sparkart

These are so adorable, I think my monitor just overloaded on cuteness. Seriously, the monitor just froze and turned all pink. Seriously. It's connected by USB, so I just unplugged it, then re-plugged it back in, and it seems to be fine, now. Maybe it's just a USB problem, but I better stop looking at these figures, just to be sure, or it might go screwy again. Nice photo, compliments to you and Luc for the designs and builds!

Love this scale, very nice!

These made me say out loud, "Wow!" Thanks for sharing them, they look terrific. I supported the Gamma Suit on LEGO Ideas, too. Very nice!

Sorry I can't offer a definitive answer, but I do notice funny things, too sometimes. Once I was having a spot of trouble exporting from Brickficiency to a Bricklink Wanted List. I noticed the process failing at a particular piece. I removed the piece from the calculation, and it completed the export without errors. Later, poking around on Bricklink, I vaguely remember the entry for that troublesome piece was different somehow on Bricklink. If I remember correctly, it didn't appear in searches that it should have appeared on, suggesting an error of some sort in the Bricklink database. Maybe something similar is happening with yours? I'd take note of which piece at which the process appears to be failing, then, as Kevin Flynn from TRON:Legacy might say, "Remove it from the equation." It that fixes the process, for the most part, then it's simple to add that one piece back manually into Brickficiency. Good luck!

Finally got the time and bricks to piece these together: History of the Batmobile 1966 by SPARKART!, on Flickr. History of the Batmobile 1989 by SPARKART!, on Flickr. History of the Batmobile 1995 by SPARKART!, on Flickr. History of the Batmobile 1997 by SPARKART!, on Flickr. History of the Batmobile 2005 by SPARKART!, on Flickr. I am working on a similar scale Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice Batmobile, too:

A couple of years ago, there was an assemblage of the live-action movie Batmobiles that made appearances at Warner Brothers Studios and the San Diego Comic-Con. This is a LEGO mini-scale recreation of those gatherings: To the Batmobile! by SPARKART!, on Flickr. It's funny to me how playing with LEGO sometimes leads you down creative paths you don't intend; At first, I didn't set out to make all these Batmobiles at this scale. It started with my acquisition of the Mattel Hot Wheels Batman Live Batmobile die-cast toy; I thought it would be fun and easy to recreate it in LEGO. Not that fun, not that easy, ultimately a failure, but what I learned from that exercise led to the creation of the Batman Forever mini-scale model design. After designing the Batman Forever model, I thought it would be a shame not to attempt the Batmobile designed by Anton Furst from Tim Burton's Batman. I re-used ideas from my Chibi Batmobile to make a more realistically proportioned mini-scale model. I really wanted a Christopher Nolan Tumbler to go along with these models, so I reworked the Tumbler design I already had, made it a little bigger and more accurately shaped. It's still undersized compared to the others, but close enough for me for now. The Futura Batmobile from the 1966 TV show and movie came next, and I laughed out loud with the creation of the little figures of Adam West and Burt Ward in their colorful, distinctive costumes. Isn't it amazing how just the suggestion of a few pieces of colorful plastic make pictures in the mind? That's one of the things I love about LEGO, that almost impressionistic appeal of suggesting something with a few colors and shapes, then relying on the audience to "get it". I kinda dreaded making the Batman and Robin version of the Batmobile because I don't like the movie, and I have habit of watching the source material for reference and inspiration while working on the models. You know, the quiet parts of Batman and Robin I really enjoy - those interactions between Alfred, Bruce, Barbara, and Dick - it's just the cartoony, loud, obnoxious parts of Batman and Robin that I find less than good. After all the practice with the other Batmobiles, this last one was designed pretty quickly; It's also the least accurate detail-wise and very simplified...but it comes from the movie I like the least, so...there. I've got the Tumbler and Batman Forever versions 99% done in real brick, and the Furst Batmobile is 80% done. I'm working on collecting the elements for the others. So, the project is very much WIP. Please feel free to give opinions on this ongoing effort, what you like/hate, what could be improved, etc.

Thanks for checking it out, guys. I've revised the model a bit, but didn't get rid of any droopiness. It's been sitting on my display shelf for a few days, and I have to admit, it's not getting less weird. It still strikes me, too, as a little strange, a little outrageous even, like something from an anime. But I'm going to keep it this way, in the spirit of "acquiring a taste". Ironically, the extreme droop came about from wanting more swooshability. I wanted the nose to droop a little, but to put two clips to hold it more securely, the droop becaume extreme. I kinda liked it, kinda hated it. Weird, I know. I read somewhere that a car designer once said that he tried to design ugly cars, then dial it back a little from hideous-level. He said that it had to be done that way, because all the classically beautiful body lines have already been done in automotive design. I'm not sure I agree 100%, but I can see his point in challenging the conventional.

Originally, I set out to make an Advent calendar sized version of the Episode VII X-Wing. That failed effort turned into this. I guess this could be an evolved iteration of the X-Wing for Episode X, but I am set on the idea that this model is actually the McQuarrie-esque version of the X-Wing for the inevitable Star Wars series reboot. Star Wars Episode IV, V, & VI (rebooted) X-Wing by SPARKART!, on Flickr. Star Wars Episode IV, V, & VI (rebooted) X-Wing by SPARKART!, on Flickr.

polywen on Flickr took a few photos of "in-the-wild" found LEGO. I think it's an ongoing project, but he must've not come across any lately. 2 x 4 Blue plate. Dirt encrusted by polywen, on Flickr. 1 x 1 Dark Blue Cylinder on String by polywen, on Flickr. It is kinda fun to make up stories about them. For the dark blue cylinder, I imagine it was a gift ring given to a first love or close friend, but it was sized too big, so the ring fell off, or...the love died early in a scornful rage, or the friendship withered over angry words exchanged at recess, and the ring was painfully discarded.

Fantastic presentation, the figures, the scenes, the parts, the poster...it sounds trite, but it's true...everything is awesome. It seems like every time I look at the photos of Mulder's office, I see something I didn't see before. It's so intense with dense detail, just excellent. I'm going to have to sit down and have a smoke... This is not happening. by SPARKART!, on Flickr.

RE: The Star Wars comic, I was pretty jazzed about buying the first issue. That got me back into a comic-book store after years of absence, but I didn't buy any other issues. It didn't capture my imagination or distract me enough from my other nerdly pursuits.

It's a world of laughter, a world of tears, It's a world of hope, and a world of fears. There's so much that we share, That it's time we're aware, It's a small world, after all! The Star Wars Imperial Shocktrooper Speeder Mini by SPARKART!, on Flickr. Yes, it's a smaller version of this battle pack, with the same play features. Ironically, the smaller vehicle model has MORE pieces in it, than the larger mini-fig sized model. That's the funny thing about small models, it's hard to appreciate or imagine that they could be more complicated than larger models. E.g. on the larger mini-fig sized model, the engines are two pieces (there's a fan-like impeller inserted in them). On the smaller model, the same engines are made from four pieces. The large windscreen on the mini-fig sized model is one piece - on the smaller model, it's three pieces.

I like the seemingly simple Spacer figure the most. There's something mysterious and cool about him with no face...perhaps he reminds me of The Stig? Really like the economy of the Swoop, too. It doesn't look gigantic and overbuilt, but the right perfect size for the minifigs. Nice!

Nick, my compliments for another nifty program. I've had very satisfying results with Bluerender, the combo of speed and quality is really good. McLaren MLP7 by SPARKART!, on Flickr.

msx80, THANK YOU for this LDD rendering tool. I really appreciate the speed and quality of the renders, e.g. this was done in about 5-and-a-half minutes on an i5 laptop: McLaren MLP8 by SPARKART!, on Flickr. This was done in about 6-and-a-half minutes on the same i5 laptop: McLaren MLP7 by SPARKART!, on Flickr.

I like this, party because it reminds me of the fan-film .

I've been working on an entry for the McLaren LEGO ReBrick Building Challenge, and man, it's hard. XAxles posed that question and added the great suggestion, "What's a McLaren for you? Once you have a clear answer, build that car." To me, a McLaren has: Rounded body, compound curves (yikes, how to suggest that with LEGO elements?), Squinty headlights that echo the McLaren swoosh shape, Cab-forward, mid-engined profile, with more body overhang on the front than on the rear, Huge aero-scoop cutout on the side to feed and cool the mid-engine and turbos, Variable-geometry spoiler. The more I look at the Speed Champions P1, the more I like it, and think the LEGO designers did a good job with a difficult subject.

Those renders look good. BlueRenderer sounds like a fine name...but how about BlueProcess? Then, when we make instructions and renders, we have a BlueProduct in the end that is: BluePrinted BlueProcessed BlueProduced

Which set is the seemingly unpopular one? The race cars, with the garish schemes and a billion stickers look awesome to me, but they make the passenger super-cars look a little plain, in comparison. If I was a kid shopping Speed Champions with a limited budget, I'd more likely spend money on the cars in race livery.

Yes, simple-looking isometric technical line drawings should be used for the model assembly instruction steps; Perspective and specular light reflections can obscure or hinder accurate part identification in renders and photos. What are you going to name this rendering tool? If you're going to have a naming contest, my entry is "3V - Very fast Virtual Visualizer". "Let's see what this model looks like in 3V." Catchy, no? No? Ok. :)

Hey, I really like the results, especially with that performance...in minutes? Awesome! The last LDD -> POV-Ray render I did was for a simple model at a medium resolution, and it took 11 hours. Excrutiating, especially when you've got a deadline...the render was part of the cover art for a local LEGO AFOL convention program. The artist put out a call on the LUG mailing list asking for help to render his LDD model. There definitely is a need to get higher quality and faster renders of LDD models. Man, I really like how you're making LDD an even more useful tool, with Blueprint, with this...I hope you make this part of Blueprint or a standalone utility, I know there will be many users. Thanks!

Regarding the ghost items, yes, it's connected to submodel step deletion. I am able to replicate the issue, 1) Create a submodel step. 2) Delete the submodel step. Now, there's a thin horizontal "frame" or thick vertical line left behind in Step design. 3) Go to Page layout, and then (Re)Generate from steps, there's the ghost item in the callouts, denoted with a 1x, but no item picture. But bacem's workaround (deleting the steps that have the horizontal line or thin, empty frame attached to them) works for me, thanks! Also, I do not have the 64-bit JRE installed (doh!).

I had a similar experience using Chrome. Problem was I hit the "Discard" button that was suggested instead of just noting the warning and keeping the downloaded file. The only issue for me now is running the 64-bit version with 64-bit Windows. I can run the 32-bit version fine. I haven't have any crashes, and the only issue I've seen in my limited use is some extra ghost item callouts, A part is called out in an assembly step, with a quantity, e.g. "1x" but there's nothing there, and nothing missing.

If the part is a clear dish or dome, you may be able to paint the inside, and get a very close color match. For my Imperial Probe Droid, a 10x10 dish is needed for the top cap of the lower body part, but it's not available "in the wild" in black. I painted the concave underside of the part and it looks close enough to shiny black plastic on the top, that no one yet has been able to figure out the painted part when I challenge them, "One part on this model is painted, can you guess or tell me which one it is?" Those cheap acrylic crafts paints come in a LOT of colors. I bet there's a pretty close match for light grey and light bley out-of-the-bottle with no mixing.

Wow, this is a really great tool, thank you so much for creating and sharing it! I guess I should go read the instructions, but it's very intuitive to use out-of-the-box, so to speak. There are many print-to-pdf utilities, like cute pdf and nitro pdf, I don't think this program needs that. I'm only mentioning that because I'd rather msx80 work on things like support of very large models. I have a dream that someone will create instructions for Jerac's Star Destroyer. If you're gonna dream, dream big, right? Again, thank you msx80 for Blueprint, it's awesome.