Toa_Of_Justice

Eurobricks Knights
  • Content Count

    582
  • Joined

  • Last visited

1 Follower

About Toa_Of_Justice

Spam Prevention

  • What is favorite LEGO theme? (we need this info to prevent spam)
    TECHNIC
  • Which LEGO set did you recently purchase or build?
    8448 Super Street Sensation

Contact Methods

  • Website URL
    http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?m=Toa-Of-Justice
  • ICQ
    0

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    United States
  • Interests
    My favorite LEGO themes are (in no particular order): EXO-FORCE, Mars Mission, Racers, Creator, TECHNIC, BIONICLE, Ninjago, and Hero Factory.

    My other interests include: TrackMania, watching Formula 1 races (I used to recreate the tracks in TrackMania's Coast environment), using the computer, board games, assembling or helping to assemble just about anything I can handle, tracking the weather in my area, reading the Annals of Hearthstone, listening to music from video games, and Star Wars.

Extra

  • Country
    United States
  • Special Tags 1
    https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/style_images/tags/LDD_builder_yellow.gif

Recent Profile Visitors

4275 profile views
  1. Toa_Of_Justice

    New LEGO Racers Video Game?

    Indeed. It seems even Racers has transformed into a licensed theme (Speed Champions), just like Space (Star Wars) and Adventurers (Indiana Jones). I think the reason for these transformations is that licensed sets and games are more recognizable and popular with consumers (and therefore are more profitable) than non-licensed sets and games. (I personally wouldn't mind a LEGO Speed Champions game from Traveller's Tales--as long as my car is more likely to crash than the game itself! )
  2. Toa_Of_Justice

    New LEGO Racers Video Game?

    Thanks for the update, jamesster! No apology necessary. It's a shame that LEGO Racers: The Video Game was never released. The graphics quality looks great for LEGO video games in those days.
  3. I second the contrast issue. I can hardly read the white text on the light background. Otherwise, I really like the new Spring theme.
  4. Toa_Of_Justice

    Hypernova (Exo-Force 10th Anniversary Special MOC)

    Thank you for your compliments! :) My excuse for not having stickers isn't LDD, but rather I simply didn't think to add stickers until I saw your post (seriously). Here is a single-slide PowerPoint presentation with my work so far. The question marks are placeholders for Japanese characters--do you have any suggestions for these? Also, do you have any suggestions for sticker material that's resistant to cracking/peeling?
  5. Hypernova, my revamp of 7712 Supernova, is a special model I made to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Exo-Force (2006-2016). I first started designing Hypernova in LEGO Digital Designer in May 2015. I finished building the real model in December 2016. I used 661 elements, which came from my own collection, LEGO Pick A Brick Online, LEGO Bricks and Pieces, and BrickLink. Hypernova can bend and twist around 13 points of articulation, not counting the fingers. The staff features a solar amplifier represented by a 2x3 trans-red light brick (54869/54930c01), which can be turned on and left on thanks to the interaction between the 6M axle (3706) and the 1x2 brick with axle hole (32064). The shield features a "six shooter" (18587 + 18588) laser gun at its center, controlled by a knob behind the shield (story-wise, the control would be in the cockpit). There is a laser sniper drone with folding wings on each arm, a rocket launcher on each shoulder, and a pad with 3 laser guns over each shoulder. The cockpit opens to reveal the controls and the pilot, Capt. Dawn O'Fury. On either side of the cockpit is a pair of full-spectrum sensors, enabling Dawn to see even when she's annihilating enemies with a solar flare. On the back is a pair of folding solar panel wings, which work with the three pairs of two thrusters on each foot to allow Hypernova to fly (story-wise) faster than the speed of sound. The following models inspired the design of Hypernova: Tribute to Exo-Force (TECHNIC shells, upper arms) 7712 Supernova (staff, color scheme) 7714 Golden Guardian (shield, shoulder pads, lower legs) 2008 Exo-Force sets (arm-mounted drones) LXF File | Brickshelf Gallery
  6. Toa_Of_Justice

    LDD 4.3.10 Update Released

    I just got the LDD 4.3.10 update, and rushed over to Eurobricks to find a thread about it. I read your posts in this topic about the palette scrolling bug, and I dug up this e-mail response I got from LEGO back in June 2014: Sorry if it isn't very helpful, but I thought you might want to see it anyway.
  7. Toa_Of_Justice

    Questions and Concerns for TLG

    Introduction Normally, whenever I have an issue with LEGO products and/or services, I contact LEGO Service. However, I believe this fiasco that has developed regarding LEGO's refusals to ship to my UPS Store, and then home, shipping addresses warrants attention from the LEGO Ambassadors and the general public. Also, this post is too long for LEGO Service's 2,000-character e-mail limit. So without further ado, here's my grievance. Background Information I have two addresses: a residential address, and a mailing address at a UPS Store. For many years, I've had LEGO sets delivered to my UPS Store address without any complaints from LEGO. My Grievance 2016 brought a new challenge. This is the first order I placed with LEGO Shop at Home since August 2014. In 2012, I started my first job, which left precious little time for building, so I haven't been ordering from LEGO as much as I normally would. Apparently, LEGO missed me very much, so they sent me this e-mail along with my order confirmation: I called LEGO to question their decision, and they placed my order on hold that afternoon: Yikes! I was at work at the time, and LEGO Service is only open Monday through Friday! If I didn't call that day, my order would have gotten canceled! Talk about pressure! Fortunately, a senior employee at my company let me place this crucial call in the lobby, so I was able to switch my shipping address to my residential address. Thankfully, this order was eventually delivered to my home intact. However, I wasn't done. I sent this message to LEGO the next day: Two days later, I got this response (emphasis mine—it'll be referred to later in this post): Since I needed more bricks, I decided to place another order, this time trying to comply with the policy by setting my shipping address to my home address. To my shock, I got another e-mail, exactly like the last one, indicating my order had been canceled due to the freight forwarding policy! I had to place another phone call to LEGO Service! Fortunately, it only took one call before they were able to ship this new order, and it arrived intact as well. But I still sent this e-mail to LEGO Service (once again, emphasis mine—it'll be referred to soon in this post): Like I said, I'll be referring to my emphasis soon. Here's their response from later that day: Now, about my emphasis: The second rep didn't answer my question about what the first rep said. Because of this, I have decided to no longer order from LEGO Shop at Home. I am committed to shopping from businesses that don't cause me frustration. Even though I needed even more parts, they weren't available from LEGO anyway, so I placed several orders through BrickLink—which was a much better experience, with no policies that frustrated me about shipping addresses. That's where I'll be taking my business from now on, unless LEGO does something about their policy. (EDIT 2: I finally found a reasonable workaround! See the end of this post.) I can understand applying it to first-time buyers, but not to [formerly, in my case] loyal customers. But wait! LEGO wasn't done with me yet! On Tuesday, August 30, 2016, I went to my UPS Store, and discover that LEGO had sent me their Fall 2016 Shop at Home catalog without my permission, and in spite of the fact that the address got blacklisted by the policy! I called them the next morning to unsubscribe (again—I last unsubscribed in 2014 if I recall correctly), and the rep said that LEGO doesn't maintain a mailing list, and that people get catalogs randomly! But the rep did put a note on my account to unsubscribe me. When I pointed out the irony of this situation to the rep, they offered to transfer my call to someone else. I just told them I wanted to express my opinion, so they placed another note on my account about that. I should note that I'm not the only person who's been negatively affected by this policy. Entering LEGO "freight forwarding" into Google yielded these threads and more: Unimpressed with Lego Inc - The Embassy - Eurobricks Forums Shop.lego.com shipping issue - LEGO Questions & Answers - BRICKPICKER US Freight Forwarders Accepted by Lego.com - OzBargain Forums LEGO's policy reminds me of "Enumerating Badness", as discussed in The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security. As discussed in With Stolen Cards, Fraudsters Shop to Drop, anyone can provide freight forwarding services, not just legitimate businesses like UPS. This is comparable to "crypting", as discussed in Antivirus is Dead: Long Live Antivirus!, in which cybercriminals disguise their malware to evade detection by signature-based antivirus. Perhaps LEGO (and other merchants) should try a "Default Deny" policy and require additional information from first-time buyers, rather than blocking a whole bunch of addresses that may or may not belong to criminals. LEGO Ambassadors, what do you make of this? EDIT: Removed repeated references to my first name. EDIT 2: In August 2018, LEGO released two awesome sets—Voltron and James Bond Aston Martin DB5—which I wanted so badly that I was willing to try buying directly from LEGO Shop at Home again, instead of paying extra money to third-party sellers. I called LEGO Service, made my case for shipping to the UPS Store, and ordered those two sets. The rep said she would send an e-mail to those in charge of the blacklist. However, nothing seemed to have come of that, so I called LEGO Service again, this time with the idea of shipping to my place of work (with the permission of my employer), which is a small, locked facility. My idea succeeded, and my order finally shipped! By the way, this page has a very good explanation for why businesses such as LEGO won't ship to freight forwarders. I quoted the key paragraph below.
  8. I'm not sure. I think the movie's glaive had a push-button trigger. But perhaps the inner mechanism of the movie's weapon (at least the parts that reach out to the blades) works very much like mine, except that the core is probably spring-loaded too.
  9. When I twist each side of the core in opposite directions, all 5 blades open at once. Here's a that demonstrates how this works with version 3 of this model. Version 4 works the same way.
  10. Version 1.0 was made way back in April 2008. Version 2.0 came shortly afterward, in May 2008. Version 3.0 was published in July 2013. I redesigned my MOC yet again in 2016. This version of the glaive further refines the mechanisms of version 3 and adds the soft axle springs of version 1. I also used 7M half-beams instead of 7M full beams. It measures over 6 inches across when closed and over 12 inches across when opened. Click or tap any photo for a larger version. [LDD File | Brickshelf Gallery | Bricksafe page]
  11. Is it possible that your pointing device's drag sensitivity needs adjustment? If you don't already have a utility for that, perhaps you could try Dragsens or something like that.
  12. I like your idea. However, I think the LEGO Digital Designer development team needs to fix the following bug before they work on your idea. Here's the bug report (modified to include the image I linked to in the report) I filed with LEGO about the Decoration Tool's scrolling feature:
  13. Updated to LDD 4.3.8, Brick Version 1564.2: 7712 Besides fixing the LXF file, I also fixed the image in an attempt to be in line with the topic's rules. Would it be OK to provide a text link to my previous image under the image in the post? Or is that not allowed because it has a background?
  14. Toa_Of_Justice

    [KEY TOPIC] LDD custom bricks

    7351c00 - Motor Pull Back Type 6 7 x 5 x 3 Motor 6 picture borrowed from Peeron. I tried to make this piece as accurately as possible. An axle can fit all the way through the white holes. The entire part is in a group for convenience of moving and/or recoloring. LXF File Not listed on Peeron, but only on BrickLink and mentioned by LEGO in an old FAQ: Motor 6a. Motor 6a picture borrowed from BrickLink. The FAQ from LEGO states: Original FAQ page on the Internet Wayback Machine The main difference of this motor is that the bottom beam is one stud longer than the previous one. LXF File
  15. The yellow studless beam cannot be placed under the front part of either foot, but it fits perfectly in the rear part of each foot. In addition, no studded beam can fit anywhere the studless beam does in LDD. I'm pretty sure it's possible in real life though, given the stud-width groove each foot has. LXF File