plate uses, are parts heavy, and others require some unusual pieces, like trees made out of hose, so they are not useful unless you have a lot of the right pieces. However, SNOT with long plates can work, as well as just more irregular placement of the regular bricks (some ideas like this), and with just a few less regular trees in there, it can help provide variety in the forest. Regardless, I really like the scene, and the details (like the beehive and the mushrooms) are great! As usual, the minifigure posing is superb, and the photography really gives an intimate scene. I feel like I'm looking at a comic book panel telling a story. The interior on the ruined tower is superb. It gives the idea of a ruined outpost with the window on the left, and the clutter inside is great, especially considering who is living there. The straw bed is nice, and the walls are a good mix of detail without getting too crazy. I love the way the floor has collapsed! That's really well done and posed perfectly. The story itself is dark; Conrad is willing to pick up a murder who killed an innocent boy for picking mushrooms, so that speaks to his character and personality as well. I like the realism, though: not everything is some Disney movie ending. I like how we've read about Conrad's backstory, and are now learning about him as a leader and man through the stories of the people that make up his crew. Well done!

Ha! I missed that looking at the tiny screen on my phone. Thanks! I fixed it now.

I have been so busy I missed voting in the last round. Well, vote early I guess! My votes: (and this was a very hard decision) @de Gothia @Servertijd

Wow, this is a great build! Love the size and all the details, like the multi-level with the bridge and the stream, plus the house up top. I'd love to see more pics of the house itself. From the overall shot, it looks a little oriental, but that may just be an affect of the picture. The details with the dwarves, armor, etc. under the mountain are great, and I love the interior of the house! The wedge plates with snow over the stream are well done. I assume the river is meant to be flowing and isn't iced over? All the snow and detail is great. My only question is what kind of plant is that green with broad leaves in the middle of snow? Those plants seem slightly out of place, but the rest of the build is fantastic!