[OL - Character Intro] New beginnings

[Khorne]

The small coastal village of Bertelshafn was still half asleep when young Magnus softly closed the door behind him. The early morning fog rising from the water coupled with small flecks of snow falling from the sky gave the village a serene feeling, fit for the time of the year. The closed door was symbolic in a way, as Magnus had chosen to give his life a new direction. The typical Garvian village life was not enough for him. He wanted more. More adventure. See more of the world. Sure, he could become a rum runner, rogue or sail the seas as a smuggler, but at what risk? Where were the heroics in that? The steady pay to support his family? No, young Magnus Erikssen had made a decision: he had gathered his belongings and would now travel to Oleon and volunteer in its legendary Légion étrangère, a military formation open to men of all backgrounds, professions and nationalities. Famed for its courage, battle prowess and iron discipline. His adventure was just beginning, the time had come to leave rugged Garveig behind and serve a new King.

For Oléon!

---

A rather simple build of mine to introduce Magnus. I never really knew where to take the previous character I had made for Era I of BoBS or how to tie him in to other ideas or storylines I wanted to portray. Therefore I made a new character, way lower on the social ladder which makes it (in my eyes) easier for me to include him in builds. Will I completely ditch Henri? Definitely not. I will try to reference him or cameo him from time to time, but my focus will be on Magnus from now on. 

Concerning the MOC: at first I only built the house on the left as a backdrop to introduce Magnus, but I quickly expanded upon it and made it a larger scene. There's really nothing much to it, since it's just a simple backdrop, but I do like the white-dark red-darkgreen color combo. I was inspired by a picture from a link in the Garvey description in Jameis Farstrider's Guide. I tried to recreate the peat roof, but perhaps I should've used some more grass stalks to give it more of that grassy feeling. I'd really like to build more in this style, but I already depleted practically all of my dark red for this simple backdrop, so I doubt I'll build anything more complex anytime soon  .

Again, sorry for the quality of the photo. The lighting was really dark and I had to Photoshop it quite a bit to get it somewhat decent, but I lost a lot of detail. Any tips on decent photography? Like, what lamps I should use to light the scene?

 

[Darnok]

A lovely MOC, and a great little piece of background to build on.

 

Concerning "decent photography": I am by no means an expert, and my own skills in that regard are rather shoddy. But using a simple lightbox really helps a lot (you can get one for relativel little money on 'bay), as does an actual camera with macro function. @Ayrlego does spectacular pictures of his builds, so he could provide much better advice I guess.

Edited December 24, 2017 by Drunknok

[merc]

I really like the snow and fish stand

[Mesabi]

Fantastic build, and reintroduction to BoBS! The Story is great, as is the build. And don't worry about photography, half the time I wing it. 

[Bodi]

Very nice dock scene and cool character, I see he has already a powderhorn.

I like the houses and the ladder, and nice minifigs posing, especially that guy behind the window.

[blackdeathgr]

That's a really nice start (Mk II) and I really like how you did snowing weather in Photoshop! My favorite detail though is the woman cutting fish while the cat is lurking... 

22 hours ago, Khorne said:

I was inspired by a picture from a link in the Garvey description in Jameis Farstrider's Guide

I am also extremely glad that BoBS members are trying to flesh out that almost not-so-imaginary universe after all with their initiatives, while inspiring others with their descriptions 

[Khorne]

17 hours ago, Drunknok said:

A lovely MOC, and a great little piece of background to build on.

 

Concerning "decent photography": I am by no means an expert, and my own skills in that regard are rather shoddy. But using a simple lightbox really helps a lot (you can get one for relativel little money on 'bay), as does an actual camera with macro function. @Ayrlego does spectacular pictures of his builds, so he could provide much better advice I guess.

Thanks! Yes, @Ayrlego's photography (and that of others here) is definitely what I'd like to achieve at some point. I have a decent camera, so that's surely not the problem. My main issue is lighting the MOC in a proper way. If I use extra lights, everything turns too yellow. If I don't use lights, it's always really dark and the photos lose quality when I lighten them in Photoshop  . I looked through the photography thread in the General Forum and found *some* tips, but the more information the better of course  .

1 hour ago, blackdeathgr said:

That's a really nice start (Mk II) and I really like how you did snowing weather in Photoshop! My favorite detail though is the woman cutting fish while the cat is lurking... 

I am also extremely glad that BoBS members are trying to flesh out that almost not-so-imaginary universe after all with their initiatives, while inspiring others with their descriptions 

Thanks for the comment. I like background stuff, so I really like going through things such as Jameis Guide  . I'm more into the stories of BoBS than the actual EGS and such, so I love a good read. Here's the picture I was talking about. I mainly tried to recreate feeling of the red buildings with the grass rooftops.

[Garmadon]

Awesome new sigfig, Khorne, you've really got a knack for great minifig combos!   Very nice work with that dock scene as well - I especially like the SNOTted side, and guards wrapped up in their cloaks.  I have to say, I'm very glad to see Garvey getting some attention too; I've always thought it's a little nation with some really nice potential (got something involving them somewhat in the works myself just now, actually! )

For photography, I still take my pictures outside in the shade (best on a cloudy day for good diffused light!), so I really can't give much advice for indoor photography (never turns out too well when I'm forced to it).  Whatever you did for the first closeup shot works nicely, though! 

[Kwatchi]

Very nice build.  The fishmonger is great!

[Ayrlego]

Fantastic build, all that SNOT work looks great and the snow and ice makes for a nice change to the usual BoBS scenes. Those Garvian soldiers look good as well! I look forward to seeing Magnus adventures on his way to join the foreign legion.

As for photography, light is definitely the key, although it shouldn't be direct light. I use a 90cmx90cm light box (pic below) which I have found invaluable (about AUD$100 on ebay), although you can make the same sort of thing yourself. I've seen set ups (Gideon for example) using a roller blind and lamps refracting light of the ceiling down onto the scene and others using boxes with the sides cut out and replaced with something like greaseproof or tissue paper so that the light from the lamps on the other side of the paper is diffused (some examples and a guide here).

The other thing that really helps of course is a decent camera. I highly recommend a good digital SLR so that you can manually adjust the shutter speed/aperture etc

Anyway, I'm no expert, I just have decent tools, some of the other guys round here are far better photographers than me. Hope the above helps.

[Khorne]

@Ayrlego, thanks for the photography advice! Your setup looks great. I have an old lightbox I made in art school way back, so I use that one, but it doesn't quite do the job like I'd want it to do. The main issue is probably my lights. I'll have to check if I can score some better ones somewhere to up my photo game  . The link you posted was an interesting read as well, so thanks for that too!