fallentomato

That's one way to look at it. I guess building with LEGO is more of an artistic expression than a game for me, so there's no way to cheat. Also, breaking the rules can be fun and sometimes leads to the best art. But I do understand the desire to limit oneself to the LEGO parts, because I too feel that I get most creative when I have some limitations to work within. That's why I love building alternate models for sets. Woohoo! Sounds like we have similar opinions. What's the opposite of a LEGO purist? A LEGO heathen?

Yeah... I got a 0.00/10, which is strange, because there were a couple things I was "iffy" about so you think I'd at least get a 0.02 It's true though, I am very permissive and never hesitate to cut/file/paint pieces and while I don't actively seek out off-brand pieces I have accumulated a fair amount and they find their way into my creations every now and then. There are some great sectional couch pieces (I think they are Tyco) that I have used in my movies on numerous occasions.

Fixed! So how do you feel about old pieces that are no longer in production?

After seeing the discussion this morning about a creation posted by the Brothers Brick that wasn't entirely made of LEGO it got me thinking about the phenomenon of LEGO purism. I was wondering what everyone here thought about it. So I've got a few questions for you all: 1) How do you define LEGO purity? What is allowed in a "pure" LEGO creation? Some things to consider are non-LEGO plastic elements (competitor brands and fan imitations) other non-LEGO materials (cloth sails, non-LEGO string, paper, cotton) , modified LEGO elements (cut, filed, painted or otherwise changed), stickers, specialized/<insert that tiresome argument> elements (BURPs, Bionicle pieces, chases and boat hulls etc.) and non-system themes (Belville/Scala, Duplo, Galidor, Clickts, etc.) 2) Are you a purist? That is, do your own creations live up to the purity standards you set forth in #1? 3) How do you feel about "impure" MOCs? Do you treat them differently? Avoid them all together? Treat them the same as any other MOC? I'll avoid answering my own questions for right now, so my own opinions don't overwhelm the start of this thread. Also, you should check out the LEGO purity quiz if you haven't done it before.

Oh yeah! Brickworld is the best four days of the year, it's like an entirely different (awesome) world that we get to inhabit for a short time every year. I wouldn't miss it for anything. I've started making plans for my display already. I've even been thinking about heading to one of the other conventions because I have so much fun at Brickworld every year. I don't know if I can quite commit to BrickCon this year, but I have been thinking about it...

Fantastic! So many great details, I really like the shape of the cannon wall and how you used palm leaves on the top of the lookout tower. This looks like it'd be a lot of fun to play with, so many great features like the jungle path and mountain cave. I can imagine spending hours acting out stories with minifigs on this.

Very cool. I love the butler bot. This makes me really want to upgrade my volcano base.

Sméagol's probably too busy running BiM to post this here on EB, but he is putting together an awesome Lego animation event this weekend. For those of you not familiar with STAR, it's a lego animation contest being put on by BiM. The theme is Space Time And Reality and the deadline is this Sunday. After all the films are turned in Sméagol's going to put them together into a program and then broadcast that live later that day. There will be an associated chat room so you can talk with other Lego animation fans while watching a whole new batch of films. It's bound to be awesome! All the details are here. Hope to 'see' some of you there.

Now that's just being unimaginative, even Galidor parts have been successfully integrated into MOCs Jessie, Woody and Pete may not look like most Lego figs, but even if they had tried to make them fit only normal shaped heads they'd still be creepy and look out of place with their big eyes and grins At least this way he get new head shapes. I think this could spur a whole bunch of Western MOCs to fit their freakish scale. Hagrid can be bartender! Yeah the fact that the faces are sculpted does make them somewhat reminiscent of the big bad M. But the quality and detail of the sculpting is what makes them Lego. Also, I may have already said this, but I just need to say again, I can't wait to get the Three-Eye-Aliens!!!

They are still prototypes. Don't worry I'm sure the final versions will be plastic. I think a lot of people are missing the fact that Toy Story is a movie about other toys. The fact that they don't look like Lego really speaks to the excellent job Lego has done at recreating the characters. I'm personally glad they didn't try to make the characters have standard Lego heads - I think they'd end up looking even creepier that way. Sort of like the clone wars figures. I do agree that the alien and the army men are the best of the Toy Story bunch though. Zurg's head looks too much like those ugly bionicle minifigs for me though. And of course all the Prince of Persia figs look awesome. So many turbans!

Very cool! I really like the command room and the vertical tower with the rotating laser and the lava pit. I also like the details you put in to show playability features like the hooks on the modular prison cells. Can't wait to see it in brick form!

Very cool. You might have already noticed, but this got mentioned on the Brothers Brick.

A little context about my experience with the on-line FOL community - when the Internet and I were young I stumbled across rec.toys.lego which was the place to talk about lego online. I remember when Lugnet was introduced and for a while I followed that, although I put off by the over-specialization of the forums. On of the things I liked about RTL was that everything was all together and so the culture felt very tight knit. Once things got split out by theme and sub-theme the community sort of splintered along those lines as well (at least in my mind). Then I got distracted by high school and college and while I was still a FOL, I wasn't in any active online. When I returned to the FOL community last year I floundered around for a bit. LUGnet seemed more or less abandoned and (as many have pointed out) ancient in presentation. There didn't seem to be anything to replace it, but there were a whole host of new specialized communities (Classic-Castle, Classic-Space etc.) and people were split not only by what they built, but also by how they displayed their pictures (Brickshelf, flickr, MOCpages etc.). As a fan that builds in many themes as well as building things that don't really fall in any theme I had little interest in the specialized communities. I started reading The Brothers Brick, as they seemed to cover a wide range of themes and have the latest news. At Brickworld 2008 I met Hinckley and talking with him convinced me that it was time to rejoin the community. EB was clearly the best option. I then joined flickr and started following anyone I could find who post lego pics. Those three were my personal solution (although less and less the BB now-a-days as I often see things through flickr or EB first). Oops, l that "little context" ended up being pretty long Now to bring this around back on to the topic at hand. I feel that EB is already the largest, broadest lego fan community (at least that I've come across). Is it everything that LUGnet was? No. But I don't think it needs to be. What really makes EB great is the community. It may not have all the resources that LUGnet does hosted on site, but it has people who know where those resources (and others) exist and are happy to point the uniformed in the appropriate directions. At the Serious Play Session this year there was a lot of talk of creating a centralized site/portal that would stitch together the various splintered FOL communities into one Neo-LUGnet. While I see the appeal of that (and was one of hte people who spoke about it), I also think that there is sometimes too moaning about the internal division/splintering of the community. What the proliferation of individual communities says to me is that this community has grown tremendously since I first discovered it a little over a decade ago. If our biggest issue is that our community is big, diverse, and decentralized, we're doing pretty well. I think that EB is definitely filling the place LUGnet used to fill for many people. But unlike the particularly nasty community split/migration that happened between Brickfilms and Bricks in Motion, this one has been peaceful and natural... Oh my look at the time I need to get to bed, and there's still so much I wanted to say. Well I look forward to continuing this discussion with y'all in the coming days.

It wouldn't let me send you a PM, but I'm interested in auditioning for Dr. Robert Ignatus / Dr. Inferno.

I was talking with a friend about lego (big surprise ) and then he realized that google had an archive of rec.toys.lego (where we both posted back when we were 13) and thus began a several hour cyber-archaeological expedition into lego fan community. I remembered that RTL existed, but I never thought about the possibility that it still existed. Reading back over my posts (under an old screenname - wedge6756) I was surprised at all the things I didn't remember (about the group in general as well as my posts in particular ). I guess it was a long time ago (a whole decade!) even by non-internet standards. Anyone else here remember the RTL days?

It's a cutie! The nose is delightful

I liked the dancing robot. There are some technical issues (camera shakes, light flicker, etc.) that are distracting, but I think you're off to a good start. Keep at it!

Thanks My next video will be out by the end of July. I still have to animate most of it, but I'm going to start on that this weekend...

Great work! The animation is fantastic. I particularly like the way he makes his chair spin around and the flips he does across the room.

I got mine this week and immediately took it apart. I took a picture so you can all see exactly where the chroming ends. I'm pretty happy with the figure, the head especially I can see being very useful... I decided to put together a little shiny scene, so ipulled together my other chrome gold pieces. I had to go pearl gold for the hands/hooks, but at least they're not tan anymore!

Nah. Millipedes are slow-moving herbivores that usually stay outside. They can be pests in gardens, but rarely indoors. They are also less scary looking than centipedes, they don't have the creepy antennae or long spindy legs. They're kind of cute actually. Err... sorry for the impromptu Biology lesson, I just don't like how millipedes are often considered worse than centipedes just because they have more legs. Now that you explained that everything was dried up, this story is a little less gross. Although it has still been the gateway for other gross stories (I agree with your about the roach eating and will add a ) so you're not entirely off the hook

What an awesome topic. I will gladly help you come up with ideas for your evil lair. There are so many different ways you could go. My suggestion would be to focus on the lava / volcano aspect of the lair. There are so many uses for lava, it might be cool to see how Dr. Inferno is harnessing for different aspects of his lair. Obviously expanding on the lava pit is an excellent way to start. Torturing the Agents is definitely a priority for him. But does he also have a thermal power generator to produce all the power needed to run his supercomputers and laser and monorail? What about a giant lava fall that separates his control booth from his dining room (ala The Incredibles)? A lava heated jacuzzi for relaxation? Maybe the hangers and such are in lava tubes? Are the barracks lit bit an eerie orange glow? These are thing you have the pleasure of deciding. Now you've got me thinking about expanding my volcano base...

I like it! The tree is very cool, definitely worth defending. The only thing I would want is for the construction guy to have a bigger saw or some other way of cutting down the tree. I don't know that it quite needs to be a jungle cutter, but I'd just like that aspect to be a little more menacing. Nice work on the riot police and the brick built road too.

This story was totally gross. Just finding that stuff in an old MOC would be bad enough, but then dumping it into a big big of pieces... it makes my skin crawl just thinking about it. I will be extra careful when handling MOCs that have been on the shelf. Allow me to reiterate The only experience I've ever had with mice and lego was last year in my old apartment. I had a couple mice which I killed using the old fashioned traps, but one night in particular I saw a mouse scurry across the floor in my computer room. But when i went to the corner to see where it had gone I just found a couple of bricks. So either the mouse turned into lego or it was actually a lego fairy showing my where my lost pieces were. Either way, a much more pleasant experience than yours. I've never really had mice problems, just spiders. The basement where my lego collection used to live was just crawling with spiders, combine that with the fact that the bricks were just sitting there unused for months at a time while I was off at college and it's no wonder that I was always finding webs and exoskeletons scattered about. The worst for me though is when they use the inside of a brick as a nest. I don't know how many times I've turned over a piece to find webbing inside the tubes or in the space surround the tubes.

Go for it! You could do a scene from Princess Quest or, you know, whatever you want.