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Artist/builder Feedback

Ok so apparently I wrote the comments down on a text file but didn't post it. I'm stupid.
Here we go:
@jcw2003
Your theme build is pretty well made. The style breathes lake town, the buildings are pretty well placed/built, and you tried to add several elements to add to the atmosphere of the build.
Things to mind though:

- Know what texture is meant for what. For your docks you use a barrel style texture for the planks as a floor. I wouldn't do that, and try to use something different as it might send mixed messages to different people. The side texture of the block looks cool with the iron but it is more a sort of barrel then a floor block. A solution would be to just use planks but use halfslabs at the edges to not just have a flat surface. The other thing is the hay laying on the table that you kind of designed as a table cloth. The idea is great but the texture just doesn't work. Also the door as a chair seat doesn't work. The texture isn't right.

- Noticing these things, I think you had trouble varying colours and textures in your build as it looks pretty depthless. It's a lot of brown wood. Now this is really hard to fix once you've already have a structure placed down. I would suggest trying to think of put a little more depth into the build like the halfslab planks at the edges on the docks, or use a more organic style of making the houses instead of making them dead straight. Slanted roofs crooked streets, broken docks, closer houses, and so on. Also trying to go through every block we have is also good. Using pictures from google as inspiration also would help your problem a bit.

- The boat is not really that good. If you make a boat in laketown, forget any sailing ships and just make good small rowboats or something that you're able to pull off without making it gigantic.

- Try to put more depth into the walls. Looking at the small tower, you can really see it has a flat wall. This is a bit sad cause it simplifies your buildings. As an artist myself, I really have trouble trying to avoid building flat. This takes experience and practice so try a lot to avoid flat things, but don't overdo it. I see a lot of people overdetailing and killing the building in the process.
 
Ok djax, you have quite a lot of builds, so I'd rather do this in teamspeak than having to write it all down. If you could send me a pm to me with your online times then we can make a rendez-vous.
 
Gallen_Fonulique said:
This is my artist application: http://mcmiddleearth.com/threads/gallen_fonulique.333/
I realize already that I should not have put in the SG project until it's finished. I'll probably be remaking a lot of it, but if you have some idea on how to arrange a city, that would be nice.
Click to expand...
- Read the artist app a little better. Make an imgur album with your theme build photo's in and try to make a separate folder for each theme build.

- Make appropriate photo's for your build. For your golden perch build, it could be useful to have one more aerial view from the front.

Overall comments:
- use less torches. Not every wall, corner, slit, whatever needs a torch. Try to instead place them strategically or add windows or openings on strategic points. The houses of healing fireplace with two torches next to = overkill.

- Think about the textures on blocks your using. Stone on a lake town house that's suspended above the water with wooden poles? Could work if it had an obvious support point or has like ruined stone pillars. A leather carpet as an entrance to the golden perch? A lot of stone on a hobbit inn where hobbits don't use stone that often at all? A leather flat roof on the ceiling of the golden perch? I think I'd answer no on those questions.

- Empty interior. You seem to have problems adding a function to certain rooms or halls. The best example is in the golden perch where there is a fireplace in the center of the room with one couch in front and then against the walls, crammed tables and chairs with nothing in between. Also the fireplace at the end of a corridor doesn't seem to make much sense. Try to think which kind of rooms the building would need and then construct the exterior in function of the interior. Don't make the entrance hall the biggest thing in the build while you could have made the living room/quarters the biggest. Avoid dead end hallways/paths.

Golden perch:
First of all, the building doesn't look hobbity apart from it being half underground. Try to avoid this and choose a style which works lorewise and has a great atmosphere. Hobbits use little stone, they don't make a lot of second floors, they don't like big spaces, etc. Shape of your build isn't all that bad but the choice of blocks is not good. Don't pick leather for carpets/ceilings, don't use flowerpots as chimney ends, don't use iron pressure plates as table tops, think of what you're using.
I'd advise looking at the interior classes on the builderschool on freebuild (just typ /gm 2 and warp builderschool, class 3).
Also try to put something in front of the fireplace so you wouldn't be able to fall into the fire or touch it that easily. A fence works or a small step.
Again, LESS LIGHTS. Don't place glowstone next to a torch next to a fireplace next to a window. Ditch 3/4 of it and try to think of other stuff hobbits might use.
Try making rooms for beds. On every build the beds are a bit illogically placed either in a corner, in an open big room, placed like stables with a little wall in between. I know old hospitals did that but the houses of healing have separate rooms and so has inns.
Think about depth a bit in your buildings and use less blocks to do the same tricks. I don't know why but the inside of the inn looks very rectangular or squarish.

Laketown:
Your block choice is really weird. I already mentioned the stone but you tend to use some blocks in a weird way. One example is the wooden block with golden details on it that is used in a lot of rohan houses, you use it once and then never again or not very obviously. Why not use it in structure points or above doorways? Try to practice with different blocks and with simple designs and after they're done, add new blocks.
Lake town also doesn't have any interior and I don't think you'd have a lot of place to actually add interior. Try to change your buildings so they have functions.

Houses of healing:
The same tips for previous builds apply here more or less. I see a lot of torches, furniture in off positions, but your block choice is a lot better. I like the amount of work you put into this with making parts of the wall.
Watch out though with the garden. You made gutters next to something that resembles a sort of pebble path but it takes out the realism with it floating a bit. This is fixed easily by turning the stairs 180 degrees. Or by placing the garden 1 block down entirely so it's like a sort of courtyard.

Overall:
Don't be demotivated by these things, you do have a good eye for structures and architectural basics. Your buildings are well placed and the overall design is pretty well done. I find it weird that you sometimes make basic mistakes whilst making a very good tower for the houses of healing. I think in general, you need practice and a bit of experience with interior and adding details to the atmosphere. I'd say looking up the builderschool as some tips in there would really help you progress a lot. Don't give up!
 
Will_em said:
Ok so apparently I wrote the comments down on a text file but didn't post it. I'm stupid.
Here we go:
@jcw2003
Your theme build is pretty well made. The style breathes lake town, the buildings are pretty well placed/built, and you tried to add several elements to add to the atmosphere of the build.
Things to mind though:

- Know what texture is meant for what. For your docks you use a barrel style texture for the planks as a floor. I wouldn't do that, and try to use something different as it might send mixed messages to different people. The side texture of the block looks cool with the iron but it is more a sort of barrel then a floor block. A solution would be to just use planks but use halfslabs at the edges to not just have a flat surface. The other thing is the hay laying on the table that you kind of designed as a table cloth. The idea is great but the texture just doesn't work. Also the door as a chair seat doesn't work. The texture isn't right.

- Noticing these things, I think you had trouble varying colours and textures in your build as it looks pretty depthless. It's a lot of brown wood. Now this is really hard to fix once you've already have a structure placed down. I would suggest trying to think of put a little more depth into the build like the halfslab planks at the edges on the docks, or use a more organic style of making the houses instead of making them dead straight. Slanted roofs crooked streets, broken docks, closer houses, and so on. Also trying to go through every block we have is also good. Using pictures from google as inspiration also would help your problem a bit.

- The boat is not really that good. If you make a boat in laketown, forget any sailing ships and just make good small rowboats or something that you're able to pull off without making it gigantic.

- Try to put more depth into the walls. Looking at the small tower, you can really see it has a flat wall. This is a bit sad cause it simplifies your buildings. As an artist myself, I really have trouble trying to avoid building flat. This takes experience and practice so try a lot to avoid flat things, but don't overdo it. I see a lot of people overdetailing and killing the building in the process.
Click to expand...
thank you for the review, i saw about it was to much brown but i had not a good idea for make it better, i know about the boat doesnt look realistic but it's my first boat and i'm a Little bit retarded with ship's construction ^^ . Ill try to improve my next buildings because i really want to be an artist. P.S. Like always sorry for my english
 
Thanks for your feedback. I see your point of the interiors being rather useless. I tend to design the interior around the exterior and probably shouldn't as much. Now about my block choices. I generally just use a block for whatever I think it could look like at the time, but now I realize most people just see it as what it's intended for. Those iron tables you were talking about were actually bar stools. I think when I used the leather I didn't realize it was leather, so that does look really odd to me now. I also didn't know that Hobbits don't like second floors and don't use stone, so I'll keep that in mind next time. However, I don't understand why I shouldn't have the clay pots on chimneys, they're supposed to look like clay chimney pots. In Laketown I just thought it would be assumed that there were stone supports under it, but I'll try to make that more obvious next time. As for the gold thing, I just thought it looked nice to have something to break up the wood, but I guess that was a bad choice of block. I do tend to overuse torches and I'll be more conscious of that in the future. I see what you mean with the gravel in the garden; it is a bit odd and would have been much better if the stairs were rotated. Again, thanks for your time and feedback.
 
Gallen_Fonulique said:
-Snip-
Click to expand...
Yeah, I see that you go into full extent to use a block but try to draw lines when something works and when it doesn't. The clay pots don't work, but a piston base without the head works (look at the osgiliath houses for example). The stone things in lake town would work but it's not apparent that it's a stone ruin because of the neatness of it. Also you can see stone stairs on some wooden parts and that is something that really doesn't work and others won't get the message out of it that you intend to show.
 
jcw2003 said:
thank you for the review, i saw about it was to much brown but i had not a good idea for make it better, i know about the boat doesnt look realistic but it's my first boat and i'm a Little bit retarded with ship's construction ^^ . Ill try to improve my next buildings because i really want to be an artist. P.S. Like always sorry for my english
Click to expand...
The browness always is a really hard thing to fix, but if you experiment with some other blocks from the rohan pack and try to work away the flatness of things, you can hide the fact that every thing is brown.
 
Quick extra pointer: all this feedback is mostly opinionated. Which means that I try my best to go through everything to see if I can see things I would change. So don't feel offended or anything, I try my best to give a generalized feedback but it's not always that easy to do and it's also not set in stone. Just wanted to stress that again.
Cheers!
 
Thought I'd get some feedback from here :)
I don't think I need a lot of help with wood, because I'm fairly good with that. But since we're working on Gondor, and I expect a lot of themed builds to involve stone, are there any general tips you could give me as to working with stone. This obviously doesn't mean other tips aren't welcome.

beatheav3n.imgur.com
 
Ehy Will, can you check my last TB? (Goblin Town) /warp Tyranystrasz3 for see it. I haven't done the imgur album, sorry :P
 
I'll try to find time, but it's been a bit busy at uni last weeks. If you did do the imgur album, make sure to post it here to.
 
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