ybmagpye

Must agree with Geertos13, the rocks at the base of the tower are great. Love the work and your photography gets an A+ (no squinting necessary )

I would ADORE Kingsley Shacklebolt! He is so cool and I envision a thousand different robes for him to model on his days off from the Minstery (ala that Old Spice 'You want your man to look like this!). Kingsley RAWKS. And yes, he had no lines other than 'woof' but I would love a Fang. Not just one of those grey dog figures done in black, but Fang - either movie version or canon - so he looks suitably large next to Hagrid. I would also like some Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs in their uniforms. Why not a nice Cho Chang, Justin Finch Fletchly, and Cedric Diggory looking all nice and spiffy, ready for lessons. How could I forget, Harry's dorm mates too! That would be Seamus, Dean Thomas and another Neville (they had him as a lego ages ago). And as an after thought, why not a Grawp? Yes, I sort of hate him too, but he is a fairly big part of book 5 and kinda cool in book 7. He would be nice if one were setting up the last battle at Hogwarts. He could be lifting up huge castle blocks off of innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire of wand blasts. Hey, why doesn't Lego take a hint and just make a set of characters from Harry Potter? A nice box with all the characters that didn't make it into sets. I know LEGO squirrels characters away into sets so you have to buy a HUMONGOUS set to get a character (such as Luna or Belatrix) but wouldn't it be a nice show of support for their fans to just SPOIL Lego fans? Just this one time? P L E A S E Lego corp? *futile wishes*

Wow! I love the way you have the colorful flat tiles for use as shelved books. Brilliant use of the tiles. There is so much to gawk at; in particular, the curved staircase. Also like the second story, from which minifigure Draco can look down on and snear at the events below. Lovely job!

I'm totally taken with your Quality Quidditch Supplies! My favorite bit is the interior scene with the brooms showing the multicolored bases and the rack of Quidditch tunics (minifigure torsos). Also loved the use of the Quidditch poster taken from The Burrows set, that hangs over the entrance on the outside of the shop. Cool!

Thanks for the review! This set totally rocks. I have one and after piecing it together, I may never take it apart - too beautiful to mess with. You are right about taking this set over the lastest Hogwarts Castle set. I have both, and after nicking the minifigures from the Castle set, that set sits in the box, bricks akimbo. I already have all but one of the Hogwarts Castle sets and do not even feel like putting this latest one together. But the Diagon Alley set, I could not wait to get cracking on this beautiful set! I might just give this a center spot of honor in my living room, it's that spectacular. P.S. My Olivander has flesh colored hands - I guess mine hasn't been dying wands!

Me again! I gave carving a wand a try and failed dismally. I used pliers to hold the rod, and carved with a new razor blade. The rods are amazingly tough & it was rough going. What is the best method and tools for whittlin' a wand? Thanks

I bow before, and admire your brilliance! I am stunned that this fix for more accurate wands didn't occur to ME. Why can't I be the brainy one for a change? Uh... right. Must have brain in the first place. But seriously, the rustic look of the carved wands is great. As soon as I saw your work I started to wonder how difficult, or not, it would be to not only carve a wand, but to make it unique from other wands. Could such eensie wands be carved to a degree that they can closely resemble wands from the movies (or one's imagination via canon)? You have inspired me. I will probably wind up with so many bandages on my fingers I will look like Dobby after speaking ill of his family. Now! Where the HELL did I put that jack knive???

Brilliant! I particularly love how you did the curtains. Totally proves to me that I need to open up my imagination when messing about with my lego bricks. Your work is art - congratulations.

I broke down and bought all of the 2010 Harry Potter sets. Figured I either buy them now at cost, or wait until their price is doubled in the aftermarkets of 2011 and beyond. Know what? I'm totally tickled with all the new sets. My only quibble with the lego company is a small one really - no Ravenclaws or Hufflepuffs included in any of this year's sets. I say that is a small matter because I can always use the Rav/Huf decals so cleverly offered up by other members of this forum. Oh, and frankly, I would kill for a few of the Brit-African members of Hogwarts. For example, how nice would it be to have Dean Thomas, Lee Jordan or for that matter, Kingsley Shaklebolt or Scot-Chin Cho Chang. I can fake clothing with decals, but striving to create other skin tones is a pain in the *rse. I am totally ready for 2011's Diagon Alley! Hurrah for getting Gred & Forge and not having to make them up from leftover Ron bits.

Decided to add one more spooky thing, UFOs. I saw a UFO when I was a kid in Bronx, NY. It was broad daylight and I was sitting in my brother's room staring lazily out his window. Mind - I was on the 18th floor of an enormous building, with four other enormous buldings on the same block - mid-day. I saw a delta wing craft moving along slowly. It caught my attention because it was going so slowly I felt as if it couldn't move that slow and stay aloft. "Why isn't it falling?" is what I kept thinking as I watched it. Then I thought, maybe it's far away and it only seems as if it's moving slowly. But if that were true, it must be gigantic..." My mind kept going in facinated circles - what's holding it up? Is it small and nearby? If so, how is it staying aloft. Is it huge and far away? Why aren't people shreiking and running away? Thing is, this was long before computers and cell phones and such. Yeah. I'm an old bat. Anyway, when the delta wing was parallel to my window, it shot UP. Straight up, and was gone in seconds. There wasn't then, and aren't any delta wings that do that, even now that I know of. Thing is, I never forgot that delta wing, but for ages I told myself it must be a military craft, after all, I saw it in daylight and everyone 'knows' UFOs are found in swamps in Mississippi or empty fields in Nebraska at midnight, right? So I was in denial. Then I read Communion by Whitley what's his name and freaked - his book (true, false, jury's still out) UFOs were seen in daylight in NYC. I could no longer ignore what I saw. By the way, I have heard oodles of UFO stories from oodles of friends/family. I've heard more UFO stuff than even ghost stuff. I'm certain there are UFOs, and that they aren't exactly 'unknown' they're just still 'classified' on a need-to-know basis. I never even thought before to class UFOs as paranormal! They're normal all right. Not ghosts flying those crafts, just aliens and military.

Well score one for the lego corporation - now I MUST have Hagrid's Hut and it's all your fault (THANK YOU!) Great review, very informative. I've never had any lit bricks before so that would have been enough to gode me into getting the set. I'm intrigued by Hagrid's new torso - know what it means? Hagrid now has a change of outfit! The newer, sloppier one for spraying for flesh eating slugs, and the older, tidier outfit for getting ready to see Madame Maxine. Totally cool! I too am ticked off about the, as I see it, downgrading of Hermione's face. I think I'll use the older flesh Hermione heads for Hermione, and use the newer one for various Hogwarts girlie-types. Also, as lovely as Hermione's new hair bit is with it's braids meeting in the back and the longer hair, I prefer the older Hermoine's hair which was medium length and loose. Thanks to you great close up shots, I now see this latest incarnation of the Hogwarts uniform looks more relaxed - the tie is loose and the neck skin shows. Early on the movies got away from the more formal wearing of the Hogwarts uniforms and when the kids are in the uniforms, the shirts are not tucked in and they wear their ties any old which way. The newest Lego Hogwarts uniforms reflect that casualness nicely. Great job! You MUST review the Diagon Alley set in 2011. Really. Must.

Oh, that is AWESOME dude! I can barely bring myself to stop staring at your setting - the stairs, the adorably authentic bits and bobs that make up the grand hall and the stairway... the cold white light streaming though the grand windows, the loose bricks and broken stair railing. Then to present your masterpiece in living (er... dead) B&W is just applaudable. I doff my yellow plastic lego hat to your Dracula's Castle! (and hope I never run out of gas if I happen to be driving past it...)

It's been a spooky couple of years. 1. A 5 year old girl died in a friend's home. The girl is still there. Since her death the household TVs click on all by themselves. One of my freinds is from a culture that takes the paranormal for granted. He says as the child did when she was alive, her ghost gets bored with the adult conversation so clicks on the TV. My said when they watch, say a program on CNN and turn off the TV, the following day when they switch it back on, the channel is set on the Cartoon network - the kid switches the channels. I nodded politely when told all of the above by my friends. One of them says he sees a black shadow figure hoovering at the far corner outside the garage. My other friend says she thinks its the neighbor who shot & killed himself many years ago. My initial thoughts - "Uh... right. Sure. If you say so." Of course, I didn't totally believe my buddys, ignoring my own paranormal experiences and thinking they were still upset by the girl's death. But I went on a car trip with one of my them up the coast. We visited another friend and we sat in her livingroom chatting. Out of the blue (when the 'adult' conversation got boring) the TV started clicking on and off. The lady we visited has an ancient b'jillion years old TV with a crap remote that often doesn't work. That TV had NEVER clicked on or off before on its own. Seems the ghost child traveled along with my friend and got bored. 2. I used to live in a haunted apartment only I didn't know it at the time. I would lie in my bed and hear my name whispered into my ear - I could actually feel breath on my ear. I was living alone. I assumed I was having some sort of mental process happening. Sometimes when I lay in bed reading, I'd hear my name called out from the living room. I managed to shrug that off too, rationalizing I was half asleep when I knew full well I was wide awake. I volunteer as a docent at an Indian Museum. I was with other docents while they were discussing how, in the small museum building, when on duty at the front desk by herself, one of the docent's hears her name shouted from the back of the museum, only there is no one back there and she sure as hell is wide awake at the front desk. It's a small building, one floor, no basement, you KNOW if you're in there by yourself. Who the $^%& is calls her from the back rooms? It may or may not matter that docent is a Navajo. 3. After my grandmother died, my aunt (Masters degree, skeptic) told me she was preparing dinner for her family and felt some one watching her, turned around and there was her mother (my grand) standing there. Grandma disappeared. I asked my aunt (stupidly) 'Were you frightened?!" My aunt gave me a look like I was a incredibly stupid and said, "She is my mother! Why would I be afraid?". 4. A couple of weeks ago I asked my nephew if he ever had a paranormal experience (I carry on about such stuff every October, it's practically a tradition for me now!). He said he was a docent at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. He and another docent heard screaming from an elevator when no one was in the elevator. The other longer-term docent, nonplussed, told my nephew that was the ghost of a man that died in the elevator (I forgot the details). My nephew also told me ages ago he woke to see the head of an ugly old woman with long white hair floating into his Brooklyn bedroom. She was translucent and freaky ugly. She disappeared. Some time later he gingerly mentioned what he saw to his southern grandmother who shrugged it off as if he'd seen nothing more amazing than a firefly float into his room. She said, "Oh that was a hag". His Grandma is from the south where many just take that sort of paranormal activity forgranted. The Hag story freaked me out a bit. I've heard of hags and assumed that was a stupid and unbelieveble paranormal activity experience by ignorant third world superstitious girly types. Shall I list my nephews degrees? He's no ignorant girlie and there is no way he'd make that up and tell me about it. If you were a macho type guy, would you make up a spooky story about a ghostly apparition that is normally associated with virginal girlie types? If you are a non-believer it just means you or a close loved one, hasn't yet had a paranormal experience - that you KNOW of.

YIPPY SKIPPY! I can't wait to try out the decals, they are perfect. Yes, PERFECT! I wish LEGOs made Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff figures, but until that far and distant day, tin7's designs & decals fill the bill with style. And thank you for the tutorial link darth yogi.