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Hey Brendan,
More great stuff.
Blinded by the light - Well, I’ve said before that I’m not a huge fleshy fan
and that I miss the old bald paul, but the new paul design is growing on me. I
like the “pursuit” pic, some good movement in that one, but I really like the
lighting effect in the next pics. Good use of the sleeping Ron face in 9:8-9
(though the eybrows don’t match), and I also like the floor in that. It looks
like it’s a mix of your headlight mosaic and just normal snot bricks? I like
the mod’ed hair on Ananias, and the guy responding to the Holy Ghost is funny in
that scene. In 9:20, what’s that yellow table the scroll is sitting on? I
really dig that city wall design, and the photography angle is really nice
there.
Jailhouse rocked Good use of the Goldmanesque floor design in the prison. In
the second pic I like the focus effect, with Peter in focus but the figures both
in front and in back slightly out. That’s a freaky looking angel - I’m not sure
I like those exo-force heads at all. Ooh, blue doors are pretty. Where’s that
from? Or is it the one Bricklink lists as violet from the Hogwarts classroom
set?
Waiting for the Worms The floor in the first pic is really nice. How’d you do
that? It looks like those are half-stud offsets. Also Herod’s throne is good,
too. Best effect, though, are the worms. Those are really gross looking.
Son of a Preacher Man Hmm, I’m not a fan of your Barnabas head choice - too
imbecilic. I like Manaen’s head a lot - Is that a mod’ed Obi-Wan head, and
later on a mod’ed Qui-Gon for the son of Jesus? Nice sideburns on this last.
My favorite pic is 13:7-8. I’d like to see that Greek building in the
background clearly, and your design of the toga for Sergius Paulus is really
well-done. The rake thing is funny in a cartoonish way, very Side-Show Bob.
Everybody must get stoned How’d you do the flying stones? Photoshoppery? That
scene is nice. I also like the stream of blood from the dragged Paul.
You Gotta Fight In the first pic, I don’t like those two torsos together.
They’re each okay in other contexts, but sitting next to eachother makes this
look more like a Western scene than an ancient one. I do really like the head
on the right-hand fig (the blue torso/legs). Where’s that from? The black
beard and HP hair on James is a good combination, and I really like the Greedo
torso for Silas.
the Final Cut LOL at the extra-biblical dialog in 15:37. I like that KKII
torso on Timothy’s mom, and Tim himself is a nice design. Great floor in 16:2.
I like the photoshopped Jesus in the last pic, but here’s another place where
I’m not happy with your choice in putting the story together. It does a
disservice to the text to cut off after they’re prevented from going to two
places without then mentioning that they had guidance to go to Macedonia.
Bruce
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In lugnet.build.ancient, Bruce Hietbrink wrote:
Thanks, Bruce. I kind of like that you’ve come up with your own alternate
titles for each of these stories. :)
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Blinded by the light - Well, I’ve said before that I’m not a huge fleshy fan
and that I miss the old bald paul, but the new paul design is growing on me.
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That’s good to hear. I think he’s got a lot more character. The old face was
pretty bland.
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I like the “pursuit” pic, some good movement in that one, but I really like
the lighting effect in the next pics.
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To get the super-bright light I used the bulb from a lava lamp. Took out the
glass-encased lava itself, so it’s just the base of the lamp with the bulb in
it. I’m sure any directional light would do, that’s just what I happened to
have around. The trick is to get the shot focused right and have the aperture
locked first, and then bring in the extra light to flood the shot with
brightness. So it was basically holding the shutter halfway down with one hand
and then holding the lava lamp base with the other hand, adjusting its position
until it looked just right, and then snap the shot. This worked well except
that the lava lamp base gets really hot. Youch.
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Good use of the sleeping Ron face in
9:8-9 (though the eybrows don’t match),
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True, there is a definite eyebrow mismatch. Maybe that was part of the miracle.
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and I also like the floor in that.
It looks like it’s a mix of your headlight mosaic and just normal snot
bricks?
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Actually, it’s just straight-up headlight bricks in
this
pattern but with tan and black.
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In 9:20, what’s that yellow table the
scroll is sitting on?
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That’s just a latticed fence with a 2x4 brick pressed into it, the same
technique I used for the
sides of the Ark of the Covenant.
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I really dig that city wall design, and the
photography angle is really nice there.
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Thanks. I do most of my photography up on large a raised shelf area that is at
about chest level. Generally this helps a lot because it makes it much easier
to put the camera at the minifigs’ eye level, which is usually what I want.
This was one of the few times I set up a scene on the floor so it would be
easier to get the overhead angle. Still it took a lot of tries to get it just
right. I had also tried shooting from ground level up and shooting straight on
at the level of the basket, but neither gave the same dramatic effect (or showed
off the wall as well).
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In the second pic I like the focus effect, with Peter in focus but the
figures both in front and in back slightly out.
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I generally use auto-focus (with the focus set to macro mode) for The Brick
Testament. So a lot of the time it’s again holding the shutter down halfway to
lock in the focus and then making changes to what’s in front of the camera. In
this case the prison bars were added afterward (with my left hand) while holding
the focus on Peter. Otherwise the camera would focus on the bars every time.
The other option is just to manually focus, but I’ve gotten faster and more
reliable result on auto with these sorts of tricks.
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That’s a freaky looking angel - I’m not sure I like
those exo-force heads at all.
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They are freaky looking, especially when placed side-by-side with characters
who have more traditional minifig facial proportions. But sometimes I like
freaky.
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Ooh, blue doors are pretty. Where’s that from? Or is it
the one Bricklink lists as violet from the Hogwarts classroom set?
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Yep, it’s violet door. For the nighttime shots I’m now reducing the overall
brightness and reducing the saturation of the colors a bit and adding a little
extra blue to simulate moonlight. This disguises the true colors a bit.
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Waiting for the Worms The floor in the first pic is really nice. How’d you
do that? It looks like those are half-stud offsets.
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The pattern here is again just straight-up headlight bricks. I don’t have a
full pattern done in this style on my Brickshelf account, but it’s similar to
the edges formed in
this
pattern.
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Also Herod’s throne is good, too. Best effect, though,
are the worms. Those are really gross looking.
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Gross is what I was aiming for. :) In case it’s not obvious, the “worms” are
made from a cut up LEGO rubber band. I was hoping to find a pinkish-red one to
cut, but I only have yellow, white, blue, or black.
I guess I’ve always thought “Barnabas” was a silly-sounding name and that must
have affected my head choice. He doesn’t do or say all that much in the Bible
so it’s hard to say whether the imbecile look is well-suited to him or not. But
perhaps it is sort of mean on my part. My apologies to Barnabas’s descendants
if they are reading this.
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I like Manaen’s head a lot - Is that a mod’ed Obi-Wan head, and
later on a mod’ed Qui-Gon for the son of Jesus?
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Yes and yes. Just a little hobby knife scraping to get those new facial hair
schemes. Those heads have both been seen in earlier stories (though perhaps not
as noticeably). I did some more serious hobby knife scraping in order to get
some more usable light-peach heads (since there just aren’t all that many of
them released so far). The hardest one was scraping the purple off the face of
Two-Face. The result is a very
nice face crazed with anger. I used with in
the scene of Paul getting stoned (far right), but he’s not in focus. Then in
the
next illustration there’s this
face made far more useful without the white forehead paint.
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My favorite pic is 13:7-8. I’d like to see that Greek building in the
background clearly,
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That mini-scale Greek temple building is a very simple design, just using a
spindled fence for the columns and a
double-sloped 2x2 brick on the roof. As you may have noticed from recent
stories, I now have about ten different mini-scale buildings that get recombined
in different way to be the background for several different cities and towns.
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and your design of the toga for Sergius Paulus is really
well-done.
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Thanks. It’s the same style I had
Pilate wearing.
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The rake thing is funny in a cartoonish way, very Side-Show Bob.
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That was the intended reference in
the original
version I did. Not sure how many people would get that reference nowadays, but
I think it’s kind of funny regardless.
Yes, I have not thought of a way to have the stones in mid-air without resorting
to erasing the rigging later in photoshop. At one point in a much earlier
stoning story, I tried to actually capture the LEGO “stones” in mid-air, tossing
them into the scene and then snapping the photo. But since I don’t use flash
photography, the shutter stays open for either 1/4 or 1/8 second, and that makes
the “stones” way too blurry to be recognizable. But if it’s any consolation,
the rigging I erase is strictly built out of LEGO.
Wait, I’m not sure I get your reference for this title. You Gotta Fight... for
your right to party? For your right not to be circumcised?
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In the first pic, I don’t like those two torsos together.
They’re each okay in other contexts, but sitting next to eachother makes this
look more like a Western scene than an ancient one.
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I have to agree with that criticism. Especially with all those Fort Legorado
log cabin walls surrounding them. Bad choice on my part. I just try to mix
things up with the torsos so that each new character isn’t wearing a torso
design you just saw in the previous story. But it gets tough to keep it fresh.
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I do really like the
head on the right-hand fig (the blue torso/legs). Where’s that from?
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That’s the same head I used for Moses (as an adult), which is the
Rock Raiders captain, though here
I’ve scraped off the furrowed eyebrows and his bangs to give him a friendlier
and more generic look.
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and I really like the
Greedo torso for Silas.
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I’ve been reluctant to use Greedo’s torso up until now. I’ve tried it out for
any number of characters, but it always seems not-quite-right. Something just
not quite ancient-looking about it. For some reason it looked OK with this
guy’s head though.
I wasn’t sure that would fly. :) It kind of makes Paul look whiny whereas the
text gives him a somewhat reasonable excuse for not wanting John called Mark to
join them. But it’s kind of funny how Paul and Barabbas have an argument about
traveling companions and then an acrimonious split-up.
This time it’s this
pattern in red and light gray.
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I like the photoshopped Jesus in the last pic, but here’s another place
where I’m not happy with your choice in putting the story together. It does
a disservice to the text to cut off after they’re prevented from going to two
places without then mentioning that they had guidance to go to Macedonia.
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Hmm. Well, the next story is going to pick up with Paul heading into Athens.
Not sure if I’ll include Paul’s vision of a Macedonian man and his
interpretation of that vision as God’s call for him to Macedonia and Greece. I
just found it strange and interesting that both the Holy Ghost and the Spirit of
Jesus make an effort to block Paul’s path. It just seems like such a random and
inefficiently roundabout way for God/Jesus/The Holy Ghost to bring about their
goals. But same the could be said for the entirety of the Bible, I suppose.
I’ll leave it at that lest we head into OT.debate territory.
-Brendan
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In lugnet.build.ancient, Brendan Powell Smith wrote:
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In lugnet.build.ancient, Bruce Hietbrink wrote:
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Yes and yes. Just a little hobby knife scraping to get those new facial hair
schemes.
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One of these days I’ll have to try that. I’m just afraid that I’ll ruin a head.
Maybe I should start practicing with my hoarde of Harry Potters.
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That mini-scale Greek temple building is a very simple design, just using a
spindled fence for the columns and a
double-sloped 2x2 brick on the roof. As you may have noticed from recent
stories, I now have about ten different mini-scale buildings that get
recombined in different way to be the background for several different cities
and towns.
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They’re quite effective, though I suppose clear pics would ruin the illusion.
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Wait, I’m not sure I get your reference for this title. You Gotta Fight...
for your right to party? For your right not to be circumcised?
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It was late, I was tired, and I was just trying to think of a song title for
debate/conflict/fight (I’d already decided on The Final Cut for the next one).
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Hmm. Well, the next story is going to pick up with Paul heading into Athens.
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I hope you recreate your
microscale
Acropolis. I’ll be sure to blog it on MicroBricks.
Bruce
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In lugnet.build.ancient, Bruce Hietbrink wrote:> One of these days I’ll have to
try that. I’m just afraid that I’ll ruin a
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head. Maybe I should start practicing with my hoarde of Harry Potters.
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It works well and scraping off the lightning bolts makes good practice.
My first “real” (as opposed to computer generated) avatar head was a “Steven
Spielberg” scraped to make a goatee:
Sadly I nicked the left side so there is a small gap. I have to take pictures of
the newer version I recently did.
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