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Accepted RubenPieterMark

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RubenPieterMark

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18-4-2016
RubenPieterMark

Application for Artist

Dear staff

I am writing to apply for the rank artist, because I like to participate in projects.

I joined the server MCME most likely on Februari 25th. I am not sure about that date, but I am sure that I joined that week. Before I joined this server, I did not have installed minecraft on my laptop. I downloaded it because of MCME. My first experience of the server was a video on YouTube from MattLego, who was once an active member on the server. I found the video, because I am a Tolkien fan or Tolkien nerd. I know that many people claim to be a Tolkien nerd. I think that I can call me a Tolkien nerd, because I read the Lord of the Rings in Dutch and in English, I read the Hobbit or There and Back Again twice in Dutch and once in English, I read the Silmarillion, I read the Adventures of Tom Bombadil, I read the Children of Húrin and this summer I am going to visit the place where Tolkien worked in Oxford (don't forget I've seen the movies :) ), I read also loads of Wikipedia pages about Tolkien and his family and I read some parts of the History of Middle-Earth. I know most of the words from the index in the back of the Silmarillion.

I have joined a lot of jobs. I guess I have joined about twelve road jobs, five ruining jobs, seven stream digging jobs, three foresting jobs, three jobs where I built a house in Anfalas and a few other jobs which cannot be placed in these cathegories. Overall I have participated in approximately thirty five jobs. I usually join each job, but sometimes I am trying to finish my theme build or I am showing a friend the server. A few weeks ago, @Fireinferno13 started the project of Tumladen and I built three or four houses in the plotworld which were copied to the mainworld without too many changes from my original houses: .
@Darki190 and me wrote a wiki album with a screenshot (which are all made by me) and lore (which @Darki190 mostly did, but I have written about ten of them) about all the warps in the main world, so not the theme/plot/oldworld. I put much time in it, I am not the fastest worker in the world. I enjoyed it and I am willing to do more of these non-building projects. I built a bridge in Goldarce:
mxMtgFT.webp
In singleplayer I have built a mediaval city house with the AC-rp:

I have finished only one theme build fully; Tirith Aear. I have also built Rhosgobel, but that was on the account of my cousin: leinad2304. Tirith Aear was a plot on which I was very proud, it was my first
(and only :( ) finished plot. It was a white tower with a spiral form. In that plot I built a concept for poor Dwarves in Khazad-Dûm too. I made a random lumber- or watermill in Almaren and in the same plot I did a part of a bathhouse in Almaren, but I did not finish it unfortunately... The next theme build was The Havens of Sirion. I made a drawing of a map from the theme build. I also made it in minecraft, but it turned out to be more like a little harbour from a Gondorian village. Next week, I was very busy with a school project, so I did just the planning of The Great House. I also did the theme build Formenos, the stronghold of the great, banished Elf Feanör. I did not finish it (again :( ), but I did much of it.
ikvnlRO.webp

These screenshots do not show everything of my theme builds, so I suggest to visit them by yourself. I really like theme builds. I am currently participating the Belfalas belltower contest and I have finished stage 1. I am on the second place of the finalists, behind Wodleth.
eCDF8tB.webp
e2ta4L2.webp

Once the windmills in Tumladen looked quite ugly (just the wings) and I asked Fire to give a try for an improved version. He agreed and the improved version was copied to the mainworld by Thijs:
PhC8FxO.webp


My favorite building style is probably Rohirric, yet I have never built any Rohan-themed building! I really love to fly above and walk through Edoras and Aldburg. The materials, hay and wood, I prefer above all others. I also think that we should mix some styles in, e.g. Bree should have like twenty hayroofed houses, so should Anfalas have. I think that it is okay for a castle to have one, strict building style, but cities and regions should have mixed styles, in my opinion at least. One building style I really don't like, is modern building. I also don't like building ships. For me, the most important thing is the accuracy with the books. I never build things besides in this wonderful server.

I told already a lot about my motivations to promote to artist. Actually, I don't have really strong feelings to have a rank, but I would just like to participate in a project like the keep in Fennas Drùnin. Although I can assure that I will help well with all the projects. Being online in MCME is the only thing I do in my free time, besides reading Tolkien's works. I also do Jiu-Jitsu (which I do like) and I play footbal (as goalkeeper) which I absolutely hate (so I do not see that as freetime :mad: ).

"Yours faithfully"

Pieter aka @RubenPieterMark
 

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Thank you for your application! And sorry for the late feedback. I would like to give you some tips on what you can do to increase your chances to get accepted.

You already participated in quite a lot themed builds. I like your Havens of Sirion most the others are, well quite unfinished. It is very important to finish themed-builds. You wrote that your Tirith Aear is finished and the tower and interior is quite nice, but in my opinion there is a surrounding terrain missing. We want to see all the details you can make. ;)
Your dry dock at the Havens of Sirion is very nice. The other houses and interiors there too. Not much to improve there.
Your towers of Tirith Aear and Formenos look a bit uniformly. It is usually better to use two distinct materials rather than only white or gray stone bricks. At Formenos you used a lot of decorational blocks which is good, but it still looks uniformly to me because its all the same color and base material. Also you could try to make some pillars in front of the main wall (double walls) as you did at the houses of the Havens of Sirion.

Aside from themed builds you can improve your chances to get Artist by helping with >>jobs and plotbuilds<< as you already do. Try to stay very active with jobs. When you finished a task for a Designer, remember to ask the Designer to give points to your application as described >>here<<.
 
Thank you for your application! And sorry for the late feedback. I would like to give you some tips on what you can do to increase your chances to get accepted.

You already participated in quite a lot themed builds. I like your Havens of Sirion most the others are, well quite unfinished. It is very important to finish themed-builds. You wrote that your Tirith Aear is finished and the tower and interior is quite nice, but in my opinion there is a surrounding terrain missing. We want to see all the details you can make. ;)
Your dry dock at the Havens of Sirion is very nice. The other houses and interiors there too. Not much to improve there.
Your towers of Tirith Aear and Formenos look a bit uniformly. It is usually better to use two distinct materials rather than only white or gray stone bricks. At Formenos you used a lot of decorational blocks which is good, but it still looks uniformly to me because its all the same color and base material. Also you could try to make some pillars in front of the main wall (double walls) as you did at the houses of the Havens of Sirion.

Aside from themed builds you can improve your chances to get Artist by helping with >>jobs and plotbuilds<< as you already do. Try to stay very active with jobs. When you finished a task for a Designer, remember to ask the Designer to give points to your application as described >>here<<.
Thank you for your extensive feedback.
 
Also from my side, thanks a lot for this extensive application, and to answer your last question: No it's not usual that they are held that formally ;)

Your activity is very impressive and as it seems the amount of time and thought you put into your builds is also very high. I especially like the drawing of the Havens of Sirion. Planning is something that is only rarely witnessed in TB's, though still it is a very important part of building on MCME (not as much for Artists as for Designers though).
Although when it comes to adapting your plans and ideas to minecraft there still seem to be some topics you should put some more thought into, mainly these are two things:
  1. Material choices. Eriol mentioned it above, most buildings have 2 or 3 distinctly chosen materials. Buildings that mainly consist of only 1 material usually look too unform and boring. Buildings that use more than 3 materials extensively usually look unorganised and weird. Furthermore not all material combinations work well, e.g. you used light grey bricks and dark grey bricks on your Formenos TB, this is a classic example of two materials that do not combine too well, because they are too similar (Same texture and same color, just one is a bit darker). Try to use two materials with different textures ("shapes" if you want so), e.g. either of the bricks with regular stone or cobble and bricks. Check out all the mostly stony places on MCME and check how many and which materials are used there.
  2. Concluding a TB: Even when the theme is e.g. about a tower, it makes a huge difference whether you embed your build into a nice chunk of terrain or not. E.g. think of how weird Rivendell would look without the cliff faces around it! I am aware of that it may be hard achieving a thoroughly complete TB in the given time, but I am happy to grant you that you can continue your build when the time has exceeded. (Actually I have to ask q again to change the setting of the TB plugin that forbids editing builds when the next TB has started).
I see a lot of passion between your lines and in your builds, now you just have to learn how you can make your imagination look good in Minecraft!
 
Alright, as promised, an in-depth feed-back response of your build (I think I shall be speaking mostly of formenos, since it is your most recent build)

1. To begin with, I have noticed you use 2-wide arches a lot. This isn't necessarily bad, but it can become repetitive and boring after awhile, especially if it's used as a primary arch. It is more suggested that as a primary pattern you use 3-wide arches instead (windows are much easier as well as detailing much more interesting!) with a secondary pattern in-between at places to break it up of either 2 or 1 wide arches. It is also a safe bet to make your arches all the same block height that remains constant even when the terrain changes. There are exceptions to this general rule.
2. I have noticed in your formenos build that you like to use slanting walls/diagonal arches. You have done these remarkably well, but it is strongly advised you avoid this, although it can look excellent in some cases - it is well used in your formenos build.
3. Often new applicants have a habit of making flat walls and using boring materials, but in your case, you might have a bit of an opposite problem. As fin said above, choosing materials is very important. I live by this general rule: I choose two materials, preferably block/stair/slab materials, one will serve as my basic walling, the other as my supports/arches. You also over-detail a bit, especially on your towers. The trick is to make something interesting that will catch a viewer's eye, but not too bumpy and lumpy that he is not entirely sure what he is looking at.

I hope this is useful, and if you have questions feel free to shoot me a pm whenever you like, I should respond within two days.
 
Also from my side, thanks a lot for this extensive application, and to answer your last question: No it's not usual that they are held that formally ;)

Your activity is very impressive and as it seems the amount of time and thought you put into your builds is also very high. I especially like the drawing of the Havens of Sirion. Planning is something that is only rarely witnessed in TB's, though still it is a very important part of building on MCME (not as much for Artists as for Designers though).
Although when it comes to adapting your plans and ideas to minecraft there still seem to be some topics you should put some more thought into, mainly these are two things:
  1. Material choices. Eriol mentioned it above, most buildings have 2 or 3 distinctly chosen materials. Buildings that mainly consist of only 1 material usually look too unform and boring. Buildings that use more than 3 materials extensively usually look unorganised and weird. Furthermore not all material combinations work well, e.g. you used light grey bricks and dark grey bricks on your Formenos TB, this is a classic example of two materials that do not combine too well, because they are too similar (Same texture and same color, just one is a bit darker). Try to use two materials with different textures ("shapes" if you want so), e.g. either of the bricks with regular stone or cobble and bricks. Check out all the mostly stony places on MCME and check how many and which materials are used there.
  2. Concluding a TB: Even when the theme is e.g. about a tower, it makes a huge difference whether you embed your build into a nice chunk of terrain or not. E.g. think of how weird Rivendell would look without the cliff faces around it! I am aware of that it may be hard achieving a thoroughly complete TB in the given time, but I am happy to grant you that you can continue your build when the time has exceeded. (Actually I have to ask q again to change the setting of the TB plugin that forbids editing builds when the next TB has started).
I see a lot of passion between your lines and in your builds, now you just have to learn how you can make your imagination look good in Minecraft!
Thank you for the feedback. Unfortunately, I cannot finish my theme build in the restricted time. And I have a question; can I see how many job points I have gained?
 
Hey ruben,

Thanks for the Update!
Your Belltower looks really nice, I like it a lot! Still I can't be friends with your Formenos too much yet, which still is due to the material choices. I have to say however, that it was a fantastic idea using those ornamental blocks in the walls, but the combination of dark and light grey bricks just looks really odd to me.
So if you don't mind, I'd like you to prove your skills on a fresh TB once again.
 
I can congratulate you to gaining the Artist rank! Congratultations! I have to say that the one thing that stirred the most interest in you in me was that you made that plan for your Havens of Sirion TB! On one hand it reminded me of my first TB for which I did just the same, and It shows that you really do put a lot of thought into your builds and not just stack blocks ontop of each other randomly. Your newly submitted builds now really live up to what we need to work on the MCME map, and also show that extra bit of innovation, like the, as I interprete it, stained wings of the wind mill with the white and grey wool.
Congratulations to Artist, very well deserved!
 
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