Thursday, June 12, 2014
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Monday, May 12, 2014
Thursday, May 8, 2014
Saturday, May 3, 2014
More Melo round 1
More selected entries from MELO Round 1, again illustrating riddles from the Hobbit riddle game.
Matthew B's Bilbo Fishing illustrated the fish riddle, and brought him on to round 2.
David FNJ showed us wind, and went on to the next round.
Finn Tegotash advanced with Dark, showing Radagast's glimpse of the Necromancer.
Time all things devours, including, sadly Arwen. Stuart Lucas' Arwen's sepulchre was a lovely MOC, and also an alternate build of the Elrond's Council set, but sadly did not quite make the cut for round 2.
Matthew B's Bilbo Fishing illustrated the fish riddle, and brought him on to round 2.
David FNJ showed us wind, and went on to the next round.
Finn Tegotash advanced with Dark, showing Radagast's glimpse of the Necromancer.
Time all things devours, including, sadly Arwen. Stuart Lucas' Arwen's sepulchre was a lovely MOC, and also an alternate build of the Elrond's Council set, but sadly did not quite make the cut for round 2.
Friday, May 2, 2014
MELO Round 1, Dark and Mountain
Four more from round 1 of the MELO:
Legopard's Fire and Water was his way to illustrate 'dark'. He argues that Smaug's attack happened at night, and brought metaphoric darkness into the lives of Lake-Town. That's quite the stretch, but it's an awesome MOC and earned him a spot in Round 2.
Jacob Pennington took a more literal take on dark with the Mines of Moria. A great MOC, but it just missed the cut to go on to the next round.
Elliott Feldman's Mount Doom is his take on the mountain riddle. Another really nice MOc that went on to round 2.
Lee Muzzy also made a mountain for the Goblin Caves. He even includes Gollum's cave inside, and went on to round 2.
Legopard's Fire and Water was his way to illustrate 'dark'. He argues that Smaug's attack happened at night, and brought metaphoric darkness into the lives of Lake-Town. That's quite the stretch, but it's an awesome MOC and earned him a spot in Round 2.
Jacob Pennington took a more literal take on dark with the Mines of Moria. A great MOC, but it just missed the cut to go on to the next round.
Elliott Feldman's Mount Doom is his take on the mountain riddle. Another really nice MOc that went on to round 2.
Lee Muzzy also made a mountain for the Goblin Caves. He even includes Gollum's cave inside, and went on to round 2.
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
More MELO round 1
Friday, April 25, 2014
MELO Round 1
Okay, I've been really remiss in not focusing much on the Middle Earth LEGO Olympics, or MELO, which started in late 2013 and led into the first part of this year. The first round was wide open, and anyone was invited to build creations based on the Riddles in the Dark. There were 68 initial entries, the top 32 went into a single-elimination tournament. I can't focus on all of the round 1 entries, so I'll pick out a few of my favorites over the next few days.
Alive without breath. David Alexander Smith brings his unique silhouette/woodcut style to Fish.
A box without hinges. Aaron L unfortunately did not advance with his scene of a young Smeagol teaching his grandmother to suck eggs, but I like his take on a hobbit-hole.
Grant Davis got one of the highest scores and easily advanced with his Lothlorien. He took a little bit of liberty with the egg riddle - his take is the golden wood is the golden treasure, and there's no lid on a forest. Whatever - it's an awesome MOC.
Finally for today, David Hensel had one of the other highest scores with his Dark of Mirkwood - Radagast's home as an interpretation of Dark.
Alive without breath. David Alexander Smith brings his unique silhouette/woodcut style to Fish.
A box without hinges. Aaron L unfortunately did not advance with his scene of a young Smeagol teaching his grandmother to suck eggs, but I like his take on a hobbit-hole.
Grant Davis got one of the highest scores and easily advanced with his Lothlorien. He took a little bit of liberty with the egg riddle - his take is the golden wood is the golden treasure, and there's no lid on a forest. Whatever - it's an awesome MOC.
Finally for today, David Hensel had one of the other highest scores with his Dark of Mirkwood - Radagast's home as an interpretation of Dark.
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Saturday, April 12, 2014
Sunday, April 6, 2014
Friday, March 28, 2014
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Monday, March 24, 2014
Battle of Helm's Deep
Ivanstorm2 just emerged from his dark age, and his first MOC in fifteen years is this amazing expansion of Helm's Deep.
Monday, March 17, 2014
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Sunday, January 19, 2014
Friday, January 17, 2014
Sauron
I have to apologize for my general blogging malaise for the past month. In the meantime, the Middle Earth LEGO Olympics has been inspiring tons of great builds, such as Legonardo Davidy's terrifying Sauron.
Thursday, December 26, 2013
At the end off all things
I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. It's appropriate to consider endings as we come to the end of the year, and Disco86 built At the end off all things.
Monday, December 23, 2013
Book Review: Big Unofficial LEGO Builder's Book
The Big Unofficial LEGO Builder's Book by Joachim klang and Oliver Albrecht, 2012, HEEL Verlag GmbH
Please note that I'm posting this same review across all my blogs, but I'm appending some blog-specific information at the end of each one.
Okay, this one is a year old, but I just got it from the library and figured I'd add to my series of reviews. Oliver Albrecht (aka *Olly*) and Joe Klang (aka -derjoe-) built The Big Unofficial LEGO Builder's Book, subtitled 'Build your own city'. As the name implies, this is all about building in the city theme. Really, though, it is mostly about vehicles, so a more accurate subtitle would have been something like 'Driving around the city'.
The book opens with a few pages of text, providing some definitions and acronyms that AFOLs use, urls to a few important community websites (of course it's always problematic which ones to choose), and a short tutorial on SNOT building. One thing really bothered me. On page 14 when they are discussing making balls, they write "A variety of solutions circulate in the LEGO forums around the world; here is ours:", and then they give exactly the instructions for the Lowell sphere. I'm not saying that there is ownership of LEGO building techniques, and you need to give credit when you build anything, since almost every technique has been done before. But don't specifically say "Here is my design", and then give someone else's design.
That quibble aside, the book quickly moves into it's main focus, directions to build city-themed MOCs, mostly cars and trucks. The first half of the book is devoted to microscale. There are 22 cars and trucks, all built at 2-wide, with 5-plate-high people. I like that they do wheels a few different ways, which lends some variety to your microscale world. They also show how you can take the same basic car design, and by varying up the colors and switching out a few parts you can get a lot of different vehicles. They also include directions for a couple of buildings, a tree, a helicopter and a plane. The designs are all well done. They are fairly simple, since micro cars are necessarily only a small number of parts, probably appropriate for intermediate builders. The instructions are very clear in LDRAW and in full color, and include parts lists. Interspersed with the directions, they have photographs of a large microscale city layout, incorporating all of the different designs in the book. The layout is great, and I would have loved to see even more of this.
In the last ~40% of the book they focus on minifig scale. A cab, a Ferrari, a convertable, a truck, and a helicopter are all built at a six-wide scale. Again, the instructions are done in LDRAW, full color, with parts lists. These models are more for intermediate to advanced builders, and the results are really good (especially the truck). There are a few photos of the completed models, but mostly just the vehicles on simple bases (there is one with a house) rather than set into a larger layout. While I liked the minifig scale vehicles, I really thought these should have been in a separate book, and left this book just at microscale.
I thought this book turned out really well. The models were great, and now I want to go build more micro city MOCs. I note that the same builders have been busy, with the previously noted Joe's Garage: Build your own LEGO Vehicles by Klang, and Build your own Galaxy along with Lutz Uhlmann and Tim Bischoff.
Blog-specific content - There is none.
Please note that I'm posting this same review across all my blogs, but I'm appending some blog-specific information at the end of each one.
Okay, this one is a year old, but I just got it from the library and figured I'd add to my series of reviews. Oliver Albrecht (aka *Olly*) and Joe Klang (aka -derjoe-) built The Big Unofficial LEGO Builder's Book, subtitled 'Build your own city'. As the name implies, this is all about building in the city theme. Really, though, it is mostly about vehicles, so a more accurate subtitle would have been something like 'Driving around the city'.
The book opens with a few pages of text, providing some definitions and acronyms that AFOLs use, urls to a few important community websites (of course it's always problematic which ones to choose), and a short tutorial on SNOT building. One thing really bothered me. On page 14 when they are discussing making balls, they write "A variety of solutions circulate in the LEGO forums around the world; here is ours:", and then they give exactly the instructions for the Lowell sphere. I'm not saying that there is ownership of LEGO building techniques, and you need to give credit when you build anything, since almost every technique has been done before. But don't specifically say "Here is my design", and then give someone else's design.
That quibble aside, the book quickly moves into it's main focus, directions to build city-themed MOCs, mostly cars and trucks. The first half of the book is devoted to microscale. There are 22 cars and trucks, all built at 2-wide, with 5-plate-high people. I like that they do wheels a few different ways, which lends some variety to your microscale world. They also show how you can take the same basic car design, and by varying up the colors and switching out a few parts you can get a lot of different vehicles. They also include directions for a couple of buildings, a tree, a helicopter and a plane. The designs are all well done. They are fairly simple, since micro cars are necessarily only a small number of parts, probably appropriate for intermediate builders. The instructions are very clear in LDRAW and in full color, and include parts lists. Interspersed with the directions, they have photographs of a large microscale city layout, incorporating all of the different designs in the book. The layout is great, and I would have loved to see even more of this.
In the last ~40% of the book they focus on minifig scale. A cab, a Ferrari, a convertable, a truck, and a helicopter are all built at a six-wide scale. Again, the instructions are done in LDRAW, full color, with parts lists. These models are more for intermediate to advanced builders, and the results are really good (especially the truck). There are a few photos of the completed models, but mostly just the vehicles on simple bases (there is one with a house) rather than set into a larger layout. While I liked the minifig scale vehicles, I really thought these should have been in a separate book, and left this book just at microscale.
I thought this book turned out really well. The models were great, and now I want to go build more micro city MOCs. I note that the same builders have been busy, with the previously noted Joe's Garage: Build your own LEGO Vehicles by Klang, and Build your own Galaxy along with Lutz Uhlmann and Tim Bischoff.
Blog-specific content - There is none.
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