Henchmen4Hire

How old is Charlie that he still sleeps with a teddy bear? Neat set :)

I think felt is too fuzzy, it'll start to deteriorate and leave hairs everywhere, then again I'm not sure what you need it for. If you can, head to Walmart and look through their rolls of fabic, there's some thin fabric that would work great. The only thing is you have to spray it with starch or watered down glue to add stiffness and prevent the edges from fraying.

Why go traditional when you can go hammerhead! That's what my grandma always said. She was a weird lady.

It's Dutch from Motorcity in all his purple-shirted green-pantsed glory. I think the shirt could use a wrinkle or two, may add that later on. Dutch makes me laugh because in elementary school I was the only kid who owned a pair green jeans. No one makes fun of Dutch though lol Free to use, enjoy

That 50 custom figs for $100 sounds too good to be true, but what an amazing deal if it is! I wouldn't mind designing a bunch of torsos and exchanging the designs for free quality prints instead though. $50 for just one printed minifig is insanity, no other way to put it. I used to sculpt and paint entire quality custom action figures and statues and would be lucky to get $50 lol. Making custom minifigures or action figures of popular/trendy characters is where all the money is. A quality Creeper or Darkhawk custom will get you like $20 bucks if you're lucky, but make a quality Black Widow custom and it's pretty much a guaranteed $70+ every time. You never have to worry about copyrights. Pretty much every customizer has made at least a million Wolverine and Batman customs to sell, and publicly displayed their work, and they never get bothered by the companies. Totally agree with your statement about never getting replies. I tried it too and didn't get anywhere, I guess they're just sick of answering the same question over and over, and why would they help out potential competition anyway, right? I feel like waiting until the printing technology gets minituarized and easily affordable by hobbyists before diving into it, but I'm sure by then either it wouldn't be profitable anymore, I won't give a crap about LEGO, or I'll be dead. If I had a quality printer right now and if it were financially feasible, I would give everyone a free torso print just so they could see first-hand the quality of the print (have them pay all shipping charges of course). Hopefully that would get them hooked and would gladly pay for more, as well as tell their friends. Hell, if I had a bunch of money to throw away I would just print free stuff for everyone, maybe ask them to donate some money to charity or whatever but not require it. I believe every kid and AFOL out there should have at least one kickass custom minifig they absolutely love without having to pay $50 for it (hey, it's great publicity! haha). Anyway, good luck with this venture!

ROFL, I love that some guy hired those mariachi guys to play while the snake/scorpion pit fight rages on.

I think that's exactly why they shouldn't go back to redoing those old themes. If there are plenty of people around doing a good job of revitalizing those old themes already then I doubt TLG could release anything as amazing. MOCers tend to splurge on their models and buy lots of parts to make them pretty, an official set's design and piece count would have to be a lot more modest to be affordable. I don't know, I say that as a cynical 20-something-year-old that thinks MOCers make way better things than any official set TLG releases, but maybe kids would love the updated sets and they'd be a hit. I wouldn't mind seeing official updates (or maybe a continuation/evolution of an older line like with SP3) but I'd rather get new space themes with new characters and designs instead.

Since SALLEN92 was nice enough to make a decal of the Major (coming soon anyway!), I figured I'd help the series along with this nifty Batou decal. I think it looks cool, managed to give him a little bit of a gut while still looking muscular. I would give him grey/light bley pants, Batou laughs in the face of fashion. Feel free to use it, no credit needed. I still have the PSD file so feel free to make suggestions too. Wish I could print it out and use it but I have a shitty printer :/ Let me know if anyone would be willing to print me some quality decals or waterslide decals in exchange for me making you some designs. Note: The sides on this go slightly past the torso "border", I recommend resizing the height first so the decal is the proper size.

Nice usage and great that you kept a bunch of articulation I'd change those legs though, lack of articulation

I did some remote viewing and this is what I came up with: Guy with a hairy chest Lady with a tall hat Short leg figure (possibly an albino pygmy) Something with scales (could be a snake-man or it could be a male Lady Liberty) One of them has red hands (a politician?) I see more hair, could be a hair stylist or could be an eyelash in my eye The rest of them are blanks in random colors so kids can draw on them and parents can complain about paying $3.20 for a blank figure

There are only so many ways you can build a specific style of building with a finite set of bricks, so there's no need to be apologetic lol I think the water could use work, but cool build otherwise. Makes me want to build a little shack for the few ninjas I have floating around.

LEGO minifigures are also very deformed, so I don't understand the dislike of other "deformed" products lol I love the useful pieces the other companies make. I still don't understand why every LEGO MOCer isn't praising the nifty pieces the other brands have given us that TLG doesn't seem interested in making. That line of thought always ends in irrationality and censoring so I'll move on lol. Fun fact: I've accidentally cut myself with LEGO pieces just trying to pry them apart, a few times pretty badly because the edges are so sharp. I've never hurt myself on a clone brand

There's nothing wrong with anal. No matter what you do, there's a similar process. If you sculpt the item then you need to make molds to make copies if you want. The clay may be too fragile in the long run so you may need to make a copy in more durable material anyway. Obviously with the 3D printer you skip right to the finished product, you just need to create the item in 3DSMax or whatever first. I'm guessing some of those sellers print the initial model then make molds of it so they can make copies in Alumilite or ABS or whatever it is they use. It may be expensive to use the printer for everything after all.

You can do a few things- (well, actually 2 lol) Buy a 3D printer for a couple thousand dollars. Shop around obviously! Check this place out: http://objet.com/ The higher end Objet models let you print with many different materials, but the desktop series should be fine for your needs. You can use a few different types of materials with those (flexible, translucent, rigid, etc.). I don't know what Shapeways uses but every picture I've seen of their stuff has either had a rough surface or it was a shitty picture. Find someone with a 3D printer and give them a few bucks to let you borrow their machine. The materials used to print the objects aren't cheap and they can take a while to print. Give your buddy a nice tip if he's nice enough to let you use his machine. Sculpt them yourself. If you're really anal about the items being perfect then I don't recommend this. If you have a few weeks/months/years to spend learning to sculpt to the point where you can make them flawless then more power to you though! If you want to give it a shot, I recommend you use rigid stuff like jeweler's wax, Chavant (Hard), and Castilene. They all require some getting used to, in the end you'll have to make a mold of the item you made and cast it no matter which you use. You're going to need to set up a mini furnace to do this. I suggest the jeweler's wax since it's easiest to start with (or practice with some candle wax).

Like with everything in life, it depends on how you look at it. Here you got all of those for 25 bucks in one go. If you had to buy all those parts individually, odds are you'd have to buy from more than one seller, which would increase shipping costs and possibly cost you more than the 25. If you really like the items then it's a good deal. Some people pay $25 for single ugly Star Wars and Harry Potter figures. Whatever makes you happy is best :)

I've found that it's usually a waste of time to hassle a seller, it also damages your relationship with them if you're a major bother, which is important if they have lots of stuff you want or you buy from them often. No one wants to deal with a whiner. One little piece is such a petty grievance, but it does matter what piece it is. Reasons to make a fuss: -They say it's complete but there are a few pieces missing -They say it's complete but there is one important/rare piece missing -They say it's complete but there's one piece missing or replaced in a very noticeable area -They say it's new but it's not. -They say X but it's really Y, etc. Yeah, the important thing is to read what they listed. Reasons to move on with your life: -A non-essential piece is missing and you can easily replace it. -A piece that you can't even see once the model is assembled is missing/discolored (just replace it with whatever). -A piece is damaged with a hairline crack, dent, nick, etc. (Most sellers aren't going to inspect every piece, it's a waste of time. These are just toys after all. One man's treasure is another man's baby pacifier.) -You buy a 25 year old used set and not all the pieces are mint. (how many people do you personally know hermetically seal their LEGO sets? ) Any time a seller forgot to include a piece they're usually nice enough to send a replacement for free or just give me store credit.

Pretty cool! Only things I'd nitpick is maybe sag/curve the bandoliers on RO a little so they don't look so flat and rigid. Maybe add a little shading on the abs for Meryl to hint at muscle.

Hah, reminds me of a tank full of Metroids, very cool!

I'm guessing the dream of a LEGO Motoko minifig is over? haha I like the new zombie face you posted though

I don't care what the other guy makes, ancient civilizations on the moon beats everything lol I like the angular base, always bugs me when a nice MOC has a boring square base.

I wonder if Dracula isn't a little bit suspicious that his wife has a full body painting of hunky Frankenstein in their bedroom.

Between that icy poster and the Speedorz (laziest name ever lol), it's obvious the replacement for ninjago is going to be a hi-tech interplanetary ice sled racing theme. Rejoice! I'd like a futuristic racing theme, how can you complain about a theme dedicated to cool cars, speeders, and rockets? (unless you hate space of course, you poor misguided fellow :) )

Lol, how can you guys even tell what's going on in the picture, it's too small. Oh well, looks cool anyway

I like that our fearless "hero" wears a leather vest over the flannel shirt. Now that's manly

Yeah, telling us the camera model would help a ton to give you specific direction. But in general... First off, use Manual settings and learn to use your camera ASAP. ISO This is important to understand, luckily there isn't much to it. ISO simulates more light in the image (it gives it a higher exposure). The lower the ISO setting the better the picture quality will be (set it to like 100). The higher the ISO is the more "noise" or "grain" will appear in the picture. Low ISO also usually means you'll be shooting at a slow shutter speed, which is fine, use a tripod and the camera's timer function. Use decent lighting If you don't have enough light you'll have to resort to raising the ISO to get brighter shots or using really slow shutter speeds, both of which will lead to the ugly "noise". It's best to start off with good lighting in the first place. Surround the scene with white paper or cloth to bounce light around, or do whatever you feel works for the shot you're trying to take. Not using enough light will dull your colors. Saturation/Vibrance For more color, check your camera and see if it has the option to saturate the pictures more. Look for something like "Vivid Color" or something. You can also easily bring out the colors more in Photoshop by using the Vibrance/Saturation tool. Vibrance adds color more subtly I think, play around with it. Ugly yellow/blue/whatever tinge Some lights give pictures a certain tinge, you can fix that in Photoshop usually by just using Auto Color or Auto Tone. Sometimes you have to manually fix the picture by using something like the Selective Color tool. Sometimes the camera will have options to fix it itself. Brightness/Contrast -Don't adjust Brightness/Contrast, you'll tend to get an unnatural result if you're just starting to adjust pictures. Use the Levels tool instead. (Image > Adjustments > Levels) The White slider affects bright areas, the Grey midtones, the Black dark areas. Play around with it to get a feel for what it adjusts, it gives you much more natural results than Brightness/Contrast (nothing wrong with B/C if you want to use that though). Bad contrast will also dull your colors. It's best to take a nice picture to begin with because if all your pictures are bad you're going to have to correct every one of them, and that gets time consuming (unless you run a script of course). Usually all I have to do with my pictures is darken them a little and get rid of blue or green tinge because of the lights I use.