Runamuck

Admittedly I’m not a Ghostrider fan, but I have to say that that’s a really neat MOC. I like how you used the flame pieces to simulate that his head is a burning skull. I have occasionally seen other people try to simulate it by simply putting a flame in the hole on the top of the head, which frankly looks kind of dorky. Your solution is much better. The bike looks great too; it looks like it had driven straight out of hell.

The criticism is appreciated; it is nice to know where there is room for improvement. But I’m probably not going to change much in this case. While Zuko’s face certainly isn’t perfect, I do not want to change it for multiple reasons. By the standards of some of the terrible face I have created Zuko’s is not the worst looking, and his asymmetrical face is in general a bit hard to pin down properly. Zuko goes through a lot of hairstyle and headgear changes throughout the series, which can me pretty hard on the face sticker when you try to recreate it in LEGO. The current sticker has not caused too many problems in that regard so I’m pretty satisfied with it that. A third problem is that the stickers I have been using lately haven’t been sticking all that well to the heads. This is particularly a problem when the character don’t have any hair or headgear to keep the sticker somewhat in place, such as Zuko does during most of the first season. You can unfortunately actually see the peeling stickers in some of my photos; the Lieutenant is one of the figures who have been having that problem. I’m probably not going to do much about Hiroshi either. I actually like how both his scowling and his happy faces turned out, and so far he hasn’t appeared all that much, so he is probably not going to get that much use in general. I tried to use some of those seaweed pieces for the swamp monster, specifically as the “fingers” on the attacking arm. Unfortunately I didn’t have enough of them to actually make it look good. The body of the monster looks pretty solid on the show, so I didn’t think that the sea weed would look quite right there either. I have been trying to improve some of my figures and builds over time even if it doesn’t always show up in my picture. While I haven’t take pictures of it, I have given the red racecar new “suspension” identical to that on the yellow one. I have also improved a few figures that I haven’t made any builds for yet. I have tried to make new faces and occasionally torsos for Mai, Iroh and Tenzin. I really like the constructive criticism I get here on the board, it’s a good source for new ideas.

Do you have any specific figures in mind? I might try to improve them.

That is a really well build scene. When The Sleeping Beauty was the only Disney film you had on video as a kid this brings back memories.

Better go out with a bang. I had some interesting requests on the other board. Ah, let’s start with the picture I should have taken a while ago when I built the thing: Naga scaring the crap out of Tahno. Now to the new stuff: While I didn’t want to build an entire race track, I can still at least do a little scene from Asami’s little race: Asami promised to take Korra on a little spin on the Future Industries test track that her father owns. To make things a little more exciting they had an actual opponent to race. Asami is a quite cunning driver, as she and Korra cross the finishing line while their opponent spins out. The two Satomobile race cars. Speaking of Satomobiles: Asami’s, or maybe her father Hiroshi’s, personal Satomobile, now used by Team Avatar as Bolin so nicely puts it. I don’t have a whole lot of experience building cars that seat more than one or two minifigures, and while there are some thing I’m not entirely happy with on it, such as it riding too high, it’s not too bad for a first attempt. Now for something I really wanted to try and build: I really love robots, as if my Transformers inspired screen name didn’t already reveal that, so I simply had to try and build one of Equalist platinum mechs. Unknown to everyone, including his own daughter Asami, Hiroshi Sato had been funding the Equalists, and had been building weapons for them; among these the platinum mechs and the electrical shock gloves. A better look at a happier looking Hiroshi (I made a double-sided head for him) and Asami in her racing getup. There was also a request for Koizilla. I have wanted to make Zhao for a long time, and I could reuse some old props for this one. Koizilla! After Zhao killed Tui the moon spirit, La the ocean spirit, with a little help from Aang, went on a rampage against the Firenation Fleet that was invading the northern watertribe . As La possessed Aang it took the form of a gigantic fish monster made of water, usually called Koizilla by the fans. Sadly I didn’t have any light blue to make the glowing bits of the monster, but that color is pretty rare in general, so white will have to do. The monster has movable arms, but do not stay in place on their own. The chest bubble contains Aang. It is lit up from the back although it doesn’t show too well. A close-up of the face. The moustache tendrils make mile look a bit…walrusish. Swiping a battle ship in two is easy for this angry spirit. This was also a good reason for me to rebuild the Firenation ship that I made a long time ago. Admiral Zhao’s final moments. The last thing La did on it’s rampage was to kill Zhao by dragging him into the deep. Zhao is taking the wrath of La fairly dignified, he refuses any help from Zuko. A better look at Zhao and Zuko’s arctic clothes. Funny how Luke Skuwalker’s shirt make a good substitute for Zuko’s.

A few odds and ends in today’s Avatar MOC’s. Look out! It’s a wine monster! Sokka got swatted, and Katara is doing her best to cut the monster to pieces. That Bionicle “frost shield” is actually the reason why I build this; I thought it would make a neat effect piece. That's no monster, it’s just a pants less water bending philosopher named Huu. Zuko has been made up for his little date with Jin that Iroh arranged. Another build motivated by a new piece, in this case the CMF computer programmer’s hair. Jin is apparently not too fond of Zuko’s frankly rather dorky looking hair. A better look at the door of the tea shop without the figures. Jin, Zuko in new clothes, and Huu. And now for something from the new series: Republic city’s finest, the metal bending police corps. Captain Saikhan, police chief Lin Beifong, and the rather unlucky officer Song. Funny how a face that is common among LEGO City police officers fits Saikhan rather well. Just another day’s work, apprehending Shady Shin. Considering Lin’s brutal looking weapons it’s no wonder Shin looks quite scared. I’m using chains for the cops, as I don’t have many wires with studs on the end.

The raised middle sounds like an interesting idea, if I can find a way to pull it off. I don’t think that that particular feature had been shown yet when I build it. I’ll try to remember you advice the next time I have a good reason to build a creature of some sort. I was lucky during the weekend; I got some better hair for Gummo: Still a little too neat, but now it is standing up in the air at least. Back to addressing the requests from the other board: Narook’s Seaweed Noodlery with Naga “parked” outside. A look from above, it appears that there are some guests we know. I have tried my best to get some details on the walls. Bolin and Korra relaxing after the pro-bending game. The reception and kitchen side of the restaurant. The VIP lounge at the back of the restaurant. A better look at the special guests, the Wolfbats and some fangirls. A better look at the various photos on the back wall. People asked if I could take a picture of Bolin with Pabu on his shoulders, and this was the best I could do. The new flowers from the CMF bride fit the chain of events nicely. Anyone who has seen “The spirit of the competition” knows what is coming. Surprisingly it was actually possible to make Mako carry Bolin over his shoulder. A better look at the Wolfbats and the girls. I have had this wolf head lying around, so I thought it could be funny to make a little picture of Tahno during the Wolfbats’ corny intro sequence. I thought it was a neat idea to try making a double sided head, so here we also have a really miserable looking Tahno as well.

Test bricks? I suspected that they might be something like that. The place where I got those bricks, if I remember that part correctly, occasionally has some odd bricks like misprints, missing prints or odd quantities of uncommon bricks. I guess they have gotten their hands on some LEGO that was discarded by the factory. Thanks for the links, they were an interesting read. Nothing special about the colors of my own bricks though.

I felt like it had been a while since I had built something that was a bit bigger than usual. Behold, Phoenix King Ozai, complete with his personal airship and new face sticker. Kirov reporting…uh…I mean the Phoenix King’s airship in all its glory. There are doors that can be opened in each end so you can access the interior. The control room or whatever it is called on an airship. The royal firebenders I made earlier are piloting the airship. In the other end of the airship I placed a furnace there to create some hot air to keep this giant flying. I have placed a hatch on top of the middle section of the airship. There is a shoot with ladders that goes all the way though the airship. It connects the bomb bay, the control room and the furnace room and the balloon part, which is hollow. You can see the bombs at the very bottom. A view of the bomb hatch underneath the airship. There are several ways that you can tell Ozai’s airship apart from the other on the show. It is bigger, it has a dark stripe running along the top, and it has a phoenix head on the front instead of a …uh… what do you call that thing… lion-dog head I guess it could be called.

I doubt that, you can see in the picture that it actually says LEGO on one of the studs too.

I have a few odd ones: This isn’t so much a question of what, but more a question of why. Why does one of the bricks have “A” printed on the studs? If I remember correctly I also have a few red bricks with other letter on their studs as well. I guess the other brick is an old wheel block that wasn’t finished.

I agree that it would look a little better if the airbending gate field was round, but as a proof of concept a square one works too. I don’t use that much technic, so it took a little trial and error working with gear sizes and distances between them before I got to the final version. The jagged edges are a bit lazy of me, but I don’t think I have any wedges with the right dimensions. What kind of flex tubes were you thinking of? How do you make tiny creature without them getting blocky or being molded from scratch? Time to address the various requests: Fist a little mid-game scene from a bending match. Looks like the Fire Ferrets are taking a bit of a beating, Korra is already in zone 3. Looks like Bolin nailed the Platypus Bears’ (sorry, got the team name wrong last time) waterbender pretty good. The Lieutenant was a request, and I also wanted to make some equalist mooks. There are both male and female equalists. The Lieutenant even has his generator pack for his electrified kali sticks. The bolos for the mooks sure were easy to make . Asami Sato and her moped was another request. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a good solution for a brick build moped that I was able to build with the parts I had available. Instead I modified a standard motorcycle a little to make it look a bit more like a moped. At least I was lucky enough to have a spare yellow one. Asami in what I guess are her casual clothes, we haven’t seen too much of her yet. I think the makeup turned out rather well. A Satomobile was requested, so why not make a model with a little style. The Tripple Threat Triad hotrod. Unfortunately I only had doors that were 2 bricks tall for one side for some odd reason. Well these doors work too, even if they are a bit chunky. As a vehicle without a driver is a little boring I decided to make Shady Shin as well. The last request I got this time was for Gommu, the friendly hobo from the park. He must have found a comb at some point I guess. I could really use some more variation in my selection of gray hair. Also a new face for Korra. I have been trying to make some improved faces for some of my figures; they will probably show up at some point. And just for the giggles a picture of his beauteous bush shot though a rose-tinted and sparkly (even if it doesn’t show so well) LEGO piece.

Ugh, triple post. I had a few request by some people on another board, so here are the results of that: A few people asked if I could make a video of the airbending gates spinning, so my brother and I made this little GIF. A pro-bending arena was another thing people wanted to see. Admittedly some of the field proportions got a little squashed. A close-up to get a look at the details. I have placed blue bricks under the grates to resemble the water. There are a set of transparent green and red bricks to resemble the lights that glow when the game starts and when a player crosses the line. The “clay disks” are placed on top of tiles so they are easy to get up and throw at opposing players. The first lineup of the Fire Ferrets, Mako, Bolin and the Pete Best of the group, Hasook. Current lineup of the Fire Ferrets with Korra replacing Hasook. The opposing team, in this case the Tigerdillos. I know that the helmet that the CMF boxer uses is closer in appearance to the actual helmets on the show, but I only have two, and I wouldn’t have any in a color for the opposing team. That being said, I went with the ordinary crash helmets instead. Speaking of fire ferrets: Pabu! I unfortunately didn’t have the piece I wanted to use for its head in the right color, but this works relatively well too.

With all the excuses I could come up with I should be a race driver, if Top Gear is to be believed. I have tried to touch up the sloppy paint work a bit. Also in general a better look at the figure I suppose. Koalaexpert’s build gave me an idea: I made my own version of Korra’s airbending training… …But what do we have here? A crank! I wanted to mechanize it, so it actually spins. Not a great picture to illustrate it, but the gates spin when you turn the crank. Then again, we all know how Korra’s early training session ended.

I would love to see the Avatar theme return, but I do think that at least in LEGO terms it would be a bit of a niche market. Also I could suspect that there may be some copyright issues with the James Cameron Avatar over the name. I have also seen someone else on CUUSOO try to get some support for some LDD builds for Legend of Korra. Edit: Here is the CUUSOO build I was talking about: http://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/13835

Thanks for the comments. Yes, I admit that things get a bit sloppy during mass production. All of these were made in a single day. I’m not sure switching to a newer marker is necessarily an improvement. I had trouble with the yellow one because it was drying up, so I switched to a new one, but then I was afraid of smudging things and the marker being miscoloured from the other line on the sticker. Also it is probably a dumb idea using pencil for the grey bits; I get as much on my fingers as I get on the paper. Also it would probably help if I used a different light source; I suspect that the light I use while working on the figures might be too yellow. But I have tried to touch the figure up a bit. Then there are also other problems. Colours can accidentally bleed into each other. The paper for the torso cover can get soggy and rip during colouring. I had some stickers that were a bit old and didn’t stick well. And I might get fed up with things after a few failed attempts. Oh well, it’s just for fun that I do this anyway. It’s still nice to get some response on things that could be improved, especially when it is fairly easy to fix like the minor colour touch ups. Edit: Amon’s face is actually coloured like that on porous to mimic how his mask looks.

TV premier time for Legend of Korra! I have prepared a little thing for this. Although you may already have seen the first episodes through Korra Nation, I’ll still try to stay on the safe side and avoid too many spoilers in my builds. Here are a few characters from the show that have been featured a lot on things like official websites: I have updated Korra a little. Tenzin and his family, His son Meelo, his pregnant wife Pema, and his daughters Ikki and Jinora. Minor local pro-bending sports stars Bolin and Mako. And last, but not least the mysterious Amon.

During Easter I found the Knight’s Kingdom 2 chess set on a flea market, it got the gears in my head turning for something I have wanted to make for a really long time. I bring you fire! I have had the basic parts for these soldiers for a long time, but I didn’t know what to use for the fire bender helmets. I guess the Shadow knight helmet with a sticker works for me. I had the idea for the royal firebenders for a long time, but I just didn’t make them before now. Bu since I now have firebenders, I made a quick setup with them from the old series: Poor Aang, and poor Gyatso too for that matter. Gyatso went out with a fight.

Have you guys heard? The Legend of Korra has a release date now, 14th of April. Well, the detective is missing Iroh’s goatee, and oddly enough I have grown a bit attached to the old sticker head I made, even if other people consider it a little bit creepy looking. The detective head might come in handy though for someone else eventually. It’s nice to see other fans here on Eurobricks. Well, I don’t have the official Avatar sets either, so we have something in common there. Interesting Kyoshi story you have going on there. I had some requests, so let’s try and address those. A miniature of the gigantic statue of Aang, which is standing in the bay of Republic city. It was kind of difficult to find pictures, and it is not entirely accurate. The actual statue does not have the medallion, but I also tough that I might be able to recycle this and replace the crude statue at the Air Temple. And now for the turtleducks: A young Zuko and his mother princess Ursa feeding the turtleducks. Unfortunately the mother duck does not think it’s funny that Zuko demonstrated how Azula feeds the turtleducks. Ursa: Zuko, that's what mom's are like. If you mess with their babies they'll bite you back. Happy family photo of Zuko and Ursa.

I’m pretty sure AFOL would be rather disappointed if I was in charge of making Avatar LEGO sets, but thanks for the compliment none the less. Minor update, I took your advice Oky and tried to give Teo’s glider a more sleek look: I was asked if I had enough pieces to build an Air temple. While the answer in hindsight maybe should have been a no, I was running out of Big Ugly Rock Pieces and dark gray pieces, I could not help myself to at least try and build an Air temple. So here it is: The Western Air temple. Again it’s more of a play set. One of the upside-down buildings. The roof would look better with some inverted slopes, but I didn’t have any. The other part of the temple, complete with a rather crude statue. Zuko’s encampment. Yes, Zuko is talking to the badgerfrog. It appears that team avatar is hiding from something. But who are they hiding from? *spark*spark*BOOM* The Combustion Man!

Sorry about first getting to it now, but I have tried to take a few additional pictures that might show how the boat is constructed. http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/5521/img0946dz.jpg http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/3043/img0947hi.jpg http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/6796/img0949uk.jpg http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/3937/img0951bc.jpg

The site hasn’t been around for very long, 10 days or so, and the date of Korra’s release is still only stated as “soon” as far as I know , there are rumors about a spring release though. Well or at least that is what avatarspirit.net is saying. You are definitely on to something there, Oky. Those pieces would be great, but I don’t think I have any spare ones though. Paper could also work, like the old ninja or ewok gliders. Unfortunately I have something else on my mind right now, but I’ll probably take a look on it a little later. And what would the “ribs” actually be called in English? I couldn’t remember when I posted last.

It is very nice to see that my building is appreciated, even if it is a bit on the crude side. Well, the glider is definitely a bit on the thick side, and it would probably have looked a little better with brown wood pieces and maybe tan winga, but brown technic pieces are rather uncommon. Other than having a few more “ribs” in the wings, I don’t think the shape is too far off except for being angular instead of round. It is basically an overgrown version of Aang’s glider on the show. http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Gliders#axzz1oFCvCzDV Also, Oky, I think we can do better than the avatar wiki for Korra, they have actually gotten an official website a few days ago: http://www.nick.com/shows/legend-of-korra?navid=showNav

I have been building a lot lately, haven’t I? Well, here we go again. This is Teo, the son of the Mechanist. The Mechanist has made a lot of interesting inventions, among these he outfitted his son’s wheelchair with an glider based of leftover Airnomad equipment found in the northern air temple. A look from above. Aang joins Teo on his flight. Aang’s glider was an interesting thing to try and build. Maybe I should have added some details to the wings. Aang hanging on to his glider. The construction is rather different from what I have seen of the official LEGO version. Katara Also joins the flight. Overside… …and underside of another glider that the Mechanist has built. Are we missing anybody? Momo of course. Momo, this time in “flight mode”. Remember, when flying, watch out for bugs.

My latest creation: The freedom fighter’s camp or more like the play set version of it. A view of the whole thing. This was actually a rather interesting experience in how to build larger trees. The elevator needed to get up to the platforms. Winching system and observation platform. The middle platform with table. All the freedom fighters together. Jet’s quarters. Apparently I can’t keep the camera straight. Notice the dagger stuck in the table. The backside has not been completely neglected either. There is a zip line that goes across all three trees. Weeeeeeeh! The freedom fighters. Jet with some old “crowbar”/”robofingers” standing in for his hook swords, Pipsqueak with his log club, The Duke, Smellerbee, Longshot and Sneers who should be happy that I bothered to remember making a figure of him.