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The Brick
Testament’s first update of 2008 includes seven new illustrated stories from
the continuing saga of King
David:
David Mourns the Eye-Gouger,
40,700 Aramaeans Killed,
Massacre of the Ammonites,
David Commits Adultery, Murder,
God Kills a Baby,
Solomon Is Born, and
People of Rabbah Enslaved. Here’s a preview image:
NOTE: For anyone unfamiliar with the content of The Bible or The Brick
Testament,
please note the site’s content
warnings before viewing.
Enjoy,
-The Rev. Brendan Powell Smith
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Hey Brendan,
Trying to get caught up.
Eye gouger - Interesting throne for Hanun; there are some pieces I don’t
recognize there. The shaved beards work well (brasso or photoshop?).
Aramaens - Some good action shots as always. My favorite image here is probably
David’s army crossing the river. Return of the chariot design - I don’t think
we’ve seen that since the Exodus story.
Ammonites - Good contrast in the first shot with the flowers and butterflies etc
and then the army off to war. The fortress in the last shot is very imposing.
The combination of those printed slopes with the printed (or I guess those are
stickered bricks) wall works well.
Adultery, Murder - The wall detail with Jar-Jar heads is outstanding. How are
those attached? Is the second image one photo, or a combination? Either way it
works very well. Her 1x1 rounds are hilarious. How are her legs held on? I’m
guessing technic half-pins, but don’t see the little edge. I like the zig-zag
wall detail in David’s room a lot. I’d be concerned if I were him about that
bedframe falling down on me. Great use of the snake. Poor Uriah, in that sea
of yellow smileys he’s such an obvious target.
God kills - I really like your cradle solution. Why does baby sleep naked, but
when he’s dead they clothe him?
Solomon - No real comments here.
Rabbah - Inconsistency alert - back in the eye gouger story the crown didn’t
have that jewel piece. Funny detail that Uriah is still lying dead in front of
the gate. The upside-down raised baseplate works well here.
Bruce
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In lugnet.build.ancient, Bruce Hietbrink wrote:
Nice. :) Of course, I’m updating with 9 new stories today, so there goes your
hard-fought progress.
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Eye gouger - Interesting throne for Hanun; there are some pieces I don’t
recognize there.
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I’d guess it’s actually just two instances of one new piece you don’t recognize.
That throne is built around the odd piece I used as the two arm rests. It looks
like multiple parts, but it’s some strange piece that includes the plate on the
bottom, the triangular middle piece, and the tubes on top. I’d link to it on
Bricklink, but I can’t think of what category it would be under. I built that
throne a couple years ago and was waiting for a chance to throw it in somewhere.
It seems like it might be a good throne for Satan in Hell, but I don’t know when
I’d be illustrating that (if ever), so I gave it to the Ammonite king instead.
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The shaved beards work well (brasso or photoshop?).
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I had to look up what Brasso even is (sounded familiar, but I wouldn’t have been
able to say what it’s for), but now I see that its Wikipedia entry even notes
that “Brasso can also be used on Lego minifigures to remove markings”. I’ve
never tried that. For almost all my minifig marking-removals, I’ve scraped
things off with a hobby knife (as indeed I did here for the beards). I will
sometimes do photoshop removal for very little details and/or ones that won’t
recur in multiple photos.
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Return of the chariot design - I don’t think we’ve seen
that since the Exodus story.
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They made an appearance in Judges when God could not defeat the Philistines
because they had iron chariots. I feel like there may have been one other
chariot appearance in the interim, but I can’t place it.
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Adultery, Murder - The wall detail with Jar-Jar heads is outstanding. How
are those attached?
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That was tricky to build around Jar-Jar’s big head. The connection is the
standard stud-to-hole type. The method was to attach the upside-down Jar-Jar
heads by their neckhole along an upside-down tan 1x12 brick with four studs
distance between each head. On the middle two studs of that four-stud
distance, I attached dark gray 1x2 jumper plates. Then I attached 1x3 tan
slopes to the stud on the jumper plates, and voila. That’s pretty much it.
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Is the second image one photo, or a combination?
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That one is just one photo. To get the camera to focus correctly and adjust for
light and color correctly, I set the scene up so that the big white wall with
Bathsheba’s window is not attached to the rest of the scene. I’d take the wall
out of place, then hold the shutter halfway down on the camera to lock in the
light and color settings for Bathsheba’s well-lit “interior”, then I’d put the
wall back in place and use a board in my left hand to selectively block-out
light to make the exterior look a bit darker, and then finally snap the shot
with my right hand.
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Her 1x1 rounds are hilarious. How are her legs held
on? I’m guessing technic half-pins, but don’t see the little edge.
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Her legs/feet are just two 1x1 yellow tiles propped up on the studs on the edge
of the tub. Just gravity and friction holding them in place.
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I like the zig-zag wall detail in David’s room a lot.
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Thanks. I wanted to experiment with slopes in a wall design. I think other
builders have done a better job doing something like that but without all the
little gaps that my wall has where some of the angles meet.
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I’d be concerned if I were him about that bedframe falling
down on me.
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When I first built the four-post bed for David, I imagined I’d figure out a way
to use some LEGO canvas element to make it a canopy bed. But I never did get
that to work. Later I became very annoyed by the bed posts because they kept
getting in the way of a decent camera angle and/or falling apart. I did like
using spears stuck into the little gaps in David’s floor pattern as the support
posts, but overall I wasn’t very happy with how I made David’s royal bed.
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God kills - Why does baby sleep naked,
but when he’s dead they clothe him?
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Heh. Well, in the first “clothed” photo, he’s still alive, just very ill. So I
imagine they wrapped him up when they noticed he was turning blue (in the hopes
that that is the proper thing to do for a baby struck who has been struck by an
illness from God).
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Rabbah - Inconsistency alert - back in the eye gouger story the crown didn’t
have that jewel piece.
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Can’t a king have two different crowns, wearing one sometimes and another on
other occasions? I gave Saul an
around-the-palace crown and a
battle crown.
But yeah, I basically should have planned these stories out better to have Hanun
wearing the jewel-crown back when you first see him. I could’ve even had his
father Nahash wearing it
way back when. Alas, I let this detail slip past me. Never again!
Thanks for sticking in there with the comments, Bruce!
-Brendan
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In lugnet.build.ancient, Bruce Hietbrink wrote:
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Eye gouger - Interesting throne for Hanun; there are some pieces I don’t
recognize there.
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Hey, Bruce. Just happened to come across the weird pieces I used for
Hunan’s throne while browsing Bricklink. I had said it was a single piece, but
I think I didn’t realize they separate into two distinct elements:
“Soccer Goalie Stick Holder Base”
-Brendan
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