Str0ngbad

If LEGO could only produce those sets in scale, this line would not exist at all. Expecting things like Helmsdeep to be complete and to scale is unrealistic. That said the Corsair ship looks great and I don't take it as a bad omen. I and many others have said it before; this doesn't look like the lineup TLG would choose if they were trying to squeeze the last bit from the license. Could someone remind me of the month that LOTR is tentatively scheduled to be released? I know it's in this thread somewhere but I'm not finding it.

The licensed sets aren't more expensive. Anyway, I missed out on Castle as a kid and having only recently come out of my dark ages I don't have the precedents of previous years to compare it too but I'm really not very impressed. tI expect to buy the dragon set but I will probably leave everything else to the young 'uns whom this theme is clearly being aimed at. It's just too bad there's no LOTR castle this year.

We really don't know anything for certain aside from the four sets. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Welcome to Ameribricks! I'm anxious for the Council of Elrond set too.

Welcome to Ameribricks! There are some great resources for making custom pieces over in the Minifig Customization forum. Hope to see you around!

Ameribricks is ok I guess. It's a hell of a lot better than 'Eurobricks' but I still feel like it wasn't the best option. If you had more detailed information on your demographics, I'm sure you'd see that the majority of your membership is in Texas and you would change the name accordingly. We fly our state flag higher than everyone else, we eat more, drink more, have more guns, and wear bigger shoes! It only stands to reason that we make up the biggest portion of this community or, at the very least, are more important than the rest of your community. Reading through this thread has made my stomach ache from laughing. The people feeling 'left out' by the 'name change' are funny but the few Americans that have been getting butt hurt about stereotypes have really made my day. Thanks Ameribricks!

Melting down a fleshie head in acetone and then coating the ears with it works. It works for turning flesh ears yellow too and is a perfect color match.

Dune, The Tolkien Estate, and Homestar Runner.

Welcome to Ameribricks Balin! I hope to see you over in the Historic Themes forum and I hope you'll keep me in mind should you come across any mithril in them hills.

I'm glad you posted again or I may have never seen this thread. This stuff is wonderful! I love the robots; especially the one in the wheelchair. Your paint jobs are fantastic but what draws me the most is the creativity behind your concepts. Thanks for sharing!

I'm all for variety but I'd rather have the choice of how to add variety left up to me. I really shouldn't be whining about little stuff like this though. I can still hardly believe that LOTR LEGO even exists.

I really do wish they would stop being so stingy with minifig materials. Would it cost that much more for all of the mordor orcs to come with hair or all of the uruk-hai to come with armor? Good Cragger Fan, it sounds like you are basically asking for Uruk-Hai army without the Uruks. Not that that's a bad thing to want but I'd be willing to bet that there won't be any more sets based in Rohan. As far as important characters, they should be able to get Grima into Orthanc and Eowyn in a Pelenor set. With Gondor still left untouched, I have a hard time seeing them coming back to Rohan. I most want a Lothlorien set (reasonable) and a Grey Havens set (incredibly unlikely). The only reason I fear they may not hit Lothlorien is I imagine Galadriel will get released in the Hobbit sets. So if they are trying to squeeze as many characters as possible into a small number of waves, Lothlorien isn't a go-to location. It could be spectacular though.

Thanks for this; it made me smile. Happy Easter!

There is so much more that is begging for attention in that battle that I have a hard time seeing him being made then if he isn't this winter. However, that thought had not even occurred to me. I honestly had forgotten about his part in the battle. I get on here every day hoping to see a post from GRogall...

I can understand people disliking TLG's resources being focused on licensed themes because they prefer the classic ones but licensed sets are not more expensive. I don't know why so many people think they are. I have never seen an episode of GOT but after Googling some reference material, I'm even more impressed by this MOC than I was to begin with. Top notch stuff! (Maybe I should finally cave in and get the books...)

He's not raising it. I think it's 11 each and then ~3 for shipping which would make it 14 for one or 25 for two.

Of course they are all top-notch but I particularly like Ares. I'm not familiar with the character but he just looks really cool. Is his helmet some kind of really dark purple?

Thanks for the advice. I am hoping to start learning to mold stuff and hadn't heard about jeweler's wax before. I plan on using this method to color molded pieces but I'll hold off molding them in it until I know better what I'm doing. I suppose it can't hurt to try.

I don't think it is nearly that special but thank you for your kind words rafsemedo. If you try it, I would love to see what you do! RBC, the silver technic beam didn't melt either and I don't have anything else that I can try it on yet. Aanchir pointed me towards some gold pieces that appear to be ABS though so I've not given up yet. I sanded down the handle of a Sting sword, coated it in black ABS and, once it had dried, I tried inserting and removing it from a minifig hand to test the durability. It failed the test. While more durable than paint in the same situation it will still peel when put to it

I would go Mirkwood Spiders in a heartbeat; primarily for the elves, but I honestly liked the build and pieces a lot more too. I haven't repurposed any of the dwarf stuff yet so I'm no help there.

Yes. It is pretty watery when melted without putting extra acetone in. I generaly chop one or two bricks into small pieces with a pair of wire cutters and then pour just enough acetone in the jar to cover the plastic. You can buy small canning jars at Hobby Lobby for 1.50 each. They had (and may still have) a half off sale on them at the beginning of this week. SB EDIT: And regarding metallic colored bricks, it looks like they would work if I had larger pieces. LEGO makes many of their accessories out of a different kind of plastic and I won't have any other pearl gold bricks to test until I get a Bricklink order in. I'll test a silver technic beam tonight.

Thank you so much for your reply Aanchir. I'll try your suggestions and let you know what turns up.

HOOAHH! Too bad I prefer fleshies. The right ear is better than the left since I learned from a mistake but even the left turned out quite well. I didn't even need to do any sanding. The left ear took a long time because I applied too much at once and so it didn't settle into the details of the ear. I removed it before it solidified but in doing so I also removed the flesh paint. It took a LOT more coats to get it the right color of yellow with the flesh paint gone which resulted in a less clean looking ear. I have a picture of the left one on my Flick'r and would post it here but the difference is so negligible that it doesn't show up well in the picture. The right ear took maybe a minute and only 1-2 coats. If I do this again, I will first clean up LEGO's less than perfect paint job on the ears with a little Brasso.

I hope I am posting this in the right place as I thought it likely someone outside the custom community might have the answer to my question. If not, I trust the mods will assist me by moving it. I have been experimenting with melting down broken ABS bricks in acetone to use the plastic in customizing and was a bit surprised when some pieces didn't melt. First, I tried chopping up a few pearl gold pieces; a treasure chest and a 45but after leaving them in there for much longer than necessary, only a bit of the color had been taken from the pieces and the plastic was still solid. The same also happened with an old white racing helmet when it works perfectly fine with standard bricks in white. Can anyone tell me what kind of plastic is used to make these parts? Also, are all pearl gold and metallic pieces made out of this plastic or only some of them? Thanks -SB

The helmets for the army of men in the prologue would be sweet as well as for knights of Dol Amroth from the battle of Pelenor would both be awesome. There were actually about three different eleven armies, two armies of men and a dwarven army in that battle so I may be doing prologue stuff for a while. I tried Inkscape but not for long enough to get anywhere near comfortable with it. It's a vector program though so I would expect it to give a better end result than GIMP.