Subject:
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Re: The Brick Testament: More Laws than You Can Shake a Stick At
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.build.ancient
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Date:
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Tue, 14 Oct 2003 23:31:26 GMT
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Viewed:
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2181 times
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> Hey Brendan,
Hi, Bruce.
> Great work as always. Some thoughts on the building:
Thanks. I always look forward to your comments.
> Slavery -- That trailer is perfect.
I was inspired when I saw Stefan Garcia's 1950s Cruisette Travel Trailer...
http://news.lugnet.com/town/?n=6578
...and had it in mind when I made a trailer of my own for the Slavery story.
> Was the trailer-park guy on the Jerry Sringer show in one
> of your other offerings?
Nope, though he'd fit right in: http://www.pbase.com/image/22111589.jpg
I had had that trailer scene sitting there in my work area for a couple weeks
while I was distracted from working on The Brick Testament by other projects, so
whenever people came by my house, they'd see the little white trash diorama.
Originally the father in that scene looked a bit different. It was a friend of
mine who suggested I use the Hermione-style hair to signify a mullet.
> I really like the camera angle on the floor-scrubbing picture.
Thanks, I had to play around with that a bit to get a good angle to show both
the female slave toiling and the male slave leaving. I like the end product,
but unfortunately, nit-pickers will notice that the brown floor runs out at the
bottom left of the photo. Whoops.
> Why is there a coffin in the bedroom?
The idea here is that this is a man of opulence who also has a thing for
collecting Egyptian artifacts. It's a theme in his house. I thought it natural
that he would admire a culture that once had all the Hebrews enslaved.
> Nice floor there, btw.
More headlight mosaic tomfoolery.
> I'm not sure if I like the wall in Ex 21:21. It's interesting, but
> doesn't seem quite right.
I was thinking it resembled patterned wall paper. Maybe not, though. @8^/
> Children Stoning -- I like the idea of the hair on the rebellious
> son, but in the execution it looks too rough. Perhaps you should
> smooth that down with a fine-grained sandpaper (or a dremel tool if
> you have one)? I have the same view on God's hairpiece, BTW.
I hear that. It could have been smoother, you're right. I recently did a
little sand-papering of God's hair based on a similar comment someone else made.
> Perfect face and torso choices on the kid. Is that a
> Nintendo he's holding?
Or some such, yes.
> Marrying Your Sis-in-Law -- Hey, that pipe looks familiar:
> http://www.ozbricks.net/bricktales/lotr/lotrstory/book3/chapter308/lotrstory308-03.html
I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about. @8^) (Wink, wink.)
Yeah, that pipe design is awesome, and I take no credit for it. I just wanted a
chance to put it in a modern-day setting. It adds a lot of character.
> I was wondering why the one guy was wearing snowshoes up until
> the last frame.
I was hoping readers would bear with me until the last panel in which the
mysterious footwear is explained.
> False Prophets -- I like the camera angle and lighting on the first
> shot a lot,
Thanks. I had that shot all set up and then I remembered that Jesus's walk on
water was at night. I think I'm used to seeing protrayls of it in broad
daylight. Anyhow, I hope to go back to the New Testament eventually and
illustrate that and some of the other miracle stories.
> also the microfig town in the last photo.
Micro-Jerusalem. @8^)
> I have to add that I found this and the next couple of
> segments offensive, but you probably anticipated that.
I expected a lot of people to be surprised by them, and many to feel strongly
that my interpretation of them is invalid, but I didn't particularly think they
would be any more "offensive" than other things I've already illustrated.
> Stoning Your Family -- I don't like the bookcase in the first
> two photos. It looks okay from directly in front, but in the
> second photo you can see the blue book peeking through from behind.
You're right. That bookcase only looks good from the front. It's just nice how
the LEGO books fit so snugly into the LEGO window frames. I'd use a double set
of frames for the bookshelf, but with the little hinges for shutters, I wouldn't
be able to put it flush against the wall. But yeah, my bad.
> Very clever newspaper and nice easy chair design.
Thanks. I had no idea how many different easy chairs The Law would require me
to build.
> Religous Tolerance -- Gruesome. The burning house in frame 3 is
> very effective. I like the kitty running away.
NOTE: No kitties were harmed during the wholesale destruction of this town.
> Jar-Jar in the loot? Hey, where did that tuba come from? Some
> Fabuland set?
Hard to think of a life-size Jar-Jar statue as worthwhile "loot", but any
opportunity to burn one would, of course, be welcomed. Yep, that's a Fabuland
tuba that I found on Bricklink.
> The last picture is effective in its starkness.
Good, thanks.
> Racial Tolerance -- The time change from the first picture to the
> second is quite effective.
It was fun to take a little hop into the future for a couple of panels in this
story.
> Hanging -- Ew, gross. The use of focus in the second picture is
> very nice.
Thanks. I particularly like the colors in that shot, and it shows off the
overall tree nicely.
> The Occult -- It really looks like that rabbit is coming out of
> the hat.
Cool. Since that rabbit is about equal size with a minifig, it was tricky to
make it look like he was coming out of a minifig top hat. Just a matter of
getting the right camera angle.
> I liek the cutting the woman in half, too. Six months ago or so
> Lego Magazine had some instructions for a couple of little magic
> tricks,
Hmm, I don't remember that. Were they showing you how to actually perform
tricks, or how to build magic trick dioramas out of LEGO bricks?
> I have a general question for you. You reuse a few creations in
> this series from earlier segments--I think the sand green house,
> the front of the church, and the altar for the wedding appeared
> before. Do you just keep things together until you need the pieces,
> and sometimes they become useful? Or do you plan
> ahead and take pictures for future chapters before taking things
> apart.
In general, the sets I build stay around for a couple of weeks at most, and then
I decide that they are using too many bricks, and I dismantle them. There have
only been a few exceptions to this rule. The Garden of Eden and the Tower of
Babel, for instance, are still around and at least partially intact.
For work on The Law, I had scripted out all the stories in advance, and while
doing so, I realized that there were a few common settings between stories.
Particularly, I noticed that it would be good to have a church that could appear
in multiple stories. So the church interior and exterior were built with that
in mind. I didn't take all the church photos at the same time though, I just
kept the two sets intact and photographed them when needed.
You're right about the sand green house. It gets featured a couple of times,
and is even in the background of a couple other shots. This was just a case of
happening to have the model still around. It crossed my mind that someone might
notice that this house gets re-used, so I had to keep in mind whether it was
conceivable that it represents the very same house in each of the photos. I
think it's conceivable. But that's it for the sand green house, because now
it's burnt to the ground. Unless I show it in another story *before* it burnt
down. Actually, I think I already tossed it in the to-dismatle bin.
A final example is The Law's hospital set. If I'd been more on-the-ball, I
could have reused the hospital set from Brawling in the new story Slavery. But
it got dismantled many weeks ago. Whoops.
> In my Tolkien project I have that where, for instance, they come to
> Edoras (King Theoden's hall) several times. I had to flip through
> the book and decide what pictures I would want for future chapters
> and take those while I had Edoras built, even though I didn't build
> other parts of those future chapters for several months. Do you do
> this?
Most often, I tend to build and photograph the stories in order, but there have
been times where I know the same set will get used repeatedly, and it's easier
to just shoot all the scenes that at that "location" at the same time. But if
it's months apart, it's unlikely I'll still have the set around, unless I've
made careful note to keep it around.
Thanks as always, Bruce.
-Rev. Smith
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