TheOneVeyronian

Your custom parts continue to impress me Leewan. I don't know how I managed to miss your last update here though! But that bow has got to be the most original and coolest of all your parts. I'd buy that in a heartbeat... well when Shapeways next run a free shipping offer anyway I've been using Leewan's custom articulated hands on my custom action figures for a couple of years now and I don't know what I'd do without them anymore. They've become loose with age and quite frequent use but they've otherwise held up really well. They were a bit robotic for my action figures so I actually bothered to learn Sculptris and Blender and create some alternate clawed tips for the articulated hands. Here's one of my custom action figures sporting Leewan's articulated hands with my claw add-ons: (urgh why is it so hard to insert non-Flickr pics into EB posts these days? Yes the head is also a 3D printed CCBS-compatible part complete with ballcup (credit to Leewan for letting me use his ballcup file for it)... but the focus is the hands ) Actually, @Leewan, since I posted here about your custom hands, what happened to all your articulated hand options on Shapeways? I bought a pair from your store a couple of months ago, I had no problems with them and now I can't find any of them? All I can find is the individual parts which add up to something way way over the £15 I was paying for the complete five fingered large hand kit. Trouble is... as my custom action figure army grows, I will probably need more sets of these hands! (also will some of those parts you put in your last update be available in your Shapeways shop at some point? Just curious)

My current profile picture is of one of my original characters, an anthropomorphised Bugatti Veyron (which I call Veyronians, which explains my odd username!) named Vladimir Veyron. He's been my go-to face for various forums since 2013, the avatar has taken various forms from minifigure to Constraction figure to illustration, but this latest version of him I painted a couple of months ago (I have a full version of the art on my Deviantart page). Sometimes I change my profile pic to various characters from the trading card game Magic: The Gathering that I like. No idea why

I'm actually pleasantly surprised it's the same price as Jestro's Volcano Lair (ignoring the fact that the RRP of that was £99.99 last year), especially since Knighton Castle has more pieces and appears to be bigger than Jestro's Volcano Lair. Still, will probably wait for a significant discount on it. And the Rock Climber is £49.99? That's a steal Do you know how much The Heligoyle will be in the UK? I'm guessing it might be the same price as Axl's Rumble Maker, but now I'm hoping it might actually be cheaper.

The Summer Nexo Knights sets (along with a bunch of other stuff) are starting to trickle into stores around where I live, though their availability is strangely sporadic. My friend saw Aaron's Rock Climber in his local Smyths toystore while in my own local Smyths I was able to find Axl's Rumble Maker and The Stone Colossus of Ultimate Destruction and I can say the UK prices are relatively reasonable (£29.99 for the Rumble Maker and £59.99 for the Stone Colossus, and I think my friend said the Rock Climber was also £59.99). And in a supermarket I was able to find Macy's Bot Drop Dragon for £12.99. I bought the Bot Drop Dragon and built it last night, to be honest it's nothing terribly special. I was hoping that the bot drop function would have actually been a function rather than it just being the bot on a jetpack clipped to the dragon's belly which is difficult to remove without breaking. It's fairly similar to the Ninjago Cole's Dragon but it is a little bit bigger. but at the same time far less poseable. If anyone wants, I can take some pictures of it. I haven't spotted The Heligoyle or Knighton Castle "in the wild" yet but if anybody in the UK has managed to find either, I'd be curious to find out their UK prices, though I fear Knighton Castle might be something ridiculous like £130...

For anybody wondering where that image came from, I was the one who originally posted it on Google Plus Somebody on Google Plus also found a description of the book not long after I posted about it. Personally, I think it sounds like it could be a book that's just about Monstrox rather than a book full of monsters as the Book of Monsters was. Still, I will certainly be searching bookstores for it because I'm genuinely curious about what information there is in it. Plus, the Book of Monsters was basically an art book to me and I'm hoping that the Book of Monstrox will be similar.

I'm really liking these new sets, and there's definitely a lot of new pieces there that I'm sure I want lots of. Rogul's new leg piece is very ingenious, I hope we get that piece in more earthy colours as that would be perfect for figures of rock spirits and elementals. I'm especially liking the retail exclusive set, Lance's horse in that set is just so much better than the unwieldy Mecha Horse he got this year. Plus it looks like it'll be cheap (I'd be shocked if this cost more than sets like Infernox Captures the Queen) and it's full of the new parts from the gargoyle wings to the lighining bolts, always a plus. In fact, the only thing I'm disappointed with is the Nexo Powers, I thought they would all be new designs but some of them are simply recycled from this year's sets. Here's a point though: has anyone noticed that the golem in Clay's Falcon has the exact same name as the golem in Lance vs Lightning? They're both called out as Grimroc on the box despite looking completely different. Surely this would be a mistake, unless the big golems are collectively known as "the Grimroc"?

Ah, thanks very much for that. I thought it was for something like that, but I must admit I hadn't even noticed the Featured Topic sidebar in the portal until you mentioned it. I think it works well

At first, I wasn't a big fan of the upgraded forum, but I must say the more I explored it and the more it was changed, the more I began to like it. I echo the other user's feedback about the clear separation between pinned and regular topics, but otherwise, I think the admins have done a great job of ironing out the bugs and acting upon other's feedback. I look forward to seeing the re-implementation of forum theme banners, I must say I did miss those. One question I do have though, I've noticed a new star icon next to a couple of topics, it looks similar to the pinned topic icon. I might be missing something here but... what is it's purpose? At first I thought it was to denote topics mentioned in frontpage news, but that's not true of all the topics that are marked with a star icon (like, for example the MOC Ninjago Swamp City topic in the A&A forum). Nothing major, I'm just surprised nobody else has asked about it yet. Unless I'm missing something there too

For those in the UK that might still be looking for new BIONICLE content, I found the second issue of the BIONICLE magazine which has the Ekimu's Hawk set (the magazine calls it a hawk, not a falcon, which surprised me) at my local newsagent today (despite the fact it should have technically been released tomorrow). A bit surprised it still got released here, I was worried that it would have been pulled before it got here due to BIONICLE's abrupt end. I'm a bit sad that it will be the last new BIONICLE, perhaps even the last new non-licensed Constraction set that I'll have the pleasure of buying for the foreseeable future though.

Well, seeing as the Skull Villains have already hit the shops where I live, I figured I'd start an alternate builds topic for the skull villains. Well, why not? The Toa and the Protectors already have their respective ones. So feel free to share your modifications (actual or planned) of the Skull Villains (that is, Grinder, Scorpio, Basher, Slicer, Warrior and Lord of Skull Spiders) here, and give feedback to others who have posted their builds. I'll start off by sharing a modification that I've already made to Skull Scorpio: 70794 Skull Scorpio MOD by TheOneVeyronian, on Flickr Basically I've changed the legs entirely, gave him poseable legs (I would have liked them to be silver, but I didn't have enough of the Kaiju fins in silver to do that. And I'll be changing the grey bones to the new "bone" bones, I need to get some more first though), removed all the trans-neon orange in the model (aside from the brain stalk) and filled out a couple of areas. Oh, and I gave him a pincer mouth since I felt like his head really didn't give off a scorpion-y motif. The mask can indeed still be knocked off by pushing the brain stalk. So, let me know what you think, and what set revamp you would like to see next from me, and I look forward to seeing what everyone else can come up with

I love the black Scurrier in the diving helmet! I put Black Panther ears on one of my black Scurriers as an experiment and it looks surprisingly good if you ignore the silver striping - and you can still stick a flame piece into the top of it's head Might post a pic later when I get time. It makes the Scurrier look like it has horns. Also, if anyone has problems displaying ball Globlins, I find sticking a 1x1 plate on them is a very effective solution, so they can look where they're going and they won't roll off. Here's a pic I took a few days ago of my WIP lava monster army, 30+ Scurriers, 50+ ball Globlins and a fair few foot soldiers. Look closely and you might even see the Scurrier with Black Panther's ears. Note I have since received Jestro's Volcano Lair so this is already out of date

The more I think about this, I guess the more I'm accepting it. After all, £200+ extra a year for me to spend on other things is never bad. Though if LEGO don't come out with a replacement Constraction theme next year to run alongside the SW figures, I will really miss the excitement I got from discovering new and wonderful CCBS moulds and recolours in new sets most of all. Has anybody tried asking LEGO on Twitter if they even plan on giving Constraction a reasonable presence in 2017, outside of Star Wars? Just a simple yes/no question. I'd do it myself, but I don't have a Twitter account and neither do I want a Twitter account

I wouldn't have noticed this as all of my powers were at the same level (they had all been re-scanned the same number of times) before the update, so they all the same thick yellow border around them. But I've definitely noticed a significant decrease in the effectiveness of my Nexo Powers regardless. Nonetheless, the real problem I'm having alludes to the Robin's Workshop part that is supposed to level up your Nexo Powers, but the level-ups don't actually register when you do them. Here's a montage of screenshots with my annotations (which I provided LEGO customer service with) that should explain my issue better

I agree with you on all of this. Having had a few hours to mull the news over, I think I would have taken the news better if LEGO explained why they've pulled the line so early without giving us the final pieces of the puzzle. The need to know why things happen is part of my very nature, and it drives me crazy not having a reason why something has happened. Hopefully LEGO will at the very least put out a reason why BIONICLE was pulled. Furthermore, not knowing what the future holds for Constraction makes me worry, as I have probably already harped on about. I'd like to see Constraction continue to have presence in at least 2 themes, even if it's just Ninjago or Nexo Knights buildable figures to run alongside the Star Wars ones. Or if LEGO have any sense, I'm kind of hoping they make their own in-house Constraction theme and casually slip in a new head or mask-like mould that looks suspiciously similar to the MoUP. Well, one can dream can't they? Though part of me is tempted to just pack up my Constraction MOC stock and go, part of me is also wondering if I should go and grab more Storm Beasts in case that's the last time we ever get Dark Blue CCBS shells. Suddenly the rumours of limited distribution in the UK I heard about from Huw (from Brickset) make sense! I do get upset when a favourite collectable of mine is brought to an end. I found that when a popular trading card game called Chaotic came to an end (that had different circumstances but it still had quite a fallout), but I dealt with that by making my own expansions. Maybe it's time for me to make my own G2 Toa and villains for them to fight, then pretend they are sets But... there was one thing missing from my other post, and it's something more positive. I've got to say kudos to the LEGO designers for re-kindling my childhood passion for BIONICLE, you're all great people. And I seriously hope you've got another Constraction theme up your sleeve to compensate for the gaps that BIONICLE will leave, both on the shelves and in our hearts. Thank you!

I haven't actually lost any of my base shield scans (I still have 150+ available powers), just the levels I'd upgraded them to. So if you want to keep them at the levels you have them at (and hence keep their effectiveness), then my best recommendation is definitely to avoid the latest update. All that's new is Robin's Workshop (Lava Lands is still locked) and that itself seems to be broken (every time I restart, the prompts always direct me back to Robin's Workshop to craft gems, even though I've already crafted all the gems I had the resources to create), so you're not missing out on very much anyway. Aside from a new look loading screen that is I might try rescanning some Level 5 QR codes and see if I can restore the powers to the level I had them at, but if the whole leveled-up powers infrastructure was changed to work with Robin's Workshop instead, I doubt it'll work. Even if it does work, it'll take several days to restore them. Hopefully LEGO will acknowledge it's a bug and issue a patch update to fix it; or if there isn't a bug, LEGO can tell me what I'm doing wrong. Either way, I probably won't get an answer from them for a few days, Friday afternoon is always the worst time to email CS

Does anybody know anything about this? I have emailed LEGO CS about it but I'm likely not going to get an answer until Monday, so if anybody knows what's up or if anyone else is having this problem, please do show yourself I feel like I'm the only person here that's still interested in this app

Really? I'm honestly disappointed. Like others, I'm sad that there's going to be no MOUP (my G2 mask collection feels pretty pointless now... even if somebody did make a MOUP to sell on Shapeways, it wouldn't feel the same. Both physically and mentally And only a couple of months after shelling out $100 for the 2 comic-con masks too ). I knew there was an upcoming announcement of BIONICLE since a friend told me there would be one, but I've been praying that it wouldn't be bad news. But it was the worst news possible sadly. But I must admit, I'm more worried about what this means for the future of Constraction as a system. I don't mind BIONCLE's end so much as long as it's immediately replaced by another comparable in-house theme, in other words in January 2017 I want to go to a LEGO Store and see a new Constraction line where BIONICLE used to be. I know there will be Star Wars buildable figures, but I want an in-house Constraction theme, stuff I can buy for parts without breaking the bank (Star Wars figures are way too expensive for that purpose), and stuff that can dare to be more innovative than Star Wars buildable figures can even dream of. If there's no in-house Constraction theme next year, then I'm going to get quite close to packing up all the 15,000+ loose Constraction parts that I have and sell it all. If I wasn't already invested in other LEGO themes, I'd be regressing into a dark age! What's the point of having it when CCBS stagnates due to lack of a second Constraction theme? Also, I guess that G2 art book being given away in the contest isn't getting a general release? Not even an exclusive or wider promotional release? I love art books, it would be sad to not have a way for us regular fans to get it. But then again, I should have expected it. Everything I like seems to be getting pulled from shelves faster and faster these days, leaving me with less and less stuff I like. And that's the sad reality of it

I'm hoping somebody might be able to help me shed some light on this as it's driving me absolutely insane... So I got the latest update for the Merlok 2.0 app today (from Amazon, since they're usually always late with updates I'm hoping somebody has already had time to download the update and mess with it), the one that has Robin's Workshop open and functional. I followed the visual prompts to craft the gems (managed to craft all but 3 due to lack of gold studs), then once I'd crafted all the gems possible using my inventory, I went to my Nexo Powers screen. Normally the star ratings by each group of powers would have read at least 130 (on each) for me, now they all read zero and my best high damage powers have somewhat been nerfed massively (like my Pinball Magician was reduced from dealing 12,000 damage per hit to 1,300 damage per hit). The app prompts me to tap a picture of the power which once I do so tells me it's levelled up, but the star ratings on the right hand side of the screen don't increase and while the star rating by the power increases, I lose it as soon as I leave the powers screen. I am just completely stuck as to how to level up my powers to get them at least back to the level they once were. Do I have to rescan all 150+ powers I have back to level 5 again? If I'm not the only one struggling with the new power upgrading feature, I'm thinking I might have uncovered a massive bug with the update... I did try extensive Google searches and checked in on many NK community boards (including the pretty active one on Google+) but I can't find anything on the new update at all. LEGO's own help page for the app is painfully out of date - it still has the help topic "when will you update the game to include Axl?". If somebody can help me solve why my power upgrades aren't sticking I'd be most grateful. I just want my 12,000 damage Pinball Magician and lethal Alliance of the Fortrex powers restored!

Hello! I may as well post about my latest MOC project here. If you're into Nexo Knights, you may have played the Merlok 2.0 app that accompanies the series. I've been playing it often for a few weeks now and I love the variety of monsters that the game shows. But at the same time I was disappointed that quite a few of the more unique monsters don't exist in sets. I noticed they seemed relatively feasible to build so I set about reverse-engineering some of the monsters from the game. This is the result: From left to right, Storm Eye (Spinnie - LXF); Lava Beetle (Spinnie - LXF); Fire Scorpion (Spinnie - LXF); Magma Clapper (Spinnie - LXF) They are all possible to build in real life (cross-checked through Rebrickable) and I may make instructions for them all at some point. Of course, I tried to recreate them as accurately as possible but ultimately 100% accuracy to the game models proved to be impossible. So once I'd built the in-game models, I thought I'd have a crack at creating my own magma monsters to fill out my own Book of Monsters bestiary. So I started by creating this dragon, imaginatively I called it Magma Dragon: (Spinnie - LXF) This model uses 100% legitimate PCC's (the slope on the snout finally exists in black! Yay) NEW: Behold, the lavarang-slinging Flame Wraith, the new monster from the Merlok 2.0 app: (Spinnie - LXF) This guy was extremely tricky just to turn into bricks, let alone a buildable in real life model, so I did kind of forego my "legit PCC's only" rule here in favour of better accuracy. That said, I suppose it's a semi-WIP as I might go back to it later, so I'd appreciate some thoughts and ideas about what pieces or techniques I could apply to make the Flame Wraith both recognisable and buildable in real life This is an ongoing series so I will be creating new magma monsters for it, if you want to see them first, be sure to follow my Flickr page. Also check out the project's dedicated Bricksafe page to make browsing the spinnies linked here much easier. I'll also be building these in real life at some point because I want to add them to my NK diorama I have planned. As always, comments and helpful criticism more than welcome. And if there's a certain animal or plant you'd like to see me turn into a buildable magma monster, post here and I'll definitely consider it

Ninjago has had a bit of an odd release schedule in the UK, seems that while they were released on June 1st, that was pretty much exclusive to LEGO's direct-to-consumer outlets (so S@H and LEGO brand stores, would say LEGOLAND Windsor too but I haven't been there this year yet since my annual pass expired last year so I'm not sure). But now August is appraching, they are starting to trickle into other outlets though I haven't seen them physically on the shelves yet in any regular retail store. But do try Argos, some of their stores have had stock though it's very hit-and-miss (as I found trying to obtain The Lighthouse Siege from there so I could take advantage of an offer they currently have on LEGO and other toys). So we seem to have effectively had 2 release dates for the newest wave, an exclusive one (June 1st) and a regular one (August 1st?).

For those of you who might want to build armies of Scurriers and Globlins (like me), all the designs of both are now available to buy from Bricks and Pieces. I just bought a few black Scurrier bodies for £1.78 each (red ones are a bit cheaper) as well as a handful of Globlins for 31p each. No orange horns to complete the black Scurriers on there, but they're common enough. Very reasonable especially considering the cost of a single black Scurrier on Bricklink. And this comes days after I spend £25 buying 5 red Scurriers from Bricklink... I could have got more than twice as many for that much if only I knew BnP would have them today I must admit, my lava monster army is starting to look quite big and intimidating (30 Globlins, 8 Scurriers and quite a lot of foot soldiers), I should share some pics of it at some point once I have the Knighton side properly set up and I've got the last few NK sets I'm missing. Never before have I been so compelled to army build with minifigs. I blame the Merlok 2.0 app

Thanks for the heads-up! Unfortunately, not every single piece is available, the piece I wanted more of most (dark blue 4M shells from Storm Beast) are out of stock It's like LEGO know that's what we want most and they're just annoying us. Either that or somebody beat me to them all! Oh well, I have no qualms about buying more Storm Beasts anyway, and there's more than enough new CCBS on Bricks and Pieces to gorge myself on for now.

Happy to help! I'd make a Nexo version of my sigfig, but the helmet won't go over the moulded head. Shame really. I could be wrong, but I have a feeling we could see some sort of sneak peek at what the next season may bring at the NK SDCC panel this weekend. The general consensus is that we're getting Plant Monsters in the next wave though, and I for one cannot wait. Though integrating them into my current NK layout may be tricky, I only have space for Knighton and a Lava Monster army... and I haven't figured out where Jestro's Volcano Lair is going yet once I get it

So, I've been pondering over this a while, I'm not sure if it's just me wondering this or if others have noticed too. But after an MOC I posted to Flickr today didn't get as much appreciation as I thought it would based on my previous history, I thought I'd better ask the wonderful EB community to chime in with their thoughts on Flickr, arguably the most popular "social" MOC sharing place: So, let me explain why I think that Flickr may not be as popular with FOL's as it used to be: For the past 2 years I've built up a reasonable following of LEGO fans (mostly Constraction builders, as I primarily build in that system) on my Flickr page from scratch, promoting my new builds in as many ways as I could by submitting to lots of appropriate groups and posting them on sites like here. Back at the start of this year, I had something like 265 followers (okay, I know it's not loads but it's reasonable) and whenever I uploaded a new MOC, it would typically get a few comments and 40-50 faves with 80% of those coming within 2 days of posting (again, reasonable). I took a hiatus from building due to lack of motivation a few months ago and returned to building just this week with fresh ideas (well, building with LDD anyway - my physical parts have been somewhat inaccessible for the last few months). But even before I took the hiatus in April, I had 272 Flickr followers. I have 273 now, new followers just don't seem to be coming anymore at the rate they used to, even ignoring the long gap between posting builds in my case. And to add to that, followers I do have don't seem to be terribly active anymore, once where I might have got 30 faves in 8 hours of posting something, now it's more like 10-15, even though the general quality of my builds is always increasing (the last MOC on my Flickr is probably the most complex build I've done to date, I'd argue it's better than anything I did even just 6 months ago ). Nobody seems to comment at all even when I request feedback, but that's true of many places I like to post my MOC's. Now, I'm curious. Has anyone else noticed this recently? Is this just a natural dip in activity (since it's "summer" in the northern hemisphere and everybody's outside? ) or are many FOL's not as active on or migrating from Flickr? And if it is just me experiencing this, am I doing something wrong? It does feel like that the only way to get more followers on Flickr these days (once you've exhausted the usual promotion methods like posting to groups), you have to have an MOC blogged by The Brothers Brick... out of all my MOC'ing friends I'm the only one who hasn't been blogged at all. Bit sad really, I know! But anyway... thoughts on the question in the title? I'm curious. And since I shared mine, feel free to share your own Flickr experience too. (also, any advice on how to break through my current "follower stall" and get more followers (without using TBB. Or mainstream social media ) would be appreciated).

The hole is simply a connection point, it fits certain plumes that have a thin shaft, for example the triple feather. Aaron doesn't have a plume in his design and the connection point isn't used in any sets, sure, but the hole increases customisation options especially if you were to take Aaron's helmet and use it for your own Nexo Knight sigfig. Grab an Aaron and a triple feather and try it out! It works, I tried it myself