Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Series 13 Minifigures

I stumbled upon pictures of the next series of minifigures and I had to share.

What I like about the minifigures series is how much attention is paid to detail. I am really looking forward to getting the alien and king.

Happy New Year!

Monday, December 29, 2014

Whoops! now I know why it is called a drop ship. No more like dropped ship


 Go ahead and laugh because this is the biggest decently built LEGO vehicle that I have created. In fact I am laughing right now.
I first started with the windshield and formed the rest of the drop ship around it. That was about a year ago. All I did was gather all the pieces together and assemble it, replacing the wings with engines.


The drop ship can hold four people including the pilot. Do you think that I should submit it to LEGO Ideas?



Please leave your opinion or any suggestions in the comments.

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Pros and Cons of being an AFOL durig Christmas

During this Christmas season I have been thinking of some of the benefits and liabilities to being an AFOL (Adult Fan Of Lego).

Pros:
-None of your family or friends stresses out on what to get you for Christmas.
-You never experience after Christmas blues because you are utilizing the LEGO sets you got at Christmas.
- You don't get odd looks when you buy a Friends set that has a really cool element that you need to finish your giant Gama ray gun.

Cons:
 -Unfortunately most non AFOLs think that LEGO is a toy, not an art medium, and asks you when you are going to grow up.



What happens when you cross a tight wad with a media nerd?
someone who sees the latest Hobbit movie at the 9 a.m. showing opening day.

This is not at all connected with the fact that I have been counting down the days till Battle of Five Armies is released :).

Merry Christmas!

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

The Battle of five armies airs today!

The last Middle Earth video in the foreseeable future airs today!

To celebrate this momentous event my favorite Hobbit Brother Hood workshop video is below.

Sunday, December 14, 2014

Do you know what Lord of the Rings is missing? Flying Horses!!!!


 Lord of the Rings has GMOd eagles GMOd bees, and superheroes that can shape shift from a bear to a human, but no flying horses. Frodo's journey would have been so much easier on the back of a Pegasus, because a flying horse can fly to areas that regular horses could not and hide on the ground when the Nazgul search for the ring when an eagle could not. Maybe that is why, the journey would be two easy for three books.
 

Friday, October 31, 2014

Happy reformation day?

You probably expected happy Halloween, but did you know that reformation day is celebrated the same day as Halloween? In addition to reformation day all saints day is celebrated November 1. To celebrate all these holidays I will post a build that is completely irrelevant to any of them.
 I am a huge fan of Mars Mission, so the new space miner in the minifig series was a pleasant surprise. If you are a fan of 2001 a Space Odyssey, the space miner helmet would be great for the space suits.
 I spent at least 20 minutes trying to photograph this MOC and It still came out fuzzy!
Off topic again. If you are wondering which type of candy to give to the Trick or Teater's buy Snickers. They are statistically the most popular candy. 

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Planetary Lander

I finally have submitted a project to LEGO Ideas. It is a small inexpensive planetary lander that is supposed to be more realistic than most space sets. Please support my project here.



Check out my riddle at my other blog. http://lirecomendations.blogspot.com/

Saturday, October 4, 2014

Excuse me! I BURPed

If you do not know, BURP stands for Big Ugly Rock Pieces. Their is a huge controversy on the subject of BURPS. Most ADFOLs do not recommend them because you can get more detail if you build it using plain bricks. If you are building on a budget like me, and always seem to run out of bricks because you cannot dissemble any of your MOCs then BURPs are a good investment. Here is a water fall I created using BURPs.
 

Disguising BURPs to make them less ugly is quite easy. All you need are earth toned cheese slopes and a few regular bricks. no one will no the difference. Alas I did not follow my own advice and because of which my BURPs are easily identified, so do NOT do this!

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Review: Mirkwood Elf Army + Improvements upon Set = First Post in Weeks!

I will first give the review for the Mirkwood Elf Army LEGO set .


Minifigs: The set comes with king Thranduil which is a unique minifigures to the set.
Pieces: Contains  brown and grey half arches which are always useful, a light gray microfigure that posses as a statue.
Accessories: The accessories are standard for this kind of set. i.e. a spear, sword bows and arrows, but I was happy that the set came with the Prince of Persia sword.
Build: The build is okay, containing a rotatable tree with a human catapult, and wall segments that detach so that you can buy multiple copies of the set and have a long wall.
I improved the set as seen below.



What started out as a small improvement project turned into a full scale build. Here is a list of all the features I changed: exchanged out some of the colors in the wall for more realistic one,  made the tree more realistic looking, took out the human catapult, added a bridge and arsenal, added a real catapult, added a bridge, Added water and a gate with a dwarf in a barrel, built a new section of wall, and took out the cheesy flick fire missile. this is probably one of the largest projects I have undertaken being so large that I could not photograph it without a busy background. In building the scene, I discovered that being a limited LEGO builder can have its benefits, such as when I was building the ground I did not have enough regular grey pieces to finish, so I used other grey bricks that where slopped. The result was a surface that looked rough and natural.   

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

New Blog!

After getting so many views on my LEGO Ideas support page, I have created my own blog specifically for recommending certain ideas. In order that you will not have to sift through many bad ideas before finding an idea worth supporting.
Click this link to see the  new blog http://lirecomendations.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

LEGO Ideas review

Eight projects were qualified during review. Each of the projects I was really hoping to pass, passed! I am really exited for all the projects, though I am most happy about the Wall-e (mostly because it is the only project I will be able to afford) and the Wayne Manor Assault. I am also happy about the more accurate version of the AT-AT. Check out the link below to see all the projects that passed.
https://ideas.lego.com/blogs/blog

Thursday, August 28, 2014

Jungle Ruin

 
 
I will not say much, except that this is of a jungle ruin being discovered by a man who is about to be killed by a snake. He is also not smart because it is just him and not an expedition crew.
 

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

I have always liked puzzles, whether math or jigsaw puzzles. This liking for puzzles has transferred into my MOCs. In fact the more spaceships and vehicles I build, the more complex they are getting. For example down below is an animation of probably one of the most complex MOCs that I have ever built.
 
 
I made an animation of my spacecraft in order that you could hopefully see more of the build and to get more practice animating. 

Monday, August 11, 2014

Batman VS Elf

With the advent of my new Batman set, I knew I wanted to make an animation. Down below is my second larger animation that I have produced.
 
The part on the roof was the hardest. Each frame took a minute to set up, which is why their are too few of them. Despite the long hours involved in creating an animation, it is worth it when you are done and can say, "I did this."

Shhhhhhhhhh!

In 2012 LEGO released the Dino line of sets. The whole story is that dinosaurs have escaped and were approaching the city. The Dino team's goal was to catch all the dinosaurs and return them deep into the jungle. The picture below is of a Dino team member looking for the Dinosaur while the dinosaur is about ready to squash him in a hard suit.  
 This is my first Bionicle/Hero Factory build. I originally tried making a mech using technic pieces for the arms and legs, while using system peices for the cockpit. That is when I discovered that merging technic and system is really hard when you are building on a budget. The end result was a failure, so I built a mech/hardsuit using a few system elements and the rest technic.   

I only work in black, but sometimes very dark grey, light gray, yellow, translucent orange, and a little bit of blue

I just bought the man-bat attack LEGO set. The build is rather simple and easy, and did not have any cool looking parts to it. In fact the windshield does not cover the whole spaceship, and it is so low that batman can not sit up. For me it was a good buy because of the man-bat and batman minifigure, harpoons, windshield and tail, because I do not own any batman sets. It came with a surprisingly low amount of pieces for the price. The redeeming features of this set are the grappling hook (I think that this is one of the only current sets that has grappling hooks) and the man-bat minifigure because of his wings. Here is a picture of the set.
 
 
Overall I think that LEGO could have done a much better job at designing this set, but if you want grappling hooks and minifigure-arm wings, this is the set to buy.
 
 
 

Saturday, August 9, 2014

Island experiment


A while ago, I did a building experiment. In the experiment I started out building an island. I then built a raft using miscellaneous pieces that my character was drifting on. Like his space ship had sunk in the ocean. I then used all of those pieces that where on the raft and built an island shelter. Below is my experiment.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The palm tree I built, was created long before I knew what I wanted to do with it. This happens rather often, an inspiration will strike for a plant or some sort of mechanism. I build whatever it was that I had an inspiration for and put it in a box specifically for builds that I have no use for currently. I do this because when I build something like an island, I do not have to spend time figuring out how to build a palm tree. I suggest doing this, because it will save you a lot of time and effort.
 


Friday, August 8, 2014

Good morning planet!

This is a picture of my avatar in his bedroom, complete with  a folding bed, window flowers, chainsaws, and an arsenal of weapons. No need to worry about burglars. 
 
I was experimenting with different lighting techniques to make it look like morning. I ended up placing a desk lamp sideways pointing into the building. When making a model keep in mind that functionality and playability are not the only aspects to worry about. Photography is also a very important aspect of the build, because it can turn a good build into a great build.   

Thursday, August 7, 2014

Why Elves don't like Orcs

The feud between Elves and Orcs originated in the first age when the Elves invited the Orcs over. During the stay, the Elves electricity bill was high due to the increase of vacuuming. 
 
I built the vacuum cleaner first and wanted to build a vignette using the wood-like pieces for floor. After realizing that I did not have enough light brown pieces to complete the floor, I used the dark brown bricks to so that I could make the floor long enough and represent dirt. This is one of the advantages of being a limited LEGO builder, because you are sometimes forced to be creative which can make the product turn out better then if you had almost unlimited LEGO bricks.
 

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

One peice build

 

One peice type builds have always fascinated me. I was playing with these treads when the idea stuck me to make a one type peice build of a worm (originally a snake but it turned out to be a worm).  
  
I suggest trying building a one peice build, because it is very gratifying and you have to be really creative if you want to make a good build.

Got road rage?

I build so many vehicles and structures that have weapons attached to them, that if you lived in the world of my MOCs you would definitely need this to transverse any distance. If you did not want to be destroyed. 

 

It took me a while to get all the pieces configured right so that it would have a nice look to it. The hardest part about building this was the back wheels. I tried many different back wheels before I came up with using the 2 x 2 round plates.

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Nuclear bazooka anyone?

 
 
When I came up with the idea for a nuclear bazooka, I knew that I had to build one out of LEGO just because the idea was so ridiculous. You would kill yourself in the process unless you shot it out of an airplane.
 
 
If this where actually sold in stores, you would see a significant decrease in crime and population. Remember, "Do not aim at eyes or face."
 

 

 
Ever since I got my first LEGO frog, I have been wanting to make a vehicle for it. After a few failed attempts I created this frog speeder.
The main peice is a Hero Factory chest plate and the guns that act as engines fit quit nicely in the shoulder part of the armor without needing to add any extra pieces. The idea is of course too impractical because frogs have to almost continually be in a lake or river and cannot stay out of water for too long.

Monday, August 4, 2014

Shell LEGO partnership good?

A big outcry has been raised at LEGO for partnering with Shell saying that Shell seemingly encourages bad environmental practices and that Shell is polluting the environment. Below is the popular Everything is not AWESOME. You probably all have seen it.
 
The plastic that LEGO uses is rather hard and complicate process to make, so here it is. The plastic that LEGO uses starts out as oil and natural gas. The raw materials are then transformed into hydrocarbon monomers. This polymer plastic is then placed in a mold and injected with air. This process is called injection molding. It is very high quality, but is only high quality because of the natural gas and oil made by shell, so their is no way to produce high quality LEGO bricks without using oil and gas. In oil drilling their is always a chance of an oil spill. The arctic contains about 240 species of fish while the Gulf of Mexico contains about 1114 species of fish, this means that in the case of an oil spill more fish would be affected if Shell drilled in the Gulf of Mexico than in the Arctic. As for polluting the environment Shell produced 73 million tons of CO2 in 2013. Every year volcanoes produce about quarter billion tons of carbon dioxide, and that is not counting all of the them. scientists have only accurately measured about 33 volcanoes, that is only 20% of all the active volcanoes. I hope I adequately explained why LEGO's partnership with Shell is good.  

Saturday, July 26, 2014

 
I tried making a LEGO animation, because to be a good LEGO builder, one must try all the different building categories. This is a silent animation and took me more time than I care to tell. It is about a small group of nights trying to retake an old outpost of the good guys. A rather basic plot, but I have to start somewhere, right?
 
 
 
If you do not like spending lots of time, precariously making your character move ever so slightly, then stop motion is not for you. Their is something rewarding about investing lots of time into stop motion, and look at the final result, saying "I did this" or for me, "I did not know that thrones could move" . I built the castle a long time ago, around Christmas, with no intention of using it for stop motion, so when I looked around at my MOCs. I spotted the castle as a great stop motion set. A friend came over and did the throne room background.  

 
 

Happy Belated 4th of July

 
Yay! blogger is working again! Here is the flag over fort McHenry. 
During the war of 1812 the American general that was stationed at fort McHenry ordered that a large flag to be made, so that the British would not have any trouble seeing. The fort withstood the attack of the British and so did the flag.  
 
 

One of the advantages about making a build that is only for a picture is that you can use any shape of peice as long as one side is what you want. I used this technique in building the flag. If you were to look at the back of the flag, you would see miss matching pieces that did not look anything like what you see in the picture above. I built the whole flag up-side-down because in order to use the SNOT that would create the blue part of the flag, a little bit of the SNOT would be showing, making it look ugly.
Happy 4th of July!   

Thursday, July 24, 2014


I have not posted in a while because their is a bug and I cannot post a photo, and what is a LEGO blog without pictures?

Saturday, June 14, 2014

Classic Space

This is another build that was created when I first started to build realistically. This is probably the only classic space build you are going to see on this blog. 
You may be wondering how I have builds that I built a year ago. The reason why is that it is very painful for me disassemble a build that took me hours to create. What I do when I need pieces, instead of taking apart my build, I do what I call harvesting. Harvesting is simply taking the parts that you need from your current builds instead of demolishing the whole build. To make sure that the pieces I harvest are not going to waste on a worse build than the one I am harvesting the pieces from, I  build the model in rainbow worrier style, and then I take the pieces I need.

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

LEGO Batman 3

LEGO Batman 3 Beyond Gotham has been announced to come out the fall of 2014. One of the aspects that I do not like about LEGO games is that once you have played one the rest are the same but with different settings. I am happy with it because it is in space and most of the LEGO games are on earth or Middle-earth except for LEGO Star Wars but that does not really count.

Classic space microfigure commuter vehcile + guns?

When building just for looks and not for playability their are options available that one does not often think about. For example, do the pieces actually have to "stick" together. I the MOC below the windshield piece is resting on a tire that the mircrofigure is squeezed into.

  
 
Of course none of my MOCs are completed without the guns except for some of my medieval and commuter vehicle MOCs.  


Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Review: Rocka Sealth machine

When I first saw the "Invasion from Below" series, I wanted to buy one of the sets. One of the reasons why was that the pieces were not so unique that you could only use it in the model that you buy, as is the case with many a Hero Factory set. Another reason is that I did not own a single Bionicle or Hero Factory set, so I wanted the parts for making larger mechs.  Their were other sets I wanted to purchase before I got a Hero Factory set but when I saw the add for "buy 1 get 1 free all Here factory sets" I knew my chance had arrived so I purchased the set you see below.
Here are the pros and cons of this set.
 
Pros
 
-  Good piece to parts ratio for Hero Factory
-  Translucent green parts.
- Nice for playing and displaying
- Hero Factory hero that is built using a variety of useful and cool pieces. 
 
Cons
 
- The leg joints are week causing the mech to fall over.
 
Overall I this set is a very good set to buy for many reasons. Almost all the parts are useful for a variety of builds except the cockpit piece.   
 
 
 

Friday, May 16, 2014

Out-of-Praportions Hard Suit

After I finished building this hard suit, I just laughed. The proportions are all wrong for this hard suit, the torso is cone-shaped when it is typically a funnel shape, the left arm is too big, and to top it off (or maybe bottom it off) instead of large legs, which are normally attributed to a hard suit with a torso that big, their are tiny stick legs. 
When I originally created this build, it did not look like what you see above. The legs, arms, and a few parts of the torso are leftovers from what I originally built. To give the arms more maneuverability  I used a technique where you take a small ball joint piece and place it between two parallel clips to form a ball joint. The ball joint that was created was very week and could not support the left arm of the hard suit. After the original model broke, I rebuilt it to what you see above. I then got a LEGO Mixel and replaced the ball joint. Now the new ball joint can easily withhold the weight of the right arm. This is one of the many applications that the ball joints, found in the Mixels, can be used for.

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Dino: Got guns?

When I bought this Dino vehicle, It originally had a noose with a turkey leg on it to lure the dinosaur into the noose. I thought that the idea was rather silly, and I could not really use it in my collection. The original set looked like this:
 
As you can see, the set lacked the guns that is typical of my LEGO collection. So, I did a couple of improvements.

One of the things that I like about LEGO, is that if you are discontent with a set you buy, you can just upgrade it. If you want to upgrade a set that you bought, I found that to make the improvement look like it belongs on the set, you have to keep with the style and color of the build. This can some times be challenging but the results are well worth your time.

Mars Mission

My favorite series that LEGO has produced is Mars Mission. I fell in love with the series the first time I saw it because of the cool ship designs. Unfortunately, LEGO stopped producing Mars Mission LEGO sets in 2011. The build below is supposed to be in the Mars Mission theme, but is completely my own creation.   
 
 

 
Ever since I discovered LEGO's unlimited potential, I wanted to build a Mars Mission themed build. After making several unsuccessful attempts at building a Mars Mission vehicle, I decided to give it a break. Finally, a couple months ago I picked up the challenge again and built the vehicle pictured above.  
 




Tuesday, May 13, 2014

LEGO Viper

Most of the space builds I see, are of nice clean-looking spaceships that look like they have never been flown. What about those spaceships who have travelled the cosmos and as a result are discolored and worn out? In this build I tried to make a viper (a type of spaceship) that looks like it has traveled all over the cosmos.
 
 
One of the lessons that I have learned being a limited LEGO builder is that normally it is hard to find enough pieces of the same color or two colors to complete a build. When confronted with this problem, I found out that making the model worn down and discolored can not only give the build a realistic touch, it also increases the amount of piece colors you can use.   

Monday, May 12, 2014

Brotherhood Workshop

A great LEGO animation studio is the brotherhood workshop. It has a lot of funny LEGO animated videos. I like how they make the animation look smooth. Here is probably one of my favorite videos
I disagree with making fun of blonds, but it is funny in the short. Here is the link for the Brotherhood Workshop https://www.youtube.com/user/BrotherhoodWorkshop

Spaceship or flying boat?

 
 
A couple of posts ago, I said that whenever I tried to construct a spaceship it always turned out to be something other than a spaceship. Today I am displaying another result of such a twist in fate, but I cannot figure out if this is a spaceship of a flying boat. Tell what you think it is in the comments below.
 
When I constructed it, I designed it on paper and traveled to the Bricks and Minifigs, a store that sells assorted LEGO in mass quantities, and purchased the pieces that I did not already have on hand. Unfortunately, the Bricks and Minifigs did not have the right pieces, so I had to improvise.

Hummingbird

When I bought Wild Style from the LEGO Movie minifigure series, I knew I had to use the fan for the end of a bird. After Several unsuccessful attempts, I created the hummingbird that is pictured below 

 
The birds wings are the wings of a Mosquitoid from LEGO Galaxy Squad. 

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Happy Mother's Day!!!

 
Thank you mothers'!   
 
Than you mothers' for raising us up in a dangerous world
 

You cannot see it well in this picture, but I used my avatar for the kid and replaced the regular sized legs with short legs.

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

War of the bricks

 
A couple of minifigure series ago, there was a British spy that had a suitcase and was holding a copy of The Financial Times. I thought it would be fun to change the ending of the famous book War of the Worlds. Where instead of the aliens dying from bacteria, they are slaughtered by the British spy found in the minifigure series with his gun that folds out of his suitcase.   

Created the legs first before I thought about making an alien. I did not know what to use the legs for, until it dawned on me that I could make a scene from War of the Worlds and the legs could be the alien. The rest of the build fell into place. When I build, I normally create some obscure part of the build first and then create the whole build around it.

A space-like spaceship

 
When I build spaceships they normally look like they are for atmospheric travel and not fighting in space. In today's build I created a spaceship that looks like it belongs in space, and, as always, it is armed.
 
 
 
 Spaceship in landing position
 
Spaceship in flight


Spaceship in battle mode

Monday, May 5, 2014

The commuter vehicle of the future

 
Most of my MOCs and builds are normally loaded with guns and weapons, but this build is for a time when one must travel large distances in space to get to ones work. This commuter car can transform from its flight mode to landing mode as pictured below.
Flight mode

Landing mode
 
 


Sunday, May 4, 2014

May the 4th be with you

I like puns and I like Star Wars. What a better way to celebrate those two likes then on May 4th.
here is a random picture off the internet of a Star Wars themed build to celebrate this day.
 
I hope that Star Wars episode VII will be released May 4th, though it probably will not.

Saturday, May 3, 2014

What should have happened to Gandalf

 
In the scene from the move The Two Towers, when Gandalf is fighting the Balrog while falling through air, I wondered why didn't the Balrog just use his wings and cremate Gandalf? I demonstrated what should have happened, in this build by displaying the skeleton of Gandalf surrounded by flames.  
I know that it is recommended to not use BURPs (Big Ugly Rock Pieces) but when you are a limited LEGO builder you have to be resourceful. A very important aspect to a LEGO creation is how the picture is taken. I have seen builds which look amazing only because of how they are photographed. I have found that using a sheet of paper can give the blank background that is sometimes desired, but when you want to take a picture having a black background it is a lot harder. Black backgrounds are hard to create because, if you use cloth or any material that is not stiff, you have to adjust the lighting so that the folds are hidden. When I photographed this scene I used a piece of black cloth and had to turn off all the lights in the room except for the desk light that I focused on the diorama. Using a black background has its advantages too. If you use a black background and have the proper lighting you can focus on the subject more and hide parts of your build that you would not like to have shown. Using black backgrounds takes more work and time to set up than white backgrounds but the end result is normally worth it. 


LEGO Hishe

I normally do not post any videos but this one on what happens after the LEGO movie is hilarious.
I always wondered how the master builders/superheroes could just be taken without a fight.

Thursday, May 1, 2014

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Unintended results

When I want to build a micro spaceship in LEGO I hardly ever create a micro spaceship. Instead I create a minotaur's head or a boat or something non-space like. This bird is an example of such unintended result.
I started out with wanting to make a micro spaceship, but when I saw how it was looking like a birds head, I added feet, eyes, and some finishing touches to make it look more bird-like. because of this problem, you probably will not see many micro spaceships on this blog that I have built.

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

 
When I built this truck, I had just bought my first pick-a-brick cup and was experimenting with different patterns, and as result I created a missile-launching-truck. 
 
I like the pick-a-brick method of obtaining LEGO because you can get mass quantities of the same LEGO piece and experiment with them, unlike buying a set and only having a small amount of the same piece.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Rock Monster Mech

When the LEGO Power Miner  series came out I wondered why the humans got all the cool technology and the rock monsters only got a catapult. Yes, I know the rock monsters were strong, but it was not as fun to play with them. To compensate for the rock monsters lack of technology, I created a rock monster mech. Now the rock monsters have better equipment.
 This is what I like about building on a more professional level. I can create new models to go with my current collection instead of having to wait till I have enough saved to buy the latest LEGO product.

Monday, April 21, 2014

The LEGO Movie

You probably have all seen The LEGO Movie (if you have not then you really should see it). It will finally come out on DVD June 17. I cannot wait for it to come out!!!!!
  
The LEGO Movie 2 is planned to come out around 2017 but with different directors. I hope they do not ruin the LEGO Movie.