Shadows

MUCH better already! Looks a lot cleaner and more orderly. I'm also fond of the junkyard in the background. Reminds me of my days spent working at Ord Mantell. Ah, the hovertrain, she was a beauty. Seemed like I would get up early and not get back home until late. One could say I'd been working on the railroad, all the live-long day. :-| I'd probably smack one if they did, however. :-P

Oh man, I don't know where people get the motivation to build like that ... Sad it's going to be so rough to work with, but I'm still convinced that something is possible, especially if I can find a decent engineer with some starship experience. ;-)

Mad Hatter wouldn't be bad, and an easy parts build from mostly existing material for them. I figure the two sets this year are just to say, "yes, we're still making them" and hold people over until the new game comes out. Bet on sets to coincide with that release, hopefully something new and not just rehashed out of larger sets. I DO NOT want to see Mr. Freeze, Penguin, or Poison Ivy, the way we're getting Riddler and Scarecrow repackaged from Arkham.

Informative review, thanks! I've been curious about the latest Technic sets. I remember sitting down at the coffee table to build the old Expert Builder sets (while watching cartoons on cable, we had it here :-P) and this looks nothing like those. I'm not impressed with this direction in the line. I don't follow the colour scheme either and have almost no use for studless parts and hundreds of pins. Guess now I know what the inside of the UCS Falcon will look like. Maybe I'll need some of these parts to attempt to restructure it enough to build some interior. Think I'll just stick to Bricklink orders, this doesn't look like $70 worth of parts to me. Still, an excellent review *y* Shame it isn't a better set.

Very interesting. It reminds me less of a heavy AT-ST and more of a transitional vehicle developed sometime between the Clone Scout Walker (AT-RT?) and the AT-ST. It's clearly smaller than an AT-ST, designed for one driver like the Scout Walker, but fully enclosed and much more seriously armed than it's predecessor. Things I like: the top hatch, the height (the AT-ST was always incredibly unbalanced), the big feet. You know what they say about big feet. They keep it from falling over. What were you people thinking? *wacko* Things I'm not as sold on: Colour scheme. Pick an enviroment and blend, you're all over the place making it far too easy to spot. The battle droid parts. I'm not sure why they're there. Does that slope fold down, or are they there to let the gun move? It's unclear. Overall, nice job, keep it up! *y*

To balance out the typically large size of modular, I'd like to suggest the addition of a vignette class, just to give people with small collections the opportunity to join in. It could be focused on smaller things like carts, fountains, scenes depicting a streetside cafe where only a section of building is seen, road work, mailboxes, traffic lights. The things that add flavour to a city display without taking up a lot of space. For vehicles, I'd like to see something aimed directly at service vehicles instead of simply cars. LEGO has given us some nice examples lately with the recycling truck and cement mixer, I bet we could follow that up with something even better. I'm not sure how to differentiate between buildings and modular. Buildings, in traditional LEGO City style are drafty wide-open pseudo-buildings meant for play. I rarely see anyone MOC like that. Since almost everything ends up bordering on modular anyway, it wouldn't take much for someone to just make the extra effort to conform to the standard (loose as it really is). That being the case, do we need a 'building' category at all, or could we perhaps split modular into 'commercial' and 'government/civil.' I like making things complicated, apparently. Take all of this as just me thinking out loud.

I like the building and tank background most, then the mountains. I just wish you could see more of the tank. The troop background with the 48 star US flag just seems wrong. That torso is my personal choice for German WWI pilots, it's always nice to see it getting more military use since it's so perfect for it. In Soviet Union, minifigs sig you. ;-)

Reminds me of the Obi Wan / Jango fight in LSW. Boba will launch rockets at Yoda, Yoda will send them back at him. Game over.

Let's see... Jelly vigs once I have jellies. Chinese restaurant for the City competition. Build Cafe Corner since I finally got it. Find my boxed up pre-dark-ages LEGO. It's all in a box ... somewhere. I miss it. :'-( All those pirates, forestmen, knights, and classic spacers *wub* I better be going now before I scroll back and comment on the walrusjob up there ... ;-)

I know, and I can't change the thread title to indicate the crooked part of the whole thing. I tried editing the first post, but either I haven't got the posting mojo for it, or I just don't know what I'm doing... I was going to change it to: An eBay find that just made me laugh too hard ... ... until I checked out the seller. Potential Crook Alert!

Very nice! I like it when a vignette tells a story, and when a story comes along with it, it's just that much better! It's a matter of order vs organized chaos. The British are all very nicely uniform, and uniformed, with plenty of training, history, and equipment on their side. The colonists are, well, a rag tag bunch, scraping by and scrapping their way to freedom. They may not have organization, but they have heart and that's what counts sometimes. Chase 'em Back Where They Came From On! ;-) ps. We still like you Brits, don't worry, it was just those powdered wigs and interfering with our tea that set us off. ;-)

Let's hope no one bids, I'm a half inch from concluding that he's a crook. Browse his feedback and look for the unlucky bidder who won about $800 worth of his stuff. Odd that so many end at the same price. Must be a coincidence, I'm sure. Check the bid history on the items and notice that one bidder is frequently directly under the winning bid. Well, that could be normal, since it's all similar items, sure. Check the location of the seller and that underbidder. Seller: Elicott City, Maryland. Underbidder: Columbia City, Maryland. Still a coincidence. Except the listings for the Columbia City bidder state that he's in Elicott. Oh look, the seller is also a bidder. He bids on the same kinds of things that the other bidder lists, and sometimes on his auctions. They must save a fortune on shipping ;-) If it wasn't for eBay's attempt to protect crooked sellers, I could get enough bidding history to prove this one, I'd bet the farm on it. They may or may not be the same person, but I'll bet they're friends.

I didn't think anyone would want it, one sec. *goes looking* Here we go ... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...em=260156240404 At least he called them custom. Some of his others he isn't as clear on. I found it while looking at minifig lots. I kept noticing his auctions were drastically overpriced (this one is almost reasonable compared to some, unless you consider how many of those are just stickered plain torsos) and always a little odd in some way. Bounty hunters where you end up with Luke and Han in exoforce hair and a Jango with no helmet ($65???). Cloud City security with one proper guard, some blank knockoffs, and a non-Lando Lando ($55???). About the only good deals I saw were Batman figs, since they were all official and not drastically overpriced, I guess. Of course they're coming out of sets that are on nice clearance sales here.

Thanks for some of the suggestions, guys. I will take them all into consideration and mostly just take things slow. I really do want her to be a little more interested, but only if it can come naturally. I'll keep you posted on how that works out, if it does. The good thing is that she accepts it completely, so no matter how that goes, it isn't something to come between us. Well, except that money issue. 8-

Ok, I had a hard time determining where to put this. Theoretically, it's an auction for custom Jedi figures that I wouldn't buy if it was the last auction on eBay. I desperately hope the person running it isn't a member here. I should have thought of that before starting this message. Oh well, here we go ... Reasons I couldn't stop laughing. Jedi Ron Weasley, aka Jedi Joe Vig without his hat and his tighty whities over his jedi pants. Jedi Timmy, yellow stained underpants and all! Introducing Sith Lord King Kahuka! When he isn't tormenting those pesky pirates, he's hunting down the jedi! There's funny things about some of the others too. Like that guy *points* See? He's funny! X-D I'm not sure where else to go with this. :-| I should go to bed now. It's still funny, you know it is. :-P

Hey, I had to put out the good word for Pirates, you can't blame me ;-) A glance through some pictures leads me to Nautica for a modern theme. Actually, I was surprised to find a complete lack of boats in Paradisa, or it might have won just for female minifig population X-D

I like this a lot. Being made from reworked official sets, it has a very official look, yet with that twist that makes it new. The angle of the rope bridge is a bit unorthodox, I'm having a hard time telling how well it attached to the taller building and I might consider adding at least one row boat since they almost always put one in a set this size. Overally, nice work! *y*

PIRATES aren't nautical enough for you, eh??? *pirate* As for your list, I was either in my dark ages or not paying attention during the run of most of those (outside of the 80's boats, which I wasn't into at all). I don't think I'm qualified to vote here, unless it's "other" which seems to defeat the purpose. I do remember liking the general idea behind a couple of the Adventurer's Amazon River boats, simple as they were.

Me too, I'm not seeing any of those. Leads me to ask something I've meant to ask for a while. What does IPB Image mean on these boards?

Hmmm... An interesting idea. I don't see her ever joining a forum (well, she joined FBTB ... got one post out of her :-D ), but there's no reason she can't have a figure that represents her and then I could build some places for us to 'visit' together. I like that, it's nice and personal. *y* Speaking of people needing whacking ... did you get my pm? I've already pm'ed poor Sinner since then just to see if I know how to send properly. I'm not sure he was that thrilled... X-D I could just start a thread, but I figured you're the expert on the subject, so I'd ask directly. Whack On!

Ok, here's the situation. I'm engaged to a non-AFOL, which I assume is fairly normal. She's fully aware of the obsession, that isn't an issue. I made a point of getting it out in the open early on. She isn't opposed to LEGO, even finds some of it 'cute', but clearly she wouldn't be involved in it at all on her own. I try to build on the areas she has shown interest in, but it's very limited. I don't know exactly where I'm going with this, I just don't want to feel like I have to supress my LEGO mania, but I also don't want to annoy her with it. To me, that means getting her interested enough that it isn't bothersome. I'm just not completely sure how to do that subtly. Comments? Suggestions?

At least I didn't hide tribbles in your shorts. Again.

I'll take the transporter room! Wait, I'm getting my stories mixed up. *whacks Sinner with a dilithium crystal* :-P Now, where were we? Oh yes, building. I'm not sure I've "seen" enough of the ship at this point to adequately construct it. I do, however, have a firm grasp on the fog. It's in my brain. *wacko* Think I'll keep "watching" before I try building anything. I do like that galley a lot though, especially since it's so well outfitted with potential weapons ;-)

Robbie Dupree - Steal Away then Eric Carmen - Make Me Lose Control and finally Toto - Africa It's a smooth listening night ...

Don't forget ... if TRU there is like here, it's cheaper on S@H. $10 less each, here.