Grover

Great work! I love the colors, and the new macaroni tile technique looks great, especially given the setting. The uniformity of the trainees is fantastic--I don't know how you collected all those turbans, but they fit well. The incorporation of all the new elements--the shields, the bird from the CMF line... all great jobs. The overall scene looks good, too--the main focus is in the center, but if you look at details, you notice the guy with the cat, the obviously high ranking guys on the balcony, the statue, the stone in the courtyard that shows the age of the facility, the slight dark tan discolorations here and there on an otherwise well kept building...they all give clues that the facility is older, but not ancient, and that it's obviously well maintained, probably by the trainees... there are so many stories and implications here in this one build, it's just great. Keep up the good work!

Very nice work! I really like the way that you made the floor half textured half tiled to give it a rough yet obviously worked appearance. The use of the colors, particularly the rare dark brown, is great, too. The candleabra is very well done, and I like how you put it on a 1x2 plate and turned it to give more randomness to the floor. I think you incorporated the jail doors nicely, too--something that sometimes looks a little out of place with a ton of custom rockwork, but you made it look like it was supposed to be there. I think that your storytelling and pictures are real highlights, too: this looks like storyboard scenes cut from a movie. Great job!

Well done! I like the mix of the large and small logs for the palisade, and the slightly uneven tops to them. The small cones on the large logs look a little odd, but I don't know that Lego has made the larger 2x2 cones in tan. I like the sideways log framing the gateway as well. The dark brown stems with the white flowers look great, and I like the layering of the dark green wedge plates. Very nice work. One question: are you the original artist for the Mitgardian map? It's probably my favorite of all the Historica maps.

Very nice work! I'm glad to see more of Ayra. I love the story and idea behind it. Builds seem more realistic when there's a need-based story behind it (as in, why would an archer be on the back of a centaur? You explained it well). I like the colors and the barding. The only criticism is that the picture could use more light. The black and dark green are exceedingly difficult to photograph; trying to find the right amount of light to show everything without washing it out is hard. In this case, some of the more recessed areas tend to have low contrast. Other than that, though, great job! I'd hate to get hit by that blenderizer of a polearm!

Welcome indeed! I'm excited to see what you come up with for Avalonia!

Really sweet build. It's a great representation of a nighttime shot in winter, too: a moonlight night will reflect a lot of light, and I have seen nights like the one you built. I like the forced perspective, too, although as a tip, if you move the background back a bit and make sure the camera focuses on the foreground, you can get a smoother image of the background and it looks more like a movie shot. I like your color choices and the business of the scene; it brings the small scene to life for me. I like the pie seller, too, but what is he doing selling pies at night? lol Nice work, as usual!

Man, I re-read this three times before I saw that. Oh well, sorry.

If you don’t mind going third party there’s brick warriors. https://www.brickwarriors.com/deer-antlers-pair/

Ooooh! More to the cyclops backstory! I was really excited when you did the first post with the cyclops. What a great idea! This build is no less impressive than your others. I like how you broke up the 1x2 / 1x1 round with some plates, olive green, and DBG. It really helps distract from the spiral pattern. The palisade bricks at the wooden part at the top do a great job helping to alleviate that. The cyclops huts do a great job furthering your description of a 'good' cyclops building but something that would also be considered almost a lean-to by other races. I like the inclusion of the elven sword as an artifact, too. The various colored leaves on the trees are nice, and overall color choice of the olive green plates on brown is excellent (though I'm not sure where you scored all that olive green!). I like the details too: the neat firewood bundle, the cookfire and what appears to be a torch on a pole. If I were to nitpick, the one thing that stands out a little is the overall horizontal pitch to the leaves. In the Blufji post on Flickr that you said you modeled this after, the leaves were broken into different angles that I think helped break up the parallel lines. It's not that easy to notice right off the bat, though, so like I said, it's kind of a nitpick. Very, very nice work. I love seeing your aesthetic and I am trying to imitate some of your stone walls from your previous builds in one of my upcoming ones. Great job!

This is a beautiful build. I love the roofline with the sand green, and the natural arch in the mountain is subtle but very nice. The detail with all the decorations is great, and you made the rockwork look natural, which can be tricky with slopes. I'm glad you did some interior, too--very cool! I'd love to see more pictures of the large sweeping staircase around back!

Very nice work! I always enjoy seeing your builds here. They are so reminiscent of the 'classic' castle builds while still keeping current with new parts and building techniques. I love this build as it reminds me of a mix of the Guarded Inn and the Knight's Challenge. Awesome job!

After searching this and the CMF storage thread, this seemed the most appropriate place to ask: Has anyone had problems with storing their bricks or CMFs in acrylic (PMMA) containers? PVC is probably the worst at outgassing, but PMMA causes problems releasing methyl methacrylate upon pulling vacuum, so I didn't know if long term storage in some clear amac boxes (acrylic) like these were problematic. I'm dubious, and though these boxes are very nice looking and stack easily, I don't really want to ruin my figures through outgassed VOCs. I'm actually leaning toward mason jars right now because of their chemical inertness, but wanted to see if anyone had issues long term with acrylic storage. EDIT: Added pics and description Here's one of the larger figures, Ursula, on a base (yeah, I know it's a batman base, but it's what I had at hand) in one of the Amac 60300 boxes. It fits OK, but her larger frame makes it so she can't fit flat on the base. I'm also worried about the methyl methacrylate outgassing from the acrylic box. On the other hand, you have the Ball 4oz. Mini storage mason jars, which are glass with a metal lid, no plastic (not even a plastic o-ring seal), so there's no chance of outgassing. The figure isn't quite as clear as the glass distorts it a bit, but since I"m looking more for long-term storage without degredation and being able to see into a container to identify the mini without having to open boxes, I'm perfectly happy with this solution. It does add more weight and is more breakable (although the mason jars are tough), but it's approximately the same size as the Amac box, so it will fit on the same shelf. Best news is that Ursula now fits flat on the bottom.

Constraction isn't my cup of tea, and neither is Bionicle, but I get why people enjoy them. I'm also not that big into Pirates, but I think it's a very cool theme nonetheless. The only real theme that I wondered about was Galidor. I guess you can be into it, but it seems kind of cheesy just looking at it. I don't really get cheesyness from the constraction and other such themes, but that is just my opinion. What I really find offensive are the exclusive themes that TLG produces only in one region or only for one event, like the SDCC. Those are just waiting for scalpers and rather than making an interesting, cool product, they are just putting money into the hands of the unscrupulous. So as far as themes go, I do, in fact, look down on the 'exclusive' themes, but not really for any aesthetic reasons.

I cleaned out the 1x2 dk blue, and the 1x1 LBG tiles from the NC store. Almost cleaned out the 1x2 white tiles in KS, too. There were 7 adults in the store, all the PAB wall, and we all hammered the 1x2 white tiles. No one else in the store. lol

Yeah, that bright yellow hair was there, but I was uninterested, as I typically build medieval stuff. There were a lot of the baseball torso, rabbits, shields, really pretty much everything. They are apparently one of the lower volume stores, so pieces tend to stick around a while. They still had 1x2 purple tiles on the PAB wall that I hadn't seen anywhere else for a year or more.

Bromine and chlorine should be super easy to see via their isotopic patterns as you say, but quantifying them becomes more difficult. I would think that HPLC would be useful if you could dissolve the material. I have been reluctant to speculate on the exact composition on here, as there could be some legal issues with various flame retardants, but as @62Bricks says, some of the common flame retardants of the eras we are interested in include PPBs and PBDEs. My main concern with a thesis project would be the reason for the project. Is this a matter of detection? A method development for extraction of flame retardants from plastics for lawsuits, environmentally persistent chemicals, etc. could be a master's thesis, but I'm guessing it's not enough for a PhD. If, however, the threshold of detection were low enough, you could theoretically do swipe tests for trace quantities, and something like that could be. It could also be of interest to determine the mechanism of leaching of flame retardants in old plastics, including toys, for environmental concerns, and a PhD thesis could revolve around that. Trying to determine the mechanism of leaching via UV, thermal, or chemical exposure by trying to figure out if it's a kinetic effect of the flame retardant migrating to the surface due to poor solubility in the polymer or degradation of the polymer could be examined through GPC to see if the MW of the polymer is declining with various stimuli. You could even run GPC on current bricks made in China and Europe now to see if there is any truth to the 'better' quality plastic rumor that's going around and compare to the old materials. As for getting the right bricks, you don't really need a lot, so you could get on bricklink and buy an unopened set from a particular era. Look up when the flame retardants were banned or phased out in Europe and you'll find the years you're looking for. Pick something solidly in the middle of the years and get a set of basic bricks. I wouldn't waste time with the sets of actual buildings and such, but you can still find unopened sets of basic bricks from various eras, stuff like this. Cost of those wouldn't be much on a university budget and a single set would provide a tremendous amount of material for analytical work. I very seriously doubt you'll get any info out of TLG. They probably have legal considerations with the flame retardants, so I doubt they'll admit to anything. Probably best to call the materials 'plastic ABS toys' or something in the paper, too, to avoid legal hassles from the company. Expanding to other manufacturers, such as Tyco bricks from back in the day, could help as well. I think old computer keyboards suffer from the same issues, too. Be aware that the transparent bricks were generally PC, as opposed to ABS, and the more flexible pieces, like trees and flower stalks, were PE or PP. These may have different flame retardants, but will surely have different bloom.

The BAM kiosk in OK City, OK had a ton of historic relevant parts.

I won't go into detail here for fear of reprisal, but since these pieces are relevant to GoH fans, for those of you that live in the US, GoH-relevant pics of the BAM kiosk in Oklahoma City, and PAB walls across the US from my most recent trip. The 1x2 light bley masonry bricks were amazing. I bought a gallon. The new shield in the BAM kiosk is pretty sweet, too.

After driving across half the US, I managed to score some real finds at some of the Lego stores. In no particular order: Raleigh, NC: The three leaf piece and the stems were great. They also had some blue flowers and pink flowers not pictured here. Overland Park, KS: The 1x2 white tiles were the find here. They also had 1x2 dark green bricks in addition to the 1x2 dark red pictured here. Oklahoma City, OK: The BAM kiosk was awesome (see the BAM thread in the Special forum for pics). The PAB wall was pretty good, too. The orange cheese slopes and black rubbery horns were my favorites here. However, the Des Peres, MO store was the real winner: The light bley inverted curved slopes, bread, seaweed, trans light blue round plates, dark red 1x2 plates, fences, window, and... the AMAZING light bley 1x2 masonry brick, which I had never seen on a PAB wall before. The dark bley 1x2 tile was pretty sweet, too.

The Oklahoma City store BAM kiosk was awesome. They even had a ton of rabbits. I hadn't seen the boxers with red mini heads on them, so maybe that's a BAM exclusive. And the clerks were very cool. 15 parts of whatever you wanted in a mini pack.

I think this may be your best creation I’ve seen. Really fabulous work! I love the attention to detail. The floor is great, the bookshelf is great, the positioning of everything so you can see it all in the picture is perfect, the use of the cape as a rug, the technic pins as thread spoils and the wand as a needle.... all fantastic. Keep up the excellent work!

I share the same sentiment over the lack of historical themes as well. I doubt we will have a castle theme while HP is out, and Pirates seems to come and go even when it is in fashion. I have given up buying sets for parts and just get the pieces from Bricks and Pieces or Bricklink now and make MOCs. I would love to see more historic CMFs; we don’t need an entire historic series (Although I wouldn’t be opposed), but what about the one or two figures per series? The knight, evil dwarf, elf maidens, etc. have been great in the CMF line and I don’t see a reason to discontinue that trend. As for the leaks, I like being able to plan what I’m going to buy. I tend to save up more for multiple copies of something if I know something awesome is going to come out. If I’m blindsided, then I’m likely only going to get one, and it’s not like I’m buying the other themes I don’t care about instead. i very much agree too that we need more system animals. They always sell like hot cakes, so why not see some more? I’d love to have a mess of those birds from the Jasmine CMF.

Good to hear from you again, and congratulations on the upcoming new family member! I think you’re doing the right thing to foster your sons creativity. And hey, why would you not want the peasants to be able to play basketball!

What a brilliant build! I was going to say what a brilliant first build, but that seems to diminish the quality, as this is fantastic even for experienced builders. You have a very artistic eye and your choice of colors is excellent—the use of the olive and the new dark brown foliage from the stranger things set is great. I love the use of the patronus from the HP set as well. The tree looks very natural, and the SNOT water in the rock is great. Really excellent techniques. One of my favorite aspects is the awesome flora and fauna description. I think we should start a thread for flora and fauna of the realms, with descriptions like yours and a list of where they can be found (all the guilds? Just Nocturns or Mitgardia?), and frequency. Common? Rare? What are the parts? Then others could build the same things and we could see some consistency between places which would be fun. Really great idea here. I also see you’re in France. I don’t know if you’re a native English speaker or not, but your writing reads like it. Very well done.

Nice! The use of the trophies is awesome! I like the dark red for the wagon. Makes me think of stereotypical gypsy caravans. The use of Captain Hooks hat/hair looks really good, too. The double horse team is great and is not entirely easy to make look good (speaking from previous experience), but you did a great job. I also like that you included pictures alone and ‘in action ‘. Great job!