Solitary Dark

Here's my Entry: Theme : Castle Minifigure : Musketeer. This was inspired by the watching 'Tangled' with my daughter - she wanted me to build Rapunzel's tower - Didnt have the bricks but I thought - I can build a quarter of it! The tower has steps on the interior, and a serious of steps that lead to the Princess' cell in the tower. The Musketeer is rescuing her from the English troops, ably assisted by his apprentice D'artagnon. Musketeer 1 by The Solitary Dark, on Flickr Musketeer 3 by The Solitary Dark, on Flickr Musketeer 2 by The Solitary Dark, on Flickr Loved building this - although keeping it upright was a challenge - hence the column - and I wish I had the corner slopes in dark tan rather than black, but I hope you all enjoy. You can see where the Musketeer goes in my Flickr stream.

And we have a winner..... Beautiful.

No matter how you do in the contest my son says this is the best model he's ever seen! It's a fantastic version of a great vehicle. well done.

At Legoland Windsor 'The Big Shop' @ The Beginning has Build a Minifigure - It only appeared this year (At the same time as the Pick a brick shrunk dramatically.) The selection is fairly sparse with parts really being limited to items available in current sets, but there were parts from Minifig series 1 (Robin hood heads, clown torso's) - I think the price was £4.99 for 3 - Again there is a window box with 3 spaces - I disnt see a price per single but will keep an eye out on the next trip.

Corden also has a speeder - and occasionally indulges in a bit of Swoop racing.... Personal Speeder 3 by The Solitary Dark, on Flickr Personal Speeder 2 by The Solitary Dark, on Flickr Personal Speeder 1 by The Solitary Dark, on Flickr

Really looks like a Star Wars design - could very well have come from one of the concept art books - I think that's about the nicest compliment I can give you (want to go and build one myself now!!)

Corden is a Corellian who tried his hand at a little bit of everything when he found that being a hard working guy didnt pay in Emperor Palpatine's galaxy. Like many Corellians he was honest yet slighly rogueish, and he custom built his ship 'The Solitary Dark' to reflect this. Personal Ship 1 by The Solitary Dark, on Flickr Personal Ship 2 by The Solitary Dark, on Flickr Personal Ship 3 by The Solitary Dark, on Flickr Personal Ship 4 by The Solitary Dark, on Flickr Personal Ship 5 by The Solitary Dark, on Flickr This was a fun build (insomnia helped) as I didnt think I'd get time to enter the contest in a second category - when my son wakes up I'm sure he will be swooshing this - I hope you all like it - I'm sure the influences are obvious, and I'm glad I finally found a use for those great big technic panels from those exo-force sets I bought for £2 in Tesco years ago.

Great review (Love your cat avatar by the way) I have no HP Lego and with this set containing 3 essential minifigs and a 4th extremely nice one, plus all that brown and some lovely mushrooms I was expecting it to be about £15, not £10.49 Great value really compared to the POTC equivalent price set.

Personaly I hope the line continues forever. I never wanted to get every one in the set - I just pick up the one's I like, and so do my kids. What I would like to see is more characters that complement one another across some of the different sub-themes within the different series - The Musketeer is fantastic - How about some other characters to go with him - A red variant with a different face, or a member of the Court, or a Queen Anne? Just a way of putting a few characters together. This seems to have been done with the Circus and Horror-Monster sub-sets - But the Spartan, Gladiator, Musketeer figures dont have any friends! Plenty of others too that seem lonely - Haz-mat guy, Detective (Sherlock), That's where I would welcome some repetition - these guys need some additional characters to create some new themes - It's not called the 1 musketeer - I know you could buy 3 and change the heads, but why not create some additional diversity with the figures and accessories? I'd love to make some 3 Musketeers MOC's - But I guess I'll have to customise.... And there is now way they would ever run out of ideas. easily 10 more series!

I dont think this series is as good as series 4 - there is a feeling of repetition (Dance instructor, another snowboarder!) but to be fair my kids have both asked for these characters over many of the ones that the AFOL's favour. My son wasnt interested in the Spartan, and he's not interested in the Gladiator. My Daughter wants the dance instructor cos she's pink. We all want the Zoo keeper though. This is the perfect example of a CM which keps the line alive for me - I want her so I can build her a Vig (Maybe using Gorilla suit guy too) or a Safari vehicle - Just a lot of fun and a fantastic Monkey included. I just hope we get a male equivalent somewhere in the next few series, maybe with a baby croc. I've also never intended to get complete sets - My son has some, my daughter others,and I pick up others. I think we had 13 of series 1 and 2, 12 of series 3, and so far about 12 of series 4. I actually cannot see myself picking up more than 4 or 5 of series 5 though. We will probably get: Cleopatra - My son is big on Egypt Dance Instructor - Pink for my daughter Zoo Keeper - Monkey! Sherlock Holmes - He's cool. Maybe the Dwarf warrior or the Lizard guy, possibly - other than that I'm not too excited this time around. Hoping for more space characters in series 6!!!

Ah! Looks like It's a new part this year - Appears in the Satellite launcher - Hmm, maybe I can pick one of those up.....

I'll see if I get time in the next week to do an LDD version. Yeah - There just isnt a Winscreen with the right angle that I know of - Nees to be 2 bricks high, 3 bricks long - I've never seen one.

I'm trying to populate my town with lots of different styles of car. So far I've built an H2 Hummer Ambulance, A Pickup Truck, A family car, A police cruiser and a VW Camper Van. I felt I needed something small. So today I built this. I wanted to build something close to a Smart Car - I just havent worked out yet how to do it. This is as close as I can do it, but I quite like it. Full View by The Solitary Dark, on Flickr Side View by The Solitary Dark, on Flickr Open boot by The Solitary Dark, on Flickr This last feature was the main reason I built this car - I wanted to build a car with a functioning boot - you can load up stuff in the back of the car and close the boot. (Since I took the picture I've replaced the white hinge with a black one and slightly modified the rear) I slso built this whilst I tried to think of a good idea for the Series 4 minifigure contest! I've ended up starting another project, and may have my idea.

Wow - category A is the same as always - I'll have to really up my game though after the high quality of the last competition's entries. Category B - I think I have an Idea - Just not sure I'll be able to pull it off - I've never done minifig customisation before! Wish I'd picked up a load of bland minifig parts in the 'Create a minifig' table at Legoland yestreday! Great idea for a contest though - Cannot wait to see the entries.

Just one word to describe this - Bling!

Blimey ! - Way too many fantastic entries - and I just cant give any entry more than 1 point, It was hard enough selecting a final 7 - Sorry to those I missed out - there was at least another 5 in contention here - What a fantastic contest. So in no particular order 18 - 1 point 6 - 1 point 32 - 1 point 3 - 1 point 23 - 1 point 5 - 1 point 10 - 1 point I'd buy several of these! Well done everyone.

A great review for a great pocket money set - something that's been sadly lacking in the city line for a number of years (How many Police bikes can you have!)

Great review, and I'll definitely be picking a few of these up - one for my desk and plenty of others to build up an army of those little alien's - I love the new Blue suits too - A fantastic little set with 2 minifig's!

Thanks! Actually I was thinking about your Jedi Shuttle Bus when I built this - It was one of the Inspirations for my backstory - so double thanks! (That's a lovely model by the way) Actualy he's pretty good! He turns 8 this week, but keeps everything in perfect condition! Especially his Star Wars sets. He stores his sets unbuilt in bags with the instructions!

Krizzik Velari was a Jedi assigned to protecting Senator's on Coruscant during the Clone Wars - to blend in she acquired a Coruscant Air Taxi for use in transporting Senators 'In plain sight'. Jedi Airtaxi 1 by The Solitary Dark, on Flickr Jedi Airtaxi 2 by The Solitary Dark, on Flickr Jedi Airtaxi 3 by The Solitary Dark, on Flickr Jedi Airtaxi 4 by The Solitary Dark, on Flickr Jedi Airtaxi 5 by The Solitary Dark, on Flickr Krizzik was a humanoid Jedi who was a contemporary of Obi-wan Kenobi. At the time of the Clone Wars she was assigned to Senatorial protection at the request of Bail Organa and the Jedi Council, to protect Senator's who were secretly supporting the opposition to Palpatine and his growing powers. Organa had become concerned with the number of assasination attempts being made, and felt that the Jedi were the only ones who could be trusted to protect those senators who were vociferous against Palpatine. Krizzik had the idea for using Coruscant air taxi's as transport, as they would blend in easily with other vehicles in use in the Coruscant highways, where other senatorial transports tended to be conspicous by their design, and so obvious targets to bounty hunters. At some point she was assigned a clone detail as support, despite her protests that this would ruin her disguise, and of close when order 66 was issued her clone turned on her and shot her, causing the airtaxi to crash, killing her, the clone and the Senator from Plittik who was a passenger. I cannot remeber seeing many MOC's of this type of vehicle, but I quite like the Coruscant designs, so this contest was the perfect excuse to try and come up with a design for one of these. It will seat 7 minifigures at a push, 6 comfortably, and the bodywork is almost completely SNOT. I had fun making this MOC, and will probably keep it intact and add it into my son's SW collection.

I'm loving this set, and not just because it fits with my current project - I can see it becoming a classic with me purchasing multiples for the hull.

I've added a second building and started adding pavements to the layout - this is the first section to have such treatment: Privateer + Diner by The Solitary Dark, on Flickr The brown and white building is a Pub called 'The Privateer'. Neither building has interiors yet - I'll be doing those last. I know have the opposite side of the harbour to build - that's on a higher level (which is built) and will be a Fish'N'Chip shop with Art gallery above, and Arcade with a Karate Dojo above and finally a Theatre. Then I just need to join the two sides together with a footbridge.

I've spent today shifting the orientation so that it has more harbour less beach - my son complained that the road sections werent long enough and that there was not enough actual space to do anything - then I realiosed I had nowhere to store such a long layout. So it's now rectangular - still on several levels - but there are 2 48 stud long road sections now and a perdestrian bridge will join the two. I'll add some more pictures as soon as it's presentable. Plus I ended up on cracklink ordering brown and tan!

Yeah, It's this one: Cop car by The Solitary Dark, on Flickr

The red and yellow building is a Diner - the 'started' building will be an arcade on the ground floor and a Karate Dojo upstairs. Then the last building in the parade will be an Art gallery upstairs and a Fish and chip shop downstairs. At least that's the plan! A lot of this is based on my holiday in Devon from 2 weeks ago although I'd started the elevated roads already. Seeing some of the colours in the town of Brixham in Devon were just perfect for recreation. I've already built one fishing boat and theres another one on the drawing board, plus a coastguard dinghy to be added!