Morgan19

Yessum, por favor. m19

The contest actually ended a few weeks ago; I placed twice in third. m19

Sounds like my store was pretty similar to other folks' experiences. My area first got a "limited time only" minifigure PAB right before the first wave of the Castle 2008 sets came out, which was nice because you could get not-yet-released parts for the Princess and Evil Wizard, along with pink parts from Umbridge and a few others that escape me at the moment. Now the store just has plain red torsos, white balaclava heads, and some helmets– somewhat overwhelming, comparatively. It'd be great if they'd institute some permanent figure PAB, or at least have more diverse options for the limited times it is available. m19

That made my day, thank you. :) (By the by, what's the "Indexed" icon at the top of the thread mean? I've never seen that one before.) m19

11 pages so far? Ahh what the heck, I'd love a chance at the raffle, por favor. m19

I like inspiring! By the by, voting just started for the contest, so if anyone's inclined... VOTING - Arealight's Magnificent mid-year Scoot-a-bration!! It's just a regular LEGO dirtbike with the body painted purple. I don't have the can in front of me at the moment but I'm fairly certain I used Krylon's Fusion spraypaint. m19

Small update to the first post: Lulu from FF10 and Yuna (Songstress) from FFX-2. m19

/post'd! m19

First post's been updated with some new ones. m19

Oooo, I missed this one yesterday but thanks for the well-wishes! m19

I make them in Adobe Illustrator, then print them out on regular white decal paper. m19

Yeah, for better or worse I do love me some details. As for printing them out, well that's the sticker (no pun intended)... The regular white matte decal paper always ends up looking pretty ratty off my printer (a fairly good HP 3700) and waterslide's out since I can't print white. Until I can find some full-sheet glossy white decal paper, these are going to stay completely virtual. m19

To each their own, but I disagree. Just because it's originally a male head doesn't mean it can't have other uses– I often use that head for females that I don't want to have scowls or heavy makeup, since fleshy female heads (hmm...) are currently somewhat limited. m19

Plural is correct. I was lucky enough to purchase the scooter from Arealight a few months back. They're not publicly available yet, but I believe he has plans to sell them in the near future via his Bricklink store. m19

Trying something new here... I'm really enjoying creating custom decals and stickers but often get frustrated with how crappy the decals actually print out with the equipment I have one hand. While working on my recent scooter shop MOCs, I tried something new by taking the decals I was thinking about using and Photoshopping them onto a photo of the MOC: sort of a test to see how they'd look on the models before actually printing and using them. I really liked the immediacy of the process and being able to make adjustments on the fly before committing to a design. It occurred to me that I could do the same thing with minifigures, without having to brasso a torso and then possibly not be happy with the results. Final Fantasy X-2 Reference images (corresponding to the above images, left to right): Yuna | Yuna (Songstress) | Rikku | Paine | Rikku (Mascot) | Paine (Mascot) Final Fantasy XII Reference images (corresponding to the above images, left to right): Ashe | Balthier Final Fantasy X Reference image: Lulu Final Fantasy Tactics A2 Reference image: Penelo m19

Thanks guys! As hokey as it sounds, it makes me happy that these are receiving such a good reception. They're another first for me (my first building/town MOCs as an AFOL) and I definitely appreciate the comments. Seems like there've been some interesting reactions across the board to South Hovel in particular– it makes perfect sense to me that an old house would be converted into a store, but I can definitely appreciate the "bwah...?" reactions. I've always loved old, fairtytale architecture like that and, while it might not make a whole lot of sense in the real world, I really wanted to try and create a shop based around that feeling, logic be damned! Definitely feel a building burn-out for the time being, though. Four MOCs in two weeks is high for me and I think I need another break. m19

Catch Up! B-OV-4E; Roamin' Holiday Scooters B-OM-1C; The Silver Lining B-OV-12A Below is a set of MOCs I've been working on over the past two weeks for Fine Clonier and Arealight's "scooter shop" contest. They were a lot of fun to work on. I haven't created any buildings since childhood (20 years ago...!) and, like most of FC's contests, this definitely got me working in an area I wasn't particularly comfortable with. ______________________________________________ "Catch Up!" Lesiure Motors I'm honestly not sure how this one turned into a giant ketchup bottle. ;) I was working off a Harley store for inspiration: for the most part it had a low, flat building profile but then had a giant rectangular structure plopped in the storefront's middle that really struck me as an interesting design. I was playing around with pieces for that big middle structure one night and somehow got it into my head that they looked like ketchup bottles, like something you'd find at a Bob's Big Boy or other cheesy novelty restaurant/store in the 50s or 80s, so I ran with it. The "Feel like life's passing you by? Catch up!" slogan and store title came pretty quickly after that, simply by the necessity of explaining why a motorcycle store would be constructed from gigantic condiments. ______________________________________________ Roamin' Holiday Scooters This was the first building I worked on for the contest. The goal was to construct a structure within the piece limit that could still fit within the Cafe Corner modular style. The Little Italy theme came purely out of PAB, where I'd picked up a bunch of the regular green and lime green pieces the week before and wanted to work with that color combination. Highlights include a scooter from Arealight, original illustrations for the storefront signs and posters, and two walls that breakaway for access to the insidey bits. ______________________________________________ The Silver Lining Motorcycle Apparel & Accessories The only real plan behind this one when I started building was that I 1) wanted a store with tons of windows and 2) to build something a little on the New Age-y or Post Modern side. The name came about while I was working on the roof; I had a ton of those curved white pieces and it occurred to me that they look an awful lot like clouds when stuck tofether. Given that I wanted the store to be a cycling apparel shop that was starting to expand into selling actual bikes, it made sense that its name would focus on fabrics or thread while also playing off the airy, light cloud theme– thus, the "silver lining". ______________________________________________ South Hovel This store actually started out as a pirate-themed venue in the planning stages before eventually morphing into the "Irish-cottage-turned-scooter-store" concept it is now. I'm really pleased with all the little details in this one like the side garden, wooden signs, and runes on the front door. > Full Gallery (once moderated) Front Front (Angled) Entrance Back Greenery m19

Huh, weird. I know for a fact I've never gone into that options dropdown (given that I didn't even know it was there) and amn't sure how that switched itself around, but have it fixed now. Thanks for pointing that out-- I was looking through options in my profile and never thought to look in the actual thread. m19

Okay, I can't figure this one out... My last visit to EB was a couple days ago and everything was fine. I came back today and now suddenly all threads just show the OP, then with a "branching tree" of replies underneath it, sort of like Bricklink's or Lugnet's boards, instead of displaying all replies "normally" like the OP. Is this a setting somewhere that somehow changed itself and I just don't see? I sincerely hope this isn't a required change with the new boards... I much prefer showing all replies at once without having a tree to click through, and am hoping it's just a hard-to-find setting somewhere. Looks like this: m19

Gorgeous work, absolutely beautiful. I love that the ship has a slightly cartoony feel by having a deep, fat hull and narrow deck– there's a ton of personality there. Very much gives the feeling of an old galleon plucked from the sea and given wings. It looks like it would be right at home in the Final Fantasy, Rogue Galaxy, or Stardust universes. I've been throwing around ideas for my own steampunk airship and might borrow the overall shape of this one as a starting point. It just looks right. They look reddish brown in the photos but I can't really tell– are you using new brown or old brown pieces? (I ask because the brown parts look like they blend well together but I thought the boat hull was only old brown, which is why my mind can't make up its... mind.) m19

Just a quick reminder for anyone interested in entering– the contest deadline is coming up in just about two weeks (April 30th). Contest details can be found here, including what the contest is about, prizes, and how to enter. m19

The eventuality of this little experiment was a given, considering my newfound apparent love of gold spraypaint. I took a regular Threepio head, stuck it on an expendable ExoForce body, painted the whole thing gold, and applied my own custom decal (based on the official fig, obviously). Custom C-3P0 Comparison (I wasn't sure if this should go here or in the LEGO Theater section...) m19

Thanks for pointing this out. Maybe I'm missing it, but I don't actually see the person claiming my minifigs are their work on that page. A bunch of sites had blogged my historical figs back when Fine Clonier's contest was first running and that page you linked to looks like a copy of one of the blogs; that seems to happen a lot these days. I'm sure no harm was intended. I won't lie, though. It would be nice if the blogger mentioned where he found them (ie... me ;)) or give me some form of credit, but there's really no harm done. I definitely don't agree with that, however. Inspiring someone to build their own MOC is honoring. Straight-up stealing images and claiming them as your own is one of the lowest things someone can do in this hobby. m19

Obenwolken, Eyes of the Deutsches Reich ...so I decided to do one more before putting the bricks away for now. ;) (Pictures are deeplinks) > Gallery (once moderated) m19

Dühnlist, Flameward of the Deutsches Reich Oooo, shiny! ;) > Gallery (once moderated) Deeplinks: Schematics | Front | Rear | Minifigs m19