Subject:
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Re: The Brick Testament: Tumors and Death
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.build.ancient
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Date:
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Wed, 15 Nov 2006 17:25:05 GMT
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Viewed:
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11336 times
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In lugnet.build.ancient, Bruce Hietbrink wrote:
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I cant believe I somehow let this slip by without commenting. I would claim
that I was busy, but in the interim I commented on Barbara Werths Rembrandt
MOC, so that excuse wont fly.
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I was honestly starting to think this would be the first update youd miss! My
thanks as ever for taking the time to comment, Bruce.
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God tortures the Philistines: Great temple of Dagon, and the use of the
mer-person as the idol is a good choice,
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It might be a good choice. There seems to be some serious uncertainty about
how the Philistines pictured their god Dagon. It has become sort of traditional
to portray Dagon as a half-man half-fish, but this may be inaccurate, as their
is also good evidence to suggest Dagon was a wheat harvest god and not a fish or
sea god.
I actually had this other version of Dagon built that was kind of cool, but HUGE
by comparison, and though it looked cool from the front, it wasnt very
recognizable as anything when face-down in front of the ark, so in the end I
went with the simpler merman design (which had actually been the reason I
purchase that merman figure a few months back).
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The tumors are funny, though I do wish
there was a solution for this that didnt involve cheating.
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Amen to that.
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I see what you said upthread about the disputed verse about the
rats, and I think it might have been okay to put some LEGO rats
here and there in the pics, even if you didnt quote the
disputed verse.
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Youre probably right. Even with what is in the Bible, its clear that the
rats were part of the plague. I cut this dialogue from the script for the sake
of succinct storytelling, but the Philistine priests and diviners do say You
should make impressions of the tumors and of the rats that are destroying the
land.
This tends to be an occasional difficulty with the my methodology of
illustrating only direct Bible quotes. Its entirely clear from context that
the rats were part of the plague, but since they are not mentioned in the part
of the story that describes the plague actually happening, they got left out.
I remember this being a frustrating problem back when I was illustrating the Ten
Plagues in Exodus. My favorite plague has always been the Plague of Frogs, and
I was so excited to have all these LEGO frogs to use for it. But the way the
Bible tells the story, all the detail of the frog plague is given when God is
telling Moses what is going to happen. When the frogs actually show up,
little detail is given. One can presume that the frog plague happened exactly
as God said it would, but the Bible doesnt actually spell it out.
In that case I took one of the larger liberties Ive ever taken with the text,
and worked in Gods description of what was going to happen into my telling of
what did happen. I wasnt happy about resorting to that tactic, but I just
couldnt let all those details of the frog plague slip away. Of course, anyone
who doesnt constrain themselves to direct Bible quotes to retell the stories
would do the same thing without batting an eye. But they would also take all
sorts of other liberties in the retelling that I chose this methodology to
avoid.
Theres an interesting new dilemma I faced in illustrating one of the new
stories I put up today, but Ill leave discussion of that until later.
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50070 Israelites killed by God: Nice cattle - Im sure Ive commented on
their design before.
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Thanks. I thought my original cattle were decent, but when I had the idea to
rebuild them studs-down so that they have visible eye dents, I thought that gave
them loads more character. The neck joint was another improvement thrown in at
some point.
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Too bad you couldnt gold-plate a rat to throw in the
box.
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Yeah, I couldnt think of anything to represent that. Well just have to assume
the golden rats are in the box beneath the golden tumors. Or the rat models are
life size in minifig scale, so a 1x1 round is really the best anybody could do
to represent something so small.
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One thing I dislike is the wheat - it really looks like theyre
harvesting bamboo. Ive seen others use antennae for wheat,
as in this by Jojo,
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Oh, as I think I said before, I agree 100% that Jojos wheat looks much better
than mine.
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though getting tons of tan antennae might be painful.
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Theyre about 6 or 7 cents each on Bricklink, but same as last time, its more a
matter of failing to plan ahead. Hopefully by the next time I have casue to
illustrate a wheat field, Ill have ordered a shipment of tan antennae.
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Samuel becomes judge: I love all of the idols being dumped into barrels.
What is that yellow fish behind the blue fairy?
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Thats um... some sort of DUPLO or Scala fishing rod with a fish attached to the
line. I liked the fish, so I hid the rod behind the barrels so that only the
fish part is showing.
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Also what is the dark gray lumpy element in the very front barrel?
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Thats the head of a Star Wars EpII Geonesian figure. The guy on the left is
carrying another one over with some matching dark gray battle droid legs
attached. :)
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In the burnt sacrifice scene, turning the altar upside
down works very well, as does sticking the flames
through the grid piece.
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Thanks. I was glad to have figure out a way to use the flame pieces in a way so
that only the top half is showing. Seeing the bottom part can kind of diminish
the fiery look.
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For some reason Im unhappy with the modified face
in
this scene - it just looks a little unfinished and Mister Bill-esque.
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Yeah, though I guess I was looking for a Mister Bill expression in that shot.
Im just sad that LEGO still has not come out with a fairly generic
shocked-looking expression. Its the original reason I modified a minifig face
for The Brick Testament five years ago when I illustrated Adam & Eve realizing
they were naked.
Theres the face I used for Eli the priest, but its so distinctive I cant use
it too often (though Ive used it a lot, I know!). Every time new minifig faces
are released, I hope and hope, but so far Im left with my own crappy drawn-on
slack-jawed expression. :/
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Nice punchline in the last pic.
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Thanks. I dont remember offhand if the Israelites do indeed get around to
truly wiping out the Amorites. I keep confusing the Amorites and Ammonites. I
hate when I do that. The Ammonites are seen again in todays update.
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BTW, I like your use of the black beard and
modified hairpiece.
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Its a nice combo. I had to specially cut that hair to accommodate the beard.
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I shelled out the extra cash to bricklink a black beard
a while back and have been looking for a distinctive-enough character to use
it on.
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Heh, yeah, for a while the black beard piece was so rare that I was reluctant
to use it too, and for the same reason. What character is so important he
gets to use this ultra-rare beard?
But once I broke it in, I feel like theres really no reason not to use it as
often as Id use the gray or white beards. But just today I finally got my
hands on another ultra-rare piece: white standard male hair! Again, this brings
me back to the whole reason I first modified any LEGO brick--to make Gods
hairpiece out of a white helmet.
So of course the first thing I did was try the standard white hair piece on God,
and I have to say it looks very odd to me now. It looks like God combed his
hair all neat for a special occasion or something. I dont think Ill be
switching Gods hair at this point, but theres a couple of minifig faces with
white facial hair that this white standard hair looks great with. Cant wait
to use it! Cant believe LEGO still hasnt used it in a commercial set! (Found
this one on Bricklink for $6.)
Off to post the new stories...
-Brendan
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: The Brick Testament: Tumors and Death
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| Hey Brendan, I can't believe I somehow let this slip by without commenting. I would claim that I was busy, but in the interim I commented on Barbara Werth's Rembrandt MOC, so that excuse won't fly. Anyway, great work as always: God tortures the (...) (18 years ago, 14-Nov-06, to lugnet.build.ancient, FTX)
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