fallentomato

I will cede Goldman's connection to the campaign since they very explicitly claim her here.

LegoMyMamma, thanks for the long detailed post, even though we don't always agree, I've enjoyed reading all you've written about this and the thoroughness of your documentation. The one ing you and I are in total agreement on is that misinformation is bad and we need to combat it. I still disagree with you connecting Goldman with th SPARK campaign (despite having read alley articles you linked to). She has a similar viewpoint and obviously believes in it, but as you point out, her name isn't on the SPARK letter to LEGO. Similarly, I was incensed when I saw the promotional e-mail for the petition filled with so much misinformation. However, that was written by Change.org, not the SPARK petitioners. So that particular piece of misinformation is not of their creation. This may seem like it picking, but it's important to be precise about who exactly is responsible for what. Following the news on this has been a very interesting study of how quickly misinformation can spread, and how little most people seem to fact check what they read. I'm less interested in that aspect of this discussion than you are. As far as me being a feminist, I deliberately avoided that label until someone called me it in the comments because it's such a divisive word. I am an advocate for gender equality (and equality more broadly) and in that sense I am a feminist. I make no claim to fully understanding the female experience. One can be a feminist regardless of one's sex or gender, just as one can fight for civil rights regardless of skin color or social class. EDIT: Forgot to mention. I am very happy that Friends brought you out of the grey ages. I enjoy seeing your creations on Flickr!

Why is she a de facto spokesperson? She says she has nothing against pink bricks. What do you mean by the "no pink" campaign? Do you mean the SPARK petition and those organizing it? Or do you mean anyone criticizing the Friends sets? You seem to be grouping many people with varying positions into one group with a single position. I fully acknowledge the problems of the SPARK peition (especially the way it spread misinformation), which is all the more reason to be precise about which people are associated with it. I would further argue that even those in the SPARK campaign are not criticizing the people who buy LEGO friends. Their criticisms and demands primarily revolve around the way the LEGO Group markets along gender lines.

Thanks for sharing that NPR article, I think it has a nice mix of perspectives. I particularly like this line from Sarah Maizes: "And it actually goes both ways because I've also seen boys express an interest in playing with some of these cafes or beauty parlors and now they're being taunted because they're being told that stuff is for girls, you're a sissy, so I think it's great to offer a full range of Lego products. I think it's great to offer beauty, you know, beauty products and whatnot, but just put them all in one place. Don't gender label them. Don't say these are for the girls, these are for the boys. You know, definitely put all different kinds of products out there and then let the kids choose." I don't see where you are coming from calling Goldman a hypocrite. I don't see anywhere in that article where she suggests anything like harassing people who buy LEGO Friends. She even says, "I don't have a problem with the pink blocks or with creating Legos that appeal to some of the interests that have not been represented so far in Legos. My problem is that their marketing it as those interests has to be the realm of the girls."

One of my footnotes on the article explains the criteria I used to classify figs as feminine, masculine or nuetral. I gave TLG the benefit of the doubt, so I classified as gender nuetral alot of figures that might generally be considered masculine. Han Solo for example.

I'm not going to get into depth here about my views on the racial problems of the minifig (that's for a future Thinking Brickly post), but suffice it to say that I disagree with your assertion that yellow minifigs are race-less. It is much easier for some races and ethnicities to identify with yellow human-like figures than it is for others. Yellow minifigs may not be specifically white, but they are definitely not black or brown. I personally don't believe Castle or Pirates sets need to be historically accurate, but that's an enitrely separate debate. So yes, I personally would like to see a better gender balance in these sets.

I agree that Trains and Technic sets can appeal to both boys and grisl, but at a certain point TLG stops showing pictures of girls playing with trains and only showcases boys. Technic (as far as I could find) is always advertised showing featuring boys playing with it, never girls. This, coupled with teh dark blue and black color palettes of the set boxes send the message that these are toys for "boys only"

No cruelty or meanness intended! I just can't see it coexisting alongside the minifig. Maybe if TLG gives it posable hands and separately moving legs so it's more equal I could see it lasting. While I'm sure most children will have no trouble playing with minifigs and minidolls side by side (considering how many other toys I played with alongside my minifigs) the limitations are sure to confuse and frustrate many. I bear no ill-will to those who enjoy the minidoll. I can't seeing it becoming as central to the LEGO brand as the minifig is. I expect it will be much like the Fabuland figures, on the market for a several years before disappearing and garnering a cult following. But maybe I'm wrong and it will be wildly successful. I'm sure TLG will make their decisions primarily based on how the sets sell.

Your points are well made. I considered putting in more about DUPLO and BIONICLE, but decided it would be too tangential. The article is mostly focused on SYSTEM-scale stuff and DUPLO and BIONICLE, while compatible, are basically entirely separate building systems. DUPLO has always done a good job of representing males and females equally (as well as different ages and ethnic groups) so there's not much to say about it other than "good work TLG!" In BIONICLE the primary thing buing built is the figures so they don't serve the same purposes as minifig, Belville dolls etc. I personally like the Belville and Technic scale figs and enjoy building to that scale. I think if they were integrated into sets that had a better mix of style and substance (Belville is all Stlye, Technic is all substance) I think they could be successful. I still think the minidoll will fail because it is so close in scale to the minifig that will be compared against it and found lacking. I do think there should be more variety in the scales LEGO reinforces. Sounds good to me, thanks for setting good examples

Not to jump in in the middle of the conversation here, but I spent the past couple weeks researching and writing an article that charts the 40 year history of the LEGO groups attempts to market based on gender. I think the Friends line is problematic but not the terrible affort some people have made it out to be. I hope this will be a resource for people on both sides of the debate to sharpen their arguments. Comment and critiques very welmoce

Made this for my latest animation. I started with the engine and was originally planning to build a radar array but the next thing I knew I was finding uses for all those Insectoid parts I had lying around (except those weird crystals, still don't know what to do with those ) Here it is in context: Hope you like it!

I'll be there showing off my animations, the MOCs I used to make them and selling DVDs, minifigs and custom sets.

Hope you'll be able to tune in!

It's live now!

How does the reviewers academy work? Are students paired with instructors for one on one mentoring? Is there a curriculum decided on by a panel of instructors? I'm just curious what shape this is going to take. I am potentially interested in being an instructor, but I'd want to get a better sense of the time commitment first. I think it's a great idea, but I don't want to sign on to something I won't be able to sustain.

There used to be a very lengthy (but very thorough) explanation of the tragic events leading up to the great migration of the community from one site to another. That webpage no longer seems to exist but here's a summary from what I remember. One of the key issues here is that the term "brickfilms" is trademarked. It used to be owned by Joshua Leasure who ran the site in his free time and was an active member of the community. Running the site (and paying for it) got to be too much of a burden for Josh and it was sold to Adirondack Manufacturing Corporation who planned to run it as part of a network of education websites. The new owners had no prior connection to the brickfilming community and there was a lot of misunderstanding on both sides over what the change in ownership would mean for the site. The brickfilms community leader and guy who was actually doing the hard work of administering the site, Jonathan Schlaepfer, rebelled against the new owners and set up a rival site which is now Bricks in Motion. He has since resigned, but Philip Heinrich has done an excellent job of running things since then. The community mostly migrated to Bricks In Motion and BrickFilms.com has been in its death throes ever since. It's unfortunate that the name BrickFilms is legally locked up, since it is widely used to describe LEGO animations.

Vig. 52a With the revival of the pirate theme, I have just had pirates on my mind. So it's not too surprising that I made a couple pirate-themed MOCs. I thought that non-pirate minifigs might want to celebrate the return of their long-lost friends. And what better way than to dress up like the three classic pirate animals? I'm proudest of the shark costume. The parrot costume was originally made for one of my brickfilms (not about pirates at all), but I think it works as a costume. The monkey I'm not entirely happy with, but brown it such a hard color to work in. I've thought about maybe doing another shark costume that is more in the big bobble head style of the other two. Hope you like them.

I will be there with a vendor table for The Nightly News at Nine. It will have NNN animations playing on loop and i will be selling DVDs, minifigs, and custom sets. This will be my first time at BrickFair (I've been to Brickworld every year it existed and went to BrickCon last year) and I'm really looking forward to seeing how they do things on the East Coast. Is there any full attendee who would be willing/able to help out at my vendor table on Saturday? My partner wasn't able to take time off to come with and things get pretty hectic during the public hours. FYI - I pay my helpers in LEGO bricks

Just a quick animation for Eddie Izzard's current contest (go vote for this video here) Made with a Logitech Quickcam 9000 connected to a PC laptop running Heluim Frog Animator See how to build the LEGO giraffe .

I actually have a time-stealing machine which lets me take time from other people's lives so I can use it for my own nefarious purposes Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!

That's really excellent work for your first animation! I like the way you used different face to give him some expressions (my favorite was the one when he's on the toilet ) and I like how the building is timed to the music at the very beginning. There are many different groups of though about how many frames per second you should use. 15 is what I typically do and I think you get really smooth animation with that, but I've also done 5, 10 and 30. I don't recommend 30 unless you're doing a really short clip or have a lot of time on your hands When animating crowd scenes, I usually pick one side of the screen and always animate characters from that side to the other side. Sometimes I'll leave little markers using LEGO pieces outside of the view of the camera to indicate who needs to move and what leg they are on. If you have animation software with onion skinning then you can view your last frame overlaided on your current live view and compare to see which ones you still need to move. To get animation to match timing you need to go through your soundtrack (be it music or dialogue) frame by frame or word by word and decide where the important beats will be. When I'm doing stuff I make handwritten notes about how many frames each point of emphasis will be and what the character is saying at that point so I can match it up. There are also programs that will take your audio and split it up into frame counts for you (I'm about to test one out for my next animation).' Some people use computer programs to add mouths and facial expressions to their LEGO characters, but I think that's cheating. Hope this helps you out. Looking forward to seeing more videos from you in the future!

Nah, it's not dying. There are more people out there making LEGO animations than ever before. People like David Pagano and Garett Barati are making great animations for the LEGO company. The sheer volume of animations being produced is staggering.

Yeah, the Union guys at Kidsfest were pretty scary (one yelled at me for trying to move a chair). One other great addition this year were the tubs of free soda! They were very appreciated, especially in the vendor room during public hours.

This was my 5th Brickworld, 4th time as a full registrant, 3rd time displaying, and 2nd time as a Vendor and 1st time giving a presentation. This Brickworld was really great, one of the best yet (though it will be hard to ever top 2009 when Kjeld graced us with his presence). Moving the opening ceremony to Wednesday was a stroke of genius (I don't think anyone enjoyed sitting in the hallways last year) and having all the vendors in one room makes sense for so many reasons. I didn't miss having the in-store event at all, I made a trek to the Northbrook store on Saturday night with an SUV full of Eurobricks members and it was far more enjoyable than the insanity the the damaged goods have inspired in previous years. Overall, Brickworld was a huge step up from last year in terms of utilizing both space and time effectively. In the long term, I'd love to see Brickworld graduate to a larger venue (though I know we're locked into the Westin for a few more years), possibly closer to downtown Chicago (despite being called Brickworld Chicago, this event is really Brickworld Wheeling). At LEGO KidsFest Chicago, I got a glimpse of what is possible with a larger event space, I can just imagine what fans could do with that much space... Having been to a few other LEGO fan conventions now, I have even more admiration for what a terrific job all the coordinators do putting on BrickWorld every year. There's a reason it keeps on growing and I can't wait until we reconvene again next year. Now just have to get through the other 360 days of the year

Report-O-Bot-Ophelia explores the Pinchbot Mothership searching for the Pinchbot Leaderbot: Grabbor. She sings to pass the time. ROBOphelia finds Grabbor and questions him about the Pinchbot invasion, while Grabbor questions ROBOphelia's robot loyalties. A fight ensues. Part 3 of 7 of "Robots!" And yes, all similarities to MegaMan are entirely intentional