Endgame Posted February 25, 2013 Posted February 25, 2013 I'm flying back home early tommorrow morning, folks! It isn't a nonstop flight, so I probably won't be able to update until tomorrow afternoon. Heres hoping transit won't be so brutal! Quote
Zepher Posted February 25, 2013 Posted February 25, 2013 On the question of spellspin - everyone else seems to think it would counter you for each hit... but I'm inclined to say that, in fairness, it should only attack back once. Quote
CorneliusMurdock Posted February 25, 2013 Posted February 25, 2013 Oh, good, because he's already lucky. Bash that floor good, Hoke. Quote
UsernameMDM Posted February 25, 2013 Posted February 25, 2013 Oh, good, because he's already lucky. Bash that floor good, Hoke. HOKE BASH!!! Quote
swils Posted February 25, 2013 Posted February 25, 2013 Here's a question for QM's in particular, but it would also apply to pretty much anyone who builds with a medieval/fantasy mindset (and, perhaps this would be a question better asked on the Historic boards, but I'll at least start here): How do you go about getting masses of parts to build medieval structures (inside and out, houses, castles, marketplaces, etc) and related scenes (wilderness, caves, dungeons, etc)? Do you just go to bricklink and put together orders consisting of a bunch of parts, or are there any shops that you know of that sell organized bundles of useful parts? Like, Zepher's SNOT wall recently. It's gorgeous, but looking at my collection, I don't have anywhere near that many small grey tiles, much less in assorted shades of grey. Same goes for smaller bricks, plates, etc. (I like "etc" it's just so useful!) I could go on bricklink and find a shop selling bulk quantities of 1x1, 1x2, 2x2 tiles in L.Grey, D.Grey, L.Bley and D.bley, and then order, say, 50 of each. Same goes for plant parts (green/brown), and landscape parts (brown/green/tan plates)... Basically, if you know of such a store on BL, I'd love to hear about it. Or if you just have a preferred store. I know there's the option of scouring PAB walls, but, being up here in Alaska, the nearest PAB wall is just a wee bit out of reach Quote
Zepher Posted February 25, 2013 Posted February 25, 2013 (edited) If its a gorgeous SNOT wall, it's probably done by BD. I've posted some of his pictures in my quests, which might have gotten you. It's VERY hard to amass pieces. I think that this quest has decent sets, and so did Dastan (sometimes) but you've got to be smart and you've gotta be inventive. My sets are barely cobbled together, I was actually going to post a picture of how flimsy my sets are in the QM discussion thread at the end of the quest, but here will do just fine: Crappy dangly sets, right? But... they become... As you can see, it's just figuring out what you're going to show, and then framing it smart. You don't need a lot of pieces! Edited February 25, 2013 by Zepher Quote
CMP Posted February 25, 2013 Posted February 25, 2013 As you can see, it's just figuring out what you're going to show, and then framing it smart. You don't need a lot of pieces! Exactly. Quote
Brickdoctor Posted February 25, 2013 Posted February 25, 2013 Like, Zepher's SNOT wall recently. It's gorgeous, but looking at my collection, I don't have anywhere near that many small grey tiles, much less in assorted shades of grey. Same goes for smaller bricks, plates, etc. (I like "etc" it's just so useful!) I could go on bricklink and find a shop selling bulk quantities of 1x1, 1x2, 2x2 tiles in L.Grey, D.Grey, L.Bley and D.bley, and then order, say, 50 of each. Same goes for plant parts (green/brown), and landscape parts (brown/green/tan plates)... If you're referring to the set in the Bric'Bay interlude, the interludes are done by the QMs who created the characters in them; I actually built that set. (if you're not referring to that, I've used that technique a lot in Quests 17 and 31, so I'll reply anyways) I never ordered tiles or bought a set specifically for the tiles. I'm sure that being a Star Wars fan helps with accumulating the greys, but it's just a part of my collection that I've built up over the years. And I usually plan the camera angle before I build the set, so I know where the spots are that I can cheat - behind each of the wooden supports set in the wall, for example, is a 1x6 tile, far too long to be in the "normal" sections of the wall, but you can't tell that it's any longer than 1x3. And behind the bookshelves there are no tiles at all. In the floor of the library, I stuck to the 1x1 and 1x4 tiles for the most part, but in areas where I knew the pieces would be out of focus and too blurry for their edges to be distinguishable, I've used whatever brown tiles I could find. I've still got the big set of the Bric'Bay library built, because it turned out really nicely and I don't want to take it apart. I'll try to take a picture tomorrow when there's daylight. Quote
swils Posted February 25, 2013 Posted February 25, 2013 I can't quickly locate the picture, but I'll say that it was featured in Zeph's quest, may not have been made by him. It was mentioned in the R&D thread, which made me go check it out. 6x6 (maybe?) wall with 1x1, 1x2 and 2x2 tiles... Whoever's it was, it was great Those shots are actually really interesting, Zeph. They definitely give a good idea for scale/size of scene AND the zoom/focus levels. I've looked back at a lot of the older quests for guidance in various aspects, and MOCing is no exception. In particular, I went through Quest #6 and did a run down of all the pictures, with a rough sketch and their dimensions (see first spoiler). That was a major wake up when I compared it to the first scene I'd built: I was definitely going too big. In the second spoiler, I've got a couple of sketches and part of one of them bricked up. The top scene should be fairly easy to build -- mostly pre-fab wall pieces for the buildings. The tree, however, I'm not sure how to overcome the fact that I want to display it as a stone-arched entrance into a giant tree. Pen&paper style intro "The party approaches a large tree" with a picture focused on the arch, with bits of brown visible around the edges? I definitely don't have enough brown bricks to get the full image I've got sketched out. Quote
Waterbrick Down Posted February 25, 2013 Posted February 25, 2013 Building for quests is like painting a picture, you only need to paint what's going to be seen. Now generally I can't picture a scene and build accordingly, I have to build the entire set and then start taking pictures so it takes a little longer for me. But you just learn to cheat after a while; don't put tiles under furniture (in fact if you don't have enough tiles, add more furniture), you don't need 1xn grey bricks to build a wall, you just need the 'n' side to face to camera, don't have enough bricks to build an entire room, take photos of one corner for a scene then rebuild and take photos of another. For your tree, go ahead and build the door, surround it with as much brown as you can manage and let the imagination handle the rest, sometimes when I'm building and I run out of pieces I have to force myself to reconfigure the shot I'm going to have to take and just deal with it. Quote
Brickdoctor Posted February 25, 2013 Posted February 25, 2013 I can't quickly locate the picture, but I'll say that it was featured in Zeph's quest, may not have been made by him. It was mentioned in the R&D thread, which made me go check it out. 6x6 (maybe?) wall with 1x1, 1x2 and 2x2 tiles... Whoever's it was, it was great Mine's on page 42: (The technique's also used throughout Quests 17 and 31.) Quote
swils Posted February 25, 2013 Posted February 25, 2013 Yes, that style, it looks very nice (that whole scene looks incredible, not sure how I've never seen it before). But see, there you've got a ton of brown tiles and a huge assortment of gray tiles. I can't imagine how many star wars sets you'd have to pick up to get that many small tiles. I guess I just really wish someone *would* run a BrickLink store that sells bundles of medieval-friendly pieces. I'd visit that store a lot Quote
Brickdoctor Posted February 25, 2013 Posted February 25, 2013 Yes, that style, it looks very nice (that whole scene looks incredible, not sure how I've never seen it before). But see, there you've got a ton of brown tiles and a huge assortment of gray tiles. I can't imagine how many star wars sets you'd have to pick up to get that many small tiles. In regards to the brown tiles, I do remember that maybe... four? years ago, I went into a Brand Store to fill the free PaB box they give you for spending $75 in November-December, and they had brown 1x4s there, so I got a lot of those. But the greys are all from Star Wars and a few Lord of the Rings sets. (probably some Town and some Trains in that mix, too) I can't remember any specific set that had a lot of them. (for reference, last I checked, I think Brickset had my collection around 23-25K pieces) Quote
Scorpiox Posted February 25, 2013 Posted February 25, 2013 Mine's on -snip- That is honestly one of the best pieces of LEGO photography I've ever seen, it even looks as though the floor is wet! Quote
Brickdoctor Posted February 25, 2013 Posted February 25, 2013 it even looks as though the floor is wet! That is actually completely unintentional, and it shouldn't be wet. I didn't put glass in the window because I didn't have any pieces that could fill a gap that size without looking ugly, plus it would've made the rain and sky hard to Photoshop in. The reflection is just the result of a long exposure and a lot of tiles. Quote
Palathadric Posted February 25, 2013 Posted February 25, 2013 It does look fantastic though. And clearly I have been over-building models for my quest. No wonder it's take so long. Quote
Darkdragon Posted February 25, 2013 Posted February 25, 2013 As you can see, it's just figuring out what you're going to show, and then framing it smart. You don't need a lot of pieces! This is exactly what I do for quests and comics and almost everything I build for. I'm in it for the photo to show what's happening not to show off every little detail edge of a moc. Quote
Rumble Strike Posted February 25, 2013 Posted February 25, 2013 Most of my sets are what MOC builders on here would call vignettes. The trick, as the others have said, is to only show what the camera is looking at, and only worry about that area. Quote
swils Posted February 25, 2013 Posted February 25, 2013 All posts thus far have been very helpful, and I'll take it all into consideration. That said, Most of my sets are what MOC builders on here would call vignettes. The trick, as the others have said, is to only show what the camera is looking at, and only worry about that area. What if I *want* to build scenes that stretch 20/30 studs into the depth-dimension?? /pout Quote
Flare Posted February 25, 2013 Posted February 25, 2013 Congrats everybody! Thank you to all who have made Historica possible. Historica? Quote
Masked Builder Posted February 25, 2013 Posted February 25, 2013 Yeah, I only show what has to be seen, I should post a picture of some of my sets... Quote
Brickington Posted February 25, 2013 Posted February 25, 2013 Historica? Oh, come you know what I meant. They are very similar names. Quote
Etzel Posted February 25, 2013 Posted February 25, 2013 I'm a bit different when it comes to building sets for Quests since I often build complete MOCs for the scenes. Totally unnecessary, I know, but I like to build. But I do build a lot of scenes which are just a backdrop with enough area to fill a photo. I've found out that it's always nice if you can keep your builds together during the Quest to be able to quickly get some extra scenes if the players are doing something unexpected, but it's not totally necessary. Often it's much more practical to reuse the pieces and build new scenes, especially if you are running short of specific pieces. I would recommend Bricklink to build up on your stock supplies of 1xn bricks and tiles in grey, dark grey, brown, and plates in green and tan. They are cheap and easy to find in large quantities. You'll get so much more good pieces by buying from Bricklink than e.g. buying a new Chima set for the same amount of money. Sure, you'll miss out on some cool minifigs but you'll be able to build 100 different scenes that will work for 100 different minifigs. I should say too, that even though building whole MOCs are often unnecessary it can be quite useful sometimes. Being able to take pictures of a scene from many different angles can bring it more to life. Quote
Flipz Posted February 25, 2013 Posted February 25, 2013 Sandy, I JUST got one of (probably several) literary references in the bar in Quest 58. I was immediately inspired to do this: "Look at these men, Aren't they sweet? Wouldn't you think my collection's complete? Wouldn't you think I'm the girl, the girl who's had everyone? Look at this trove, Treasures untold, How many wonders can one cavern hold? Looking at me, yeah, you'd think, sure, she's got everything. I've had goblins and midgets a-plenty, I've had warlords and nobles galore. [You want Pongcanis slobs? I've had 20!] But who cares? No big deal. I want more... I wanna be where the Heroes are, I wanna see, Wanna see 'em fighting, Slashing around with those... [What do you call 'em? oh, blades!] Carryin' drinks you don't get too far, Swords are required for blocking, fighting Killing the bad guys in... [What's that word again?] raids... Out where they walk, Out where they run, Out where they stay all day in the sun, Wandering free, Wish I could be, Part of your world..." (spoilered to prevent WoT syndrome) Quote
Pyrovisionary Posted February 25, 2013 Posted February 25, 2013 (edited) Where to find the pieces? Bricklink and pick-a-brick. Rejoice in their majestic awesomeness. Also, any qm want a random quest pitch. Seeing as I don't have the time for: The quest that never was. Edited February 25, 2013 by Skyrimguy Quote
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