CCC XI MOC critiques thread

Discussion of personal LEGO Castle creations
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Bruce N H
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Re: CCC XI MOC critiques thread

Post by Bruce N H »

Hey all,

I guess the server is still up, so I'll get these responses posted.

Soccerkid Kaldrfell Castle
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Okay, as I've said several times above, this was a great entry in a strong category surrounded by a lot of other great entries. I really love the variety of tower shapes here and a lot of the detailing in the walls, windows, etc. This might suffer from a little bit of busy-ness. I've often said that if a castle has a complicated color scheme, it should be against a very monochromatic background, or if the castle is monochromatic the background should be more busy, etc. Here the castle has a lot of texturing, and also dark gray and white bits, and then the background cliff is also highly textured (awesome rockwork, btw), and also has bits of two greens and white. I am a little confused by the cliff behind the castle - to me it looks like that's the crest of the hill, or plateau, or whatever, and so if it's possible to pass through the hills behind the castle, an invading army could come down and then simply hop over the walls and find themselves on the ramparts of the castle. It seems like the tops of the walls and the main keep should be higher than that cliff behind them, or else it should seem like the cliff goes up significantly higher, so that an invading army could not come down from above (though, again, they could drop down rocks or something). My other suggestion would just be to stretch out the ground and sea a little bit on the sides and front, so you could stretch out the road to the front gate, maybe have a ship bigger than the little rowboat at that dock, etc. This also might help emphasize some of the 'life' of the MOC (i.e. the fig action around the castle).

Kumplekante Flea Bottom
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Again, strong entry (and honorable mention winner) in a strong category, so I have no strongly negative critiques. My favorite part of this was the picture I linked above, where you feel like you're in the middle of the town and you can really see how that road slopes upwards, the other two images weren't as strong IMO. If I'm nitpicking I see a few places that look a little sloppy - a plate not completely pressed down here, a tile a few degrees off from being square there - I think that those were probably intentional to make this poor section of town a little ramshackle looking, but to me these weren't as successful. In the past couple of years we've seen some builders get really good at building crumbling walls, sagging roofs, etc. For instance see some of the details in that Castle Vampire WIP I linked in the forum a few days ago. Also, I'm not a huge fan of the technique of making a roof out of a black plate with some randomly placed tiles on it - again, I think there are stronger ways of making a shingled look. Anyway, these are minor critiques and I did really like the MOC a lot.

Rifirofi Legendary Black Beast of Aaaaarrrrrrggghhh
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Again, extremely strong entry, one of my favorites, and an honorable mention, so I have nothing really negative to say (hmm, I seem to keep saying this). My one suggestion that would have strengthened this would be to include a "run away!" scene posing the figs and the beast. E.g. something like this:
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BTW, in judging this I did not consider the customization job on the figs, since those were pre-contest, so my focus in scoring was just on the beast itself - which was excellent, but my ranking might have been a smidge higher if I was also considering the excellent customizing of the figs. But, then, if those were new customs, this might have been a better entry for the custom faction category.

Anyway, see you all after the server is fixed.

Bruce
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Rifiröfi
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Re: CCC XI MOC critiques thread

Post by Rifiröfi »

Bruce N H wrote:Rifirofi: Legendary Black Beast of Aaaaarrrrrrggghhh
Again, extremely strong entry, one of my favorites, and an honorable mention, so I have nothing really negative to say (hmm, I seem to keep saying this). My one suggestion that would have strengthened this would be to include a "run away!" scene posing the figs and the beast.
BTW, in judging this I did not consider the customization job on the figs, since those were pre-contest, so my focus in scoring was just on the beast itself - which was excellent, but my ranking might have been a smidge higher if I was also considering the excellent customizing of the figs. But, then, if those were new customs, this might have been a better entry for the custom faction category.
Bruce
Hi Bruce,
A "run away" scene would have been a great addition indeed, I did not think about it. You mentioned the Custom Faction category, so I would like to have your opinion on my cult, the worshippers of Bacon.
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Cheers
Adam
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Re: CCC XI MOC critiques thread

Post by soccerkid6 »

Some critique of my Nordheim Village build (Child's Life entry) would be appreciated:
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Link to more pictures: http://brickbuilt.org/Viking-Village.php
Thanks again, Bruce :)
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