Kai Everlast Builder Application

[EverlastEvil]

What is your age?
17-20

What country are you from?
United States

Where did you first hear about WesterosCraft?
Youtube

What do you like the most about GoT/ASoIaF?
The fact that we are able stand in the shoes of POV characters! GRRM has done such a great job on making us readers feel like we are part of various events every time we switch chapters and jump into a new conflict. As for my favorite character it could be a tie between Daenerys and Sansa because of everything they have been through, yet they are still standing!

What is your favorite build on our server?
My favorite build is definitely Casterly Rock! It is such a huge and creative build that keeps bringing me to it most of the time I'm on the server. Not to mention, it also has a great scenery that you probably wouldn't expect from a build that mostly hides inside a rock.

Why do you want to join our server?
When I first joined the server, it was around August 2019, I did not give any thoughts on becoming a builder, since I only wanted to watch a realistic world version of my favorite books. I stopped playing mc a long time ago, however, I always wanted to join the server since I first started watching Dutch Guard's reviews on Youtube. About a week or so I decided to experiment on single player and started building a northern keep. I fell in love again with building especially with all the new blocks, so I thought might as well apply for builder and help out with the server, since I been joining consistently lately! But my main tool that I can bring for the team is my passion for architecture.




Did you follow the application rules?
You Know Nothing, Jon Snow

 

[Emoticone11]

Hey Kai,

Thanks for the application! I'm glad to see your interest in our server. Sorry about the delay in response, I appreciate your patience in this process. I'll try to reply quicker from now on, though. Feel free to poke me if I don't reply on a few days.

Overall, I think you have a good head-start on our style! It's clear that you've been exploring a bit and have picked up a number of building techniques. I'll jump right into some of the feedback I have on this house:

- I'm not really a fan of the "split" facades. Largely, this is due to the roof overhang, which looks really odd with the split. Sometimes it can be acceptable with the "no overhang" style of rooves (which has become popular in many recent builds), especially on diagonal plots.

- When placing daub & wattle blocks, you never want them to be random or look jumbled. Instead, they should follow some organized pattern (usually symmetrical). You can also use the "plain white daub" block in small amounts, and "frame" it with the other daub & wattle blocks. If you ask around in-game, some builders should be able to point you to good examples of daub & wattle that you can study.

- A similar thing applies to the stone foundation; instead of just placing stone blocks randomly, try making a "gradient" - a smooth transition between one color/darkness/texture and another. /warp gradient is a good resource for this.

- You should avoid full log blocks in houses, as they're considered outdated and tend to look really clunky. This applies to both interiors and exteriors. Sometimes thin log blocks are acceptable in interiors (such as rafters, vertical supports, etc.) but I'd still avoid them in exteriors except for certain circumstances.

- Fence windows are another thing that are usually discouraged. In most cases, it's perfectly fine to just have an "empty" window (perhaps with a wood carpet on the bottom if daub & wattle), and then have a shutter block on the outside.

- The interiors seem like a very decent start, though they rely a bit too much on "clutter" - by this, I mean things like piles of crates, potted plants (which are more common in some older builds on our server but not terribly realistic for medieval-style houses). Clutter is usually to be avoided, and storage items should be used appropriately in an organized way - food/grain/etc. in a pantry area (or possibly a root cellar if a more rural house), storage in an attic or a loft, or under a porch or loft, etc.

For the first challenge build, please take a look at the house style of /warp whitegrove, and try to build a medium-sized house in that style. Feel free to ask if you have any questions about the feedback above, the whitegrove style, or anything else. Good luck!

-Emote

 

[EverlastEvil]

Hey Emotione, thanks for the feedback on my first build, I will try my best to better my builds. Here is my Whitegrove style build!

 

[Emoticone11]

Hey Kai,

Awesome job on this house! Seems like a massive improvement, and you've definitely nailed the Whitegrove style. My feedback list is pretty short this time, mostly just picky details:

- The vertical white halfdoors bisecting the room here - I would make them oak wood (i.e. unpainted), and they should also connect to the roof. The way they're just standing there currently looks odd to me.

- You should avoid the "scattered" randomly placed style of thatch carpets, like in this picture. It tends to look too noisy. It's better to make more continuous "blobs" of thatch carpet to represent rushes on the floor. There's also a nice trick you can do where you use full thatch blocks on the border so the rushes look smoother and more textured - see the example in this picture.

- The yard is well done, though generally speaking I'd suggest avoiding "bubble yards" where the wall of the yard follows an amorphous curved shape. If you look at Whitegrove, you'll notice that most of the yards there have polygonal borders (i.e. mainly straight diagonal lines), and tend to follow the roads or other features to fill up space. That's not to say that you should never use curved borders (there's a couple examples at Whitegrove), but more that it's just something to be mindful of when doing yards. A lot of older builds on the server look messy because every house just has a bubble yard that doesn't follow roads or use space very well.

Great work otherwise. For the next challenge build, let's try something a bit more urban: please make a medium-sized house in the style of /warp duskendale. As before, feel free to ask if you have any questions. Good luck!

 

[EverlastEvil]

Hey Emotione, thanks for the warm feedback on my last build, its really helping me get more comfortable with how the server works when it comes to building! Here is my medium-sized house in the style of Duskendale. I decided to add a small pottery shop on the lowest floor to show how they receive income in the city...

 

[Emoticone11]

Hey Kai,

Stellar work - your building abilities have grown quite quickly in the span of the last two houses. Color me impressed. I have some brief feedback, but nothing too important:

- The house feels a tiny bit squashed vertically given the overall proportions. I'd suggest making it just one or two blocks taller (it could also just be an artifact of the house being isolated rather than in a row next to other houses - sometimes it's a bit hard to tell).

- The peak of the roof seems to be stunted, i.e. how it suddenly flattens at the top but you still have the slate wall block on the peak. To follow the pitch of the roof, you should have one more full block on the peak of the roof, and then the wall block on top of that. Then you can also move the upside-down wood stairs under the peak of the roof up one block. If I were in-game I'd take a picture to show what I mean, but I can't right now, so just let me know if this isn't making sense and I can try to visualize it.

Everything else seems great. For a (tentative) final challenge build, please make a middle-class house in the style of /warp fairmarket. Another town build, similar to DD in some ways, but a bit more colorful. Let me know if you have any questions, but I'm sure you'll do fine. Good luck!

 

[EverlastEvil]

Thanks Emotione for the feedback, and no worries I understand what you mean by the roof. I did not realize how awkward it actually looks lol

 

[EverlastEvil]

Hey Emotione, here is my middle-class fairmarket build!! I have to say that building this house was a bit challenging just because I didn't want it to look like my last build from Duskendale due to the fact that both towns have similar styles, but I think at the end I got a hold of it!

 

[Emoticone11]

Hey Kai,

Great work, this seems like a pretty solid Fairmarket house! No major things to address, so I'm happy to give you the green light at this point. Just some quick minor feedback before I do:

- The exterior of the house, while getting all the FM architectural elements down, feels a bit bare in some respects. I think some light foliage would really help spice it up, as well as immersive details outside of the house (though sometimes you really need to see the context the house is in before doing this to your best ability).

- The details in this room are a little odd - the armor stand because it seems to use the default player head block that actually looks like a person (which I presume is a mistake). The potted plant is not super realistic for a medieval house (they only really became common in the Victorian era), though you'll see them sometimes in older builds on our server.

Otherwise, consider yourself approved

The next step is to contact a mod in-game to promote you to New Builder. The New Builder guide can be found here: http://westeroscraft.wikia.com/wiki/Newbie_guide
And also make a probation thread in the probation forum.

You can start building at any open locations on the server - you can find these at /warp build, although it sometimes gets outdated as people forget to update it, so I would also recommend just asking people in-game and checking the forums for recent project happenings. Currently, I believe there's plots open at /warp rhymerton, /warp brandybottom, /warp starpikehf1, and potentially some interesting KL-related building opportunities soon (stay tuned). You can also build at /warp probieground in the Test world if you just wanna experiment with stuff.

A probie leader should post on your thread within a week or so, and help give constructive feedback on your houses for the next month, and help be your entrypoint into the server community in general (although as sometimes the probie leaders are busy IRL, I would also encourage you to seek feedback from project leaders and other builders/mods). At the end, you'll be made full builder.

Welcome to the team, I look forward to building with you!

 

[EverlastEvil]

Thank you Emot for helping me get through this application and become a better builder. I'm very happy to join the team!