GoH 10A: The Jade Tower

[Grover]

The southeastern corner of the city wall of Cedrica near the large lake boasts an unusual green tower that the locals nicknamed 'The Jade Tower' due to its color.  The color comes from a high olivine content of the sandstone used in the construction of the tower, not from real jade, but the name stuck.  A small sally port is guarded by the Cedrica city guard, nicknamed 'the white helms' due to their signature white helmets. The gulls from the lake create a nuisance to the small merchant stands and guards there, and the small pier is a favorite fishing spot of the locals.  It is rumored that less scrupulous guards take bribes to allow black market goods to enter the sally port at night...

This was a fun collab with @Kai NRG. It actually has all the connections for the Ninjago City style base as a corner piece, but wound up being part of the outer city wall as we built rather than the usual 3 story housing, so if it needs to be moved to 10C due to not meeting requirements, go ahead. C&C welcome as usual!

Edited April 1, 2023 by Grover

[Louis of Nutwood]

Such a lovely build, sire Grover!
The green is unusual, classy and very unique. The roundness of the tower is truly impressive. But the eagles are the best!
I can almost hear them whistling, calling and pipping. There's also so much action going on! It's a very interesting build, and it's awesome to discover new funny things happening with every glance. 

Eagles attacking guards. 
Guards being mad at eagles. 
Eagles stealing fish. 
Eagles cracking kids eggs.
Chickens thinking they are eagles.
Eagles strategizing over stealing pretzels..

Did I miss anything?

Keep it up with the comic and classy builds, Grover.
Skol!

[zoth33]

21 minutes ago, Louis of Nutwood said:

Such a lovely build, sire Grover!
The green is unusual, classy and very unique. The roundness of the tower is truly impressive. But the eagles are the best!
I can almost hear them whistling, calling and pipping. There's also so much action going on! It's a very interesting build, and it's awesome to discover new funny things happening with every glance. 

Eagles attacking guards. 
Guards being mad at eagles. 
Eagles stealing fish. 
Eagles cracking kids eggs.
Chickens thinking they are eagles.
Eagles strategizing over stealing pretzels..

Did I miss anything?

Keep it up with the comic and classy builds, Grover.
Skol!

I think they are gulls not eagles.  They are the gulls from the cmf and other sets.  But yes this is an interesting build with fun details.  

[T-86(swe)]

A nice fun build. The sandgreen really pops and makes the well built tower stand out! Cant help but feel for the guards on duty in the top of the tower 😃

[Louis of Nutwood]

29 minutes ago, zoth33 said:

I think they are gulls not eagles.  They are the gulls from the cmf and other sets.  But yes this is an interesting build with fun details.  

My bad. 
Seagulls. Not Eagles. 
Though s---eagulls and eagles must be at least cousin-related.  

[zoth33]

On 4/1/2023 at 1:09 AM, Louis of Nutwood said:

My bad. 
Seagulls. Not Eagles. 
Though s---eagulls and eagles must be at least cousin-related.  

LOL.  Not really related nice try though.  Eagles are a bird of prey and gulls are a sea bird.  

[Gideon]

Lovely build with a lot of well-placed animals! I really like how you've managed to create so much "suspended action" in such a limited footprint.

My favorites are the jumping fish (still can't really see how that is attached...??) with the water splash effect and all the sand green details around the window and door (need to get some of that unicorn "GoH" shield!).

A small feedback on the presentation however is that I think the build would have "popped" better if photographed against a darker backdrop, now the seagulls and white helmets almost get lost against the background. (I usually alternate between a white and a gray Ikea blind depending on the color of the outline of the build, but for my lighthouse build I had the same problem as my biggest backdrop was white  )

[LordDan]

I love the humor with the out of control gull problem  The round jade colored tower is really nice, and I love the rockwork with the shark emerging. The large, angled boulder style rockworks looks really nice!

On 4/1/2023 at 1:09 AM, Louis of Nutwood said:

My bad. 
Seagulls. Not Eagles. 
Though s---eagulls and eagles must be at least cousin-related.  

[W Navarre]

Awesome rockwork and curved wall there! 

[Kai NRG]

Turned out really cool, the massy round tower, the brick-built fishing rod, all the hilarious minifigure poses--it's great!  Lots of fun to build together and I think we managed to blend our different parts pretty seamlessly!

[Grover]

On 3/31/2023 at 11:15 PM, Louis of Nutwood said:

Such a lovely build, sire Grover!
The green is unusual, classy and very unique. The roundness of the tower is truly impressive. But the eagles are the best!
I can almost hear them whistling, calling and pipping. There's also so much action going on! It's a very interesting build, and it's awesome to discover new funny things happening with every glance. 

Eagles attacking guards. 
Guards being mad at eagles.
Eagles stealing fish. 
Eagles cracking kids eggs.
Chickens thinking they are eagles.
Eagles strategizing over stealing pretzels..

Did I miss anything?

Keep it up with the comic and classy builds, Grover.
Skol!

Thank you!  @Kai NRG and I had fun building it.  I used a technique from InnovaLUG for the round tower that actually is pretty strong.  I'll post a link if I can find the original pics (I can't seem to find it right now).

And yes, the gulls are a mess, but as usual, I find that any large body of water without gulls is usually unrealistic, so I added a lot of whitewash on the walls and towers! Glad you enjoyed all the humor too!

On 3/31/2023 at 11:37 PM, zoth33 said:

I think they are gulls not eagles.  They are the gulls from the cmf and other sets.  But yes this is an interesting build with fun details.  

Indeed, they are the CMF gulls. Glad you enjoyed!

On 3/31/2023 at 11:38 PM, T-86(swe) said:

A nice fun build. The sandgreen really pops and makes the well built tower stand out! Cant help but feel for the guards on duty in the top of the tower 😃

Thanks!  I was lucky to find most of the sand green at PAB walls over the years. This would be an incredibly expensive build otherwise!  And yeah, I'd hate to have to fight all the gulls at the top of the tower!

On 4/2/2023 at 3:44 PM, Gideon said:

Lovely build with a lot of well-placed animals! I really like how you've managed to create so much "suspended action" in such a limited footprint.

My favorites are the jumping fish (still can't really see how that is attached...??) with the water splash effect and all the sand green details around the window and door (need to get some of that unicorn "GoH" shield!).

A small feedback on the presentation however is that I think the build would have "popped" better if photographed against a darker backdrop, now the seagulls and white helmets almost get lost against the background. (I usually alternate between a white and a gray Ikea blind depending on the color of the outline of the build, but for my lighthouse build I had the same problem as my biggest backdrop was white  )

Thank you!  We had some fun being creative with ideas for the gulls.  A couple are attached through those little clear foot studs with a bent bar on them, attached to the wall. The jumping fish is wedged between two of those (65578) in the splash piece.  It's not super strong, but it works OK for pictures.  The sand green window actually took some work, but I managed to get it to attach through studs, so it is on there quite securely.

I agree on the backdrop. I'm still unpacking my things after a move, so was happy to have the lightbox (compare to the junk picture on my Rumors entry...).  I have a black, grey, brown, and blue backdrop.  Where?  That is a much better question.  I would have liked to have tried the grey or blue, but I have no idea where they are in my pile of junk from the move and only found the white.  Next time, next time!

On 4/3/2023 at 2:24 PM, LordDan said:

I love the humor with the out of control gull problem  The round jade colored tower is really nice, and I love the rockwork with the shark emerging. The large, angled boulder style rockworks looks really nice!

Thanks, I enjoy adding humor to my builds, and @Kai NRG helped brainstorm some ideas for comedy with the gulls!  We had some fun with the tower and the rocks, which really kind of set the idea for the whole piece.

13 hours ago, W Navarre said:

Awesome rockwork and curved wall there! 

Thank you!

6 hours ago, Kai NRG said:

Turned out really cool, the massy round tower, the brick-built fishing rod, all the hilarious minifigure poses--it's great!  Lots of fun to build together and I think we managed to blend our different parts pretty seamlessly!

Thanks again for the collab, it was a blast!  I agree, I think the blend was good, hard to tell who worked on what, which is the way it should be!

[soccerkid6]

I really like the proportions and texture of that round tower!

Lovely birch tree and market stall as well, and of course plenty of amusing sea gull antics

[jtooker]

The round tower is wonderful.  All the seagulls and their ... evidence ... makes for an interesting scene.  The birch tree makes good contrast with the rest of the scene.

[Ecclesiastes]

This is such a joy to look at. The color choice is bold but totally works. Also nice thinking of making a piece of wall, an important part of the city for sure. And I assume all the white patches on the tower is seagull poo? Which is hilarious!!

[Exetrius]

A build with character, I bet this one would get a lot of giggles at a convention. It's clear that Cedrica's defenses are strong, but they have clearly lost against the gulls! You can't fool me. Those helmets used to be regular metallic, like the other guards of Cedrica, but with the inevitable gull poo stains on them nobody could take them seriously anymore, so they painted their helmets white to not make the stains stand out so much!  Great vibe! Also, as a sand green junkie, I approve of this tower and wall! The window and gate have a nice amount of detail, love the use of the shield too!

And last but not least, cave shark! Man, he's probably been in there way too long. Really needs to socialize and catch some sun, before he loses all pigment and his eyesight.   

[Grover]

On 4/5/2023 at 1:42 PM, soccerkid6 said:

I really like the proportions and texture of that round tower!

Lovely birch tree and market stall as well, and of course plenty of amusing sea gull antics

Thanks!  It's a little parts intensive, but I was able to get the sand green off a PAB wall, so it wasn't too bad.  Glad you enjoyed the birch and the humor of the seagulls!

On 4/6/2023 at 9:36 PM, jtooker said:

The round tower is wonderful.  All the seagulls and their ... evidence ... makes for an interesting scene.  The birch tree makes good contrast with the rest of the scene.

Thanks!  I have been wanting to try that round tower technique in a larger build for a while, and I'm glad it came off well here.  Glad you liked the birch tree!  We tried a lot of different colors and finally decided on the flame yellow orange for contrast, so glad it worked!

On 4/18/2023 at 11:10 AM, Ecclesiastes said:

This is such a joy to look at. The color choice is bold but totally works. Also nice thinking of making a piece of wall, an important part of the city for sure. And I assume all the white patches on the tower is seagull poo? Which is hilarious!!

Thank you!  It was a little tricky picking complimentary colors for the sand green, but the dark tan and various greys plus olive seemed to work.  And yes, the white patches are all seagull defecation. Have you ever been near a large lake or ocean without seagulls?  I haven't.  And what do they do?  Well, what do they doo doo? lol

On 5/17/2023 at 6:43 AM, Exetrius said:

A build with character, I bet this one would get a lot of giggles at a convention. It's clear that Cedrica's defenses are strong, but they have clearly lost against the gulls! You can't fool me. Those helmets used to be regular metallic, like the other guards of Cedrica, but with the inevitable gull poo stains on them nobody could take them seriously anymore, so they painted their helmets white to not make the stains stand out so much!  Great vibe! Also, as a sand green junkie, I approve of this tower and wall! The window and gate have a nice amount of detail, love the use of the shield too!

And last but not least, cave shark! Man, he's probably been in there way too long. Really needs to socialize and catch some sun, before he loses all pigment and his eyesight.   

Thanks!  I hadn't thought of why the Cedrica colors include white, but I bet you are right, they surrendered to the seagulls years ago!   The sand green was fun.  I make a trip to whatever PAB wall is nearby when I have to travel and found most of the sand green here years ago in various places.  If I recall, I think the tiles were at the Disneyland wall in California some years ago, and the Nexo shields were... maybe Mall of America?  I can't remember that one.  Most of the lesser used accent pieces were just from my collection.  I had to be judicious in my choice, since I don't have a large variety of sand green, just a few parts in massive bulk from the wall.

And are you sure that cave shark is an albino?  Maybe he lost to the seagulls too.....

[mrcp6d]

This is so fun.   Very nice and clean round tower--well, not really given the gulls , but the construction is great.  Great rocks along the shoreline too.