Subject:
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Re: The Brick Testament: Jesus Redux
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.build.ancient
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Date:
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Wed, 22 Feb 2006 01:27:21 GMT
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Viewed:
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8403 times
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Hi, Bruce. Nice to have your comments again.
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I’m assuming the revamp is anticipation of another book?
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There’s nothing in the works at this point. From what I’ve been able to gather,
the first book (Stories from Genesis) sold very well, and initial sales of the
Christmas book looked really good, but I guess the Christmas book didn’t end up
selling as well as my publisher hoped, and sales of The Ten Commandments have
been a more sluggish than they’d like, so they are not yet banging down my door
for a fourth installment in the series. But I do want to be prepared, should
that opportunity arise, and it seemed like a Life of Jesus (or as you suggested,
Ministry of Jesus) book would be a likely candidate. So that’s part of the
reason for the revamp.
But even putting aside the idea of publishing more books, I’ve been wanting to
add to the number of stories illustrated in New Testament. Adding certain ones,
like “The Baptism of Jesus”, wouldn’t jibe with how I originally structured the
“John the Baptist” story. Once it was obvious I’d need to redo some stories,
I decided it would be nice to give the whole section a consistent look.
I realized there was a danger of along the lines of George Lucas messing with
the Original Trilogy to make “special editions”. But I’ll try to refrain from,
say, using Photoshop in every scene, and hopefully avoid any Greedo-shot-first
fiascos.
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It’s great to see you go back and redo some of these with all of the extra
experience you’ve gained since you started. You should keep the originals up
on your site somewhere to compare, perhaps in a section along with some of the
“how did he do it?” photos you’ve shared.
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The older versions are still online (I didn’t want anyone’s links to them to
become broken). It’s just not an advertised fact. I’m not sure I’ll do an
official sort of comparison of old and new, but you’re welcome to do one
yourself. All the old stuff is still at here. You can compare the old
John the Baptist story with the new
Jesus Is Baptized and
The Head of John the Baptist. Or compare the old
Call of the Disciples with the new
Peter, Andrew, James, and John and
Matthew and Levi.
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Jesus is baptised - Is that the head you used before for John the Baptist?
Very good as the wide-eyed zealot.
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It’s the same head, but he used to have a long gray beard and short gray hair.
But the Gospel of Matthew makes plain that John and Jesus were the same age, so
upon review, it didn’t seem right to have John look so very much older (though
maybe that’s what living off of locusts and honey in the wilderness does to a
man). So instead we now have a John with wild long black hair. I like the new
look. My girlfriend thinks it looks like a woman with a mustache, though.
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I like how you’ve done the SNOT water a
lot. One bonus is that little edge of tan you get along the side that makes
some more texture in your shoreline.
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I had a new Jordan River set all constructed for the new John the Baptist
scenes, and then I happened to see Keith Goldman’s (appranetly unnanounced on
LUGNET) latest creation
2 Pits and a Pad.
Looking through the photos, I was taken with how nice the
studless water
looked, particularly when it
caught the
reflections of things nearby. So I started over with a river of sideways
1-by-x blue bricks and then build studs-up on top. And yeah, one of the
by-products of that was the little extra bit of tan along the water’s edge,
which looked kind of nice so I kept it in.
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Jesus swims with his clothes on?
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Nah, he’s just a little more shy than the others, waiting right until it’s his
turn to enter the Jordan to remove his garments. You can see that when he comes
up from the river, he’s bare-chested. Jesus having his clothes on in the
line-for-baptism shot was done partially because I thought it was funny to have
Jesus be a little bit prudish, but more because this is now going to be the
first time in The Brick Testament’s illustrated version of The New Testament
that you see Jesus as an adult, so I wanted him to be immediately recognizeable,
and stand out from the crowd.
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Is that parrot painted, or some odd-color part you got from a Model Builders
Shop or something? Both Bricklink and peeron don’t have white versions.
How’s he staying up, btw. Is that glue or is there some behind-the-scenes
support?
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I know I do have a handful of crazy rare pieces that generally aren’t available
in the colors I have them in (like the brown and black beards of the wise men in
“Jesus Is Born”), but I didn’t even realize the white bird was one of those
parts. Hunh, I guess it is. I was actually able to get the bird to balance on
Jesus’s head a couple of times, just long enough to get the requisite photos. I
thought I’d have to resort to sneakier tactics, but not this time. :)
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Peter and company - Nicely done, though not a lot of build details to comment
on. The tree seems kind of cooly Dr. Seuss-esque, though I’m not sure I like
the grey.
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I had no idea what a fig tree looked like, so it was Google Images to the
rescue. There is apparently quite diversity in apperances of fig trees, so I
tried to get a better idea of what Israeli fig trees look like. Anyhow, the
ones I based my LEGO version on did seem to have a light gray bark.
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J the B’s Head - What’s that torso on Herod?
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I believe that is King
Mathias Knight’s Kingdom II.
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I like the throne room a lot and that’s a great cave.
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Thanks. With the throne room, that was the first time I was rebuilding a
specific set from the original version of one of the stories I was redoing.
Well, at least I kept the floor design, which is what was most characteristic.
The rest of the room got a bit of a makeover. And yeah, the cave is certainly
an improvement over the
original.
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Peter and a slightly different company - The first shot in this section is
superb, with those tan buildings and the use of focus and the camera angle
from below. If you’re doing a book like “The ministry of Jesus” this could
definitely be the cover shot
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Thanks--and really that’s not a bad book idea at all, though I have to admit,
when I hear “The Ministry of Jesus” it also sounds like it could be a section of
the British government. (Please report to the Ministry of Jesus by 9 AM on
Tuesday with all appropriate paperwork in order.)
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(as opposed to if you were also including the
Easter story, in which case you’ll want to go with something like the Last
Supper or the Crucifixion as a more iconic image).
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Yes, most likely.
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Good work getting
different looks with the nets, btw (no Spiderman white nets?).
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I suppose I don’t have any white Spiderman nets. And it didn’t even occur to me
that white nets might be more appropriate. Well, off-white/tan would probably
be best. Let’s just imagine these are some heavily used nets, and are covered
in lake grime.
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Transmutation (Btw, did you ever see the King of the Hill episode where Bobby
did a Jesus’ miracles magic show for his Sunday School class?)
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I know I saw it when it first aired, but that was a while ago know, so my memory
of it isn’t so sharp. Was there something about it you wanted to point out?
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I love the pic where Mary is holding the bottle saying “they have no more
wine”. It makes perfect LEGO sense but would never work for a person
holding a bottle that big.
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Heh, yeah, I didn’t think about that. Maybe it could work if the the giant jug
was both lightweight and empty. But it’s a pretty strange way to grip it
nonetheless.
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Nice idea for the water bottles with those ball-socket pieces.
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I really like those ball socket joints--both this piece and part that goes
inside. The bigger piece makes a nice big minifig water jar or cauldron, and
the smaller inside piece is a great minifig bowl.
That whole interior of your looks really nice, by the way. I love the tree
mosaic, and the upper walls are really sweet. Not to mention the arched
ceilings which I apprently copied. Actually I think I copied technique this
from someone else, though unfortunately I can’t remember where I saw it.
I believe this is the first ceiling that is actually in view in all of The Brick
Testament, so I wanted it to look nice.
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I like the various forms of sitting women in 6:3.
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Thanks, I tried that for the guys as well (since I often show guys in tunics and
whatnot), but it just didn’t look right.
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Great perspective shot where the crowd is carrying him to the cliff.
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That may be the shot from The Brick Testament taken from the grestest height.
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LOL on the guy falling in the final shot.
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That one cracks me up. :)
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Demons - Nice use of the Exo-force heads and very good photoshoppery on the
demons.
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The first screaming guy is a Viking. It was defintely fun to have a good
opportunity to use some of the latest minifig heads. Not sure if/where I’ll get
to use the Exo-Force hair, though.
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At the front edge of the stage (as in 12:22), what is the part that
gives that grooved pattern?
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It is the interior of the curved part if
this piece. It doesn’t
make a lot of sense that you’d build a synagogue with a curved part of the floor
like that, but I really liked the grooved pattern when I was first designing the
Capernum synagogue for the
Flesh and Blood of Jesus story.
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Nice choices on all the different demons, btw.
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Thanks, those are fun to choose.
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Matt and Levi - In the first pic I like the furniture a lot and also Jesus
peeking around the corner.
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Thanks, though certainly that idea for wooden chests of drawers is borrowed from
many others, and I think we’ve seen that table in The Brick Testament before.
The only thing new here is on the extreme right where the tabletop looks very
thin, and it is because it’s a door laid on its side.
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Interesting scale idea. I’m not 100% convinced
on it, but I can’t think of a better solution.
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I’m sure someone else could do better. I’ve been far surpassed by this point as
a builder of minifig furniture and small accessories. I’m just trying to keep
up. :)
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Walks on water - I really like the way you did the stormy sea. Especially
contrasting with the all flat SNOT water in the other scenes.
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It does make a nice and immediately noticeable contrast. It was fun to cover an
enritre 48x48 baseplate with blue slope waves.
Thanks again for taking the time to comment!
-Brendan
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: The Brick Testament: Jesus Redux
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| (...) Hey. Yeah, I was out of town last week and only had minimal internet access, so didn't get a chance to go through in detail till I got back. (...) Since you already did Christmas, it seems like one on the ministry of Jesus and one on the (...) (19 years ago, 22-Feb-06, to lugnet.build.ancient, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: The Brick Testament: Jesus Redux
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| (...) Hey Brendan, Very cool. I've been away for a week and didn't get much chance to go on-line. I'm assuming the revamp is anticipation of another book? It's great to see you go back and redo some of these with all of the extra experience you've (...) (19 years ago, 21-Feb-06, to lugnet.build.ancient, FTX)
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