General Magma

Pachycephalosaurus The fifth in my series of dinosaurs: the herbivorous Pachycephalosaurus. More pictures may surface later, as soon as they've been dug up! ~ GM

Thank you, guys! Much appreciated.

Thank you for your insights! It certainly can eat up a lot of creative energy, but indeed, it acting as an outlet when things start to get difficult as well as building on creative vocabulary were also one of my reasons to get back to it. It just really escalated and I came up with a bunch of big plans that now, in hindsight, feel like it was an escape from how long it might take me to get to the level of artistic skill I strive for. Now my desk has sorting bins on every side and I can't find the space to create a little corner for my main art. So I'll definitely do some reconsidering in that regard and see what I can sell, perhaps I could thin out my collection and organize things in a way so that the MOC parts are aimed specifically at, say, making dinosaurs, once I've finished a few more of my planned fantasy MOCs. At least I'll have done much of what I wanted to do with it, then. All of your other points are valid as well and I'll remember to take that with me - those connections, experiences and ways of looking at things that I discovered through this hobby. Also, as much as I've been considering it, I'm not sure if I'll actually study art in college due to said toughness and job prospects thereafter (but I will still do my research the coming months), though art is definitely going to remain an important thing for me and something I want to get as good at as I possibly can and then see where I can take it, through building an online presence and whatever else. Therefore I'd like for it to be my focus during my gap year, and then during most of my free time beyond that. I've thought of trying to become a LEGO designer sometime in the future, but as you say, it's highly competitive and I don't necessarily want to risk losing enjoyment for something due to it becoming a job and a rather tough one at that, all things considered. Using LDD is a good idea! I'll take a good look at that. It may also be of great help when it comes to actually figuring out which parts I'll need, instead of 'hoarding' tons of them, thinking "that'll be good for this or that kind of MOC". I think one of the things about me that makes this such a problem is the fact I like to focus on one or just a few particular things at a time, and working on progressing my art skills is one of my top priorities and something I want to do daily. It just gets tough when I have to somehow balance that with other projects. I definitely won't cut LEGO out completely if I do decide to put it on a back-burner; I feel like certain things do need some reconsidering at the moment, however. I realize I've spent too much in the past weeks on 'potential projects', as now my budget for art courses and such things has also been blown away for the time being. The pieces are very cool and stir up a lot of ideas, and will be hard to get myself part with, but knowing there'll always be Bricklink when I genuinely need them is a relief - I'll take it as a lesson. I do need the money now and I recently re-calibrated my perspective on things, such as my wish to pursue art seriously but not to the extent of suffering burn-outs like the one I went through recently. But then, at the same time, I feel as if LEGO MOC-building wouldn't be much of a break since it requires creative energy. I'd like to hear other people's perspectives on this matter as well, but for now, it looks like I'm going to take a good look at thinning out my collection and freeing up space and resources to be able to really focus on my art more. I don't want to abandon the LEGO hobby, but I would like for it to be this thing I do from time to time. Perhaps just within one theme, such as dinosaurs - I think that should keep the boat from rocking. It's nice to have these ideas and plans and all, but having it stir the pot of chaos, spilling it over the edge and burning my toes with it will do me no good. Therefore I'll go back to the plans I had earlier this year, gradually, and just make my workspace (which is one corner of my room, in reality) an environment that inspires me to focus on drawing & digital art.

I wasn't sure whether this belonged here or in 'Community', but I've been thinking of gathering some outside perspectives & opinions on this. This is something I've been wrestling with for a while now, and it's pretty much reached the point of me needing to get it off my chest and discuss it somewhere as it's a pretty big dilemma. Perhaps some of you have experienced this or something similar to it, too. I'll keep the background behind this as short as I can to still cover all relevant points: I have ambitions to become a skillful artist (I want to do digital art at one point, drawing is my main focus), and on the side I have a fantasy world I've been working on and want to practice writing for so I can publish at least a few novels one day, but that's more of a side-thing compared to my visual art ambitions. Here's where the problem comes in. Going against my earlier decision this year to put LEGO on a back-burner and only make an occasional dinosaur or so, I went through a bit of a slum when it came to art and decided to do much more with LEGO again, and that it would perhaps add more variety, which turns out manifests in chaos now and over-variety. Anyhow, it quickly led to a lot of planning new projects and ideas and got to the point of amassing thousands of parts (which has also given added guilt and concern of wasting resources). However, these past few weeks I've been struggling to spend enough time on my art, and feel like having added projects in the realm of LEGO is weighing me down. Not just in terms of time, mind you, but in terms of allocating space I barely have, too, as well as mental focus and the time it takes to map things out in my head. There's only so much time and energy to allocate in a day and I can't do it all. It has even made me consider selling off that large lot of parts and minifig pieces again so I can get the money back and have the time I need to focus on my art, since I'm just struggling to balance it now. Even though I have a final gap year before I go to college next year, and should have plenty of time. But I felt more satisfied with the course I had taken earlier this year and am considering going back to keeping the brick-building at a minimum so I can put in the hours per day that I need to put into my art. People usually say "don't sell", but I think a lot of the pieces I've gathered won't be used much and I could always order pieces for projects that are actually being worked on instead of sizing up my collection for potential future projects. If I were to go through with undoing those plans and getting the pieces sold off again (considering it... and then I see all the pieces, I hesitate, and kinda want to keep everything around - cycle continues), I'd still stick with my plan of making an occasional creature from time to time and rounding off some fantasy scenes I had planned, but at the moment, I feel as if I'd be better off actually working on my main line of art and focusing on that, which takes many hours of time to develop skill in. At this point, all the LEGO plans and ideas feel like a distraction, and as if my art slum has somehow gotten me into "settling" for something short of what I actually want to do, 'trading' time I could spend on art. As much as I enjoy building LEGO, I just don't like how time, space and money consuming it (is/has become for me), from sorting to building to disassembling MOCs, and I find the art of drawing and sculpting (with the latter having come in more recently. It's still related to drawing, since it's a very helpful skill for draftsmanship) much more appealing at this point. I wish there was enough time in a day to do it all, but there just isn't and I need to keep up my progress if I want to accomplish those goals. Thoughts? Anyone here been through something similar?

They're not minifigures, so no, I don't.

New Horizons "And there, over the great hill's summit, beyond ruins crumbled and trees withered, stood a tall tower at the brink of a new horizon." The first in a series of medieval fantasy scenes. Comments appreciated! ~ GM

Some kind of huge space set would likely be received with open arms by many AFOLs.

That's no huge surprise to me! He's a very iconic LEGO character and still a very nice minifigure to this day. I also like seeing Johnny Thunder beat out Indy, sometimes licensed themes simply deserve a whooping... Nothing against them - quite the opposite - but original themes and characters should be at the top.

My uncle's uncle's brother's friend's uncle's daughter's friend's mother's uncle's brother's friend's acquaintance hacked into the database of a Venezuelan pizza restaurant and found out that LEGO Game of Thro... ...you see where I'm going with this?

I believe it's clear TLG is willing to do themes from different types of properties, not just movies or animated TV shows. Look at how they're now getting around to doing an Overwatch line of sets, which is no movie nor an animated TV show. If they're willing to do games, then TV shows with the right target audience should be plausible enough. Whether this will be one such show cannot be said yet, and perhaps it would be unwise to keep our hopes up for the return of the LOTR theme. But then again, who knows? A LOTR theme was something fans once never believed possible in the first place, and then it came.

They're doing LEGO Overwatch. I can't see why they wouldn't be able to draw from the upcoming TV show in order to do more LOTR sets - licensed themes haven't been exclusive to movies in a good few years now. Of course, that doesn't guarantee anything - it'd have to be given the greenlight first. But if they could do a large Minas Tirith set and another Bag End set, they'd already be able to draw in plenty of people.

Nobody else remembers those, you say? That cannot be. Perhaps the former is remembered by fewer people, but "Hey Arnold!" is a renowned cartoon from the 90s that people still talk about today. They even released a movie last year.

A fantasy series. That is an idea I've been pondering about for a while - it would be quite the thing to see it come to fruition! Really hard on my wallet, but a fantastic way to make up for the lack of proper Castle themes, and there's a myriad of things to do with it.

A thousand fans shall be your friends, and if you cannot make way for that many, then perhaps an open window may help... I've personally found that even one fan makes a big change - I've mainly been sorting the add-on to my collection and setting up the new layout of my room these past few weeks, but I feel like a fan should come in handy once I get to building again as well. Wear as little as you can stand and you should be set. I also live in The Netherlands so I can relate to those recent days that seem too hot for even those solutions, though. So I try to keep going and hope things will cool off a little, soon...

'Resistance' has been confirmed to be a CGI show.

Yesterday, I watched Ran, a film by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. A masterpiece of a film and one that I'd put on a must-see list.

When I was a teenager, I had my close calls with the so-called "dark age", but I've never really been taken by it as I've always had some degree of interest in LEGO, whether it was collecting some smaller sets like CMFs or simply checking up on the news, or peeking at what others were doing. And with the come of The LEGO Movie during my later teens, the hobby seemed to become more accepted and less uncommon. Unlike it did then, having it be accepted no longer bothers me in any way and even most of my friends and family know all about it now, but it's awesome to see it gain more and more widespread recognition, which gives more opportunities to connect with other people who have the same interest, or who just plain like it. And the come of the movie did its part in helping to pull me back to the light, at the time. Now, a good amount of years later, I'm ready to thrust into being more active than I've been in recent times. I don't consider any of my periods of lesser interest as "dark ages" and am glad I've never fallen into one - going strong!

One last picture for this topic - a group shot of all of my dinosaurs thus far. That'll be it for these guys for the foreseeable future, as I'll have a new theme of focus as I thrust back into being more active, but future dinosaurs are certainly not out of the question and I hope that more will join these four, eventually! But for now... Dinosaurs: When Giants Roamed The Earth

Thank you - your Ankylosaurus looks awesome, too! I made one as well and it goes to show how there really are many different ways to skin a cat (or dinosaur), so I say go for it - the more the merrier. (Or so they say. I know their prey won't ) Thank you! Those arms really are something... Makes me wonder what kind of freaks of evolution may have existed that we haven't discovered yet. As for extra pictures... Carnotaurus vs Triceratops

Thanks, both of you!

Carnotaurus At last, a fourth addition to the dinosaur series - and this time, it's a dangerous carnivore to add some suspense to the daily routines of the others...

It's a shame original LEGO games are so rare these days. At least we've got the LEGO movies now, but other than that, it's just a licensed theme-fest all around.

Do you have a crack in your side that needs fixing now? EDIT: Didn't even notice I was responding to a 7-year old post. Wow, don't necro these things, guys.

That's awesome. Candle pieces and tiny flame parts have long been in demand, so I'm glad to see they're finally being introduced in a proper manner. Can't wait to see what other great parts will be introduced!

Voldemort is the one pictured alongside a new tan snake piece, right? That one has got to be real, I say. Does anyone know whether the flame parts contained within the candle pieces can be removed or not?