I love monochromatic LEGO creations

Army Men
Originally uploaded by "Orion Pax"

While so many LEGO builders fall all over themselves to add details to their creations while uttering words like 'scale', 'realism' and 'scale' Orion Pax has decided to just play around with his green bricks. Everyone who wanted to buy a bunch of the green army men from the Toy Story line had thoughts that they would build a MOC of this type. Well, maybe not everyone. There is a section of LEGO fans that have been labeled as WWIItards because they browse Wikipedia and build machines and weapons from that era while cut and pasting encyclopedia pages. Do kids study WWII in school anymore or do they learn about the Gulf war now? I digress though.

Again, I'm blogging a MOC and I don't want to talk about technique or colour blocking or some of the various other things the artsy builders go on about. You decide what you like about it. Me? I just think it's just good old green army men fun with a capital L.

Make sure you check out the rest of the pictures too!

Republic Gunship

Republic Gunship
Originally uploaded by \/\//\R |_[]R[)

The Republic Gunship is easily one of my favorite ship/aircraft from the Star Wars saga. This MOC is easily one of my favorite renditions of the ship. Why do I like it? It's clean, it's a good scale, it's full of really nice angles that follow the source quite well but most of all...it seems to follow right along with a couple of my own failed attempts to build my own. Eerily so. I never tried to do the green potion like this fellow or use those 1x4 studless slopes but quite a bit of it looks like something I tried to build but gave up on. The 1x3 wedges on the side of the fuselage was something that hung me up as did the curvature on the upper hull. My fault, as I see it now looking at this, was trying to uses so many of the older round bricks like the 2x2 'macaroni bricks' or the 1x4x1 1/3 curved top bricks or even the 1x2x6 arch bricks. Those all looked pretty good but I always felt like I would be settling by using any combination of them. Never mind trying to find a decent hinging point that would allow upper fuselage to sit on those snotted wedges properly with a decent structure. Yes, structure is extremely important to me. Well done Warrior, well done indeed.

Castle Belisaere

Castle Belisaere
Originally uploaded by \/\//\R |_[]R[)

This is very nice. It's deceptivly small, it seems much larger than it really is. The roof is made of wonderful angles. The large SNOTted tiles are different than we're used to. The arrow loops and rockery are nothing new but nonetheless are a nice touch but, those fish. Those fish are that touch that really bring a MOC to life.

Tank Battle - Overview

Tank Battle - Overview
Originally uploaded by BMW_Indy

Yeah yeah the fire and smoke are really neat (read: very awesome), but I won't go on about that. What really caught my eye was the base you put this on! Useless parts? I've had a few of those bumpers laying around for a few years now, knowing that there is a use for them outside of hovercraft but not knowing what that use is. Now I know. The base makes this diorama for me because it makes it looks so finished which is something a lot of MOCs are lacking in and we didn't know it until we see something like this.
Thanks Brian, now I'm going to go build a base like this and I figure out later what I'll put on top of it!

This takes all the angry out of me

A use for the semi-circles...
Originally uploaded by eilonwy77

I hate when words fail me but I really love this. Every now and then a development comes along in the LEGO castle genre that become one of those accepted ways of building. A standard to reach for if you will. In the past, castle builders had to stack up trans-coloured brick or plate to achieve a stained glass effect but then along came the idea of a SNOT mosaic. The mosaic technique made it easier to create a recognisable design but it was never really that stable.

Cheese slope cubes are not a new idea and now thanks to a few builders, we get to peruse through a myriad of geometric designs that push the boundaries of what you should be able to do with little plastic blocks that supposedly connect to each other in millions of different ways.

I have asked eilonwy how stable this is. Sometimes a construction with so many friction connections can be prone to crumbling when you move it or constantly having certain pieces falling out. Frustrating. I think this idea is so worthy and is such a progressive idea for castle/stained glass that if it did indeed have such structural problems, I'd find a non-purist way to fix it.
Simply put.....clear packing tape on one side. I'm a bit of a cheater like that sometimes though.

'Netiquette, forum posting, feedback and you.

Hi, your friendly neighborhood 'Big Brother' here. Yesterday on Classic-castle, I went back in time to 1984. http://www.classic-castle.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=19452

I've never said (and actually meant) that all of my thoughts and ideas are good ones but there are times when an inane question needs to be asked. Communities stagnate without stimulation. Sometimes needs a threat to make it wake up. People hate change and sometimes you need to threaten the status-quo. Combine that with some form of the good old 'these n00bs gotta learn' hate comment and it can be like setting a match to kindling.

I feel as though I could go on and on and on about this topic but I fear that my thoughts will become disorganised very quickly because it's early in the morning and I should probably be getting ready for work.

Still, the underlying issue of that forum thread is this: What is proper communication on a LEGO community forum?
Do you understand the rules of your community?
Do you know the unwritten rules?
Do you really have a firm grasp of how you come off to others?
Do you say what you mean and mean what you say?
Do you understand that a 'winky' emoticon is not a get out of jail free card, meaning you don't get to say mean things in the name of humour or sarcasm?
Do you know when to stand and fight or when to back away?

Before I continue I'll let you ponder these questions. So will I, even though I'm pretty confident in who I am and what I usually say it's a good thing to take a step back now and then and quietly review oneself.

There's always one.

There's always one.
Originally uploaded by Trevor Van Aalst

When the collectible minifigs were announced I was extactic that there was a cheerleader in the assortment. She's easily the foxiest minifig ever made and the first one I opened was instantly named 'Debbie'. Now that I have enough to make myself an entire squad I was adding different head/hair combinations for variety. I spent about two seconds thinking back to the cheerleader team from my high school....where there were actually three or four.....

LEGO brand retail store in Calgary.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention this tidbit. Last month LEGO opened their first retail store in Canada and it just happens to be about half an hour from my house. Apparently they chose Calgary because the city buys the most LEGO per ca pita of all the cites in Canada. It sounds like the company is pleasantly surprised by sales so we can only expect more stores to open around the country in the coming months and years.

To license or not to license. Part I

There really is no question. We have all heard the stories that The LEGO Group was so so far into the red by the end of the last century* that they were near to going into receivership**. Today I'm going to start a discussion about the pros and cons of LEGO getting into relationships with other properties which started just 10 years ago with LEGO Star Wars***.
Many FOL's disagree with the myriad licensed properties that LEGO have attached themselves to; some have valid reasons and some have reasons as silly as they didn't get what they wanted coughLord of thecoughRingscough.

Now I've taken 45 minutes getting my kids tucked away into bed and have totally lost my train of thought it must be a good time to end part one. Besides, it's late and I don't feel like doing any of the back and forth posting of links and such. I'll get to it soon enough.


* I like to use that phrase, it feels so nice and old school.
** Not a fact, purely a statement based on rumour.
*** Not really, many don't make a fuss over TLG's longtime relationship with companies like Shell Oil and Ferrari because it's not something that affects them on a personal level.