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    Minecraft Middle Earth is a Minecraft community that recreates the world described by JRR Tolkien and his writings. Everyone can participate in organized events in which we collaborate to create major landmarks, terrain, caves, castles, towns, farms and more.

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Artist/builder Feedback

Ok @willgreen1
You need to take more pictures. Most of your builds only have 1 or max 3 pictures with some not being good enough to see your building skills. The app is intended to show what you can do building-wise and right now I don't think anyone would be able to correctly analyse your talents.

So go out there and take at least 3 pics: 1 front, 1 back and 1 interior. The first two should be taken in birds-perspective aswell so you have a clear overview of the build. If the build is larger try to make a diagonal overview picture and more interior pictures. If there are any highlights that you want to show, put those in too!

Looking at your overall pictures I'd say that you build very basic. This is a good starting point to start learning but I don't think you are artist level yet. I would go start practicing by copying already done builds to learn how to do details, styles, shapes and so on... Go build a minas tirith house on main and try to get an artist to give you some feedback and try to make changes where needed. Ask if someone could show you how to do certain things so you got that in your skillbag.
Another tip would be to check out builder school and copy the houses on level 3 (fornost, rohan, shire, trees and shapes). If you have more pictures of certain bigger builds like the houses of healing, I'd be glad to recheck it.
 
Not yet, sorry jcw to be so late with this but I've been occupied lately and I thought someone would have helped you.
First of all, your build looks alright. The general idea is good and the layout is fine. What you need to adjust is your style.
If you look at the halls and caves you notice that you have a lot of flat parts and symetrical-looking parts. I can guess it would take a lot of work but try to first go for a realistic cave layout and then build the rest around it. Avoid flat floors and walls and sharp transitions between the two.
This is what I mean. That picture doesn't really seem artist level and doesn't show a certain goblin style. Think goblin tunnels, sketchy scaffolds, chaotic roads, dark corners and so on. Those things aren't what your theme build shows. It could be something else than goblin town.
This is also an example of what you'll have to avoid. I'm not talking about the island or stalagmite but the flat floor and sudden transition into the water. It doesn't look rocky or cave-like but just man-made. Try to build more smoother and curvy, a good tip for you might be to after you're done building, go and reshape somethings and think of how the build would look like for someone else who wouldn't know anything about it.
 
Will_em said:
Not yet, sorry jcw to be so late with this but I've been occupied lately and I thought someone would have helped you.
First of all, your build looks alright. The general idea is good and the layout is fine. What you need to adjust is your style.
If you look at the halls and caves you notice that you have a lot of flat parts and symetrical-looking parts. I can guess it would take a lot of work but try to first go for a realistic cave layout and then build the rest around it. Avoid flat floors and walls and sharp transitions between the two.
This is what I mean. That picture doesn't really seem artist level and doesn't show a certain goblin style. Think goblin tunnels, sketchy scaffolds, chaotic roads, dark corners and so on. Those things aren't what your theme build shows. It could be something else than goblin town.
This is also an example of what you'll have to avoid. I'm not talking about the island or stalagmite but the flat floor and sudden transition into the water. It doesn't look rocky or cave-like but just man-made. Try to build more smoother and curvy, a good tip for you might be to after you're done building, go and reshape somethings and think of how the build would look like for someone else who wouldn't know anything about it.
Click to expand...
thank you for the review, the flat parts in the caves (walls) are there because i finished the space and i didn't want to go out of the box. I tried to see others tb and in internet for see some structures or ideas but most of the other tb (goblin town) weren't finish and in internet i didn't find anything to add to my tb. sad so i'll try to improve my nexts tb ;) , (i'm little busy in this weeks cause i had the drive exam (today) and i have a lot to do for school so i'll return very active in june.
 
Teah I looked through though and do have tips to give but I feel I wouldn't be able to properly help you by typing it. I'll be online on ts every evening from 21:00 gmt+1 till 23:30 or later. I'll keep an eye out for you too.
 
Ok @spike010
Not a bad try for your first time, but not yet completly the real thing.
What you want to try to avoid, is building trees like a coat hanger and try to build fork trees.
This might sound really weird but it's a perfect methaphore for tree making.

What you start off with is a sort of trunk with many support branches on the sides, much like a coat hanger: a central seemingly straight pole with several pegs on the side with something hanging from it.
While some style of trees use hanging foilage, that don't have that support structure. Their leaves just tend to fall downward but the branches stay the same shape. What kind of shape would then look better?
Well there are several basic tree shapes you can use/think of that work better in minecraft, but the easiest one in my humble opinion is the fork typ.
Imagine a fork which doesn't have a long handle and has many different teeth in all shapes and sizes. Prick that fork into a salad of leaves and you get a tree.
By thinning out the central trunk into thick branches that go opposite ways, you can easily create a canopy above it that looks real. It's a bit more complicated to actually make such a thing in minecraft but luckly someone made a class with good examples of what I mean. Go to freebuild, set your gamemode to survival by typing /gm 0 and warp treeclass. (Do not break any signs here and tell me when some are missing. If you accidentally broke one, tell me right away!)
 
Hey Willem.
I remember this thread helping me along when I was a small droog, floating down the river in a basket.

Are you able to judge some personal builds?
My things are made on a server, but I agree not to release details (unless people PM me??).

It's just a bridge and a Tavern. I truly think it's only mediocre, but I also hadn't really built anything in the last, oh, 2 months beforehand.
 
@Dargona1018 Sure, why not? 1 problem, I have very few time on my hands and I try to divide it between jobs and regular stuff. So make me a pm and we'll try to fix a date.

If anyone has any other questions about a personal build or something, and want feedback, I'd be happy to help.
 
Hey Will_em,
So I'm relatively new to building, and I would like some feedback on my Carn Dum TB. My previous experience with building was in single player survival mode. (see here if you want, it's not that great http://imgur.com/a/vA1IG#0)

Here is the Imgur link for my TB - http://imgur.com/a/2wq4q#0

The idea is that it is a temple dedicated to Sauron that anyone coming through the gates has to pass through.
Inside there are two small "chapels" I guess you could call them, and a tall main "torture chamber" with hanging cage cells.

I kind of was experimenting with what I could do with the texture pack and creative mode, so in addition to what you can see in the picture, I set up a redstone system that can make the balrogs in the facade open there mouths and spit lava.

No hurry on the feedback, it's still a week before I can submit my commoner application, much less an artists app, and I am painfully aware that exams are rapidly approaching for some people, including me.
 
arathorn867 said:
Hey Will_em,
So I'm relatively new to building, and I would like some feedback on my Carn Dum TB. My previous experience with building was in single player survival mode. (see here if you want, it's not that great http://imgur.com/a/vA1IG#0)

Here is the Imgur link for my TB - http://imgur.com/a/2wq4q#0

The idea is that it is a temple dedicated to Sauron that anyone coming through the gates has to pass through.
Inside there are two small "chapels" I guess you could call them, and a tall main "torture chamber" with hanging cage cells.

I kind of was experimenting with what I could do with the texture pack and creative mode, so in addition to what you can see in the picture, I set up a redstone system that can make the balrogs in the facade open there mouths and spit lava.

No hurry on the feedback, it's still a week before I can submit my commoner application, much less an artists app, and I am painfully aware that exams are rapidly approaching for some people, including me.
Click to expand...
I think that I can chime in on the Survival one, but I think I should leave the TB to Willem.

You know how I feel about it since I said something through your status a while, but I wish to elaborate.

1. Survival Buildings < Creative Buildings
Sadly, in my experience (including being staff on a ranked creative server), the people who build in survival for the most part aren't that acclimated to creative mode. They usually stay within basic shapes, remaking things in their favorite survival worlds. There, you can't flow around to be able to actually put all of the small details in that make a mediocre build into a great one.

2. Towers need experience
I remember from your status that you were taking out the big tower soon, but I think you should work on some towers or pillars in a creative mode. Towers and Pillars are usually very difficult to get correct, since there are a thousand different ways to do them, all specific with certain styles. If you can get that done (use half-slabs and stairs) in a nice fashion, you can probably achieve some good things that need some leveling with stairs and half-slabs.

3. Flat Walls Aren't Always Good
I see that you have a lot of flat walls in that, and they aren't desirable. With some texture packs, it works, but usually it doesn't. One way to help with that is to do some rooves with an overhang, so then you can add some definition to it. Also, traditional Glass Panes windows (in one-block slots) can easily be fixed and made to look better by just extending them in some ways.

Take a look at a small Tavern that I made. You could easily just use a flat wall for one side, but then it doesn't look as good. I used the SMP Revival Resource Pack if you wish to use it.
hNY6kNS.png
YyHWstJ.png

And that is all I have at the moment. I gotta go do some stuff, so I might just edit something in later.
 
Double Post, because I can (and because the last post was terribly long).
@Will_em
I don't really need anything soon. I am gonna just continue building and come back when I have more.
After all, all I have is a Tavern, a Stone bridge, and a terrible, terrible, terrible little house.
 
@Dargona1018
Thanks for the detailed feedback on the survival builds. I definitely agree with you on the limitations of survival mod building, and have basically left off on it, except for a few minor builds in a super-modded pack that lets me get ridiculous amounts of resources and fly (no screenshots as yet, not a very big build anyway). I'm trying to address the flat walls in my creative builds, experimenting with various methods I've seen around MCME. Nice tavern, by the way.
 
Alright, with that input by dargo, here's my advice for you.

@arathorn867 Looking at your survival pictures, it strikes me that you did put a lot of time into minecraft stuff and that you also have some experience. That's really useful for later, but I'd say you lack the experience that mcme gives creative players/builders in this process. This is good news, since that generally means that you need some experience and maybe learning some mcme techniques.

So, your carn dûm theme build, let's sum up the pro's and the con's:
- looking at the layout I think you have a great 3D creativity which will prove useful in everything on minecraft. The buildings look organised and you try to give the building a story which a lot of people don't even try to do. Keep that storytelling talent.
- you go for an own style, which doesn't prove to be so bad. Trying to create stuff like this, is probably the first step to bigger leaps. Don't be afraid to continue that
- you do lack the technical skills to execute what is in your mind. You make certain basic errors on construction which are easily fixed and these skills come with practice and learning.

Several tips for you to remember on theme builds.
- look for inspiration. You have the entire internet to try to find examples of some styles or try to draw inspiration of the real world. I'm not talking about general things but more architectural elements. Ask yourself how this building would be supported, how old is it, which materials are used,... For instance, for osgiliath I try to look up a lot of renaissance buildings and roman architecture for structural designs and ideas.
- Flatness is your problem a bit. You can see this on the last photo of the theme build album, the main shot of the entire building. If you look to the right hand corner, you can see that there is a flat wall without any design place there. The diagonals are also a bit too thick and leave no room for intricate detailing. Try to build a bit slender and thinner if you add details. Otherwise some things might come out as fat, thick, flat and monotone.
- you should try to incorporate more circular stuff. I don't see arches or domes, everything is really symmetrical and straight. One example would be the triangle shapes on the front walls. Those might look better if you use arches and change the design every line. It doesn't look lord of the rings like.

All in all, I think you need to get some experience in building on mcme. Try helping on jobs, check out buildings and pay attention to construction, try to copy a building just to see how it's made, do scouting, check out the builderschool on the freebuild (warp builderschool) and try to copy some of the house tutorials, and lastly take a try at making an osgiliath house on the plotworld (look on the jobs and projects page in osgiliath post for more info). Try to help on jobs as much as you can so you can get a feel of the way things are constructed.

Good luck and if you want more tips, try to catch me on teamspeak! (or pm me)
 
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