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AmperZand

Eurobricks Dukes
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Everything posted by AmperZand

  1. AmperZand
    As a collector of historical/fantasy/mythological minifigs, I'm really liking this series. The wizard is my favourite, but the Hun warrior, Athena, genie, princess, swashbuckler, Wednesday Addams and jester are close seconds. The only thing I would change is the colour of the jester's belt. It looks like it's dark orange which is too bold for the rest of the minifig. A few other minifigs from this series are worth getting for their parts: Katniss's head and the lifeguard's torso for example. Roll on Whiefang's review...
  2. AmperZand
    The primary purpose of airport "security" is to make naive people feel safe. As demonstrated by the shoe bomber, the underwear bomber and others, it doesn't actually work. It never will. Terrorists can innovate faster than airports can develop counter-measures. The secondary purpose of airport "security" is for governments (in the case of the TSA, the US government) to invade your privacy. When people accept under the guise of "security" that authorities can take naked pictures of children (as they already do in the US, UK and lots of other places), they're a long way along the path of accepting any violation of their human rights.
  3. AmperZand
    This relates purely to minifigs so should probably be in the Minifig Customisation Workshop. I store heads much like the OP, i.e. stacked by design and colour, but store them in a Really Useful Box. The only exceptions are heads from the CMF line which I store in their original packets (along with the rest of the CMF).
  4. AmperZand
    Cool! What sort of stuff do you do? Anything we might have seen in films or on telly? I believe they're prepainted.
  5. AmperZand
    I didn't see your earlier thread in the Community forum. I erred in only searching the General forum before posting. I apologise. Can a friendly mod please merge the two threads?
  6. AmperZand
    McFarlane to produce 'realistic' bricks - will you be getting them? McFarlane are releasing highly detailed brick-built sets. The first releases will be zombie themed: http://brickfanatics...n-to-lego-toys/ According to Todd McFarlane, teen and adult fans of construction sets want as much detail as possible: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/67922 . I doubt they do. Sure, McFarlane may have hit upon a small niche but I don't think many AFOLs will defect to McFarlane. McFarlane's new line may appeal to teen/adult fans of some Megablah licensed lines and to diorama modellers, but that's perhaps the extent of it. I reckon AFOLs like the stylised shapes and colours of LEGO and relish the creative challenge of building recognisable MOCs from those pieces. What do you think? Will some of your spend that would have gone on LEGO be going to McFarlane's modulars instead?
  7. AmperZand
    Great detailing! I especially like the way you've portrayed the many torments of hell. It looks like you're a purist. If not, you may want to consider some third party parts such as those used in these MOC minifigs:
  8. AmperZand
    Classic Space especially pastiches of the sets of the 1970s and early 1980s. The designs were iconic and deserve to be revisited.
  9. AmperZand
    I used to display my LEGO in a very similar set-up to yours: on shelves out of direct sunlight in a room with blinds covering the windows. I had them that way for a few years. My polar bear is certainly slightly creamy possibly as a result. I don't know if it would have gone creamy anyway, but I now keep my display in the dark as a precaution with no exposure to sunlight of any kind. I understand that even LEGO out of the box can discolour over time depending on the batch of ABS used because of the additives (or proportion of additives) in the mix.
  10. AmperZand
    After the Sharpie ink has dried, give it a coat of Humbrol satin. The coat is invisible and the same shininess as LEGO. I tested it on a spare piece and it's more permanent than LEGO print. The ears on these pieces were recoloured using the Sharpie/Humbrol method:
  11. AmperZand
    Very clever design! I especially like the way you made it modular with the 'raiser'. I collect minifigures generally and only those CMFs that interest me. So rather than having my CMFs arranged by series, I have them grouped thematically with other minifigures. I display them on white Ikea shelf units with white or glass shelves depending on the unit's depth and the required viewing angle. Fitting larger minifigures such as Medusa and bigfigs such as the LotR Cave Troll on the shelves isn't a problem. To keep the minifigures from falling over, I attach them to plates. Here's an example I took off the shelf where it is normally displayed to make it easier to photograph. It shows the CMF Musketeer with three others I MOCed attached to the plate on which they're displayed: I have a few hundred minifigures in my display collection, mostly historical or fantasy.
  12. AmperZand
    Great detailing. I especially like the way you've done the red and white curtains. I would like to do my place in minifig scale but I can't work out how. For example, I can't figure out how to do gothic arch doors.
  13. AmperZand
    I'm also inclined to think a hair piece with a tiara like the princess in the Dragon Mountain set ( http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?M=cas533 ). But if we're lucky, maybe we'll get a hennin like this one http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=x107 but in a new colour for that piece, e.g. pink.
  14. AmperZand
    When we just knew her name, I suspected she'd be a goth. But when I saw the picture, like you, I thought "Wednesday Addams". I'll probably swap her legs for some short ones and treat her as Wednesday. I intend to display her among my horror-themed minifigs, complete with creepy teddy bear.The prospector and pig costumed guy aren't of interest.
  15. AmperZand
    http://www.brickwarr...om/poison-rose/ Thanks. The idea of using a fez piece for the crown was ED-209's in another thread. But his other suggestion of using a 2 x 2 or 3 x 3 radar dish for the brim didn't capture the shape I was looking for. I wound up having to mod the brim. In the picture, there's a stark contrast between the shininess of the fez piece and the dullness of the brim, but that's just an effect of the lighting. In real life, they look almost the same.
  16. AmperZand
    Good idea, ED-209. I tried it and the fez really works for the crown but the radar dish doesn't quite capture the shape of the brim I was after, so I wound up customising that part: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=97243
  17. AmperZand
    A couple of MOC sarcophagi, one more elaborate than the other. For whom could they be? But of course - bwahahahaha! - for Dracula and his lovely bride, Countess Dracula. But who's this? Could it be the steely vampire-hunter Abraham van Helsing? And here's what the above picture originally looked like when I took it in late Victorian times: Questions? Comments? Cloves of garlic?
  18. AmperZand
    For some people, using the term AFOL may be a way of avoiding the stigma associated with what is primarily seen as a kids' toy, but it's not the only reason. It can also be a way of recognising that AFOLs have different interests than KFOLs. AFOLs tend to play with LEGO differently from KFOLs (e.g. less role-play, so less interest in play features like flick-fire missiles), have different interests (e.g. Architecture sets) and buying patterns & concerns (e.g. the increasing price of CMFs affecting AFOLs more). There are also social implications. I used to go to a regular meeting of AFOLs in the evening at a pub. I don't think kids were prohibited, but if there had been lots of kids, it would have changed the focus of the evenings. If no distinction were made between A- and K-FOLs, it would also affect online forums such as this one. Whether the term AFOL is silly or not, for example, is of interest to some AFOLs but I doubt to many kids.
  19. AmperZand
    Funny you should say that. Just after posting above, I sent BW a message asking if they would do one. They replied yesterday saying that they had no plans to do one but might at some point in the future. Hope they do.
  20. AmperZand
    I'd like to MOC a vampire-hunter minifig in a puritan outfit. The only thing I can't find is a black puritan hat, the same style as this one: http://www.heritagec...oduct-p586.html Where can I get a black puritan minifig hat?
  21. AmperZand
    Had a look through your Flickr pics. You've MOCed some really cool minifigs! I especially like your naga despite the fact that I'm a yellowist, not a fleshist. The red flying devil with the black wings is also among my favourites.
  22. AmperZand
    Ordered several body armours, helmets, wings, tails and other parts last night. Can't wait for them to arrive. The only problem with BW's stuff is that I can't afford to get as much as I'd like! Si-Dan does a back bracket with two clips. You can get them from Minifigcat: http://www.minifigcat.com/shop/home.php?cat=509 . I used one on the hawk-man in this picture: http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/AmperZand/Fantasy/hawkman_and_devil.jpg and the Electro in this one: http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/AmperZand/Fantasy/electro.jpg . It's such an obviously useful part. I don't know why LEGO has never done one.
  23. AmperZand
    When I came out of my DA in the early 1990s, I didn't know there were other AFOLs. I supposed there might be but the internet was in its infancy and it didn't occur to me that there might be other collectors of historical/castle/fantasy minifigs (and buildings) that I could trace. So in my own mind, I was a pioneer: defying society's norms that adults don't buy kids' toys for themselves (except, possibly, train collectors and investors in classic toys). Is it wrong of me to take pride in being an AFOL pioneer, getting myself LEGO when I didn't know for sure that other AFOLs were out there? The other day I was in WH Smiths feeling packets for a Mr Burns from the Simpsons CMF line. The staff assumed correctly that I was looking for minifigures for myself and asked me to identify minifigs for them while I was at it which I did. What a contrast from when I used to buy LEGO from a store called Boswell's over 20 years ago and tried to make it look like I wasn't buying it for me! I probably sound like an old gasbag when I say that young AFOLs don't know how lucky they are.
  24. AmperZand
    I suspect the vast majority of CMFs are bought either by adults for kids or by kids themselves, that is, only a few CMFs per buyer. So a large increase in price won't be noticed by most buyers because they're not getting that many at once and may not know that the price used to be lower. The big price increase only impacts TFOLs and AFOLs who buy lots of them, and TLG probably reckons that most TFOLs and AFOLs are die-hards who will pay more anyway. Even if there's a decrease in units sold to the T/AFOL segment, the revenue may be the same or higher from the segment. So from TLG's perspective, the price increase makes sense.
  25. AmperZand
    I completely agree. In fact, I find this article disturbing. Instead of teaching 9 and 10 year olds (is that what US 4th and 5th graders are?) fundamentals such as maths, English, science, history, geography and foreign languages, they're filling their heads with political dogma. Rather than educating them to progress further in education and eventually productive careers, they're indoctrinating these kids to become mindless apparatchiks. If this is what passes for education in US schools, no wonder the rest of the developed world holds US primary and secondary education in such low regard.
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