[Freebuild] Return to Everwater [Everwater Story Index 01]

[SimWies]

The Stories of Everwater and Sam Weatherstone - Story Index 01

Return to Everwater

More pictures in the spoiler:

Spoiler

  

- - - - -

Spring has come to Avalonia and to Everwater, but not only sunshine has arrived. Terrible news has reached Sam Weatherstone and Alric Ellerion in Petraea, where they are currently studying.

'Sam, Sam!' cries Alric. 'My father... he's dead! He's dead!" With a shaking hand, he hands Sam the letter that had arrived that morning. His eyes speak of grief and disbelief. Sam reads the letter, his hand shaking as he holds it. His other hand is on his friend's shoulder, trying to comfort him.

The letter reads:

Dear brother,
Our father is dead. They speak of tragic circumstances, but nobody knows exactly what happened. They found him in the tower chamber — you know the one, he loved to be up there, looking out over his beloved sea and counting the ships entering the bay, freeing his mind. Master Grenich was also up there with him. They found him dead in a side corridor, he must have fought to the last second as he was covered in wounds. Our own uncle, Ureth, has tried to claim our father's position, but my sources have provided me with information linking him to our father's death. It must have been an assassination. Our loyal friends have stood by me in my accusations. Heated arguments led to a skirmish. Now that Master Grenich is also dead, our troops are leaderless. However, Eric was able to gather some of them and fight back. Ureth fled with some troops to the nearby forest, claiming that I was trying to take over my father's position. With Mother long gone, and now Father too, I am the last of House Ellerion in Everwater. You must return immediately, you are the rightful heir to our father. We need you back in Everwater, and you must bring Sam with you. The troops trust him, you and I trust him, his family has stood by our side for decades, and I miss him. We must seek truth and justice in this matter.
Your loving sister
Anna

Sam looked at Alric, barely processing what he had just read.

'Alric, we must immediatly return to Everwater' Sam said with a shaking voice. Alric looked at his friend, 'let's return home Sam'

With that, Sam Weatherstone and Alric Ellerion set off for home, back to Everwater. Their journey gave them time to think about what had happened in Everwater, to grieve, and to make plans. One sunny day, they reached the county border. They had taken a narrow, less travelled path through the hills, but even then, an Everwater watchtower marked the border and greeted the new lord of Everwater. On smaller paths like this one, a simple tower houses a watch troop of four soldiers; on bigger routes, there could even be a castle guarding the border.

- - - - - 

I had great fun building this MOC (my first bigger MOC and the first in the stories of Sam Weatherstone and Everwater) and even greater fun writing a short story about why Sam and Alric have to return to Everwater. I hope you also enjoy it!

 

Edited May 23 by SimWies

[T-86(swebrickLUG)]

Thats a nice tower @SimWieswith som good tile-usage! Sweet path, trees and door as well.

A small suggestion would be to add som more foliage and to slightly move the first horserider back and also letting him be the flagbearer, but thats a matter of taste I guess!

Glad to see another build from you. I’ll be have to get my act together too, only.. the joust and MELO will steal my attention in the nearest future. BUT, did someone say doubledip!? Tripledip? 😂

Keep up the good work!

[SimWies]

21 minutes ago, T-86(swebrickLUG) said:

Thats a nice tower @SimWieswith som good tile-usage! Sweet path, trees and door as well.

A small suggestion would be to add som more foliage and to slightly move the first horserider back and also letting him be the flagbearer, but thats a matter of taste I guess!

Glad to see another build from you. I’ll be have to get my act together too, only.. the joust and MELO will steal my attention in the nearest future. BUT, did someone say doubledip!? Tripledip? 😂

Keep up the good work!

Thank you @T-86(swebrickLUG) for your feedback  I totally argee with you, especially concerning the foliage, I am not 100% satisfied either... something to learn for the next one 

You posted your comment faster than I wrote the accompanying short story. (I accidentialy posted it first without story )

[Grover]

Wow, what a fantastic piece, and a great story too!  Before I go further, I must stop and marvel at your English.  It's fantastic!  I am always so impressed on these international boards how everyone's English is so amazingly good. I am very humbled as I cannot write in another language as good as everyone else here.

Back to Lego... this is an outstanding build, and I think that maybe it shows that GoH is still doing the right thing.  It is obvious that you have read through many comments and threads here, and you have avoided so many of the mistakes we all did when we started out.  For starters, I love that you have integrated the path beneath the grass (and not built above as many of us did initially) which makes is much more realistic, and then you smoothed the edges with wedge plates to make it even more appealing. You have some really nice texture to your grasses with plate height changes, which is nice and smooth, and you have an amazing irregular base.  On top of that, the tower is great!  The roof has some nice tiling, and has a gorgeous flush seam at the top!  The railing on the top of the tower is genius, and has a very minimalist feel to it while still looking clean.  I also appreciate how you mixed old and new grey bricks together, something that I think gives a nice texture to the stone.  The SNOT ingot tiles are beautiful and really drive home the brick effect of the stone.  (I should have used some of these in my recent castle build!). You also included a door on the top of the tower, something many times neglected, as well as a stone merlon for cover (although flanking this archer may be easier due to the minimal railings on his sides, at least he can protect his own door!).  The two trees are solid, and you have attached enough of the limb pieces that they don't look thin.  Trees are particularly hard to do, and you did a fine job with a limited piece count.  I would also like to say that this is one of the first builds that I have seen that truly holds to the 'You don't need a lot of pieces to make a nice build'.  I usually don't like hearing that because it was just said by someone who made an 8x8 build of sand blue, sand red, dark brown, and olive. You did a nice job with the mini positioning and the photography as well. Everything is in focus, the lighting is pretty good, and all the minis are clearly positioned. 

I like the story!  I'm excited to see where Sam and Alric go, which is great!  If you can make people want to keep reading, you have succeeded.  I want to learn more of their homeland and their travels, and look forward to seeing more builds!

[SimWies]

10 hours ago, Grover said:

Wow, what a fantastic piece, and a great story too!  Before I go further, I must stop and marvel at your English.  It's fantastic!  I am always so impressed on these international boards how everyone's English is so amazingly good. I am very humbled as I cannot write in another language as good as everyone else here.

Back to Lego... this is an outstanding build, and I think that maybe it shows that GoH is still doing the right thing.  It is obvious that you have read through many comments and threads here, and you have avoided so many of the mistakes we all did when we started out.  For starters, I love that you have integrated the path beneath the grass (and not built above as many of us did initially) which makes is much more realistic, and then you smoothed the edges with wedge plates to make it even more appealing. You have some really nice texture to your grasses with plate height changes, which is nice and smooth, and you have an amazing irregular base.  On top of that, the tower is great!  The roof has some nice tiling, and has a gorgeous flush seam at the top!  The railing on the top of the tower is genius, and has a very minimalist feel to it while still looking clean.  I also appreciate how you mixed old and new grey bricks together, something that I think gives a nice texture to the stone.  The SNOT ingot tiles are beautiful and really drive home the brick effect of the stone.  (I should have used some of these in my recent castle build!). You also included a door on the top of the tower, something many times neglected, as well as a stone merlon for cover (although flanking this archer may be easier due to the minimal railings on his sides, at least he can protect his own door!).  The two trees are solid, and you have attached enough of the limb pieces that they don't look thin.  Trees are particularly hard to do, and you did a fine job with a limited piece count.  I would also like to say that this is one of the first builds that I have seen that truly holds to the 'You don't need a lot of pieces to make a nice build'.  I usually don't like hearing that because it was just said by someone who made an 8x8 build of sand blue, sand red, dark brown, and olive. You did a nice job with the mini positioning and the photography as well. Everything is in focus, the lighting is pretty good, and all the minis are clearly positioned. 

I like the story!  I'm excited to see where Sam and Alric go, which is great!  If you can make people want to keep reading, you have succeeded.  I want to learn more of their homeland and their travels, and look forward to seeing more builds!

Thank you so much for your feedback @Grover, especially for complimenting my use of the english language!  You are right that I have read many comments and threads on GoH. Although I haven't built any MOCs over the years, I feel that by following you guys on here, I have learned some things passively and I am really happy about you commenting on it 

You pointed out a lot of small details about my build that were especially important to me, and I tried to get them right. For example, the path, the trees, the stone texture and the irregular base. I think I could improve the foliage further, but overall, I am really happy with how the build turned out. For the door design I have to thank @soccerkid6 and @LittleJohn for their tutorial over on Brickbuilt. 

I totally agree with your remark about the limited piece count. I try to make do with the bricks I have, but I still hope to expand my collection with some bricks that would make building certain structures or design elements easier.

Thank you again for your kind words, and I am especially glad you enjoyed the short story I wrote to accompany the build!

[Grover]

You are quite welcome, and your build is lovely.  I also appreciated that your tree stump is right in the line of fire for the tower, and this tree would have likely been cut down not only for being too close to the road and overhanging travelers, but also because it blocked the line of sight for the archer in the tower to fire on hostiles in the road.

As @T-86(swebrickLUG) said, you can add to your build with some foliage, and of course, with more variety in parts comes more detail.  This takes more pieces and with a limited piece count, you did very well.  I also appreciate that you didn't reach and use too many shades of green or clutter up your build with so many great ideas that it was too busy and you lost the overall feel.  Going a bit further in detail with common pieces can be challenging, but I wanted to take a quick opportunity to do sort of a master class in this, if you will, that I invite our other members to jump in on.

To start, I tried to reproduce the landscape you had, at least in the foreground:

Then, using some common 1x1 grey elements, and the more elusive but not entirely uncommon 1x1 dark tan, scattered a few about the path to make some loose soil.  Additionally, I added a 1x2 brown slope as a tree root from the stump.

The next step would be to try to smooth out any blocky corners with things like 1x1 quarter round tiles in green, a 1x2 rounded slope, and a couple of olive 1x1 round tiles to fill in odd corners or break up long lines.

Fairly small additions, but these small things can help bring some detail and break up long lines in more organic matter.

 

 

Edited May 26 by Grover
Fixed picture links.

[SimWies]

1 hour ago, Grover said:

You are quite welcome, and your build is lovely.  I also appreciated that your tree stump is right in the line of fire for the tower, and this tree would have likely been cut down not only for being too close to the road and overhanging travelers, but also because it blocked the line of sight for the archer in the tower to fire on hostiles in the road.

As @T-86(swebrickLUG) said, you can add to your build with some foliage, and of course, with more variety in parts comes more detail.  This takes more pieces and with a limited piece count, you did very well.  I also appreciate that you didn't reach and use too many shades of green or clutter up your build with so many great ideas that it was too busy and you lost the overall feel.  Going a bit further in detail with common pieces can be challenging, but I wanted to take a quick opportunity to do sort of a master class in this, if you will, that I invite our other members to jump in on.

To start, I tried to reproduce the landscape you had, at least in the foreground:

https://imgur.com/NAkn5s4

Then, using some common 1x1 grey elements, and the more elusive but not entirely uncommon 1x1 dark tan, scattered a few about the path to make some loose soil.  Additionally, I added a 1x2 brown slope as a tree root from the stump.

https://imgur.com/gNN8aRthttps://imgur.com/gNN8aRt

The next step would be to try to smooth out any blocky corners with things like 1x1 quarter round tiles in green, a 1x2 rounded slope, and a couple of olive 1x1 round tiles to fill in odd corners or break up long lines.

https://imgur.com/kdVXhea

Fairly small additions, but these small things can help bring some detail and break up long lines in more organic matter. 

I apologize for the links, I can't seem to get the https to embed as an image with this new forum code.

 

 

Oh wow, thank you for your spontaneous master class! I greatly appreciate the tips and tricks - there is always something new to learn and improve on.

In my opinion GoH's greatest strength is its community and the possibility to learn new things and your comment is another great example in both senses - community and learning. 

PS: You described the exact thought process I had when placing the tree stump, glad it worked. 

Edited May 26 by SimWies

[T-86(swebrickLUG)]

Next level input/feedback from @Grover here. Great!

Yeah I was thinking that you’d post a story to accompany the build. Trigger-happy to give the build a response I guess 😃 @SimWies

Edited May 26 by T-86(swebrickLUG)

[zoth33]

Nice looking tower I like the stonework.  The tree's look good with the winding trunks.  Great story too.  

[Grover]

@SimWies, congrats on getting front paged!

I'm glad that @MKJoshA made this a featured post. I learned a lot from his builds, particularly since he was gracious enough to share some of his techniques with the rest of us.  I hope that with this featured post, we have a few other outstanding builders who may contribute some thoughts.  We have a lot of talent on the forums here, and I found it one of the best places to learn, so I try to pass on knowledge others have shared with me and various tips and tricks I have learned as well.

There are variations on what I posted above, too. If you have, say 1x1 quarter round tiles in med. stone grey or dark stone grey, these can replace the same tiles in green as rocks.  More spotty vegetation suggesting poor soil may be accomplished by leaving a hole in the green plates to a brown plate below, maybe with some grey 1x1 round plates as rocks, etc.  The options are limitless. Rather than simply write a suggestion, I thought I'd make a few example builds, and since I still have the small scene together, I can try to incorporate others' ideas and get pictures for a more complete look.

[SimWies]

Thank you @Grover for the additional tips and tricks!  1x1 quarter tiles are at the top of my list of bricks to add to my collection...they are so versatile! I ought to get me some.

What a honor to be featured on the front page with my very first bigger MOC  Thank you @MKJoshA and as @Grover wrote, hopefully some more of the awesome builders on these forums might contribute a thought or two to this post..I am looking forward to it, happy to learn new techniques and chat with this great community.

[Grover]

8 hours ago, SimWies said:

Thank you @Grover for the additional tips and tricks!  1x1 quarter tiles are at the top of my list of bricks to add to my collection...they are so versatile! I ought to get me some.

There's a couple of reasons that I like the 1x1 plates and tiles for details:
1. Most people usually have at least a handful since they are frequently 'extra' parts in a set
2. If you want a lot of one, they are usually cheap direct from Lego
3. Small parts can be combined to make larger parts, but not the other way around, so you can use them in microscale, full scale, as detail in a setting etc.

Occasionally they appear on the PAB wall, although I've only once seen them in what I would consider to be a useful color for medieval building (dark stone grey).  It really isn't a big deal, since you don't need a lot of them to be effective.

[MKJoshA]

Always great to see another Castle builder. And your MOC was well worth the Frontpage mention. Can't wait to see more!

[SimWies]

5 hours ago, MKJoshA said:

Always great to see another Castle builder. And your MOC was well worth the Frontpage mention. Can't wait to see more!

Thank you @MKJoshA! I have already some ideas in mind for the next installment of my story for Sam and Everwater and I plan on participating in the upcoming Summer Joust.

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

Wonderful medieval scene!

I like how the tower is built and I would be curious to understand how you made that magnificent sloping roof!