ShaydDeGrai

The New England LUG (nelug.org) did a tremendous job on the Millyard project for the SEE Science Center in Manchester New Hampshire. I'm not a member of NELUG so I don't know the specifics of how they deal with such "partnerships" but it might be worth sending them an email to see if there's any interest.

I think his methodology under-represents the role of mini-figures in the price of certain kits. Given that his pure "part count" methodology makes Architecture a best buy (for their high use of tiny plates and tiles) compared to city sets (where you're getting a lot of bricks, wheels and mini-figures), I'd be curious to see how the number compared if, instead of counting a mini-fig as four parts (legs, torso, head and hat - which, by his math would suggest a basic figure should contribute about 42 cents to the price) he broke them down into actual mould elements ( three parts for the legs, five for the torso plus head and hat - bringing the price per figure cost up over a dollar). Even then I think it would be under reporting the influence of figures in a set has on the final price but I think it would be a step in the right direction. An even better analysis would be separate charts for sets grouped by number of mini-figures to see if there is a distinct change in the y-intercept of the plots as the figure count goes up. Averaging the size of that delta would give us a better sense of what you're really paying for a licensed figure versus a classic mini-figure, versus a pile of bricks.

As others have said, I wouldn't worry about it - if anything it might be a good sign. I know several bricklink vendors who will reseal "complete" CMFs using their own heat seal bags rather than Zip-Loc baggies. I've also encountered one that pre-sealed bulk small parts into lots of 100 pieces for rapid order fulfillment. This is most likely just a case of the vender wanting to keep things organized and dust free.

I've never tried this with Lego (ABS) but for what it may or may not be worth... Back when I used to do plastic models I'd sometimes do the following to create rust patterns on parts: 1) Prime the part with a flat base coat of paint. 2) Mix a bit of ground up instant coffee crystals with a bit of rubbing alcohol to make a stain (don't use water as the bipolar properties of water will cause it to bead up in ways that make it difficult to scale realistically. The runniness (versus uniform tint) is a function of the ratio of coffee to alcohol - I never got it right on the first try and used to practice on a piece of cardstock before applying to the model. 3) Fix the piece in it's 'natural' orientation and brush or spray the stain on in thin applications. The stain should run down the piece pooling and streaking in appropriate places to mimic rust. 4) Let the alcohol evaporate then spray the piece with hairspray to help affix the residue to the surface. Again, let me repeat, I've never tried this on ABS plastic let alone LEGO so I don't know how well it works (if at all). Model planes, tanks and cars are typically made from polystyrene (like the back panel of a CD case or the handle of a disposable razor) which is an entirely different beast from ABS used in LEGO today. If you're adventurous enough to try this, I'd strongly recommend some practice runs on a few small, sacrificial 2x2 tiles or something first in case the primer or the hairspray reacts badly with the material (or you just really need to practice making rust patterns before compromising an important piece).

Greetings! There's a whole forum dedicated to Technic here with some really talented designers making great contributions on a regular basis so I'm sure you'll find some good company here. As for your English, you're doing great. The trick to becoming fluent in English, not unlike becoming a good Technic designer, is to have a bit of knowledge and a lot of practice. Welcome aboard!

Hi Amanda and welcome! Rest assured, you will find no shortage of people who can relate to your obsession here. Best of luck in your CMF quest.

I'd go for a "Troupe of Minifigs" as 'troupe' is the proper term for a group of mimes and since my figures don't talk but do tell stories by striking poses I think it's the best analogy.

I'm not a fan of LDD, but that's not a reflection on the tool itself, rather a matter of personal preference and the role I want LEGO to fill in my hobby spectrum. I work with computers on a daily basis and when I want to chill out and relax, the absolute last thing I want to do is spent that time in front of another computer. That said, I've been MOC'ing for a very long time and have yet to find one absolute formula for success that works just for me, let alone anyone else. Sometimes I want a very concrete plan, sometimes that's the very last thing I want, Usually I'll build and rebuild a prototype a dozen times before I'm happy with it, other times it's one and done. I've lost track of the number of times I've "finalized" a design (in the wrong colors) ordered the bricks to build the finished thing in the colors I want only to redesign the thing to the point where it's using entirely different bricks by the time the original order of parts arrive (bad for the budget, good for building up a collection…) My general "best" (though occasionally contradictory) practices tend to include: * Shop for inspiration before shopping for parts: I find I do my best work when I have a passion for the desired outcome. I'm also inherently cheap and I find I stress out a lot less about the expense of my hobby if I have clear sense of what that money is going toward (even if I overbuy or change a design later) rather than just amassing random parts for some project to be named later. * Allow inspiration to find you from time to time: I like to keep a small bucket of random parts on my desk for absent minded free building, you never know what you'll get. I was fooling around with some plates one afternoon and thought to myself "hey, that looks like it belongs on a some sort of cool ancient warship" and eventually it became part of my Corsair from Umbar build. * You may not need a plan, but you must have a vision: If I'm building something that exists, I track down as many reference photos as I can. If no photos exist, I make sketches of my own to figure out scale and proportion. These aren't schematics to tell me which brick goes where at every step of the process, but they are guidelines to keep large builds on track while obsessing over details. * Don't over-think things that should be organic: Nothing looks more artificial than a carefully planned tree. The human mind likes to make patterns and the human eye does a fantastic job of spotting them. Things like rocks, plants and weathering need an element of randomness to seen real and it's hard to fake "random"; our minds just aren't programmed that way. When I was building my Pillars of the Kings MOC I deliberately co-mingled my new gray with my old and randomly drew from the bins to achieve an uneven surface tone that was striking enough to add depth to the work but random and subtle enough that, unless one looks closely, you don't realize multiple colors are in play. When doing the extensive rock work on Barad Dur, I did a similar thing with shape, lumping all my dark bley slopes together and randomly picking "the next piece to be added" from the bag - my sketches and references helped guide where the piece went, but the part in hand and available connection points kept me from over-thinking the process. * Keep a neutral palette of various bricks handy: I do a lot of prototyping when I'm working on a design and I value form over color at that stage of the game. By far the bulk of my (unassembled) collection are either some shade of gray (thus the user name) or (increasingly) tan. Working from this neutral palette lets me experiment with form without being distracted by garish color contrasts like classic red on bright yellow. Now often (for me) the finished model is also pretty close to these colors but even when the end product is going to be more colorful, I still find it useful to get the basic shapes fleshed out in gray or tan first. * Be a smart consumer: When it comes time to render the finished design (and even before for the sake of building up a palette of shape and color), spend your money wisely. learn to love the Creator line - even if you don't care for the models they offer, they have a great price ratio, offer insights as to clever ways to use new pieces and (in most cases) the parts inventory is readily available either on the side of the box or on-line. Establish relationships with Bricklink stores - not only is bricklink a great source for parts at a reasonable price, by consistently returning to favored vendors I routinely get customer loyalty coupons for 10-20% off my final order and/or free shipping. If you have access to a PAB wall at a Lego Store milk it for all it's worth and take the time to learn how to pack a cup well (in the US PAB parts are sold by volume and a well packed cup can carry two to three times the weight/mass of a loosely packed one). If you know you REALLY need a lot of a particular part in a particular color, investigate K-Boxes (you need to speak to a store manager about these). The on-line Pick-A-Brick and Lego Education Parts websites usually don't have the best prices, but they do have the advantage of bulk ordering - if peicing together a large order via bricklink is going to kill you on postage with lots of small lots coming from dozens of vendors, take the time to see if the official parts source prices become more reasonable; it's rare but it does happen. * Remember it's LEGO, you're supposed to play with it: the English word "play" traces back to the Middle Dutch word "pleien" meaning "to leap for joy". If you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong.

This little aside really touches upon the heart of my issue with the organization in general. In the forty-some-odd years that I've been aware of Greenpeace' existence, I've never known them to actually solve a problem, any problem, of global importance. They highlight issues. They assign blame (sometimes arbitrarily or flat out incorrectly). They've deferred or altered the landscape of problems. They polarize communities that might otherwise be working together to find mutually beneficial compromises. But they don't actually contribute anything of innate value to the quest for a solution. Traditionally, they latch on to one small aspect of one small symptom, taken entirely out of context, and blow it entirely out of proportion. Not only do they not address the root cause, the tactics they employ make it harder for people who are actually trying to solve the issue to be taken seriously, get funding, be heard, etc. If they were "championing" medical causes, their cure for skin diseases would be to protest the color red until everyone with a rash would be too frightened to be seen in public. They pick quick and easy battles that further their own existence rather than committing to long-term systemic efforts that the support the causes they espouse. It's easier to react than to plan. It's easier to attack an individual than a culture. It's easier to complain than to fix. It's easier to recognize a symptom than to understand a system. They want to see themselves as noble and relevant, embracing a suffer hero fantasy where they're the champion for the planet, but they don't want to do real work to effect real change because real work is hard and most lasting change does't happen in the tiny glare of a spotlight. I share many of the goals Greenpeace espouses and would love to see end end to fossil fuel dependence in my lifetime, but strategically and tactically, I think they are a liability toward actually achieving those ends.

If they'd used a knob and tube design for the tops and bottoms of the containers (and the deck of the boat) maybe the container wouldn't have slid off the deck in the first place.

I displayed my WIP of Barad Dur at Brickfair New England and heard these five questions repeatedly (as well as "How much that that weigh?") but the question that made me cringe was asked by a woman in her 30's (?) with a young child in tow: "That looks a little different from the one in the store, did you change something?" For those who have not seen the MOC, I'm pretty sure that, were it hollow, her child would have fit inside of it with room to spare (lord knows my cats had fun with it when I was building it). I felt like saying, "yes, I added A HUNDRED THOUSAND BRICKS and built AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT MODEL" but I restrained myself and politely told her she was confusing it with the Tower of Orthanc kit and gave her a little LOTR backstory.

Should LEGO cut ties with Shell?? Honestly the real question is: "should environmentalists cut ties with Greenpeace" Between their tactics in the field, their shoddy "research" and active propaganda campaign, Greenpeace, today, just makes it harder for _real_ energy researchers, environmental engineers, green urban planners and conservation groups to be taken seriously. I had a grad student years ago that was a Greenpeace activist who spent most of her spare time (and my lab's SGI computing cycles) photoshopping fake "evidence" for her cell to seed across the web as "proof" everything Greenpeace did was absolutely necessary for the survival of the planet and anyone who didn't actively support Greenpeace and its methods was inherently evil. One night I accidentally walked in a pizza party where she and her friends had taken over my lab to troll chat rooms and message boards to "refute" any postings they found that painted Greenpeace as anything less than the second coming of Christ and to cyber-bully anyone making detracting comments. Ironically, although the campus had a very advanced recycling program (for the day), when I broke up the party, they didn't bother to sort bottles cans of paper into the various bins, they just threw everything in the trash and threatened to stage a sit-in for infringing on their right to free speech ( Actually, I was enforcing the "no trespassing" sign posted in the lobby of the building as my student was the only one among them to have any affiliation with the university and even she wasn't supposed to be there at 1 in the morning.) As a lifelong engineer, I believe in tackling tough problems through understanding, consensus building and long term vision; grandstanding, bullying and finger-pointing are self-defeating tactics that just stir up dissent among uneducated mobs and make it harder for rational discussions to take place. There was a time when Greenpeace raised a voice that needed to be heard, but when the speaker is grabbing more headlines than the message - it's time to get off the stage.

This is really the fundamental failure of eBay as far as I'm concerned. I hear people talk about how great it is for bargain shopping because sellers don't realize what something's really worth, but honestly, I think more often the consequence of that ignorance is exactly the reverse. Sellers misrepresent (more so from ignorance than malice, but still…) what they're selling and buyers overbid (or overpay) based on what they're anticipating getting because they assume the representation is accurate. When it comes to Lego, I've heard lots of stories of people ending up with a load of M***B***** when the description claimed "legos" but I rarely hear of, say, a complete Green Grocer modular going for $50 because the seller happened to find one in his garage and didn't realize what it was worth. Honest mistakes happen and I think most people, handling the situation maturely, would, at a minimum, allow a refund and return of the entire lot with both buyer and seller splitting the cost of postage. At the other extreme, an unwillingness to bargain in good faith over a misrepresented lot deserves negative feedback such that others are warned that the seller may not be describing the lot accurately, and more importantly, does not care that the listing is wrong. Personally, I'll stick with BrickLink venders; they know what they're selling; they know what a "fair" price is; and, while problems will certainly arise, I've never had encountered a problem with an order that the vender didn't bend over backwards to resolve to my satisfaction.

I opened a kit last night and hit a mile stone, my hundredth orange brick separator When they first started adding these I thought it was an interesting gimmick, now it's starting to be a little ridiculous. I wish they'd at least mix up the color a little more to make the part more useful as a brick in a MOC, maybe one color per year. I bet a dozen or so in a row alternating Earth Blue and White would make a nice canopy for a modular building.

I probably fall in the 4-5 range but generally follow the "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" rule of thumb. I do believe in constructive criticism, though, and will offer such if the poster seems to be asking for genuine feedback. Now since you asked for feedback and I'm generally incapable of posting a short response to anything (darn Ph.D. Training, I feel compelled to write a 1000 word essay to order a pizza on line these days…) I'll also offer my opinion on the different types of posters as you described above. Type 1: (The Egoist) It doesn't really matter how _I_ might have done it, or how it might have compared. I try never to make such comments as I see them as petty and self aggrandizing. If I really think I could do that much better, I should actually sit down, build my own version, post it somewhere and let others decide. Hi-jacking someone else's MOC thread to stroke your own ego is just really bad form. Type 2: (The Art Critic) There's certainly a place for a well worded "I've come to expect more from you" comment on occasion, but a public thread isn't the right forum. That's the sort of feedback that belongs in a private message between people who actually know one another. A trusted friend or colleague saying "this is good, but I know you can do better" can be a great motivator to believe in yourself as much as others do and to push your creations to the next level. A complete stranger publicly claiming "I remember when your stuff used to be good" is just demoralizing. Type 3: (The Lego Police) It's one thing to suggest a technique if the poster has solicited suggestions or expressed frustration over how something turned out; it's quite another to criticize a piece because the artists made different choices than you would have in realizing his/her vision. I like SNOT and I'm a fan of only leaving exposed studs when they contribute to the aesthetic texture of a piece; but that doesn't mean someone else's piece can't be great if it doesn't use SNOT or "fails" to tile over excess studs. I'd never take an X-Acto knife to a brick to achieve a certain effect in one of my MOCs, but I've seen some cool works that relied on such "cheats", who am I to judge? Type 4: (Biased Praise) This is where I think well-phrased, constructive criticism lies. The trick to offering such criticism, though, is learning how to share your expertise with a willing audience while checking your ego at the door. The hardest part about being an editor is realizing that it's your job to help an author tell her story in her words and not to derail the effort by drowning out her voice with your own - it's no different in Lego, we all develop styles, preferences, practices, etc. and we (should) critic to help others refine their styles and bring their visions to fruition, not to bias new voices into mimicking our own. Type 5: (Honest Praise) If you come across a MOC that speaks to you, by all means speak back. Let the author know that, in your opinion, the work was successful; thank the author for sharing their work with you. Remember that a MOC isn't just a collection of plastic bits, but an artifact representing an investment of hours (weeks, months???) of someone's life, if that expenditure on their part has brought something positive to your day (awe, wonder, humor, joy, whatever), let them know their time was well spent. If the piece doesn't work for you, why take the time to post feedback at all? If the artist hasn't asked for suggestions or expressed their own dissatisfaction with some aspect of the work, what is to be gained by dwelling on the negative? Type 6: (Empty praise - universal "encouragement") While I think it's important to offer encouragement to those bold enough to share their creations on-line, my (former) years as a teacher and mentor has taught me to detest the "political correctness"-motivated saccharin praise offered across the board regardless of the actual quality of the work at hand. I used to deal with a lot of undergrads who are probably in therapy now that they've left the shelter of academia, entered the real world, and suddenly discovered that they aren't as smart and talented as they'd always been lead to believe. While I firmly believe that everyone has the potential to be a winner, in practice, there are plenty of "non-winners" out there and learning that you're not always #1 is the first step in striving to be better. This experience in academia as clearly biased me to matters of critical feedback in general. I won't tell Johnny he's done a great job if I secretly think it looks like crap; it's dishonest and misguiding. I might praise aspects of build that I respect even if I don't care for the MOC in general, but I won't go out of my way to lie to someone about how great their work is if I don't actually feel that way. I think honest silence is better than empty praise.

Thanks to all. Yeah, this was a LOT of black. It ate two Towers of Orthanc kits, a half dozen Black Gate kits, 7 K-boxes of small plates, slopes and bricks, six months worth of sizable Bricklink orders and it _still_ depleted my existing stockpiles of black (which _used to be_ fairly expansive). Space is a BIG concern. It took over my home office for most of the year. I packed it up to show for BrickFair New England a month or so ago and haven't cleared space to unpack it yet so at the moment it's in storage in my attic. I really need to remodel my house to make a dedicated Lego Room. Working on this scale, having to multiplex a workspace is really daunting.

I haven't posted many MOCs here lately because I've been a bit busy with this guy. I spent about two months designing designing things on paper (literally, I play with Lego to get away from computers so I rarely do much with LDD or MLCad) and about eight months building and rebuilding the model itself. The tower stands a bit over four feet tall from base to crown and is made from a ridiculous number of small parts for something that weighs about as much as a teenager. There's a six foot strand of LED christmas lights in the lava moat at the base to try to break up the black a bit, but other than that, everything else is pure factory issues Lego. I still consider this a work in progress as: a) I haven't come up with a good solution for the Eye of Sauron despite having built several dozen at this point (bricks, cones, flames, helmet plumes, radar dishes - still haven't the right look yet) b) There's still work to be done on the base (outer guard towers, flume delivering molten rock to the lava moat etc.) c) I really need to learn how to photograph big black, highly detailed ABS surfaces. This thing is way too big for my light box and I've yet to take a photo of it that does it justice. The base is about 2 feet by 3 feet and the lower ramparts are a system of concentric rings tied together by radial walls. It's nominally hollow, but there's a lot of internal buttressing, arches, and technic structure buried inside to support the weight of the upper tiers. If you're curious, I have a few more photos (of equally poor quality) over on MOC pages I welcome all comments, questions and suggestions as to how best to finish and photograph this beast (particularly if you have any great insights in to the design of a 10 stud diameter Eye of Sauron that doesn't look cheesy). Thanks for stopping by.

As far as the subject matter goes, I'm really not that big a fan of the Mini-Cooper as, being nearly two meters tall, I find it easier to jump over one than fit inside one. Still, I will always think of a cool sequence from The Italian Job whenever I hear the name and I'm a movie buff, so that's a plus. That said, I think it's a beautiful model and and TLG's decision to go with the dark green color scheme really closed the deal for me. I can't complain about the price point either. I can definitely see myself getting one of these for display and at least one spare just for the parts.

An old classmate of my wife came to visit from Hong Kong and brought her two daughters with her. To keep the kids entertained, I gave them a couple bags of random brick to play with that I hadn't gotten around to sorting yet. The older daughter dumped out her bag on the table and her eyes lit up. "Did you hear that?" she asked her sister, scooping up a handful of pieces and dropping them again. "You can tell from the sound, this is real Lego Lego, not that crappy Lego Ping buys." Out of the mouths of babes...

This year (2014) Brickfair Virginia is August 2nd and 3rd (for the general public) at the Dulles Expo Center in Chantilly with a ticket price of $12 at the door. Hours are 11 to 4 each day. For exhibitors (or just people who want the whole AFOL 9 bricks, as it were) the convention runs from July 30th to the 3rd with a registration cost of $67 (register before before July 12th to get a $15 discount). The official AFOL schedule hasn't been announced yet, but during the extra days before the public event there's usually presentations from Official Reps, regional LUGs, or third party vendors with something special they want to show off. In addition there are building contests (blind build, speed build, boat race, etc.) and traditional games (bingo, poker, Settler's of Cataan, etc.) with Lego Kits as prizes. At previous events there have also been carnival style attractions like "Go Fish", a game where one tries to toss ping pong balls into tiny fishbowls full of loose Lego - for every ball that goes in, you wind the parts in the jar. At BrickFair New England, they even had an inflatable bouncy castle to keep the little kids entertained while the Adults in the crowd caught a moment's rest. The AFOL convention registration also allows you to bring as many MOCs to the show as you like and automatically enters new, original works into various prize categories for their "Brickees" They have categories like "Most Amusing" "Best Use of Color" "Should be a Kit" etc. and winners get a brick-built trophy for the effort. I've not been to the Virginia show (yet, maybe one of these days) but I just got back from BrickFair New England and I had a blast. I met some great people, saw some really impressive MOCs, had a chance to sit down with Jamie Beard (the designer of the Emerald Night and the Parisian Cafe) as well Tim Courtney (or Lego Cuusoo, now Lego Ideas), won more Lego than my registration fee would have purchased if I'd just bought the stuff outright, and took home the Public Favorite Best in Show Brickee (my second win in that category ) I was a cautious skeptic before attending my first convention, but honestly, it's a lot of fun and well worth the price of admission. If you live within reasonable driving distance to a show, I strongly suggest checking one out. And even if you don't feel like showing off your MOCs, the AFOL "pre-convention" convention is a wonderful way to get more involved in the AFOL community face-to-face.

Thank you for yet another outstanding and insightful review. This is definitely the highlight of the TLM line for me and I look forward to getting my hands on one as soon as I can.

I don't see the brick-built reindeer as an issue. Sure, they don't look "real" next to a molded animal, but then, I don't exactly have "real" Christmas Elves, molded or not, running around my Winter VIllage either. When I first saw the photo, my thoughts went immediately not to some "real" Santa's Workshop, but to that house in my neighborhood that puts up the most over the top lighting and decoration display (complete with light-up, clockwork reindeer and an 8 ft tall inflatable Santa). In a set-up like that, who cares if the reindeer look real or not, brick built is probably better just to add to the holiday cheese factor. I think when I get my copy, I'm going to MOD it into "that house" (with the lights and the inflatable snowman, and the giant Nativity scene complete with the glow in the dark baby Jesus, etc.) and sandwich it between two tastefully decorated winter cottages. I'm sure brick built reindeer will fit in just fine, especially when paired with the home owner falling off a ladder while trying to secure them to his snow covered roof.

I just had a odd vision of a hundred performance artists taking over a Lego Store during the Edinburgh Arts Festival - I hate to imagine that they'd do with a PaB wall... Thanks for that.

I'm just happy to see more of those clock faces going into circulation (not to mention other fine choices in parts and colors for extending my MOCing palette). That said, I think it's also a cool little set in its own right. I was a tad disappointed by last year's Winter Market as it a) didn't really fit with _my_ vision of a Christmas (for me it is specifically a Christmas thing) layout; and, b) the build seemed rather random and piecemeal. This year's offering, however, fits in just fine and even though it has a lot of mini-builds folded into it, the theme just seems much more cohesive. This is definitely going on my purchase punch list.

The technic half pin (#4274) and the flick-fire missile (#61184) both end with a "legitimate" stud. The half pin can also mate with (by slipping over) a light saber blade or other bar element at the "technic" end for compatibility with clips, mini-figure hands, and hollow stud connections (the flick fire missile already has a "bar" end built in). TLG must consider these valid connections as they've been used in kits in recent years for wizard staves and other such sub-assemblies.