jefi2 Builder Application

Emoticone11

The Dark Lord Sauron
Staff member
Hey jefi,

Thanks again for being patient! Your house is a big improvement, overall it seems to fit in the woodwright style very well. Here's some of the feedback I have this time around:

- Overall, the exteriors are pretty solid, but also rather plain and sterile. In future houses, I'd like you to focus a bit more on adding realistic details around the house, to make it seem more immersive. At the bare minimum, you should have a vegetable garden.

- The chimney is way too tall, and should be knocked down a couple blocks. Also, Woodwright does not appear to have orange brick chimneys anywhere, they should be made with reach light brick.

- On the shed area attached to the house, don't do the stairs on all sides of the roof, it just makes the roof look like a pancake. Do the roof in one direction, like this one (except with slabs).

- Never use trapdoor blocks for stuff (except for actual trapdoors)! Guests can mess stuff up by toggling them, and the texture is not very good. Change all the trapdoor blocks in your house to our "half door" blocks.

- The first floor interiors are nice otherwise, a big improvement from the previous house. The second floor interiors still need a bit of work though. Overall it feels a bit bare, and the oak wood all blends together aesthetically. Also, while there's nothing necessarily wrong with having a loft, it seems weird with the work desk up there and everything. Overall I think the top floor interiors could be made to seem a little "poorer" or less modern looking. Also, these houses probably wouldn't have a furnace and a fireplace, most likely they would have one hearth which is used both for cooking and heating.

For the next challenge, please make a middle-class house in the style of /warp whiteharbor. The middle-class ones can generally be found in the southwest part of the city. Please feel free to ask if you have any questions on the feedback I gave above, or on the white harbor style. Good luck!
 

Emoticone11

The Dark Lord Sauron
Staff member
Hey jefi,

This house seems pretty good! I have a bit of feedback to give, but overall you're starting to get a better sense of the general form of exteriors and interiors.

- The white harbor style uses black slate, rather than blue slate. They look somewhat similar, so be careful with that. Blue slate is used extremely rarely though, usually it's black slate that's used.

- With the gradient, try to avoid having random "specks" of the white plaster. Have it in larger "blobs" instead. I recommend taking a closer look at some of the gradients around white harbor, and at /warp gradient. Overall it's not too bad though, you're in the right direction.

- You're using the Oldtown brick arrow slits as windows, which don't match the color of the white harbor brick. Try using the "Stone slab arrow slit window" instead, or just doing an open window (i.e. no block, but with a shutter). Also, be careful of having too many windows in more northern builds, because of the cold climate.

- The strawberries in the yard don't need a whole column of water in the middle, just have a 5x3 patch of strawberries (or some other veggie).

- In general you shouldn't use torches in ordinary houses, that's a bit overkill. Usually torch sconces are only for castles, or for city/town streets. You can use candles, but don't put them sideways on the wall block, as they'd just melt and fall off. Always put candles vertically on top of some other block.

- The interiors are looking much better overall. There's a couple furnishings that I find a bit awkard still, though. The big stone shelves in the kitchen here are strange, and not realistic as stone is a very heavy material to be used like that. These two cabinets are also strange, since with the stair blocks they seem to be sticking out of the wall, rather than being normal furniture. Maybe try a 2-wide dresser instead, there are some designs for this at /warp furnish. Also, if you do have cabinets like that, you need to cover up the sides with something (a half door block, or other furniture), as it doesn't make sense for cabinets to have doors on multiple sides. Lastly, avoid paper+quill blocks in a house like this, since they wouldn't be literate.

Overall you're doing good, keep studying your stuff and trying to improve. When you're ready for the next challenge build, please make a medium-sized house in the style of /warp burnley. Good luck!
 

Emoticone11

The Dark Lord Sauron
Staff member
Hey jefi,

Regarding the fixed WH house, most of the things seem better now. A couple still things are still issues:

- You missed the blue slate on the overhang, probably just an accident I think.

- I'd probably use some combination of mud, soul sand, and/or bog blocks underneath the strawberries, instead of grass, to represent crop soil.

- The kitchen in this picture still needs a lot of work. You have stone stairs that are just floating (or attached to the wall?) which doesn't make much sense. The kitchen design in general feels very modern (like a stone counter) rather than medieval. I highly recommend you spend some more time exploring interiors in newer builds and looking at kitchens in particular, I think this would help a lot.

Regarding the burnley house, overall the exts seem good. Although the roof is the wrong color for burnley, a bit south on cape kraken there are houses in the exact same style in the green grass biome. However, in this case, you shouldn't use the dead bracken block on the sod roof, since it contrasts harshly with the green color.

Also, the burnley house seems to be missing interior pics. If you update with the interior pics I'll give them a quick look over and then give you another style to work on.
 

jefi2

Mummer
Guest







The roofcolour was a bit wrong because i could not change the biomes.

Maybe the people who made the custom blocks could ad a tool to do that?

The bleu slate on the overhang is a accident indeed.
 
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Emoticone11

The Dark Lord Sauron
Staff member
Hey jefi,

The ints look pretty good as far as I can tell. My only feedback there is that you have some workbench blocks which are exposed on multiple sides. You need to cover all sides except one, since it doesn't make sense to have drawers on multiple sides. You can use half door blocks for this.

About the biome, like I said, it's not an issue that it's in Plains, but you should adjust the block use correspondingly. Get rid of the brown dead bracken blocks and just have the green tall grass.

If you really need to change biomes in some build, you can look up and install the "FAWE" (WorldEdit) mod. Or, probably an easier thing to do, if you know what biome you need ahead of time, is to google for a custom seed that spawns you in that biome.

Anyways, for the next challenge build, please make a lower-middle-class house (look for some of the example houses) in the style of /warp duskendale. Feel free to ask if you have any questions or need help finding some example duskendale houses. Good luck!
 

Emoticone11

The Dark Lord Sauron
Staff member
Hey jefi, thanks for the update! Sorry about the delay in responding, I just got back from travelling recently.

Your Duskendale house is not overall too bad. The interiors look very nice this time, don't have much feedback there except for two minor things: 1. Make sure to cover the sides of bench/cabinet blocks with half doors, like here, and 2. The fireplace is a little weird, with a furnace block right next to an open coals. I suggest just making a simple hearth, 3 or 2 blocks wide, with glowing coals or ash at the bottom. There's plenty of example fireplaces at /warp furnish to take inspiration from.

The exteriors need a little work, though. The slate is the wrong color again, it should be black slate rather than blue slate. The daub & wattle feels a bit too plain overall, and doesn't really have much of the "Duskendale character" to it. I would recommend making the stall in the front have a wool slab cover rather than wood.

With the above feedback (mostly on the exteriors) in mind, I'd like you to look at Duskendale in closer detail and revamp the house (either that or make another, if you think it would be better). In particular, check out the signs directly at /warp Duskendale, which give some general advice on the style. Secondly, check out the houses in the town that are marked as "example" houses, and try to use those for inspiration. Feel free to ask me if you want any advice on this.