Cantheallmighty Builder Application

Cantheallmighty

Storyteller
Guest
What is your Minecraft username?
cantheallmighty

What is your age?
13-16

In what country are you living?
Turkey

Where did you first hear about WesterosCraft?
From a friend

What do you like the most about GoT/ASoIaF?
The world, geography, and the map. I'm usually a DM when I play games like and so I have a lot of interest in geography, settlements and keeps, etc. In terms of GoT, I adore small settlements in the reaches of the world kinda like small houses and Inns on the outskirts of Highgarden etc. To me they have so much ambiance even though they might have never been seen on screen, they add life to the world. Favorite battle is the battle of the goldroad, primarily because of the cinematics and well, the dragon.

What is your favorite build on our server?
Highgarden and Castle Black, I love the detail of Highgarden and I love that Castle Black is a whole different atmosphere from the rest of the world. With the aurora borealis over the Castle at night and the total bleakness of the land just adds to the stance of the castle.

Why do you want to join our server?
I want to be a part of this amazing world (I mean seriously even though it sounds extremely cringy). I belive Im a decent builder and definitely can help with multiple builds and landscapes.

Tell us about your build.
It is a rural, medieval hut by a nearby road. It is built on a hill with small rocky faces, the first house is right next to the road and the second is a little further down with a small path leading onto it. Most likely this is not a part of a town and is two separate buildings in the wild, settled by farmers or gatherers leading silent and calm lives. The further up you go you might see more and more trees appear, though the build is in the meadows, its meant to be bordering a tiny forest. I chose materials relatively common in the area. Mostly types of stone and plaster along with wood (for the houses).



Imgur Album:
Did you follow the application rules?
-You know nothing, Jon Snow
 

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Arkilstorm

Dowager Countess of Grantham
Staff member
Hi Can!
Sorry for the delay in getting to your application. I've taken a look at both your builds and I'm going to give feedback on your Duskendale inspired house, as this one is closer to an acceptable submission for application.
  • Your stone palette uses a few too many blocks, going from dark to light a little too quickly. Your palette should really be comprised of no more than 4-blocks, and you should consider the lighter and darker shades to be indicative of weathering and age.
  • Your exteriors otherwise are pretty grand! Nice work on those.
  • Interior wise, you’re using a few outdated practices. Try not to use trapdoors unless they are being used as actual trapdoors, for supports on the stairs, you can use half-door blocks. For ceiling rafters you can use a combination of stair blocks and wooden slabs to create the illusion of ceiling beams. These should also span the shortest distance across the room rather than run parallel to the length.
  • Try not to use alter candles and rope blocks as ceiling lamps, as they don’t link up properly. You can create chandeliers if appropriate, or more likely, candles or candlesticks.
  • Make sure your upper floor has the best use of space – a house of this size would almost certainly have more than one bedroom on the upper floor.
All round, this is a nice start!

For your first challenge, I'd like you to please build a mid-class baker's house in the style of /warp whiteharbor

Good luck!
 

Cantheallmighty

Storyteller
Guest
New white harbor-High Class building
 

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Arkilstorm

Dowager Countess of Grantham
Staff member
Hi Can!


As per the feedback I gave you in-game, Would you mind having another go at the baker in particular. Your exteriors are pretty great, despite using the wrong palette on your first build, but it's the layout and planning of your interior that I really need to see a second version of. Your second build is great, however, it doesn't show a proper progression from the first, as there are no interior shots.

Thanks!
 

Arkilstorm

Dowager Countess of Grantham
Staff member
Hey Can,

Thanks for this. I've detailed some feedback below:

- With your palette, make sure there's an obvious progression for weathering.. such as increased weathering on the rooftops and around window frames and the lower parts of the walls. You need to make sure that there's an obvious order for the blocks to take from light to dark, or from crumbly rocks through to plaster. It looks a little random at the moment.

- The vines on the exterior seem a little random also. It may be worth re-placing them to make them join up a little better. The vines at the back of the building are way too excessive and it's not clear where the plants are growing from.

- Your entry hall is great, but considering I don't know what the profession or purpose of the house-owner is, it's difficult to tell why so much space is taken up by the entrance hall. In this room the lantern you've made is interesting, but candle blocks shouldn't be attaching to anything.

- If there is no basement, the ground floor would most likely be stone or dirt rather than wood.

- As mentioned before, please don't use trapdoors unless they're being used actually as trap-doors. These can be clicked and opened by people and will no longer appear as intended, and they're using a vanilla texture.

- I'm not sure what the room with the spices is for exactly. Is it the kitchen? Is there a stove?

- The long corridor seems very strange. It's empty, besides what would be a very expensive painting or tapestry, with a large fireplace and shutterless windows. This seems like a big waste of space for an urban house where space is at a premium. Your rafters also seem to run the whole length of the long room, making the ceiling effectively entirely unsupported. As mentioned before, rafters should run the shortest distance between two walls, and it's best to use upturned stair and slab blocks to do this rather than whole slabs.

- With your little study room you can see two sides of the bookcase around the window. This should be avoided and only one face of the bookcase blocks should be shown. Also, be aware that literacy during the medieval period was extremely low (less than 1% of the population I think?) - and books were always hand-written and thus very expensive. The likelihood private houses would have so many books is very low unless they're ledgers for trade, which would be stored near the business and not in the private home of the owner. There are too many bookcases in total. The maximum in a wealthy home would be 2 at the absolute most.

- Again, in your bedroom your bench blocks beside the bed have alternate sides showing - please make sure to hide these. Again, the ceiling seems very heavy due to the huge slab ceiling beams; definitely consider changing this ceiling for stairs and slabs.

- The house has a lot of empty halls and landings, with lots of bookcases or small rooms with a single chair, but a fireplace. I'm not sure if all these hearths also line up with chimneys? When we spoke through these elements in-game, the reason was to explain how a house would have been built, starting with the chimneys and staircases, allowing you to split the house into rooms. This house has some nice areas but they don't seem to function properly as living spaces for the occupants. The trick to making a great house isn't just building skills, but more importantly creating a convincing life story through how you use the blocks. It should be obvious how many people live there and their relationship to the owner, as well as what the owner may do for a living. This house is a nice start, but the layout doesn't give anything away.


This is a great start, but be sure to pay attention to the little details that make a house great!

For your next challenge, please build a low/middle-class house in the style of /warp fairmarket - preferably one on the riverfront where they're boatbuilding.
 
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Arkilstorm

Dowager Countess of Grantham
Staff member
Hi Can,

Sorry for not getting back to you sooner - life caught up with me this week!

Here's the feedback:

- This is a nice attempt at a FM style house. The roof is really lumpy at first glance which isn't common in Fairmarket. The roofs should be straight and the same horizontal height from front to back. Roofs that pitch up in the center are more typical of rural houses, especially those with their hearth in the center. These houses are typically urban and should be straight.

The side lean-to thatch roof is very lumpy. Simply use thatch stair blocks and it'd be much more successful.

- Your Daub and wattle pattern on the outside is a little plain but it's not too bad! The palette is an issue on one side of your house though - you're using vivid light sandstone which contrasts against the rest of the brickwork way too much.. there's also some small Old Town or Lannisport brick thrown in too which doesn't exist in the FM palette. For these sandstone builds, stick to typically 2-3 blocks max.

- Inside, I'm a little confused by the layout. The two stoves make me think it's another baker, with the larger bread oven at the front, but it seems like the second stove/kitchen is at the back? Most of these houses have small workrooms on the ground floor or a shop. Most of the living quarters are up on the next floor. In the little kitchen off to the side, there is no chimney for that furnace. If this is a usable oven, I'd probably raise it by one block, rather than have it on the floor. Having it on the floor denotes a fireplace rather than an oven.

- The logs above the fireplace don't really make sense and could probably be moved to make the ceiling a little cleaner.

- On the upper floor the layout again seems a bit strange. The rafters of the floor above are running along the length of the building rather than the width, making them unsupported, and the daub and wattle pattern on one wall isn't symmetrical or indicative of structural integrity. With Houses in Fairmarket, the houses have two walls which run all the way up to the roofline with facades added at each end. The brickwork should continue all the way to where the thatch roof begins. Only the front and back should have daub and wattle patterns.

- Make sure your ceilings/ floors always run across the building, spanning the shortest distance and not the full length of the house. The floor should also cover at least 2/3 of the building. The half-floor that you've created with the ladder would need substantial beams to hold it up and creates a lot of wasted space.

- 2/3 of your upper floor is some baskets and a desk. Literacy in this time period was exceptionally low, and it's unlikely a baker would need a desk for writing. It's unlikely he/she'd be able to read.

- Above your desk, the rafters suddenly stop before the gap for the ladder and clothes. These 'beams' stop in mid-air, making them useless. Make sure that all rafters end at a wall.

- I'm not sure what the water barrels with smoke above them are for in the bedroom. Also, there's a door there in that room seemingly leading outside and I'm not sure where it goes.

- Your attic space is nice, but I'm not quite sure about the spacing of the rafters. Closest to the camera your stair blocks should have half-doors under them to connect the two layers. Otherwise, there's no support.

Overall, this isn't a bad house, but structurally it needs work. Take a look at the model house I made for you on my plot. There are a few timber houses nearby too. The structure of the house is the most difficult to get right, but it's also the most important, and once you master that, everything else is easy! :)

For your next challenge, please build a rural cottage in the style of /warp woodwright.

These are small houses as you head out of the main town west of the warp.
 

Cantheallmighty

Storyteller
Guest
Thanks for your feedback Ark! I didnt notice the lack of support beams ill be adding them now, for the next challenge I should be able to complete it by tomorrow:) Overall, thanks for replying:)
 

Arkilstorm

Dowager Countess of Grantham
Staff member
Hi Can - sorry for the delay, I've been a bit tied up with work this week as I'm on holiday next week. I'll try and get feedback for this done over the weekend!
 
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Arkilstorm

Dowager Countess of Grantham
Staff member
Hi Can,

Thanks for the updated build - here's my feedback:


-Firstly, be careful that your palette shows a weathering progression. It looks like you've got reach cobble right next to light-stone which is too harsh a transition. The use of different blocks is to indicate natural weathering of the facade. The transition should be Cobble > Big bricks > Small bricks > light stone - Blocks should only be touching their immediate neighbour in that list.

- The lintel block you're using in your doorway is the wrong type of stone slab.

- Inside it's preferable to have your ceiling rafters made of the same material - don't worry about mixing in jungle with oak blocks - the wood in the roof shouldn't be damp so should be a single colour.

- The interiors don't seem too bad, but there are a couple of structural issues to address. Firstly the house with the second floor, your rafters stop at the post in the middle of the room - meaning the beams aren't actually holding anything up. If you're going to have a floor support like this, make sure you place it where the surrounding rafters for the above floor are spaced accordingly.

- Don't use northern fur beds in the mid/southern reach - it's very warm there and the fur isn't likely to be the best use of bedding. You've also got a fancy carved-top table beside the bed and a lantern. The house doesn't look like it's owned by a wealthy or successful craftsman, so both of these objects shouldn't really be in a house of this type. When making tables, use oak slabs and half-doors or hoppers, rather than carved tables with turned legs. Also, avoid glass cabinets in your kitchen areas - Glass is expensive.

- Your fireplace is very big, and in most medieval houses the fire wouldn't come into the room that far! None of the houses in Woodwright have fireplaces in this style. You should either use slab-topped hearths, use window arrow slits, or furnace blocks in the wall. Check out the other houses for how this is done.

- Avoid using rope ladders for places above you that you need to reach. They're typically used for scaling down to something rather than up to something. Rope is more expensive than a rudimentary branch to make a ladder.

- In your second house you have wall-mounted cabinets which aren't a thing in the medieval period. Also, your bench block with knives and wooden utensils on will be visible from two sides when you close the shutter on your window. Most window shutters should appear to be one piece of wood, even if they're actually two blocks.

For your next challenge,

Please build a middle class cooper's house in the style of /warp duskendale

Good luck!