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The Brick Testament celebrates its first year online with an update of
biblical proportions: The Ten Plagues.
http://www.bricktestament.com/exodus
Enjoy,
-The Rev. Brendan Powell Smith
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Hey Brendan,
Wow! Big update. I'll go through more later, but I just looked through the
plague of the frogs.
-Very cute. How many of those frogs do you have?
-I love them getting into everything. Sometimes they are in places without
studs. Did you use glue?
-Favorite pic, maybe the one with the frog on Aaron's head. Or else maybe
the Pharoah's cat chasing a frog. Very cat-like.
-Favorite construction - the bedroom. I like how you use tiles for the
floor and then the bath (one plate lower) has studs, so it is like ripples
in the water. You would expect that some of the frogs would jump in,
though, no? Oh, those Paradisa arches make for a great covered bed.
Anyway, I'll check out the others later.
Bruce
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In lugnet.build.ancient, Bruce Hietbrink writes:
> Wow! Big update. I'll go through more later, but I just looked through the
> plague of the frogs. Very cute. How many of those frogs do you have?
You know, I never bothered to count. @8^) Suffice it to say, a lot. It
started last Christmas when my girlfriend, knowing I'd eventually illustrate
the Plague of Frogs, ordered me 10 LEGO frogs on Bricklink. It took a few
more Bricklink purchases before I felt I had enough to do it right, though.
> -I love them getting into everything. Sometimes they are in places without
> studs. Did you use glue?
Not glue per se, but I do admit to "cheating". I used some sticky putty
stuff that is easy to apply, remove, and reuse. I felt a little bad about
breaking the "rules", but couldn't think of a better way to show frogs
clamboring onto people and certain surfaces that that just don't have studs.
> -Favorite pic, maybe the one with the frog on Aaron's head. Or else maybe
> the Pharoah's cat chasing a frog. Very cat-like.
The frog plague was definitely the most fun to illustrate. It doesn't
strike me so much like a plague as it does an annoyance. But who am I to
question Yahweh?
> -Favorite construction - the bedroom. I like how you use tiles for the
> floor and then the bath (one plate lower) has studs, so it is like ripples
> in the water. You would expect that some of the frogs would jump in,
> though, no? Oh, those Paradisa arches make for a great covered bed.
You're right, it's strage that the frogs are not in the pool. I thought of
putting some in there, but I would have wanted them to look partially
submerged or something, and couldn't think of a good way to do that short of
cutting a frog in two -- and that, to me, would be far too blasphemous.
Thanks for the comments. Hope you enjoy the rest of the new stories.
-Rev. Smith
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In lugnet.build.ancient, Brendan Powell Smith writes:
> Thanks for the comments. Hope you enjoy the rest of the new stories.
I have been. Some comments:
First Plague (River into Blood): The red river is especially effective. I
also like in the background of this photo:
http://www.thereverend.com/brick_testament//exodus/the_first_plague/ex07_21d.html
the use of the lightsaber rod for a stream of blood. Also the bench in this
picture:
http://www.thereverend.com/brick_testament//exodus/the_first_plague/ex07_21c.html
is a simple yet effective piece of minifig scale furniture.
Third (mosquitos): I'm actually not a fan of your mosquito solution. It
seems like cheating to just draw them on. I know, I've done lighting
effects etc in photoshop too, but this seemed more obtrusive to me. (Hey, I
can't say everything was great, or people would think you were paying me
off. :) )
Fourth (beetles): Very cute in ways similar to the frogs. I like the
little fence in this and other plagues seperating Goshen from the rest of
Egypt. I could almost hear the Hebrew figs saying "Ha-Ha" in the tone of
Nelson from the Simpsons. I like the servants of pharoah trying to shoo the
bugs away with brooms. Favorite build detail is the archway with the
stairway in this scene:
http://www.thereverend.com/brick_testament//exodus/the_fourth_plague/ex08_24b.html
also the floorboards. That's a very nice building. Oh, and Baby Fett's
torso is great for that fig. I need to get me one of those (along with the
blue stubbies). I also love the picture of the beetles swarming out of the
palace door.
Fifth (dead animals): very sad when all the horses are lying there dead,
especially sad is the kitty :( I do love all of your brick-built-beasts,
especially the camels (simple and abstract, but effective) and sheep.
Ninth (darkness): Kinda cheating, but funny. A nice silly little detail is
Moses "streching" his hand towards heaven.
I've looked at the others, but I'll comment later. The server is really
slow today so clicking through these is taking a long time.
Bruce
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In lugnet.build.ancient, Bruce Hietbrink writes:
> First Plague (River into Blood): The red river is especially effective.
If only I had enough trans red to cover the whole river! @8^) I was happy
with the way the plain red river came out, though. Even in LEGO, there's
just something eerie about the look or a river running red.
> I also like in the background of this photo:
> http://www.thereverend.com/brick_testament//exodus/the_first_plague/ex07_21d.html
> the use of the lightsaber rod for a stream of blood.
The lightsaber was a last minute addition. I had been stupidly trying to
stack trans red 1x1 tiles on their sides to give the illustion of blood
pouring from the bucket. But I think the saber was much more elegant solution.
> Also the bench in this picture:
> http://www.thereverend.com/brick_testament//exodus/the_first_plague/ex07_21c.html
> is a simple yet effective piece of minifig scale furniture.
Thanks. I've been very impressed and inspired by the minifig scale
furniture I've seen in other people's work on Brickshelf, so I feel very
indebted.
> Third (mosquitos): I'm actually not a fan of your mosquito solution. It
> seems like cheating to just draw them on. I know, I've done lighting
> effects etc in photoshop too, but this seemed more obtrusive to me. (Hey, I
> can't say everything was great, or people would think you were paying me
> off. :) )
It's good to hear some criticism from you, Bruce. @8^) I agree that my
non-LEGO representation of the mosquitos is not the optimal solution, but I
just couldn't really think of a better one. Mosquitos would be so small in
minifig scale that I couldn't think of any possible LEGO element to
represent them. The only other possibility I considered was switching to a
macro scale for these shots. But even then, I didn't think I could model
larger versions of minifigs that would be recognizeable to the audience. If
you (or anyone else reading this) think of a different way I could have
represented the mosquitos for those passages using LEGO, I'd be interested
in hearing about them.
> Fourth (beetles): Very cute in ways similar to the frogs. I like the
> little fence in this and other plagues seperating Goshen from the rest of
> Egypt. I could almost hear the Hebrew figs saying "Ha-Ha" in the tone of
> Nelson from the Simpsons. I like the servants of pharoah trying to shoo the
> bugs away with brooms.
Have to admit to trick photography on some of the beetle shots. I didn't
really know in advance that I'd be doing a plague of beetles. The Bible I
had used to takes notes for the plague stories translated the fourth plague
as a plague of horseflies. I was worried I'd have to result to non-LEGO
measure again for this plague until I did some more research and found that
the Hebrew words describing this particular plague can be understood in
different ways. Literally, it's something like "harmful creatures". Some
translators even interpret this as wild animals, though most common is some
sort of fly. But when I discovered that beetles was a valid translation, I
was happy because I knew I had a number of LEGO beetles lying around. Plus,
they're cute. Anyhow, I only had about ten of them total, so anytime you
see more than that, I had to splice multiple photos together to achieve the
level of infestation appropriate for a plague. Sigh... I'm becoming such a
cheater... @8^)
> Favorite build detail is the archway with the
> stairway in this scene:
> http://www.thereverend.com/brick_testament//exodus/the_fourth_plague/ex08_24b.html
> also the floorboards. That's a very nice building. Oh, and Baby Fett's
> torso is great for that fig. I need to get me one of those (along with the
> blue stubbies).
Thanks. Yeah, I liked that building. I knew that all I had coming up in
the near future were stories set out in the desert wilderness, so I wanted
to try out some cool ideas for indoor shots while I still could.
> I also love the picture of the beetles swarming out of the
> palace door.
I was a little worried that this shot would be confusing, because the text
below it says that "not one remained", and yet above you see lots of
beetles. But yeah, I thought it would be funny to have them all marching
out in unison.
> Fifth (dead animals): very sad when all the horses are lying there dead,
> especially sad is the kitty :( I do love all of your brick-built-beasts,
> especially the camels (simple and abstract, but effective) and sheep.
Thanks. I've refined my camels a bit, giving them cylinder legs with
hooves. I like my brick-built-beasts, but I think there are others who do a
better job. I kind of wish I'd seen Dave Eaton's sheep before I made my
own. Mine seen a little bland in comparison:
http://www.suave.net/~dave/images/newtown/shepards.jpg
> Ninth (darkness): Kinda cheating, but funny. A nice silly little detail is
> Moses "streching" his hand towards heaven.
I considered photographing a wall of black LEGO instead for these shots, but
I think that just would have been somewhat confusing. @8^) I also
considered shooting the photos is very, very low light, but I mean hey,
total darkness is total darkness. At least I tried to keep this story nice
and short.
More replies to your further comments ahead...
-Rev. Smith
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In lugnet.build.ancient, Brendan Powell Smith writes:
> If
> you (or anyone else reading this) think of a different way I could have
> represented the mosquitos for those passages using LEGO, I'd be interested
> in hearing about them.
I agree that it's pretty much impossible to do this without cheating. One
thing I though of was that you could build a fairly detailed mosquito at a
larger scale, something like:
http://guide.lugnet.com/set/6907
and then take a photo of this and in Photoshop cut it out and shrink it down
and past 100 copies onto your normal scale photos. Still a cheat, though.
Or, once you built the large scale mosquito, I guess you could just
incorporate that into your scenes--Attack of the Giant Mosquitos!--probably
too B-movie-ish, though. :)
Bruce
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Continued:
Sixth (boils): Again, I kind of thought this was cheating. I do like that
they actually bulge out though. Interesting octagonal building in the
background during Moses and God's conversation. I'd like to see clearer
pictures of that.
Seventh (hail): Nice humor with the references to the already dead
livestock. I really like the building in this picture:
http://www.thereverend.com/brick_testament/exodus/the_seventh_plague/ex09_20a.html
I like the hail. Impressive. All of my clear and colorless bricks look
more weathered than those. I don't think those age too well, so these are
all new. Also an impressive number of those old-style trees.
Eighth (locusts): I like the use of guns as locusts. There seems to be a
symbolic connection between the two.
Tenth (firstborn): The table covered with the animal carcass with it's
head, entrails etc is pretty good. The insect antenna is a nice addition.
Also the painting the blood above the door scene is very nice. God killing
the firstborns is pretty brutal, but that is the story. I really love your
microfig scale city:
http://www.thereverend.com/brick_testament/exodus/the_tenth_plague/ex12_30b.html
Anyway, all around great work. Looking forward to the parting of the Red
Sea (Sea of Reeds).
Bruce
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In lugnet.build.ancient, Bruce Hietbrink writes:
> Sixth (boils): Again, I kind of thought this was cheating. I do like that
> they actually bulge out though.
Yep, more cheating. But how else does one show boils? I suppose I could
have used fire to actually change the shape of the plastic on the minifigs,
and that would have made is still be all-LEGO. But burning LEGO seems like
such a sacrilege. Maybe I could have just put 1x1 round plates on people?
> Interesting octagonal building in the background during Moses
> and God's conversation. I'd like to see clearer pictures of that.
That's one of my buildings that are designed to look cool blurry in the
background, but if you saw what it was really like, you would not be very
impressed. @8^) Actually, I was sad to see so much of it get covered in
dialogue bubbles. It does fulfill its job of looking cool as a blurry
background building, and it's a shame you can't see too much of it. But it
was really just a very fragile and poorly constructed facade that fell apart
at the end of shooting the photos.
> Seventh (hail): Nice humor with the references to the already dead
> livestock. I really like the building in this picture:
> http://www.thereverend.com/brick_testament/exodus/the_seventh_plague/ex09_20a.html
Thanks. That buildning, since it's up close in the foreground, I actually
spent considerable time on. In fact, I was a little sad more of it didn't
make it into the final shot. A lot of times, I don't know how big to make
my buildings, since I don't know beforehand exactly how I'll eventually set
up the shot. There's a whole second floor of the building that you can't
see in the shot. But at least this shot makes it hard to tell I don't have
a matching curved tan railing on the other side! @8^) I should buy a
second one on Bricklink or something...
> I like the hail. Impressive. All of my clear and colorless bricks look
> more weathered than those. I don't think those age too well, so these are
> all new.
I was able to find a lot of those clear pieces in the K-8 boxes they put out
at BricksWest. Presumably that stuff was all new. The rest is probably
mostly from my childhood LEGO collection, plus the LEGO my girlfriend
acquired that used to belong to her (signifigantly) older brothers who had
LEGO collections in the 60s.
> Also an impressive number of those old-style trees.
I had never seen these before we got that shoebox full of 60s LEGO. @8^)
Those old trees are too cool. I've bought one more on Bricklink since then,
but they are pretty prohibitively expensive... What you see in that photo
represent my entire collection of old school granulated trees.
> Eighth (locusts): I like the use of guns as locusts. There seems to be a
> symbolic connection between the two.
I was determined not to cheat using non-LEGO for the locusts. I had to find
something small enough and hopefully somewhat reminiscent of the shape of a
locust. After weeding out many other potential elements, I decided to go
with the six-shooter revolver. Still a bit odd once you realize what they
are, but at least they actual LEGO. With my luck, in two months they will
come out with an official LEGO locust.
> Tenth (firstborn): The table covered with the animal carcass with it's
> head, entrails etc is pretty good. The insect antenna is a nice addition.
> Also the painting the blood above the door scene is very nice. God killing
> the firstborns is pretty brutal, but that is the story. I really love your
> microfig scale city:
> http://www.thereverend.com/brick_testament/exodus/the_tenth_plague/ex12_30b.html
Thanks. I was happy with the way the microfig city came out. That's a fun
scale to build in. Up to now when I've built micro-scale, it's been for
buildings "far away" in the background, and consequently blurry, so detail
wasn't a big issue. It was tricky finding enough parts in tan to make a
varied ancient cityscape. On a side note, I am happy to see LEGO officially
making microscale products with the introduction of the new line of micro
Star Wars vehciles.
> Anyway, all around great work. Looking forward to the parting of the Red
> Sea (Sea of Reeds).
Your detailed comments are really appreciated, Bruce. Your payment for them
will be sent off today -- note that I have docked your pay for the criticism
about the mosquitos. @8^D
-Rev. Smith
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