Grover

What a great build! I love the idea, and the execution of the concept. It's a big job to pull off! I really like the interior of the place, especially near the bar. The varied minis look great. The black and red ship is a nice color change, and looks very crisp. I'm a fan of clean builds, although in this case, it almost looks too clean, like the build is new. The plethora of seagulls (yay gulls!) are great, but I am wondering where all the whitewash is from the many gulls? Perhaps an inclusion of some gull whitewash, some sand green or olive green for moss, and maybe some small foliage pieces for seaweed or other small growths would help to break up the large brown sections that look pristine. In any case, it's a great build, and I enjoy seeing your work! Nice job!

Nice work! I like the irregular base, and the open stables. I also like that you were careful to detail grass around the fences (where it would not get trod down), and the droid arm fences--they look really good. I think my favorite part is the bucking horse kicking people over! The photos are a bit grainy; I would suggest more light (even just adding some desk lamps aimed at the creation), as it will help the exposure and give you a less grainy shot. Enjoy seeing your builds, and look forward to more!

Another very nice build! Really captures the Mitgardian feel, I think. The greens and browns are great. I really like the clean lines and level of detail as well: the green rug/work on the floor, the great windows for chair backs, the side area with the keg, etc., and the tapestry over the fireplace are awesome, and yet there's not an overwrought greebling on the rocks or floor. Great job!

This is a great build. Love the colors, juxtaposing the various browns against the olive, and the trees look great. Enjoying the story as well! My only suggestion would be to give it a bit more lighting for photography. It seems slightly underexposed and a bit grainy for it to me. Great job, though, and I look forward to more!

I think this is now my favorite of your dragons. Love the eye. The colors are great, and the use of the pink is awesome! The colors are perfect, and the shape is really good. Are you getting faster at making these? I think something like that would take me forever!

Nice work! There's a number of things that I like about this build, including the water outside, the nice use of olive green for the vegetation, and the slight texture to the outer wall via the back of the arch pieces. Although not very showy, I think the walls are realistic, as most of the medieval wooden walls (unless attached to a stone wall or as part of a hoarding) were usually pretty straight. A lot of those were more temporary palisades, however, so as a permanent fort, this could be different. I would agree with the other commenters that the corner gate is indefensible, but when I first looked at it, I took it to be a break in the wall from where the fort was attacked. This would be a weak point in the defense since there was no tower there, so it would make sense to attack there if this was the case. The only part I'm not excited about is the roof; there seems to be a pixellated texture there to me for some reason, but it is quite passable. I love the interior! The horse stables, the walk for the defenders, and the great posing of the minis, especially with the wand for a cane. Very well done!

I doin't mind at all and am honored to have my sigfig as part of the story. Lady Gwenllian is available for anyone to use in their stories (as long as they don't do major story changes, like kill her off, marry her, have her commit treason, etc., but I think everyone here is respectful of things like that). Both prelude builds are spectacular. The lighting is awesome, and I like the way you've cropped the pictures to make the scenes more intimate. The thoughtful inclusion of decorative elements along the hallways without being gaudy really looks nice, too. I think your architecture style for druidham is remarkably consistent, and I can imagine all the builds you've done so far being put together into one large one to see the entire place at once (not that anyone has enough pieces for such a thing). Thanks for taking the time to make the builds, take the pictures, and write up the story (I assume in some conjunction with the other mods on here). Nice work!

I've noticed that there's usually a slowdown around this time due to both holidays and everyone feverishly building for the CCC.

I think the standout here is the texture, as others have said. The new rounded plates, the quarter circles, and the great layout of the tiles on the floor are awesome. The mini posing is bery good, too. I'm not entirely sure what I'm looking at with the flying monkeys, but that's kind of secondary. Nice work!

Nice build! I like the build around a 'tradition' of Varlyrio, building up some lore. I like the blue and white lines in the floor of the build, and the use of the trans blue pieces for water (from the Marvel Superheroes, right?) looks great! The minifigure posing with the guards' crossed polearms is a nice touch. At first I thought the statue and back wall were a bit blocky and utilitarian for what I thought of as a Varlyrian build, but then you mentioned that it was designed by a Mitgardian (probably with heavy dwarven influence), so it makes a lot more sense--a fortress, not an ornate delicate center of worship as it well. Well done!

Thank you all for your replies and comments! I noticed right after I posted that the main picture was really washed out by comparison to the others, but hadn't had a chance until today to get another one. My photo editing around the edges is kind of sloppy on this, so please forgive me, but here is the main picture again: Thanks! I'd be happy to incorporate your sea-god stories into my coastal builds--I think it would be fun to tie stories together. Thank you! This build was an interesting hodgepodge for me. I had this idea for the shrine and story, but then it morphed into playing with new rockwork techniques that I hadn't tried before. The gray rockwork up front (sadly the most visible) I think looks the crappiest, and I definitely haven't figured out how to do that yet. The orange clay to the left I think turned out better, and amusingly, the rockwork you can't see much (the gray in the back) unless you go to the album, I think turned out pretty well. I had to try something new! Yeah, there's a lot of ways I could have gone on the water, and as I mentioned, I wasn't super happy with it, but the trans black was all I had enough pieces of, so it was what I had to use (I also had trans-neon orange, but I don't think that would have been very good). Thanks! It's kind of a weird experiment piece for me, trying new rockwork techniques. My flora and landscaping need the most work, so that's what I'm focusing on. The grey rockwork up front is definitely not good, but it was a new technique that I haven't figured out yet. Oddly, having grown up in the midwest, we actually have strange places where orange clay lines up with grey limestone just like this, so it seems normal to me, but having lived about the country, it's definitely a weird juxtaposition if you're not used to it. I was more happy with how the orange worked with the green than with the grey, even despite my strange childhood. Fixed the first pic, too, see above. It's not the best photo either but way less washed out. Thanks! I agree, the grey rockwork up front is kind of crappy. I need more experience withe the ball and hinge plate method for sure. I had a lot of fun with the gulls. They are usually obnoxious at the beach and I wanted to make it seem that way. Thanks! I'm going to keep working with the plates. I think there's something to be had for rockwork there, but my execution was not very good this time out. Thank you! Thank you! I agree, that first pic was way too washed out, so I took another that's at the top of this post. The gulls were a lot of fun to work with. B&P for the win! Good call on angling the transition. I will try to do some incorporation next time I use that--maybe some eroded rivulets running down onto the bedrock. I didn't even think of the supports on the lean-to--I appreciate the catch, as I try to make things realistic in my builds; I think it helps the eye find things more natural. I think I'm going to have to get some trans blue for water in the future. The trans black is fine for deep water, but it's too dark for the shore, and the trans-light blue just looks like the carribean to me. I really wish that TLG would make a trans light grey--the trans clear looks like ice or snow (or in this case the froth of the surf) and everything else is too dark. Trans green is nice for ponds and other such, but I'm not really enamored with any other trans pieces for water. The only other trans color I have in abundance is trans neon orange, so I think I probably made the right call with the trans black between the two! lol Thank you! The rocks up front are kind of crappy for sure. I was hoping to achieve something else, but I really need to work on that technique. The dark orange was meant to be like a hard clay, but not entirely sure that made it through. I did try to incorporate it as part of the path on the way down, probably better seen in the album pics. Thanks for the encouragement! I'm trying to add builds for HSS in a logical progression since Prenmôr is new (i.e., it's new, so there's no way there's a town hall yet). Thanks! I'm experimenting as I go, so hopefully these techniques will just improve from here. The rockwork that I was impressed with was things like this: https://www.flickr.com/photos/91596610@N03/15700718561 https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5554/14808138020_7486250ec1_z.jpg I wanted to emulate stuff like that but I don't think I used the same technique. Tried something and it didn't really work. Oh well, first attempts. Thanks! I had a lot of fun with the gulls. I tried to put them all facing the wind or at least the food as best as I could, since they typically face into the wind when they can. I had a lot of fun making the whitewash for them too. I'll take a look at a horizontal for the clay next time. I hadn't thought about that but you're right, it may look really good.

Fishery and Shrine at Prenmôr | Avalonia | Grover

Latest freebuild up. It's the one that I didn't have time to finish for the first challenge.

The Tales of Lady Gwenllian 0. Introduction 1. The arrival of Lady Gwenllian aboard the Cedar Serpent 2. Scouting a Site 3. Early Spring in Prenmôr 4a.(Prelude) Restoring the Shrine 4. The Fishery and Shrine at Prenmôr From her high rock outcropping, Lady Gwenllian had a good view of the coast and had watched throughout the spring as the villagers from Flewd had moved to their new home in Prenmôr. Now that it was early summer, Lady Gwenllian wanted to see how the villagers from Flewd were settling into their new life, and wanted to inspect the work that the elves and dwarves had completed on the shrine to Neptune. She and Lady Seren rode their horses the half mile or so to the rocky escarpment that defined the edge of the land, separating it from the beach. She found that the villagers had sailed their boats laden with their meager belongings down the coastline from Flewd, had assembled lean-tos for drying fish and set up a small net repair station on the beach. The dwarves and elves had done an excellent job on the statue to Neptune, which sat overlooking the sea and was already laden with offerings and gifts from the villagers. Lady Gwenllian smiled as she saw the villagers hard at work. Because most of the young men had been lost during the drow raids, the remaining elderly, women, children and the local village idiot all had jobs, from killing and gutting fish to shooing away the seagulls that inundated the fishery. The locals greeted Lady Gwenllian and Lady Seren warmly, happy to have a new home in a safer location. This is the original build that I had envisioned with the shrine that didn’t get completed in time. I think it was a little too ambitious. On the other hand, it’s nice to see the idea finally come to fruition.

I agree with Bas, there are a lot of colors going on there. In many cases, paths are lighter colors of dirt than the surroundings, as it gets dried out from sunlight exposure and being beat down by those walking on it. In this case, the path will definitely be sunken below the surrounding dirt and grasses. Googling "deer trails" and looking at the images gave me some of my first ideas of what I wanted to do with some of my builds. On the subject of roads, I don't know if the old Roman roads were built directly on the ground or if they dug out a flat surface. Regardless, the grasses surrounding the roads will be higher than the roads themselves. What you have built here looks more like a dirt path than a road, so I'm guessing it will be lower than surrounding. At least that's the way I'd approach it. Others here have done a lot of different things that have looked good as well. In any case, nice work, and I'm looking forward to reading more of the story!

This is another amazing small build! The colors are great, it gives a sense of being underwater, and the positioning of the figures is perfect. I didn't know there was a lime green kraken set of legs, but it's great! I really appreciate this, too, because you are one of the few people who shows that you can build great things in small packages. There's a lot of people out there who say that you don't need a lot of bricks to build anything great. While true, I find that disingenuous for the most part because the people saying this usually have large collections and even though they may build something small, they have a huge collection to draw from and so only use the choicest parts and thus needed a large collection to make a small build. On the other hand, you have taken what you have and really made some spectacular builds, with even some non-standard color choices, but it all works. Great job! I look forward to reading more of your story. By the way, are you a native English speaker? I ask because your writing is outstanding. I took 5 years of German and can't write as well in German as you do in English.

Fantastic! This is great and really sticks with your already very nice style of buildings. My favorite part of this is how well you captured a light snowfall that wasn't quite enough to cover the ground. It really looks awesome. The Tudor style with texture but not overly much is great, the bay windows look really good, love the sideways crates for storage/chickens, and the dark grey is a nice choice for the stonework. Very nice work!

Ha ha! Freakin' gnomes! Love it. The story is great, and although the build, is, as you say, not your best work, it is still quite good. There are a lot of standard techniques that are used to great effect. I think my favorite part is the door, although the foliage, particularly the flowers, is quite nice. I especially like the plant stems coming out of the leafy plant parts. I haven't seen that before, but it works well, especially for a leafy shore plant. There's stuff that could use a little work, like maybe a border made from wedge plates and the path could be spruced up a bit, but for getting something out there, it's just fine. I'm interested to read more of the story!

Nice use of the Hogwarts square lattice windows! I really love the many layers of boards you have in the wall--it looks awesome. The tribute to the forestmen on the wall is fantastic--subtle and great. All the candelabras and the stuffed bear are fantastic, too. I like how you made the cracked stone floor continue the texture into the walls. I think that may be what makes the bear claw mosaic stand out so much as other have pointed out. It would be tough to make the moziac in the cracked rock style, however, and I like the green/grey juxtaposition. Love the Aquaman hair on the lord, too!

Great work! I like the flowering tree and the small wooden buildings near the shore the best. It's reminiscent of the 2013 King's Castle to me. I also like the use of the dark-trans blue for the ocean. I think it gives it a lot of depth. The portcullis is nice, too. I don't get as much of a sense of the sideways headlight bricks being windows as I did in HQ's microcscale... maybe they are too regular? It looks more like texture in the wall to me. The headlight bricks laid down however, do look like windows to me and are great. Very nice work as usual.

Nice! As others have commented, the snow might use a rock or two for some drifts, but it could be that you have a flat snow-covered plain. I am curious what the droid arms are... are they a bush or a tree or some sort? I'm just a little confused by that. Great use of the sabre-tooth and the caveman torso, though! For anyone else wondering, you can buy the sabretooth as a standalone item off Bricks and Pieces if you call in. Element 6237743. It's around $5 if I remember right. I bought most of my big cats this way as I don't want to buy the entire set just for the cat.

Good job! I like the closeups that help compel the reader into the story, with the overall shot at the end. It keeps distraction down I think. Well done to make all the shots out of this. I like the carpeting, and particularly the mini posing. That fur ruff (Penguin if I'm not mistaken?) really looks good and gives a sense of the cold. The scaffolding and forced perspective in the back is great as well. I'm enjoying reading the story. I hear you on the rebuilding too. I'm still trying to put finishing touches on the full build that I wanted to include on the challenge but didn't get in time. Glad to be able to see yours and glad you stuck with it, though!

Excellent job with the snow and the tree! I like the whole scene--the lean-to is great, the use of the curved and wedge pieces for the road, the light tan suggesting dry dirt as opposed to the darker tan where there is presumably some snowmelt... very nice, and the story to go with it is great as well! I look forward to more!

Excellent work. I like the colors, with the tan, dark tan, and brown, plus olive grass. The henhouse is awesome. You did a very nice job with the roof as well, and the interior is great. I like the stone mantle in corporation into the wall as well. Great job!

Nice work! There's a lot of great things going on here: I love the roof--it's a great use of tan and dark tan to make a thatched roof, and there's a lot of nice detail at the top with the legs and the golden snitch; the goats are well done and make sense with the dog indoors in a medieval setting; the interior is well thought out and very nice. The grain for the goats, the cloaks for linens, and the boxes of food I like the path outside, as it looks like an intentionally laid path from river stones. I like the snot clear trans wash from the falling water. I like the curved pieces to form the footbridge, too. A few things stick out to me as small things that could be changed easily: the cleaver and some of the kitchenware is pointing up, but in most kitchens I've seen, the heavy blades hang downward, so if you put the clips higher it might look like the utensils are hanging. On the other side, the pathway and river look quite straight. Putting in a bit more of a bend here or there, even one brick wide, could help. If you have the bricks, which I know not everyone does, you can put wedge plates across the pathway to increment the elevation changes, which helps break up the 90° angles that we commonly see. As for the water, it's hard to get the trans tiles together, but smooth water is nice for calm water, and if you want more of a rushing mountain stream, putting the studded trans plates down with height differences of 1 plate here and there, interspersed with grey pieces for rocks. As for photography, I built myself a cheap light box, and with 4 LED bulbs, I can take decent pics even with a cell phone. More light is better, just don't use a flash. That will get you about 85% of the way there. Well done, though, and I look forward to more of your builds!