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Going back to try and cover the stories I missed:
David Acts Insane - I really like the wall behind the Philistine king’s throne.
The “drool” is funny as a LEGO joke, though I’m not sure if it’s effective just
looking at it as a depiction of the scene. On the cave, I guess I’d rather see
the whole thing as brick built rather than half of raised baseplates and half of
bricks.
People of Nob Massacred - There’s just something inherently funny about the
crowd of priests in their purple turbans. Some good violence depiction here,
like the trick with slicing the body in half
here and the line of blood down the wall
here. Any reason why Doeg switches from two cutlasses to one cutlass and one
broadsword?
David Attacks the Philistines - I particularly like
this scene. That’s a simple but effective fire. In the
battle scene, what is that battle axe in the upper left? Is it an official
piece? Having already read later chapters, I appreciate that you’ve got Joab
prominently featured from the start.
David’s Strong Men - Some good carnage scenes here, especially Abishai’s pile of
bodies. The yellow flags as barley is a clever idea and very effective. The
flower stems for the next field also works well. What is that mace that Benaiah
is using? Poor lion - first he gets stuck in a cistern, then some crazy guy
jumps in to fight him. I’m not sure about the flowers as snow - they seem like
flowers to me. Also, how did you do the spear through the body in the last
scene? The trick on the arm posing in that scene works really well and looks
dynamic.
David Asks for a Drink, Refuses It - Interesting
gate here. I like the variation from plate to brick on the underside of the
arch, and the pairing of the two different types of arches is something I hadn’t
seen before. That wheel makes a good well, and the pouring out of the water is
very effective.
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In lugnet.build.ancient, Bruce Hietbrink wrote:
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Going back to try and cover the stories I missed:
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Awesome.
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David Acts Insane - I really like the wall behind the Philistine king’s
throne.
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Thanks. Obviously I’ve tried to give the Philistines a consistent look in their
architecture (or at least in their color schemes and decoration), working that
lovely patterned arch into as many of the Philistine buildings as possible, but
I think this one works the best, condensing several of the arches together to
form a meta pattern.
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The “drool” is funny as a LEGO joke, though I’m not sure if it’s
effective just looking at it as a depiction of the scene.
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I probably should have tried to lean the “drool” against his head so that it
looked like it was coming out of his mouth.
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On the cave, I
guess I’d rather see the whole thing as brick built rather than half of
raised baseplates and half of bricks.
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I guess I like the challenge of working some of the raised baseplates into
scenes, mixing it up with BURPs and straight bricks.
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People of Nob Massacred - There’s just something inherently funny about the
crowd of priests in their purple turbans.
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Heh. I was surprised I had enough purple outfits to pull off the scene. I
think I used some purple 2x4 bricks in the background of the shot of the room
full of slaughtered priests.
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Some good violence depiction here,
like the trick with slicing the body in half
here and the line of blood down the wall
here.
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I remember that after I took the photos, and I went to deconstruct this scene,
I pulled away the stone-patterned wall and that stack of 1x1 trans red “blood”
tiles was still standing, and it looked very odd. It went from looking like
blood that had trailed down a wall to looking like blood bursting upward out of
the minifig’s body. I may have to work that technique into a future scene.
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Any reason why Doeg switches from two cutlasses to one cutlass and
one broadsword?
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I originally gave him the cutlasses for continuity’s sake because in previous
stories I’d illustrated the Edomites using cutlass-style swords. But when Doeg
had to then single-handedly massacre a whole town, I found that the cutlasses
were really limiting the poses I could put Doeg in since there’s really only one
way for a minifig with NBA arms to hold a cutlass. The broadsword can be
grasped by the side of the hand-protector thingy, which looks kind of silly, but
maybe it’s actually some ancient Edomite expert swordsmanship skill. It must
have been lost to history when King David’s general Joab exterminated all the
Edomite males. :)
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David Attacks the Philistines - I particularly like
this scene. That’s a simple but effective fire.
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When illustrating passages of the Bible, there’s often times where crucial
details are left out in the storytelling. “So David and his men attacked the
Philistines” says the text. But what were the Philistines doing at the time? I
liked the idea of having David’s not-so-merry men using stealth to take the
Philistines by surprise, but I still had to come up with something for the
Philistines to be caught off guard at. Why not eating? I do like how the
small, simple fire turned out, and particularly like the one Philistine soldier
warming his hands up at fireside.
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In the
battle scene, what is that battle axe in the upper left? Is it an official
piece?
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Much like the
red
Vader helmets and some other
odd
parts floating around, I was lucky enough to come into the possession of a few
“non-production” LEGO parts. I can only speculate that they were prototypes of
some sort, but they are emblazoned with the little tiny LEGO logo, and for my
purist-but-not-so-purist mind, that’s good enough for me.
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Having already read later chapters, I appreciate that you’ve got Joab
prominently featured from the start.
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The Bible has kind of a funny way of introducing significant characters. Joab
is first mentioned in 1 Samuel 26:6. But here his name is only being used as a
way to clarify who Abishai is: “David said to Ahimelech the Hittite and Abishai,
son of Zeruiah, brother of Joab...” The author of 1 Samuel seems to assume the
reader already knows who this Joab is even though Joab himself does not actually
do anything until 2 Samuel 2:13.
In planning out these stories, I try to watch out for characters who don’t get
formally introduced until later, but who logically seem like they should be in
some scenes before that.
In my most recent set of stories, there’s two new characters Nathan the prophet
and Gad the prophet. They seem to just pop up out of nowhere with little said
about them. In fact the whole prophet system is never actually explained in the
Bible, leaving it necessary for me to guess very broadly about how to portray
them visually. Who were these prophets? How did one become a prophet? Why
was there a need for prophets at all when clearly God could talk to anyone he
wished without a middleman? Anyhow, I wondered if I should have put Nathan or
Gad in an earlier scene, but I didn’t see a place for them.
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David’s Strong Men - Some good carnage scenes here, especially Abishai’s pile
of bodies. The yellow flags as barley is a clever idea and very effective.
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Ah, thanks. I remember actually thinking when I was building that scene, “What
will Bruce think of these flags as barley?”
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The flower stems for the next field also works well. What is that mace that
Benaiah is using?
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Same deal as the battle axe you asked about above.
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Poor lion - first he gets stuck in a cistern, then some
crazy guy jumps in to fight him.
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That poor lion
gets no respect.
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I’m not sure about the flowers as snow -
they seem like flowers to me.
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Yeah, I thought the flower shape might look like snowflakes, but maybe I should
have just gone with the traditional use of
white plates for snow.
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Also, how did you do the spear through the
body in the last scene? The trick on the arm posing in that scene works
really well and looks dynamic.
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Wow, I had to study that photo for a moment to remember. OK, the part of the
spear that’s poking “though” the hapless Egyptian is just a 1x1 silver cone on a
light gray lever piece
wedged in place. And the Egyptian is suspended in the air by having the 1x2
hinge brick pinch down on the spear shaft which doesn’t actually go through the
minifig at all. Hey, that’s kind of clever. :) I think the illusion is
significantly helped along by the photo beforehand showing the spear as one
piece.
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David Asks for a Drink, Refuses It - Interesting
gate here. I like the variation from plate to brick on the underside of the
arch, and the pairing of the two different types of arches is something I
hadn’t seen before. That wheel makes a good well, and the pouring out of the
water is very effective.
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Thanks. Those two arches look nice together like that, but it’s not a perfect
fit, and if the camera angle is more straight-on you can see the gap between
them. I think I put some decorative thing atop that gate, but then it was out
of frame in the first shot, and blocked out by the well in the next one. Oh,
well. I do like how nice that relatively simple well looks.
Thanks for going back to comment on the “old” stuff!
-Brendan
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