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Subject: 
Re: The Brick Testament - David Makes New Friends
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.build.ancient
Date: 
Thu, 29 Nov 2007 22:48:43 GMT
Viewed: 
18580 times
  
In lugnet.build.ancient, Bruce Hietbrink wrote:
   Going back to try and cover the stories I missed:

Awesome.

   David Acts Insane - I really like the wall behind the Philistine king’s throne.

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.

   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.

I probably should have tried to lean the “drool” against his head so that it looked like it was coming out of his mouth.

   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.

I guess I like the challenge of working some of the raised baseplates into scenes, mixing it up with BURPs and straight bricks.

   People of Nob Massacred - There’s just something inherently funny about the crowd of priests in their purple turbans.

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.

   Some good violence depiction here, like the trick with slicing the body in half here and the line of blood down the wall here.

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.

   Any reason why Doeg switches from two cutlasses to one cutlass and one broadsword?

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. :)

   David Attacks the Philistines - I particularly like this scene. That’s a simple but effective fire.

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.

   In the battle scene, what is that battle axe in the upper left? Is it an official piece?

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.

   Having already read later chapters, I appreciate that you’ve got Joab prominently featured from the start.

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.

   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.

Ah, thanks. I remember actually thinking when I was building that scene, “What will Bruce think of these flags as barley?”

   The flower stems for the next field also works well. What is that mace that Benaiah is using?

Same deal as the battle axe you asked about above.

   Poor lion - first he gets stuck in a cistern, then some crazy guy jumps in to fight him.

That poor lion gets no respect.

   I’m not sure about the flowers as snow - they seem like flowers to me.

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.

   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.

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.

   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.

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



Message is in Reply To:
  Re: The Brick Testament - David Makes New Friends
 
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 (...) (17 years ago, 23-Nov-07, to lugnet.build.ancient, FTX)

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