The Spark That Bled

I'm been going back and forth between listening to the Danger Days album by My Chemical Romance and the album Swoon by Silversun Pickups.

I didn't get to buy anything this Friday but last Friday was a pay day and I bought #4842 Hogwart's Castle and 10 series 4 minifigures. And I got a small pick-a-brick assortment free due to a promotion.

Congrats on your first set. I think that you'll find your creativity come to life after you've built some things from instructions. I usually find a lot of inspiration in seeing how other people have done something and then figuring out how to make things my own. For this reason I have found the creator sets to be a good value. They usually have three sets of instructions for one set of bricks and they are usually a pretty good value. The Log Cabin Creator Set #5766 in one that I really liked that is reasonably priced and I think might be a playable set. The Apple Tree House #5891 was good for building the models but doesn't have any minifigures and is not quite so good to play with. I've never tried any of the vehicle or creature creator sets because I'm more interested in buildings but I think the multiple instructions would be helpful for those things too.

I think some of the accessories look cool, like the zoo keeper's monkey and the gangster's "violin case," but overall I find them a bit of a disappointment after series 4. With series four I really wanted all but a couple of the minifigures and with this series I really could care less about most of them. I'll probably still buy some anyway but the anticipation is not the same.

I agree with fred67 that the collectable minifigures have inspired a lot of my ideas. A lot of times the inspiration starts small and grows as I start digging through my brick collection. Sometimes I also will use instructions from the sets I have and see how I can use one element of that set and combine it with elements of another set and ideas from my own head or things I've seen online. Once again I think it's having something to make me dig through my bricks and remember just what kinds of things are in there. I understand your pain though. I've been working on a modular building for about a month and a half. It's inspired by Italianate architecture that I see in the neighborhood I work in. I got the main structure finished but totally stalled out on the details of what I want in and around it. I can't seem to finish it and I can't seem to move on. Lego limbo.

Thanks for the review. The mermaids are brilliant. This set looks worth it for the minifigures alone.

I love it. The coin in the fountain and the laundry on lines are great little touches. Overall it's just beautiful.

I like it. I've been toying with the idea of making some environments for my new minifigures. It's nice to see other peoples' ideas.

Thanks for the review. I've been using random chance to get my minifigures. The only one that I really want that I haven't gotten is the punk rocker. It's made me hopeful that he's one of the higher probability acquisitions.