The Origin of Rock Music

The Origin of Rock Music

Last year I finally got to do something with all my stone age minifigs.

I used them in my entry into last year’s “AFOL vs AFOL” competition, an yearly elimination tournament competition held by the RLUG Swebrick. It has a different theme each year, determined by the previous winner, and this time the theme was “Music”.

It took me a while before I got an idea for my entry, but with some inspiration from the Norwegian band Hurra Torpedo and their performance of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” I made this little scene.

Pictures are also available on Flickr and Instagram.

The Competition & how it went for me.

The winner of the competition is decided by popular vote, but instead of having one vote with all entries, all entries are randomly divided into pairs and people vote on which is the best build in each pair.

This is done several times and the entries that losses two times are removed.

When only four remain, they are put into semifinals two and two. Winners then compete for first/second place and losers for third/fourth place.

This way of doing it does not guarantee that the four best builds ends up as the final four. The best build always ends up in first place, but 2-4 place is definitely a combination of skill and luck.

The competition was a bit of a roller coaster for me. My two first matches were both losses (one was against the eventual winner) and I thought I was out of the competition, but out of the six entries, only three managed to not get two losses. Meaning that one of the losers had to be selected to get four entries for the semifinals.

The judge declare that the loser with most combined votes should continue, which happen to be my entry. I was still in the competition! Maybe I could get as far as third place?

But my semifinal was a loss for me and for the the 3-4 place match, I ended up being matched against a entry I had already lost to in initials rounds. I assumed I would lose again and end up on 4th place, but this time I won! I guess different people voted in the two rounds.

So my entry managed to get third place. A position I’m happy with.

As I’m writing this, I still don’t know what price I won. That won’t be announced and given to me until next annual Swebrick exhibit & meet-up.

All the entries for the last AFOL vs AFOL can be seen here.

Personal criticism / review

As this was going to be an entry into a competition, I started with a limited amount of time to work with, but because of a mix of things, my time available to work on this build was limited even further. So the build was definitely a “quick build” for me.

I did not flesh out the whole build in LDD in advance as I usually do. I only tested a few concepts, like how to pose the minifigs and how to build the tree. What you see above is basically the first draft of the build. I did not have time to rebuild it or make any final adjustments.

Overall I like the build. I feel I succeeded in giving the minifigs life and motion, something I feel can be quite challenging. I seen plenty of concert builds with minifigs that just stand around motionless.

But if I had had more time I would like to have done the following adjustments:

  1. Add more trees to the background.

The single tree on the right made the build feel unbalanced in head on shot. More trees (or big bushes) could have added more color to the scene and hide the Saber-tooth tiger better.

  1. Make the dirt walls and stage edge less even.

I feel the walls would look a bit better if they were more uneven. Some more slops or SNOT would have made them look better. I also feel that the event stage could have been a little more uneven at the edge towards the crowed.

I don’t think having more time for the build would have made any difference in how far I got in the competition, but it might have made the matches more even in the votes.

/Henrik