jFox

I hate to agree with this, but it's definitely valid. Plus, each troll will most likely have a different appearance (clothing, face shape, etc), and that would probably be expensive on their part to produce. Ooh, modular Rivendell sets! No need for conflict, just lots of pretty elf buildings. And Beorn himself was a giant, right? (Or at least a very large human.) That would probably need a new Hulk-like figure, for a character not as widely-known as the Hulk.

Whoa, that hammer certainly looks like it's ready to do some pounding! Very beefy looking! I dig the scope on the (literal) hand cannon too. While I don't see this guy as much of a precision shooter, it's still a cool detail nevertheless. Excellent work on the details as well. Chains, screws, smokestacks/exhaust pipes. Very cool all around.

The texture on the doors is really nice; that's a good of that spinner-base-piece-thing. Makes the doors look like they're reinforced with iron, very sturdy. The angle of the tower is also really nice. I feel like the tower is a little TOO gray, however. At least too much of the same kind of gray. Maybe on the corners where you've got some 1x1 round bricks, those could be replaced with dark gray instead of light? Same thing for the walls on the sides of the bridge. The mixture of pieces gives it a good texture, but it's still all light gray. Maybe a few dark gray pieces mixed in would add a little something to it.

+1 for vriverajr3

Some ideas I'd like to see: - Bag End, where it all begins. I think this could be a fairly detailed set, and there are 15 figures that could be present! (Bilbo, Gandalf, and 13 dwarves). Though realistically, maybe just Bilbo, Gandalf, and Thorin. - The troll encounter. The trolls could be alive and threatening to eat everyone they capture, or possibly turned to stone as the dawn hits. - Gollum's cave. A little underground lake, Gollum and his boat. Bilbo and The One Ring included, of course. - The dwarves escaping from the goblin caves into the trees. Could include a lot of goblins, brick-built trees (some lit on fire by the goblins) and EAGLES! - Smaug's cave. Bilbo and his encounter with the great dragon. Could include the cave, a brick-built dragon (or custom molds like the fantasy era stuff), and a humongous pile of gold and jewels. - The lake town outside Smaug's cave. Includes the bowman figure who fired the black arrow into Smaug's heart. I think some of those would make for good sets. Oh, and the dwarves escaping captivity by hiding in barrels and floating down the river!

I think you did a good job with the "cute-ification" of the baby rhino. Even though they're the same size as the adult's, the eyes are pretty adorable on the baby. The eye-to-head ratio works well. Also, I really like that tree, could tell right away that it was in the savanna.

I'll throw in my two cents here: I too had the Star Wars Destroyer Droid set, and thought it was pretty fantastic. But other than that, never had any Technic sets, nor much interest in getting them. But for my birthday this year my buddies got me the Excavator (8043) that's been mentioned here, and holy cow is it cool. There are so many gears in there it'll make your head spin (in a good way)! It was a very fun build, and seeing how the battery box and the power systems at work (Power Functions, I guess they're called?) was really cool. So in short: 8043 is a great choice if you haven't decided yet. Well, even if you have decided it's still a great choice.

Whoa, those towers are pretty hardcore! Too bad they don't have one of those tower builders for the U.S. I guess it's okay though, my own collection wouldn't warrant something like that just yet. Thanks for pointing out those dividers, I must have overlooked them before. I do find myself starting to accumulate lots of odd pieces--an extra droid arm or something similar here or there. And some of the boxes I have already are too big for such small quantities.

Wow, very nice. Those sails are fantastic, and I love the cabin in the back. It looks both majestic and a bit menacing at the same time.

I think you'd want to build some sort of airtight cover for him, to make sure he doesn't get dust in his circuits. Maybe add some transparent panels or something to keep him safe from the elements and/or curious pets/children.

+1 for melrows

I recently purchased a couple packs of craft boxes made by Really Useful Boxes. http://www.reallyusefulproducts.co.uk/usa/html/onlineshop/rub_craft.php The ones that I really like are the Organizers Packs. The boxes themselves stack well enough, but these packs come in a divided plastic container, which also has screw holes on the back for wall-mounting. The idea of an entire wall of these things is dreamy, but just sitting on my desk they work out okay. If you don't want to order online you can get them in some OfficeMax / OfficeDepot stores (at least in the U.S.), for a little bit less even. I think I paid about $25 for the 16-pack of 0.3L boxes, which on their website goes for almost $40. I've also considered the Stack-On cases (like this: http://www.homedepot.com/Stack-On/h_d1/N-5yc1vZ1pb/R-100023878/h_d2/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&storeId=10051), but for some reason I don't like that the drawers aren't airtight. I can't imagine overnight the tiny gap would fill each drawer with dust, but it still irks me. Has anyone ever used these before? Has dust been a problem with them?

+1 fred67 +1 ZCerberus

A humongous, brick-built, UCS Treebeard. Similar in size/piece count to the R2-D2 model that just came out. With all the greens and browns in it, it can even double as a parts pack for trees and foliage.

Wow, that zombie set is really impressive. I hadn't seen that until now, might have to pick up a few just for the figures! Missed out on the Series 1 CMF Zombies, so this is pretty nice for that. Thanks for the photos!

I would like to join the Reviewer's Academy.

Haha, steal copy away! And thanks for the suggestion on the row count. Having only 32 figures in there also makes a bit of space for some figures with larger accessories. Hmm, total cost... Well the plastic case itself was $9.99 (plus $8.95 shipping I think). Here's a link to the case: http://www.container...=10022884&N=233. As for pieces, I want to say maybe another $10-15...ish. And of course, cost can depend on your choice of colors/pieces as well. I'm a sucker for dark red, and those round modified bricks in the front were something like $0.30 each. So maybe $30-$35 total (with shipping). If you happen to live near a brick-and-mortar Container Store you can shave a few bucks off that.

After seeing this and another thread I decided to try my hand at a display as well. That, and I realized I've started to accumulate quite a few of these little guys. I too went with one of those 3-tiered display cases from the Container Store that others have used, but I built my own stand to go inside to maximize the space. It can hold a total of 33 figures. The figures per row are 7-6-7-6-7. Based on the OP's stand I staggered them for better visibility. My original design had each row as one brick higher than the last, but I found things got a little too cramped. So now with two bricks height for each row there is little problem with figures obscuring each other. As high as it is it juuuust barely fits. Also, with five rows any figures in the back have to fit into the 4x3 space of their black plate exactly. There is zero room to lean back, so any figure with a big head/helmet or accessories on their back (like the S6 Robot) cannot fit back there--spears graze the roof a bit too if not tilted forward. Here is the finished product with Series 6 and 7 plus one more: The odd number in the display doesn't bother me, as I'll probably rearrange them by themes anyway - space, fantasy/historic, civilians, etc. And there will be more than just the CMF series on display. I would like to find a large case like this, one that could hold maybe double this. Perhaps a large basketball display case or something similar. That DETOLF case from Ikea looks nice, though I worry about dust since it doesn't look airtight.

+1 to Masked Builder, thanks!

+1 to fred67!

May the 4th be with you, everyone! I'll start off with update with the finished product: Yep, she's finally finished! Estimated building time was about 30 hours, here and there over a couple of weeks. Maybe 10 of those hours were spent just staring in wonder at the pieces or building steps. "Holy crap, this piece combination is amazing!" "Whoa! Look at how these fit together!" "Oh crap, where did I put that 1x1 clippy thing for the bar thing to attach to the arm thing?" Total time from the first BrickLink orders to completion? Just over 3 months. Although a good 5 weeks of that time was spent just staring at the parts after they were all purchased. 3 weeks before a move, and 2 weeks after getting settled in the new place. A few more of the in-progress shots (which some might find more interesting than the finished product). The rear section is covered up by 5 major pieces, with the center piece already attached. Once "attached" they're a little bit loose as they don't connect to each other, but still impressively arranged. One of those back plates in progress. There's probably 80+ pieces in just this one section. Soooo many little parts. As always, the detail is incredible. Holy greebles, Batman! You can see the lines separating the major sections. Also, the dark red pieces are fantastic. I think I might like to put more red tiles on this thing someday. A dark red coat of paint would look pretty cool I think. The finished cockpit, with our brave heroes (Luke is manning the top gun). I can't help but feel there should be a fifth bar down the center. It feels a little bit open. The radar dish and the top gun in place. You actually build this gun something like halfway through the whole thing, and just set it aside until the end. It overlaps all the big plate sections and keeps them from lifting up like the smaller Falcon sets do--which I think is kind of neat for play features in those sets. That damned dish was expensive but I feel like it was worth it. It's huge, and the printing on it is very nice.. I've said it before, but to anyone considering doing this (or for any set, really): Do it! It was such a fun process, from start to finish. Just acquiring all the parts one order at a time was enjoyable. Most of my non-LEGO-enthusiast friends thought I was crazy for starting this, but I can say it was definitely worth it in the end. Possible mods in the future: I love seeing the work people have done with LEDs, and would like to try my hand at that. The way the ship comes apart with each major piece loosely attached is nice for such a mod. Dark red paint job. Dark red pieces kind of make me drool a little bit, and seeing more plates/tiles on the top of this would be pretty nice. It might not be THE Millennium Falcon after such an overhaul, but it would be MY Millennium Falcon, and I'm okay with that. Mounted on the wall with a TV mount. The pictures I've seen of that were pretty spectacular, and that solves two problems: 1) How to display this in the most badass way possible, and 2) Gets it off my desk, where it takes up about 80% of the work space. And maybe seeing about getting a UCS sticker for the little stand. I like those big info stickers, but don't have a good printer to make them on my own. Anyone know of an online service that will print custom decals for cheap?

+1 for melrows!

Here's what I did to get the list from BrickLink. It took me a couple of tries to figure it out (and if anyone else has a better method, by all means point out the foolishness of my ways ). 1. Open up the inventory page on BrickLink. 2. Switch from "List with Images" to just "List" view. 3. Select all the lines you want in your Excel sheet--probably just down to the yellow technic right angle bricks. 4. Copy and paste this data into Notepad. This step clears out any sort of weird formatting that will carry over to Excel. 5. Copy and paste the now-plain data from Notepad into Excel, and voila! It should be arranged into nice, neat columns. Then from there, organize and do as you wish with it. I noticed when I did this there were two oddball entries with quantities but no parts or description. You can delete those with no problems. Hope this helps!

That wall mounted bracket sounds like a great idea! In fact, I just saw something like that here: http://www.fbtb.net/...php?f=10&t=6446. Super cool! A few more progress pictures. Up to page 227 now! Covering up the top with plates. She's almost ready to fly without spilling cargo everywhere. These are the escape pods. The building process on this was really impressive. It's all based around that black brick in the center. It's a really funky brick, studs everywhere! But once you snap all the hinged-together pieces around it, it feels pretty solid. Part of why it's taken me so long to build this thing is I'll spend quite a long time just marveling at each step. "No, this one goes here, that one goes there!" And lastly, the in-progress cockpit. It would seem that the tiles and slopes in front are supposed to have stickers for them. I don't have the sticker sheet for it, though, so I guess I can try and find some printed tiles. Do they make printed cheese slopes?

Very cute! I think this would be a great addition to a LEGO town, perhaps even a modular building. Every town needs a shop for geeks and nerds to get their fix. Comics, board games, Star Wars micro models, etc...