WesternOutlaw

Yep - definitely a coyboy. Just look at his wings.

Heard 'em called coyboys in some parts.

He just wants to pimp me and wet my pants again. Hold on to your britches thar. I wadn't talking about yer unmentionables - even if ya need 'em to count to ten and a half. EDIT: I may be slow, but I aint dumn. Dang nab it!

Now he's just gloat'n about it with that picture-show and all. Someone hand me something that shoots!

You're lucky this here post didn't come to my town. I would'a shot ya ignoramuses right in the ol' 10-gallon. Bunch'a dang Coyboys!

PW: this is really an impressive creation, but your image sizes are way too large. Our site guidelines are images no larger than 800x600. Please resize or provide a link to the large images - would appreciate it, -TB Follow-up Oct 6: Your images have been removed.

I'm looking forward to it.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010, marked the official beginning of Fall. It’s time to start thinking about puting away the summer decorations and pool toys, as we embark upon the holiday seasons, especially Autumn or Fall. Fall is all about cooler temperatures, the changing of colors, and my personal favorite holiday, Halloween. While only few countries celebrate Halloween, most know it as a spooky day when kids dress up as witches and vampires anxiously awaiting a walk around the neighborhood in search for pillow sacks of candy and treats. While Halloween is fun, Fall also offers change and rebirth, some might call a “second spring”. It’s time to get rid of the old and replace it with the new – sort of like “Spring Cleaning”. Fall also offers a chance to reinvigorate our old towns to make room for new LEGO sets and decorate them for the holidays. Do your LEGO Tabletowns need a makeover? Are you tired of looking at the same old modular street? Or has your Emerald Night passed the same old train station a hundred times over with just slight movement of the same boring minifigs? What a perfect time to add some festive fun to your Town and Cities. Just the thought of adding some pumpkin or cranberry spice to your Tabletowns may bring a smile upon your Series 2 Minifigure Mime or even launch your Spartans on a new direction, one in which their march leads them to a town of excitement and intrigue. So how might you add some new life to your dead Tabletowns? Fall building and decorating is the answer. Here are just a few ideas to “Autumnize” your Tabletowns with a splash of Fall Spice. This may be “fall-fetched”, but the colors orange, brown, and red are prominent during Fall. Your towns need some of these colors but how might you incorporate orange into a rather grey or green landscape? Department 56 and Lemax are companies that makes mini Christmas and Halloween villages. As part of their yearly Halloween collections, they do offer orange trees for Fall. With just a drop of glue, you can place a few of these trees within your Tabletown. You may also find Fall colored landscaping within hobby stores as part of model railroading. A few trees or perhaps a bit of moss would certainly colorize your Tabletowns orange. Not a fan of non-LEGO elements, start pulling out your orange, black, browns, and reds and try building a tree or two to prominently display in your town square, almost like a small Central Park. You might add some fence pieces to protect the new ground. With just a little creativity, you may be surprised at what you come up with. If you get stuck without an idea for a good tree design, try searching Brickshelf or FlickR for some LEGO Trees. How many Zombies were you able to pick up from LEGO’s Series 1 Minifigure collection? Are they just sitting in a pile collecting dust? It might be time to spook things up a bit with a Zombie attack in your Tabletown in preparation for Halloween. Start by taking out all your existing town/city minifigs within your town and replace them with zombies in the street. You might also want to break off some bricks from various buildings giving your town a desolate and abandoned look as your zombies go wild. On the subject of Halloween, what better time to build a Haunted House. Light green, brown, grey, and purple all make great colors for a haunted house. Make sure you add a spooky looking wrought-iron fence to keep the spooks from venturing outside the mansion grounds. A black tree next to it might also add a bit of added interest. If you’re a Batman fan and own Arkham Asylum, build it and place it in a good strategic location in your town. A town or city cemetery might also make a great creation to spook things up. Harry Potter’s Graveyard Duel comes to mind, but if you don’t own it, break out some grey bricks and try building a small Mosoleum and grave sites. You don’t necessarily have to add zombies, although they do create a more eerie and frightening feel to your new cemetery. A fence is a must! It’s definitely time to break out the spooky figs you’ve been saving. Enough about zombies, but how about that Vampire and Witch from LEGO’s Series 2 Minifigure collection. You might also consider a little trick-or-treating scene by turning your spooky figs into kids with dwarf legs. Yes, replace the legs with shorter legs contained in Castle (or other theme), and you now have some little spooks for your Tabletown. Oh, don’t forget to add some places for them to visit like a dark Apple Tree House or Haunted Beach House. Have you ordered your new Harry Potter sets? If not, LEGO SAH is taking pre-orders now. What better theme to provide you with dark and haunting pieces to create those spooky scenes. By incorporating them into your existing town modestly, you are sure to spook things up a bit and create a different look in your Tabletown. LEGO Farm also provides some nice sets to create those harvest festivals and pumkin patches. Farm means harvest and harvest means Fall, it’s as simply as that. Get your Mr. Green Jeans and have him bailing some hay in preparation for a harvest festival in your town. You could even make it a costume party with many varieties of minifigs. Try building a few of your favorite Eurobricks avatars; but not Hinckley, he’s been in enough seens over the years – that would just be scary! Light up your town. LifeLites offer some great light kits to illuminate your Tabletowns. You could also try mini Christmas village and Halloween lights as well. Orange and purple lights are not hard to find this time of year, at least not in U.S. craft and hobby shops. Night lights always add mystery and intrigue to a regular day-time view of your Tabletown. Add a Creature Feature. Godzilla, Mutant Alien from Outerspace, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Werewolf of London, or even Vlad the Impaler may be just what your town citizens need for a little added excitement. Have them running away from that Colossal Alien Robot as he/she wreaks havoc in the streets near Cafe Corner. This idea could mean some extra fun and swooshing as your figs run to their homes in panic. These are just a few of many ideas to add imaginative and creative perspectives to your Tabletowns this Fall. As all who appreciate the LEGO brick can attest to, the possibilities are always endless. Have a splendid Fall season and make sure you visit Eurobricks and other LEGO community sites to find a Harvest Festival, Pumpkin Patch, Halloween Haunt, or Ghost Town near you – boo!

I like this one Pep, esp. the upside down placement of one of the vamps. Here's another video from a different perspective:

Every now and then, this and other Duplo-capatibility questions arise. While I think this would be difficult, I could see why you might want to use some of your Duplo track stockpile. Personally, I don't think it would look very good as the Duplo track (from an image in my head) seems much too large for the standard LEGO-scale trains.

That's cute - esp. since we know Pop Stars are the reason for the ills of society (followed only by LEGO minifigs). I helped a mom the other day myself. She asked how I know who is who - she was after a few of the figs for each of her boys. Spartants weren't even on her list.

Interesting thoughts all. I enjoy reading your comments. That's a good point - I wonder what would happen if LEGO had open ordering on the fig of your choice through SAH. While the random luck process seems to be working quite well, most AFOL know the bar codes of the figs they're after, completely changing the dynamic of random selection. Maybe LEGO sales would increase by AFOL ordering a complete set or two of each, plus numerous repeats of their favorites (like the Spartans from this series or Forestmen from Series 1). Now we are limited by how many cases the store received, only able to pick up a few of each of our favorites. Interesting thoughts from the business and marketing perspective MetroiD. I'd feel better if I had some control over having to buy at least one of each of the figs; but nevertheless, I do love them so - thanks. Good for you Baylego. I must admit that it would have been difficult not to buy all of them if I were in your shoes. I remember when the first Castle Kingdom calendar came out in the US just for one day - limit of two per customer through LEGO SAH. I had ordered just one but thought about ordering two at the time. I remember the young lady from LEGO SAH say something like, "you LEGO fans are really nice - everyone can order two but most have been ordering just one" (despite having to wait several minutes to get through to a customer service rep). I'm sure price contributed to this, but at the same time, the comment made me feel good. By ordering just one, it gave some other fan a chance to do the same. You should be proud of yourself for doing so with the Spartan.

Nice job - pretty clever use of the witch faces. It's nice to see ladies in uniform.

What? "Trouble with LEGO Minifigs"? you ask. No, it can't be - and it's not the issue of inferior plastic that many have complained over. While many AFOL, TFOL, and OFOL (Other Fans of LEGO) are combing the stores for Spartans and other favorite figs likes bees on honey, STOP! Take a deep breath to just consider these thougts. You may be afflicted with Minifig Madness. Many of us are so in love with the new LEGO Minifigures that we do not realize the harm within these little $2-$3 poly bags - a danger like a tainted Tylenol waiting to be taken. In fact, most do not realize that through the affliction, these thoughts are often overlooked. As you all are aware, finding 16 unique figures in a single case involves a bit of work - but does it stop there? LEGO SAH will sell you 16 (the convenient limit per household), but you could gets lots (and lots) of duplicates. Even Legoland California has a limit on their cases at the register not allowing you to even touch or finger the figs before buying for you may feel the shield of the Spartan or the Witch's hat assuring you that your purchase is a good one. Many LEGO fans simply decide to buy the whole case at the cost of a LEGO Modular or other large exclusive. This ensures that they will have three sets of the fabulous figs to add to their diverse towns, cities, bookshelves, and Mexican Villages (okay - had to throw that one in there). What to do after the purchase of a case? -feverishly begin opening for display and perhaps some use in MOCs down the road. What can one build with a case of 60 minifigs? Others may even choose to buy numerous Spartans (or other 3-in-case fig) for Ebay sales later. Collecting may take the fun out of the LEGO hobby and while many think the "collectibility" is a fun aspect, the danger is that creativity becomes secondary to collecting. Welcome LEGO to the Action Figure market, but this time not by Bionicle or Hero Factory which anyone can find - this time it's like Hotwheel Treasures, Hasbro figures, and other rare collectible item that demands early visits to toy stores in hope that you are the first to find the golden figs. While some stores remain true to LEGO's suggested retail price, stores like Toys R Us (and Borders Books from minifig scavenger information) demand a premium price for their cases of the golden figs, 50% or higher than suggested retail. Not only are LEGO fans willing to pay the extra price, but they buy them by the case just happy to get their hands around a few of their favorite figs (myself included). So next time you decide to go out in search for the golden figs and find yourself lucky enough to find a complete case of the minifigures, please consider these thoughts; and before you grab multiples of your favorites, think of that child that would simply be happy with just one LEGO minifig.

Hi 12v. Welcome to Train Tech and to EB! I notice this is your first post. You need a 12v train avatar now. Hope you enjoy our LEGO Train community. You might also want to introduce yourself in the "Hello My Name is Forum", esp. if you plan to visit other great forums here at EB. Enjoy!

Welcome Drevim. There's certainly not anything wrong with maintaining multiple power systems on the same layout. I run my PF Emerald and a R/C Cargo Train on the same 9V track (not to mention an occasion 9V engine like the Super Chief). Hope you enjoy the forum!

What a great first train Gigi. Wish I had one of those - I admire that classic very much. Welcome to EB's Train Tech forum.

Interesting thoughts. I went with "Darker Realms of LEGO". HP was the first theme to offer a graveyard (in Graveyard Duel) and aside from the Movie Monster sets, much darker aspects of LEGO. While the influence of these "darker" aspects on children can be debatable, as an AFOL, I really like the thought of more mysterious and sinister components used to recreate the movie scenes and characters. While I didn't get into Harry Potter until years later (from buying and watching the CD collection), I now have a deeper appreciation for the entire story line. The HP theme can almost be compared to that of Indiana Jones (IJ) in that through the recreation of movie scenes, LEGO offers aspects that would probably never be constructed for their primary market. Elements like German and Russian soldiers, and WWII military jeeps and aircraft are but a few from the IJ line that make the license theme so much more appealing to the AFOL. The same holds true for HP. Could you imagine LEGO City offering a graveyard set? If they did, parent coalitions agains violence would attack the company. So for me, it's Darker Realms, and these include the ominous and sinister aspects of the theme. Ghosts... Spirits... to name just a few.

Can't have all of the above. That would be too easy and pretty much eliminate the need for a poll at all. This poll is about voting for what you really like about the theme. Understand that some like all aspects, but what seems to draw you most to the theme - pieces, parts, colors, magic, the books, etc? - those hard decisions, if only I could have chocolate and vanilla.

As we prepare for the release of the new Harry Potter collection, I thought it might be fun to explore the reasons why LEGO fans enjoy the theme. What makes you a fan of the Harry Potter theme - if you could just pick one aspect?

I must admit that this isn't exactly what I wanted, but after several attempts to photograph this creation and photo-edit, the result is my latest creation, Roman Commander's Tent. Inspired by Playmobil's Roman set 4273, this little creation gives you an idea of what you can do with a few Spartans from the Series 2 Minifigure collection.

Wow! It sounds like 2011 is going to be another great year for LEGO. I was very surprised to read this news regarding an Egyptian theme. Playmobil just released its Egypt theme, and its great to hear that LEGO will do the same. The large pyramid sounds pretty interesting to me. As a huge fan of Johnny Thunder and his desert adventures, I'm really looking forward to seeing the set images. The Indiana Jones theme was exciting and I was sad to see it end (if it is over for good), but with this new Adventurers-related theme, looks like the desert oasis lives on. Can't wait to see the theme. I'll have to start dusting off my other Desert Adventure-related sets with expanded building opportunities: