leopardninja1 Builder Application

[leopardninja1]

What is your Minecraft username?
leopardninja1

What is your age?
13-16

In what country are you living?
New Zealand

Where did you first hear about WesterosCraft?
From a friend

What do you like the most about GoT/ASoIaF?
Robb stark is probably my favorite character mainly because he fought for a his father and his sisters. But he was extremely naive. I also really liked Tywin Lannister he was such a bad ass character. My favorite battle scene was definitely the Battle Of The Blackwater.

What is your favorite build on our server?
My favorite build on the server would probably be either Bear Island (even though its an old build still looks really cool) or Winterfell. But I also like Highgarden and Summerhall.

Why do you want to join our server?
I really like Minecraft and Game Of Thrones so I would love to help out on Westeroscraft.

Tell us about your build.
The build would have been built on either Bear Island or even somewhere like Hardhome. The people that would live there are fisherman (hopefully you can tell). I choose those materials because they fit that northen theme. Doing the snow was very tedious.



Did you follow the application rules?
YOU KNOW NOTHING, JON SNOW

 

[Emoticone11]

Hey leopardninja,

Thanks for your application, and for being patient! I should be able to reply a bit quicker from here on out, but feel free to nudge me if it's been a few days.

Overall, this is a very nice first house! You did a good job with the snow and it definitely fits with the cozy atmosphere of Bear Island. Here's some of the feedback I have:

- Avoid using log blocks in houses - those are considered outdated, unless of course the house is supposed to be an actual log cabin (there's some examples of this in Wintertown). But don't use them to frame wood planks.

- I'd generally caution against using the northern carving block as well - though it is pretty common in many Northern builds on the server, it was intended as a sort of "high class" variant - an etching in the castles/longhalls of Northern lords that would take painstaking effort from an artist to make.

- The interiors are solid, though the layout feels a bit sterile/basic in the way that you just have the components lining the walls of the house. Granted, it is tricky to do something more interesting with such a narrow space. I'd recommend taking a look through some newer Northern projects (or anywhere with comparably small houses, really) and trying to find some really good examples of interiors to take inspiration from.

For a first challenge build, please make a medium-sized house in the style of /warp woodwright. You can post pictures here when you're done. Feel free to ask me if you have any questions about the feedback or the challenge style. Good luck!

 

[leopardninja1]

Thanks Emote! I've finished this challenge. For me it was pretty hard doing the daub wattle blocks so if you have any feedback for that, that would be awesome. Also I think I still need help with interior(for upstairs, seeing as its pretty cramped). But I think I did alright downstairs. Using brown slate stairs and the block was pretty fun, I added the oak in there just to make it look like they have repaired it over time. And it just adds some detail to the build. Hopefully you can see a bit of a story going on as well. I think I might have added to much light stone so I would like some feedback on that please.

 

[Emoticone11]

Hey leopardninja,

Good work on this house! The interiors are really nicely done. I've already gone over a couple of the issues with the exterior with you in-game re: the diagonal layout and the daub & wattle patterning, so I'm not going to repeat that feedback here. If you have any further questions about those items, though, feel free to ask them here or in-game. Here's some more picky feedback:

- The yard is much too small; they wouldn't put together a stone wall just to enclose a patch of 6 cabbages. I recommend making the yard larger - use polygonal shapes for the border (i.e., no "bubble yards") enclosing a substantial area around the house. Usually these will be plotted for you at first, but generally, they should follow other features of the surrounding area (like roads). Also, many/most yards in a medieval village/hamlet would be communal, shared by a few peasant families located around the yard. If you do have a small yard like in this house, you're better off using a more makeshift barrier like wattle fence.

- When you use workbench/cabinet blocks, you want to make sure all sides are covered up except for one - it usually doesn't make sense for it to have cabinets or tools on multiple sides. The best way to do this is just using a half door block.

- A couple of the furnishings strike me as a bit too fancy for a rural village household, for instance the wrought iron (chain) candle holder. I'd recommend just using a wood fence as a more rustic candle holder. Also, you shouldn't use paper blocks in a house like this, since the residents almost certainly aren't literate (very few people in medieval times, even among lords/nobility, were).

- I'd try to cover up the interior slate on the top floor a little bit better - it's fine if a little bit shows (especially if you try to make it look like realistic rafters), but you want to avoid too much showing through. I usually like to plan out the ceiling support/rafters in the early stage of interior layout.

For the next challenge build, please make a middle-class house in the style of /warp duskendale. As before, feel free to ask if you've got any questions. Good luck!

 

[leopardninja1]

Hi Emote! Thanks so much for the feedback. Hopefully I have improved from last time especially with the daub & wattle patterning because I think I have lol. But please note on the sides of the house that would be up against another house, so that is why there isn't to much detail there.

 

[leopardninja1]

Here are some more pics.

 

[Emoticone11]

Hey leopard,

This house seems like a huge improvement, good work! Nicely done on the interiors, and you're getting a handle on the daub & wattle. Mostly some picky feedback this time:

- The stone foundation feels a bit jumbled in some spots. If you have 3 blocks in your palette, you don't want them to be randomly mixed, but instead to have the blocks transitioning to each other in a gradient (usually the darker ones near the bottom to represent dirt/corrosion). It's usually helpful to think of a "primary" block which you make the foundation out of at first, and then use secondary blocks to represent dirt/corrosion/etc.

- Try to avoid these horizontal rows of the open frame daub & wattle blocks, like in this facade, as it looks a bit strange. Usually the "structure" of timber and wattle in a house would be more vertical than horizontal due to the way it's created and its role as a vertical support. Also, I'm not sure I like the X-shape at the peak of the roof aesthetically either, but partially that's just awkwardness from doing an even width plot (we usually like odd width plots in minecraft, though you'll sometimes see even plots on our server for the adventurous).

- Don't be lazy with the daub & wattle pattern (or gradient, etc.) on the sides of the house even if it's obscured by other houses; you still want to make sure it looks nice from the interiors at least.

- The massive 3x3 of cabinets/drawers here seems excessive; I'd perhaps rework that into a wardrobe (2-wide with shutters as doors, there might be a design in /warp furnish somewhere) instead.

Otherwise everything seems to be in order! For the next challenge, let's head somewhere a bit warmer: please make a medium-sized house in the style of /warp wyltown. Good luck!

 

[leopardninja1]

Hey Emote!

Thanks so much for the feedback, I'm sorry this build took longer school was a bit busy! I actually enjoyed this build a lot more then I thought I was going to. Because Dorne isn't my favorite kingdom. Also I hope I have improved on using a primary block, but the palette does change a bit the further you go up the house. Hopefully you can see what the job is for the people living in this house. -(Sorry there isn't a screenshot with my skin in it the file was to large)

 

[Emoticone11]

Hey leopard,

Glad you enjoyed the style, because it definitely paid off - the house looks great!

I don't really have much feedback this time except that I think your block mixing still needs a bit of work. The stone gradient looks better this time, but the principles that govern plaster-type blocks are slightly different than stone. Instead of having small patches of the brown plaster like you would with stone in a gradient, you basically want to imagine the entire house being stone that's been plastered over, with the plaster starting to fade around the edges/corners and reveal the stone underneath. Essentially, this means one big contiguous "blob" of the plaster on each side with your stone gradient exposed around the corners of the house, rather than multiple small patches of plaster. Though I didn't ask you to build a White Harbor house, if you warp there, you'll see that it also uses the same technique.

No feedback on anything else - interiors etc. are well-done!

For a tentative final challenge build, please make a middle-class house in the style of /warp fairmarket. Also, please include a moderately sized yard this time. You'll find the style slightly similar to Duskendale, but a bit more colorful, so make sure to study the details carefully. Good luck!

 

[leopardninja1]

Hey Emote!

I've finished the final challenge! I enjoyed this build a lot, although I did change every thing around about three times but I thought that this one was pretty good. Just a couple notes, the stone walls surrounding the yard would be other homes, also the sides don't have any windows for the same reason.

 

[leopardninja1]

Some more pics-

 

[Emoticone11]

Hey leopard,

Great work on this house! Everything seems solid, the front exterior especially feels very rustic and nicely done. I have some brief feedback, but nothing too major:

- FM should use black slate, rather than blue slate. It's a common mistake though - the two are somewhat similar so it takes a bit of adjustment to be able to tell them apart. Blue slate is rarely used anywhere outside the Vale, since its color is a bit vibrant/cartoonish (it might be changed in the future).

- The interior stairs here feels a bit bulky. The idea itself isn't bad, but I'd work a bit on the execution, or perhaps try something more simple.

- Also in the above image, the fence crystal block is a bit glitchy when connecting to block currently (it's not intended to connect to blocks), so I may move that one block to the left, or use a stair block in the wall to prevent the connection.

Otherwise, everything seems to be in order, and I'm more than happy to give you the green light at this point. So, consider yourself approved!

I'll promote you to New Builder in-game. The next step is to read over the New Builder guide, 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 (possibly outdated as people forget to update it sometimes), and also by going to our dynmap and toggling "Open Plot", which is a brand new feature that we're testing.

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!