JJLyric Builder Application

[JJLyric]

What is your Minecraft username?
JJLyric

What is your age?
13-16

Where did you first hear about WesterosCraft?
Don't Remember

What do you like the most about GoT/ASoIaF?
I really like all the battles and intricate houses and castles

What is your favorite build on our server?
My favourite Build is probably Highgarden as its detailed castle walls really shows through. I am also a big fan of peasant style home and the interior detail that shine through

Why do you want to join our server?
I want to join the server to be a part of the amazing building team and put some really nice interior and small details along builds as i believe that is what changes the build drastically.

Tell us about your build.
My build is owned by a wealthy family who own a horse in the stable at the front. In the build there are many small touches like flies and in the garden there is a wheel barrow. Inside there is a small fireplace where the family cooks. upstairs is where the very messy and filled bedroom is.

https://imgur.com/a/LRMIEx6

Did you follow the application rules?
"You know nothing"-Jon snow

 

[Arkilstorm]

Thanks for your application JJ - a few things - please re-read the application thoroughly and carefully, you missed something quite important.

Also, please submit your build images directly to this thread as attachments rather than in a PDF. Please also take the screenshots during the day and with night-vision enabled.

Thanks.

 

[JJLyric]

Thanks for your feedback, When uploading files it says "this file is too large for the server to process"
And just wondered Why that was?

Thanks

 

[Arkilstorm]

Thanks for your feedback, When uploading files it says "this file is too large for the server to process"

Thanks

No worries JJ, Do you have an Imgur.com account? Most people upload their images to an album and then submit the link to the album here.

Also, as mentioned a couple of times, please re-read the application fully and update your original post as is necessary - you're missing some information in your initial post.

 

[JJLyric]

Hi, I have attached the imgur album to the post and the I know nothing answer hope you enjoy my build!
Also if you have seen he stable it does look out of place and I'm open to suggestions and ideas on how make it look better

 

[Arkilstorm]

Hi Jj! Thanks for sorting out the application issues, and for getting your build screenshots uploaded!

Firstly I'd definitely recommend spending a little bit more time exploring the server in order to understand our current and up to date building style. Your house is nice but doesn't match any recent project on our server. Here's a little bit of feedback on this build before your first challenge!

- You've got the materials down pretty nicely, but there are quite a few problems I'm afraid! For the stone base, you're using our keystone block, smooth stone bricks, and cobble - This looks a little messy, and there are other combinations that are better. The Keystone blocks are usually used in supporting corners, below windows, or as an accent block - they shouldn't be used sporadically throughout the walls. Internally you have dark cobble, river cobble, dark stone bricks, and white harbor brick all in the same palette - You shouldn't really have more than 3-4 blocks in total and they should be in a complimentary close colour scheme or range of blocks from the same scheme.

- This is a very large building and it looks as though it would be three-floors tall. It's actually only two with an external staircase which is strange for such a large building! When planning your structures it's best to think of the people who will be living there and what their profession is. It's very difficult to tell from this building who lives here. The number of floors / the way space is divided up inside is all very important. This will also help you with more realistic window placement too!

- Your timber pattern is a little bit busy and in some places isn't symmetrical. The timbering should always be either symmetrical on a facade or should give the impression of being structurally supportive.

- The roof shouldn't be outlined in brick or stone as this isn't a realistic practice in medieval buildings. It'll look much better without all the additional stone.

- Your 'lean-to' wooden building has a very long wooden roof with exposed logs on either side of this - It looks a little strange and being of all one wood type that isn't complementary to the other wood used on the ends of the building, this could be made much smaller. The storage area is only 2 blocks high, so it's roof doesn't need to be 11 blocks high.

- Internally, your floor should probably be a mixture of dirt and gravel only, as this was common in medieval times, with the thatch blocks being used to represent rushes on the floor in the most well-lived areas.

- Your fireplace/stove is very messy, with way too many blocks being used, and the dornish screens don't make sense or serve a purpose. Like with the building palette, your fireplace should be the same material as the wall and be relatively subtle.

- The windows in this house use dornish screens and double shutters on the outside - given the heavy stone/brick base, I'd advise using the window arrow slit blocks we have instead. These windows also would let in very little light and should probably be a couple of blocks lower, giving you space to add an additional floor.

- In the roof space there are lots of beds and piles of wood which are a little confusing. There's no indicator of how many people live here and why, and the firewood piles seem oddly dangerous. Make sure you also place wooden stair blocks beneath your roof material to support it from the inside. You shouldn't be able to see the bottom of the roof material block at all.


This is a nice starting point, and you've definitely got some great ideas. If this house was a multi-tenant living space, take a look at some of the ones in our cities such as Whiteharbor and King's Landing - usually around industrial and port areas.

For your first challenge, I'd like you to please build a small rural cottage in the style of /warp woodwrighthamlet5

Please don't attempt to make a diagonal cottage - try the normal 90-degree plot ones first!

When you're done, please take well-lit screenshots and post them into another imgur album and share the link with us here!

Good luck.

 

[JJLyric]

Thanks for your feedback on this build! I will be sure to spend a long time studying the block choice and colour palette on the style of woodwrighthamlet5 and will spend a lot more time make small details in the build and making it a lot more realistic. Before your reply I was wondering whether to do another build similar to the servers style because as I adventured more I realised there differences.

 

[JJLyric]

https://imgur.com/a/30gQrWe

Here is the challenge you gave me of making a small cottage. The person who owns this is a poor man living on his own relying on his crops for food and he also has a small table and cooker.

 

[Arkilstorm]

Hi JJ - I will get feedback to you on this by tomorrow the latest - My internet provider is having trouble with Imgur at the moment and blocks all the images from loading. I'll get you the feedback asap!

 

[Arkilstorm]

Hi JJ, sorry for the late reply - Its taken until now to get Imgur working again!

Here's some feedback:


- Make sure your stone palette isn't just one block type. You've used a lot of Reach pink brick but no small bricks, or light stone, which all the other houses have.

- With these houses, simply use a single furnace block in the wall feeding the chimney rather than a double-fire like this.

- Don't use stair blocks as chairs; we have plenty of specific seat blocks, such as wood, thatch, leather. Also, in lower class, rural houses, tables should be made with oak slabs and half-doors rather than pistons.

- Your timbering isn't symmetrical. Make sure the timber at each shorter end of the building is supportive of the structure. Your upper layer of timbering is also non-existent. Make sure you alternate crossed or diagonal timbers to support the roof. Take a look at the timbering of these cottages at Woodwright from the inside as well as the outside.

- The inside is a little sparse and doesn't indicate what the occupant does for a living. You should include hanging clothes, bench blocks, baskets, plates, mugs, hanging fish or herbs. Make your house look lived in.

Otherwise, this is a great start! For your next challenge, please build a middle-class greengrocers house in the style of /warp thetor

Good luck!

 

[JJLyric]

https://imgur.com/a/ryPefRh

Here is my build in the style of Thetor. Hope you Like it!

 

[Arkilstorm]

Hey JJ, really nice job with this house! Here's a bit of feedback:


- Really nice palette - You've done a great job on the exterior! No real complaints. Just make sure that you don't put too much smoke above the chimney - we usually use no more than 2-3 smoke blocks to signify the fire is lit within. Any more and it looks like the building is on fire.

- Inside, your rafters are great but they're running the length of the room rather than the width - rafters should span the shortest possible distance and should be spaced evenly. On the ground floor, maybe mix in some light thatch blocks and thatch carpet to make rushes on the floor.

- The corridor with the staircase and the fireplace don't really make sense. I think you've tried to separate the front 'shop' area and the rear staircase area, which is fine, and appropriate, but there is a lot of wasted space. You could have made the entire lower floor a shop space, with a closed-off staircase.

- Make sure with your rafter/stair blocks, that they always end at a wall or another rafter. Above the back door, you have a wooden stair block for the floor above stopping suddenly at the staircase. This renders the 'beam' it represents useless.

- Upstairs is very large and totally open plan which isn't typical of these sorts of houses. I'd recommend splitting the room in half and having a bedroom separate from the living area. I also can't tell whether you have a furnace for cooking in this room or not, but with the fireplace on the lower floor not lit, I'm not sure why there'd be smoke coming from the kitchen.

- In your kitchen area, you have more than one side showing on your cabinet and pan bench block. Only one side of these blocks should be showing. Make sure you cover the side up with half-doors or other items. At the moment your cabinets are floating on the wall, which didn't exist in medieval carpentry.

- Your dining table has three seats around it but only one bed. Who are the other occupants and where do they sleep?

Altogether this is a really nice house, with just a few little tweaks to make it great!

For your next challenge, I'd like you to build a middle-class spicer's house in the style of /warp HGTownGate - Don't choose to recreate a diagonal plot, but really try and nail the layout of a standard 3-storey merchant's house. The lower floor should consist of a shop and storage area, with a staircase to access the floor above which should serve as a family living space/kitchen, and master bedroom. The upper attic space should have room for a child or shop assistant.

Good luck!

 

[JJLyric]

https://imgur.com/a/ZxuwwDR

Here is my Middle-Class Spicers house in the style of /Warp HGTownGate
As mentioned in my application I love the style of Highgarden so this was a really fun build to make

 

[Arkilstorm]

That was quick JJ! Very speedy. I have quite a bit of feedback on this, including some of the same feedback from your last house...

- Firstly, keep an eye on your stone palette and the order the bricks touch one another. The palette is meant to show weathering, from the most worn-down block to the cleanest. With Highgarden houses the palette goes (cobble>bricks>small bricks>Smooth stone).

Make sure that smooth stone isn't touching cobble or large bricks, or it looks too jarring. This principle works for all stone palettes, look at the blocks you should be using and make sure they're in the correct order and in the right place relative to one another.

- From the outside, I can tell that your house is too short. Above your glass windows, there is only 1 block between them and the next window, meaning there isn't a floor in-between. Be sure when planning the house front that you work out where the floors are going to be.

- Make sure to include a couple of small holes in the thatch roof to make it look a little work and not so clean.

- The back of your house is missing all of its roof supports. You have them on the front but there are none on the back. Also, please avoid using table blocks as windows - we have new timber window blocks that should replace these.

- On the ground floor, the spacing of the rafters is great, and the room is spacious. I'd probably separate the room to have an obvious shop, and remove the large fireplace as it's not necessary for this room. It's unlikely they'd light a fire here, especially with an iron log cradle (brazier) in it. There is very little storage also - which would be needed for a spicer.

- Upstairs, as I've already mentioned is too low - You should have added another block in height to have added the third floor I asked for. As I mentioned with your last build too, this is way too open-plan, and you need to separate the house into living spaces and working/sleeping spaces.

- Your roof supports are unfinished, ending halfway down the wall, and aren't joined to the walls - you need to add another row of oak half-doors at least.

- Your furnace in the wall needs to be connected to the one below and share a chimney - this one doesn't and has no stone foundation above or below.

- This large room should be split in half ideally, with a kitchen at the front and a bedroom at the back, and access to the loft room also.

- Again, your kitchen bench blocks are open on two sides - you need to make sure to cover up the additional side so that only one is showing.

- The little mezzanine level is good but would be more common in a rural house, rather than a semi-urban tradesman's house.

- Where your little side window is, the oak stair supports are resting on the top of the wall. Make sure the wall isn't intersected by the roof - it should go all the way up to meet the thatch itself, with oak supports leading from the walls.

Pay close attention to the structure of the building and the way that people would live in it. Divide up the house by use, and make sure the right structural features such as fireplaces/ roof supports/ flooring/ rafters are all in the right place.

For your next challenge, I'd like you to build a high-class scribe's house in the style of /warp maidenpool - This project is currently a work in progress. So take a look at the completed houses along the main roads. This is going to be quite challenging, and I'd suggest you take your time to really get to know the city and how the buildings work, including the materials/ layouts, etc.

Good luck!

 

[JJLyric]

https://imgur.com/a/rdpq1so

Here is my high class scribes home. Ground floor= Workspace, 1st Floor= Storage area, 2nd Floor= Split into Kitchen area and Bedroom
Hope you like it

 

[Arkilstorm]

Really lovely house JJ! You've done a stellar job with this one.

- The ground floor would probably be dirt/gravel mix rather than wood. It'd only be wood if there was a crawl space or very shallow basement beneath.

- With your kitchen blocks, they look great and you've covered them well - Maybe use oak or jungle wood though, as the spruce doesn't quite suit the lighter wood on the blocks. If you use oak you could also put a basket where one of the spruce carpet blocks is to look like something is on the shelf - the basket blocks have an oak wood texture on the bottom for this purpose.

- I can see that you're using full blocks for rafters in this house rather than stair and slab blocks - This is fine and is a stylistic choice made between different builders, but make sure that you do one or the other and not mix the two - this can look inconsistent. In the bedroom, I think I can see a stair block at the end, and the rest are full blocks. Just be careful with consistency.

I'm happy that you've understood these challenges and demonstrated being able to put all the feedback into practice! Thanks for working hard through all of these and for taking the time to get to know all the different styles!

I'm pleased to approve your application! Please drop one of the mods a message in-game, referencing this thread and one of us will promote you to a new builder. The next thing you need to do is make a probation thread to post all your builds for the next month. Please go and start a thread in the probation area and one of the probation leaders will reply there.

Happy Building!

 

[JJLyric]

Thanks For all the feedback and help that you gave me