Collecting the Pieces - The Venom of a Red Scorpion

[Gideon]

Red scorpions are a rare and very poisonous animal, but their venom is also a very potent alchemical ingredient. They are sometimes found in or around old temples, like this ruin which still contains an altar to one of the deities of old Kaligem. Sir Gideon has found one to kill and obtain its venom for the quest Masa of Kaliphlin sent him on, in order to collect the pieces for the potion "Kiss of Life".

Threading lightly with his half-elven feet to avoid the scorpions feeling his steps and with the sun at his back he is very glad that the scorpions' hearing isn't very good, since it is hard to be silent wearing full battle armor even with elvish heritage. Better that than being stung though.

I have had this build on a shelf for quite a while, and only now got around to photo it. I have a new backdrop (roller curtain from Ikea), do you think it looks ok as it is or is the fabric a bit too rough? If it works out OK i think I'll buy a narrower one as well, since this is 1.6 m and a bit hard to handle and the full width is not needed very often...

This will be my last GoH build for a while, stuck with LUG stuff and a promise to the family to take some brick downtime after that. Hopefully back to GoH building by the time the challenges start!

[Lord Vladivus]

Nice build, it looks exactly like I expect a ruin in the desert to look like. Re the fabric, I actually had to squint to see the pattern (for reference, I'm on an iPad2 screen).

[Niku]

You have really captured the effect of pass of time to the ruins, the texture, the decay of materials, and the photography as usual is great.

Nice job.

[Captain BeerBeard]

Looks good my dude. You only used two colors and it works. Keep'em coming.

[Derfel Cadarn]

Like BB said, the use of just two main colors really works here and makes the scorpion stand out nicely. Great build!

[Mike S]

Excellent build for the ingredients story and I might use the idea of the roller curtain myself as I didn't notice the fabric until you mentioned it.

[Infernum]

Excellent sand work! Love how much the red scorpion stands out! Sir Gideon's posing is great too!

[soccerkid6]

The sand dunes are incredible, those long curved slopes work nicely Excellent texturing on the temple ruins too. The tall towers seem a little too simple, I think some arches incorporated like you did in the center section might look nice

[Wedge09]

Really nice work :thumbup: You recreate very well the feeling of the sand and the irregular base is great

[Gideon]

Thanks for your comments!

You only used two colors and it works.

I actually just built in only one color (the dark tan obelisks) first, but then they had to have some environment so that made it two colors. The deserts of Kaliphlin is no match for Avalonia when it comes to colorfulness

The sand dunes are incredible, those long curved slopes work nicely Excellent texturing on the temple ruins too. The tall towers seem a little too simple, I think some arches incorporated like you did in the center section might look nice

It is more or less the same sand technique as what I used here. Not as high dunes this time, but at least the sand doesn't have a hollow back side now

I should however get more interesting parts in dark tan, I agree that more details on the obelisks would probably have been good. In this case, I thought adding what texture I could produce would at least be enough to avoid the "big dark tan wall syndrome"

Edited September 21, 2013 by Gideon

[Waylander]

Simple to look at first glance, then with a more careful eye it really comes to life. Brilliant.

[Gabe]

You certainly have an eye for excellent composition Gideon! This moc is simple yet highly effective, the muted and restricted colour scheme drawing the eye irrisistably to the action. The columns with thier differing hights and stages of decay could have stepped right out of a romantic era painting, and the groundwork with it's irregular base is perfect. Love it!

[de Gothia]

Wow Gideon! This is great! I love the fact that the moc only has two colours but is still intresting to look at. The coloumns with their different height is perfect!

[Maxim I]

You are really becoming an expert in Kaliphlin MOC's!! This is just awesome! The ruins, the relief in the sand, ... it is all nearly perfect!

[Gideon]

For the University of Petraea's Doctorate of Historica Program I claim the following advance credits for this build:

• Desert [geography]
  
• Sand dunes [landscape design]
  

Total: 2 credits

Write +1 if you approve, or a motivation/suggested improvement if you think this build did not deserve one or more of the credits

[gedren_y]

UoP DoH +1

[Kai NRG]

+1 (+ the other 1 too)

(As I mentioned in the other topic, that's one credit too many. However I'm sure you can take care of that easily.)

[Gabe]

+1 for both desert and sand dunes.

[NiceMarmot]

+1 for the sand dunes. I'd like to see something with a bit more in it for the desert, as the (great) building occupies most of the space in this one. Yes, it's in a desert, but I don't think it shows enough of the desert to really show mastery of that subject. Sorry if I'm being too tough. It will probably take a while for each of us to figure out our judging style.

[Gideon]

No worries NM, I'm more than happy if the standards are set high! And since I've advocated hard judgement its very fitting I get judged hard myself

As for the subject, now it's time for the second part of this where I ask how I should improve this build (which I won't since its already dismantled) or what I should improve to the next build to earn the certification "geography: desert"

Edited November 9, 2013 by Gideon

[NiceMarmot]

Fair enough. Probably just a some more desert. This is a decent sized build, but the building takes up most of it. You might not be able to easily add on to this one, and I'm not sure you should mess up the really nice irregular edging just to get some more desert into it -- you might be better off doing a new one. The texturing of the sand is nice, as are the scorpions. Maybe adding a bit of desert foliage or rocks? Hard to say. I actually think your Inside Kaliphlin - The Dune Sea is a better desert scene -- the dunescaping on that one is really nice, and the palm tree adds a lot to it.

[Gideon]

I'm much more satisfied with the Dune Sea build, I just thought that one was too old for the program when I made the claims. Since the maximum age of a build used seems to be a bit flexible, I'll move the "Geography: Desert" claim to that one...and maybe really should move the "Landscape design: Sand dunes" claim as well But in the spirit of "establishing a standard of judging" I think that it is not critical that a builder with sufficient skills in one subject gets his/her absolute best build with that subject credited as long as the credited build is good enough, so for example if SK builds an even better waterfall in another build he does not need to move his claim to that one.

[Spader]

Very nice!

[Gideon]

Very nice!

Thank you!

However, we usually do not bump threads this old (unless there are very specific circumstances). It's hard enough to keep track of all the new builds without old ones popping up again on the first page