MetroiD

Nice little improvements there Ricecracker Having those coconuts facing the right way makes so much sense now :) Good luck mate!

Another awesome last-minute entry... Why are you guys doing this to us! There's been so many wonderful MOCs throughout the last couple of days, it's hard to actually take them in and appreciate them. A genuine piece of advice to all contestants - and don't take it personally Guss, I know you've been busy moving and haven't had as much time as you would have liked, but .... guys, try and post your entries before the last couple of days of the Contest. That way, more viewers would have the chance to actually enjoy your entries and check out all the details in them. Otherwise, you run the risk of having a wonderful MOC just being lost among the plethora of other entries being posted in the last split second. However, rest assured, Guss, that will definitely not be the case with this MOC. The work you've done here is absolutely brilliant and you've certainly taken the time to think of the best way to depict the ongoing action in the best possible way for your viewers. Kudos for that! Your ship looks wonderful, despite the fact that it's cut in half - I especially like her plate-built sails, I don't think I've ever seen that before! As to the sea giant - care to explain what that animal actually is? No doubt it looks quite menacing, but I was wondering what your actual inspiration here was... I also dig the splashing & ripple effects you've created all over - they're absolutely wonderful and add so much realism to this MOC. My only gripe is the same thing you've mentioned yourself - the photos... But I know how hard it is to take nice pics when you can barely find the time to get all your work done. I just thought it would have been wonderful if the lighting on your pics had been a better - those details would have been so much easier to spot! That said though, you've chosen some very nice angles (with the sea monster probably the only part of this MOC that isn't featured in detail), which pretty much negates the bad lighting. All in all, this is an entry I would definitely cast my vote for. Great job Guss!

Yup, I wouldn't rely on the forum's attachments mate - using those is only good after you've been ranting for a while and got some posts under your belt ... That said, welcome to Eurobricks - I hope you enjoy your stay and I sure hope we see your entry soon! Talking about which, I'd suggest turning to either flickr, photobucket, pict, imageschack or MOCpages as free sites where you could upload your pics before the deadline.

Nice vig! I like the combination of brown base + tan plates on top. If there were a bit more brown, it would actually look as the exact location which the conquistador has just dug up to find the treasure (he didn't just find it lying there, right). Oh, and I'm not really sure what's up with the faces growing from the leaves of that palm... care to clarify? Or are those goldhunters who have recently fallen prey to the... treasure? Two little suggestions that I feel this MOC could use: - include the actual map that the conquistador used; - try using a different expression for the conquistador - after all, he's just found a nice chest full of treasure, does he have to be that sulky about it? Good luck Ricecracker! :)

Run Pellaeon! Once Tereglith sees this, his iron-cast bat is surely coming after you... ...because this is definitely a wonderful golf course! And with the inclusion of water, bridges and (gasp) the Eldorado Fortress in microscale, it should definitely provide some stern competition to the other golf course in town. Now then, as to the pros and cons in my point of view... + Eldorado Fortress. In microscale!!! As kris_kelvin can confirm, we all love the ol' Fortress and its inclusion here is definitely a very smart move! + More minifigs = more varied action, it's really enjoyable to see that you've thought of some new challenges along the course and the respective response of golfers to those. + I like the fact that there are more ribs here, it gives a better sense of completeness. I wonder then how depicting a full ship hull might look... - Golf course -- again. Not "again", as in apart from Tereglith's entry, but "again", in terms of this being a repetition of your Small Division entry. I'd dock some points for originality here, but golf is obviously quite popular with seamen whenever they're not busy fighting each other. - Hole 3 could perhaps have been in the fortress itself - with the ball (excuse me, gem) falling down once it's putted. Or is it supposed to be that way? I can't really see the hole there... Cheers & good luck! P.S.: post edited to make that point about the hull more clear ;]

I share Derfel's concerns ... but well, I guess bikes weren't invented back then - and besides, I haven't been around the C-P forum that long :/ Back to your entry though - what works best for me here is, as noted above, the multitude of levels. Seabed, ship, streets, interior & separate floors - and numerous subplots going on throughout! Just a quick question though - are those scalps of Indigo Islanders used as lamps on purpose or is it just a nice usage of pieces... I'm confused I can't think of one single thing that's missing here. No creative critiquing from me then - this is hands down yet another top-notch MOC that's simply perfect as it is.

I'd rather remain silent (than be silenced), but let me just say... hey where's the peace man! Not too much love between that pirate captain and the redcoats, eh? Was just wondering earlier today whether you'd finally post that WIP of yours! Good thing you thought about it too

Hah! Look what the cat brought in! Good to know the Trains & Town MOC index is not going to be forgotten altogether... There's so many good MOCs from the last few months that aren't featured there it's a shame (*nag nag*)

Aaah, finally! A WIP ship!!! I thought I'd never see one of these - great build, Philipp! And it's not just the ship that looks good to me - the scenery (waterfall! ) is perfect as well and I absolutely love how your town turned out - I'd even go as far saying that to me this is one of the best-looking towns we've seen so far in this contest, regardless of its size. As to the build itself - whoa, there's so much activity it's really hard to focus on separate details! I've been looking through your MOCpages presentation for the last 5 minutes and the photos are getting more and more numerous... So I won't go into details and just say I absolutely love this MOC. Having so much going on has a downside, of course - you can't really show everything by just taking a few shots, but then again that's so typical of you MOC experts Good luck in the competition and cheers for entering this beauty in the contest!

I... just don't get it. That was my initial reaction. After that, I went through your back-story and read it over once again. I guess I get the idea now... poor catch for the troll cap'n, trying to steal the dwarf pirate's merchandise and using a rat as a mischievous surprise. Oh, yes, then they lived happily ever after. No, I still don't get it. And if I hadn't read your story, I never would have had any idea what this was all about. Now, using boots as a poor catch is a great idea... But why on earth would the dwarf get on a boat and go selling fruit and fish is totally beyond me. If you had added a marketplace or trading post or something like that, on the other hand, this would totally have made sense! And just a quick suggestion: clean up your bricks mate. It's not only going to be useful for this contest, it's generally a nice thing to do when they've been lying around and collecting dust - I've got enough experience in that and you can take it from me, clean bricks always pay So grab a brush and go clean those pieces -- or delete the last picture...

OK man, I get it, thanks for the clarifications... When I said "useful", depicting what the things actually do was precisely what I meant - obviously, you know what they're there for, but representing it in a way that the viewer could also understand is what I was aiming at. Your responses to my previous post in bold could work well as explanations along the pics, so that people can read what the things on this island are there for, and these would be the precise additions to the "back-story" which I felt were necessary.

Nice wall The update looks very nice, I like how you've followed up on that cloud idea and turned the second "level" here into a cloud :) My idea regarding the depiction of clouds in the wall was to use plates and cheese tiles as parts of the wall and incorporate some subtle SNOTting so that those clouds would actually be built in the wall. But seeing as you obviously don't have too many blue pieces at your disposal, I guess this works fine as well. The wings on the back of the captain's friend up in heaven also look appropriate - but I was wondering, have you considered using a couple of these as wings instead? I think they would look much more... celestial As to the "ground level" of your MOC - I like the addition of the rat and I also feel that the corpse's improved positioning is much more adequate and realistic. To be perfectly honest though, I never thought that putting a flower there would look appropriate, especially not beneath a gallow. So I don't think it works well - if anything, it distracts the viewers' attention from the hanging corpse. I understand that you're afraid that the space underneath the gallow would look empty, but at the end of the day... that's just how it is, after all - it's a gallow, the space around is supposed to be empty and uninteresting. You could have added some dirt or stones instead, but after all, it's your call and if you like the flower there, you should definitely keep it.

That's normal for any Advent calendar Can't wait to see the prizes!!!

Can't wait to see more!!! This looks great - the idea of townsfolk rushing to the dried up sea floor in order to collect treasure is totally awesome, and so is St Ana's custom hull - great job Blackmoor! I'll drop by later to see more details of this wonderful MOC :]

Ooops, for some reason "Coming Home" slipped my mind there... even though it's one of my favs in the Medium category. In that case - good luck in all three divisions!!! Can't wait to see your updates to Port Kingston!

SpaceMonkey, this is not a question of good or bad. It's just about one thing - having a platform which is specifically designed for MOC uploading and suits the needs of the AFOL community best. In that aspect, Brickshelf may have been sloppy in terms of giving users no way of messaging, contacting or discussing things with each other, and it might also have been rather dated in its core structure, but at the end of the day it did its job quickly and efficiently. There are a lot of external forums where one can actually present and discuss their MOCs and Brickshelf's primary function was never about showcasing, it was merely aimed at providing a place where people could host their photos. Comments and presentations belong elsewhere. Furthermore, I think we all have to accept that the occasional downtime is something which could have been expected from a service that's offered to any and all LEGO fans for free and has no limits in regards to the size or amount of uploaded files. I'm not a fan either of there being no information whatsoever regarding what's going on and no guarantee that the photos you upload today will be there tomorrow - but that's a chance you accept to take when you sign up for a free photo hosting service. Flickr, on the other hand, has proven to be a useful gathering point for AFOLs and I can see why that is so - the features you've noted (such as the ability to pinpoint details and discuss them or organize events) are a wonderful feature, but to me those are far from being decisive. What I care about most is having a simple and assessable structure which can be expanded in the way its user finds fitting - which flickr obviously doesn't propose. I personally am not new to flickr and thus baffled by its arrangement - I have been checking out users' photo collections ever since the website's inception, and I still feel that it's not the best platform for MOC sharing, precisely because it is supposed to be chaotic as it is. On the other hand though, it is that precise interconnectedness that appeals mostly to its users, so I guess we can rightly say - to each his own. I just hope Brickshelf comes back. And offers unlimited hosting & some nice features at a reasonable yearly subscription fee - at least then the site's stability will have to be guaranteed.

Wow, the new calendar looks quite... Svelty Loving it!!! And I can hardly wait for December to start :)

Looks... even more chaotic! But seeing as this is probably going to be your final revision of this entry, with the contest ending in a day, I guess it would be more useful to try and remove some details instead of adding anything. I admit, I did suggest adding more elements, but I also noted that you should lose the ones that are useless... The way this one is arranged right now, I can hardly make out any of the new additions or understand what they're about - especially since you haven't provided any backstory to this. Perhaps it would be a good idea to write some sort of explanation for all of these weird contraptions As to a comparison between V1 and V2, I obviously think that V2 has a bit too much going on for its own good. It is a move in the right direction, but it doesn't really arrive where I though you wanted it to be - in other words, instead of finding a use for all of the details in this MOC, you've still let quite a few of them just "feature" in there, without having an actual purpose. All said, I still think V2 > V1. And the work you've done on some details is very nice, so kudos for that. Here is how I feel about some of the details in particular: + You've kept the propeller and turned it into a windmill-like structure. Perfect, but what then? It just sits on top here and doesn't really do anything... + You've added white tiles to outline the area around the rocks - but the way you've placed those now makes the rocks look much too square. + I did understand your erosion concept quite well from the off, I just didn't feel that the way you'd represented it worked well. Now, however, it's much more believable - while being just as steampunkish - nice modifications to those rocks. + I like it that you've kept the "observation spot" on top and made it a bit more useful, good work. + The addition of an extra ladder leading from the shelter to the "observation spot" is also a good idea. - I still can't quite understand what that water pouring down from the rock is - or where it comes from. Rain water is good for drinking you know, so that should be stored instead of poured down. - The two pieces of cloth are supposed to provide shelter, I guess... but they just look out of place. If you'd tied their loose end to something, perhaps they might look like a roof of sorts... - Those yellow flippers-on-poles - what's their part? The redcoat hat is perfect, but I don't see any use for those flippers. - You've kept the rope, but it's still pretty dysfunctional. Who would hang their treasure (or even the empty treasure chest) out like that? You could have hung fish down from the rope instead, as if they were drying... Once again - that's what I like and dislike about this MOC. That said, the details I've mentioned as "useless" might appeal to other viewers, so I guess you should have a final look at this MOC yourself and decide what you like best about it and what you think you could get rid of -- that is, if you're planning on revising it again. Even if you don't edit it in any way, I'd strongly suggest adding a story, even if it's just a couple of lines - that should really help! In any case, this is a very original entry and I wish you luck in the contest with it :)

Ah, I see. Well, in any case, the street looks just fine to me - I was merely suggesting adding something - anything - to the quay, and that doesn't necessarily have to include people :) As to the white building, it does look very fine and castle-ish, so you've definitely achieved what you were going for! I was thinking that you could have added some kind of lighting to its front facade, nothing too fancy - a couple of torches for example could work quite nicely there. Once again - kudos for this wonderful MOC (the more I look at it, the more it reminds me of Sid Meier's Colonization!) and good luck with both of your entries :)

100% agree. Which is why after 2 days of getting to know flickr in detail, I've deleted my account. I still have faith in Brickshelf.

I normally don't write in these clone-brand themes, but I'll make an exception... Don't buy Enlighten. That way you're not just condoning piracy, you're also spending your money on a product of low quality. Their brick moulds are OK, I guess -there are far worse rip-offs. But you definitely won't get 100% precisely what's shown on the box art. Besides, even if a design looks as if it resembles an original LEGO model, more often than not it turns out to be just a sub-par copy.

Wow, I'd thought that losing a row of bricks would have made this MOC feel too cluttered, but it definitely doesn't. Hopefully you're now in the clear with this entry's sizing! I like the fact you've taken care of that weird kid with a beard... It looks much more like an actual kid now - getting him to wear his dad's hat backwards is a very nice touch :) I see you've also decided to use hammers as golf clubs for all the participants, not a bad decision. Just beware with that medium category golf entry, you don't want to piss off Tereglith too much or he might be coming after you with a golf club in Ratshot's next MOC featuring the C-P community

That's true Bart, and what I've also noticed as a great side-effect is that things you may have come up with as suggestions for someone else's MOC can later on come to fruition in your own builds... So this is definitely an inspiring feature to an already wonderful contest - both for builders and talkers alike

Here's wishing your Winter Toy Store arrives today and brightens up the day of you and your loved ones :) Ours has been patiently waiting in the closet for a month now and I think this week is when it's finally coming out! Christmas decoration is also due... And hopefully, work permitting, there might even be some ottery LEGO MOCcing :)

Applies to everyone actually :) Congrats CopMike, you've turned us into a bunch of 6-year ols all over again