Hey all, more comments:
Rifirofi
Take your kid to work day
This was hilarious and really made me laugh, especially the suspended brown cone. As to the build, I particularly liked the cart design - very clever way of attaching everything using clips. My main critique is that I thought the wall was too greebled up (especially those upside down fender pieces, which I thought just looked odd). I think it would have been better if the wall was relatively smooth light gray, with then streaks of dark gray and the occasional streak of brown (sorry if anyone is reading this right before dinner). Also, I think you should have continued the wall up out of the frame of the picture.
Justin M
Order of the Bull
This is a really nice construction. I particularly like the rockscaping and the stone walls of the tower. There were a couple of issues with the tower. For one, it just seems unnecessarily narrow - why would someone build this where they hardly have room to take two steps across the room before they run into the opposite wall? Also, when you look close you see through to the white background behind, which makes it apparent that the tower is a facade. Nothing particularly wrong with a facade when you are only photographing from one angle, but it still shouldn't look like a facade. Mostly, though, I just thought this didn't come across as a 'secret hideout' at all - it just seems like it's sticking up for everyone to see.
Brickninja, here's a link to
purchase the 2014 Classic-Castle Calendar.
FanLego
Coast of a Northern Lake
Again, this is a nice entry in an extremely strong category. I really like the tree, the arches on the front of the right-hand building, the shape of the beach, and all of the 'life' details. One construction critique is that I thought the tiles on the stone walls of the buildings looked kind of sloppy. I know you were going for more of a rough-hewn look with that, but I think it would be better if most of the tiles were straight, with maybe one or two here and there at slight angles. These are nice homes rather than falling-down ramshackle buildings. The main critique I had here was that I didn't think this fit the 'medieval town' category very well, in that these seemed very rural to me. IMO this almost would have been better as a 'child's life' entry, and then just played up the fig placement a little more to emphasize the kids doing chores, the two playing in the boat, etc.
Ronin Dragonslayer
Frosted Mug
I thought your entries were a little hot and cold over all - for instance, I really liked your First Snow and Higgitus Figgitus a lot better. This was on okay build, but I didn't really feel the building had something special that really set it apart. My favorite bits were the use of shutter bricks on the sides, the icicles and the guy slipping on the ice - actually the fig placement in general for the outside figures was good. OTOH I thought the snow on the roof was too blocky, and the building would have been more interesting if it wasn't just a straight rectangle shape. Inside I thought it was too brown overall - brown floors, brown furniture, brown walls, brown stairs, figs with brown legs - it just hid a lot of the detail. Also, as with some of the others, I just didn't think this was a good fit for the category. I get that the jester and bard are people who at other times might be involved in court entertainment, but not in this depiction.
RoyalBrickCustoms
Icy Encounter
This was a nice little build, but see my comments to Lil_curt above about the issues of a 'nice little build' in the misc category. I liked the shaping in general and the color blocking, also the bit of snow on the rock is a nice touch. I thought it would have been improved if there was a little more verticality to the landscape/snowscape - the ground is apparently perfectly flat, and the snow is all within two plates of the ground. Maybe make the underlying ground slope up a little on either side of the path, and then have the snow drifted higher in a couple of places. Fig placement is pretty good - not a lot of action, but you're going for more of a tense encounter, which comes off fairly well here. You only had two photos - instead I would suggest having one overview as you do, and then two photos each at a figs-eye-view level from two different directions.
Bruce