YellowFrog

The stone tiled path certainly looks bold, but I'm not sure if it stands out too much. Perhaps swapping the black for dark grey would work better? Great job on the rest of the build though, the colours are great and the brick-built ship logo has some great part usage.

See Steve's story continue in Steve Surprise!

Steve's adventure continues after the last chapter. In case you missed it, here it is: --- Steve was in the midst of the Bluecoat Soldiers. After a well-timed entrance he snuck past the soldier exiting on his horse, and managed to grab a bottle of the good stuff. After a few liberal swigs, he realised getting in was only half the problem. He needed an exit. --- The bluecoats are exporting some of their tropical produce - pineapples and carrots. They've taken the load straight from the fortress where they are kept, along with their supplies, and of course their rum. They're loading them onto a rowboat, to be taken out to a larger ship awaiting offshore. The horse seems to be struggling onto the dock. Those pineapples must be very heavy! Or perhaps the carrots are particularly juicy? Of course not, not enough rain in these warm climates! It's Steve, using the pineapples to make his escape! He jumped in as the carriage passed the store of rum he was hiding behind, and used it to carry him and his precious goods to freedom. I don't think he realised the cargo would be so closely watched... His plan of jumping out and running off has come to a sticky end! (pun intended) But will they catch him, or will he concoct an improvised escape plan? --- Built in 15 minutes with approximately 50 parts, photographed in 80 minutes.

This is a Japanese Tori Gate I built. Uses SNOT Techniques and some illegal technic-pin stud reversal for the base. It was difficult to photograph but this is what I managed to get: The minifigure is from a Ninjago movie set, with the head swapped out with another minifigure from the same set. I plan on using this gate design someday in the future for other Japan-inspired MOCs.

Thanks for the advice. I will keep it in mind.

Thanks for the write-up! Very flattering and well-said. Another big thanks for the promotion of my Youtube channel (as it has been struggling for views lately).

I've started a Lego Youtube channel, but I've noticed two things. 1. My last few videos has been doing much worse than the rest. 2. Each video gets views for about four hours, then receives no new views. These both do not match the experience of other Youtubers I know (but none of them make Lego videos). I've heard that it is very difficult to have a successful Lego Youtube channel that is not aimed at kids, simply because there is a small AFOL audience on Youtube, and I'm asking: 1. Is this the reason my channel isn't doing well? 2. What do people look for when watching Lego videos? Is it the quality of the MOCs, or something else? 3. Where does your traffic come from to your Lego videos (if you have a channel). 4. Do AFOL channels end up getting most of their traffic from kids? Perhaps someone like @Captain Pirate Man can answer this?

I wouldn't've thought so. Most female hair pieces go flush against the back, and so the wings would get in the way. I would probably use short hair or hair in a bun for this sort of thing. Perhaps https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=27186&idColor=120#T=S&C=120&O={"color":120,"iconly":0}?

I made a jungle tree with a panther to expand my Adventurers' layout. It was an 8x16 modulke with no minifigs. Check it out below! To see the rest of my Adventurers' layout, join the discussion here: Or see the playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEAzx6NaMWQeRNJkO-grBHCkcR1h5AYMN

Two more additions to the series: Next episode will likely be a 'world update' video where I make changes to existing modules, and then introduce new minifigures and reveal plans for the future. After that, I'm thinking a start to the mountain...

Feel free to speculate! Knowing Steve, nothing will stop him from getting his rum. Perhaps a follow-up MOC is on the horizon...

Innovative technique, but too brutal for my liking.

Very unique build. It doesn't make much sense, and that's what's great about it.

Nice build, can we have some more images of the castle? The colour choice for the roof certainly looks good, but I can't see much more in these photos.

Nice build, but I feel like it lacks polish. There are a few things I think you could do: More tiling, especially the interior. Also remove that stray 2x2 plate from the bedroom floor. Mismatched colours: the tables, the stage. Those generic red chairs could be replaced with stools etc. The tan walls look a little bland on the inside, consider adding panels or printed pieces, or lanterns hanging. Railing outside would be better with some tiles on top. Try building some custom, perhaps SNOT, tables, instead of using circular plates.

I would've thought that it would simply collate them all in one place for easy browsing, whilst allowing access to them from the MOCs forum.

The hands have some little tooth ridge things that keep them in, right? I'm not sure, but I thought that pulling them out flattened the ridges such that they can never connect properly again. Exactly what I would have done. Good job!

The voting system - each option to vote had a tiny thumbnail image beside it, which is sadly what I had to use to judge the entries. THere was also a higher-quality image at the top of the votign page, but it was also low-quality. I don't know if this voting platform limits the resolution, or if the organisers chose to upload low-res images.

I agree with seemingly everyone else: a subforum for contests is better. Perhaps some system where every entry is somehow also in the MOCs subforum, but when you click on it, it takes you to the contest forum? (This might be a lot of work or unachievable, but I think it works well as a concept). There was also a ton of rules, I probably spent longer reading rules than I did building MOCs (this might be a bit of an exaggeration). I felt the rules were a bit repetitive, and some of them were self-explanatory, and the Q&A sections can be gotten rid of (replaced with people asking actual questions underneath if they are confused). With the issue of people not voting, I don't know what could've changed from last year to this year. Has there been an overall decrease of site activity, or are users simply not voting and choosing to scroll onwards?

Personally, I voted for both categories before I saw what the other votes were. Voting is not just about winning, it's about having your say - I vote for a ton of things fairly often, even though I hardly am in the running, let alone win, such as the recent Technic contest. Side note: @Yperio_Bricks and @Horation, I don't think the voting system for the Technic one was particularly effective. The low-res images and no links made it hard to see what I was voting for, and the ordering every item made it take way longer than I would've liked, especially because I ended up weighing pairs of two bad builds against one another, neither of which would've won (and so I don't see much point into putting the time into ordering them). I don't think that fake accounts are much of an issue, the '10 posts and a certain time period' policy seems to work well. Making people pay to vote is simply messed up, and it would drastically cut down on the number of voters. With regards to your concerns about the number of votes on your build, what voters probably saw was a safe approach that seemed almost generic, perhaps a little boring. I'm not saying your build was bad, but I doubt it was anyone's favourite. Generally, people only vote for their favourite builds. Also, like the others here, I am much more likely to vote for a physical build than a render. There were a lot of great entries, don't feel too disheartened if you didn't get a vote (although you could've voted for yourself if you really wanted one).

Two things: Firstly, I always hesitate to pull arms off a figure, but the one time I've done it there was no damage. However, it was a new figure and I'm sure the older ones are more brittle. Secondly, how come you're fine with unhanding (pun intended) all of those hands in the shop? I consider pulling hands off a step too far, when it comes to my own minifigs. Edit: The quote is from @bingowaldorf, not Math Wizard.

I voted, even though I built Technic once and hated it (I'll stick to System). The entries were all great and there were some real standouts. When are winners announced?

Great build. The NPU in the details takes it to another level: the sword through the rats' tails, the mushrooms with the goat horn. Well done! One critique: a little more structure would be nice. Perhaps a second hut, or if the existing one was expanded.

Great review, and Lego made a great excuse to bring back Johnny Thunder. If anyone wants to see a MOC I made using this set, and the modifications I made, see below:

I considered it, but there are a few reasons I chose dark tan: 1. I want to represent the scarcity of water in the desert, and so an oasis that is too deep would convey too much water for a desert. 2. I think dark tan better matches the surrounding colours 3. If I had a deeper oasis, the edges would need to gradually become shallower until they meet the desert surface. I don't know if this is big enough to do that properly. 4. I want to save my blue plates for the Arabian coastal town I plan. For those who have no clue what oasis we are talking about, this is the video: