ED-209

Wow Tomcat, they're incredible! I'd never have a steady enough hand to paint detail like this in that scale! I'm thrilled and extremely flattered that I was part of the inspiration for these works of art! I have no problem in the least with you posting them here, but have to agree with Baylego; they deserve to be in their own thread for higher visibility. The custom weapons and quivers look great, and the idea of a Lego deer is fantastic! I look forward to seeing the blue high-elves too! PS: I really hope the guys from BrickForge take notice of the deer idea!

A fairly simple little mod: strip plastic housing from a small USB flash drive, hollow out a cavity in a pair of Lego legs, glue the two together and give 'im a torso. The flash drive is housed entirely within the legs, so the hips still move and I can switch over the torso and I've got a USB dragon knight, USB mime, USB Darth Vader, USB Batman, etc. I've been thinking about making a cap for the exposed plug out of a 2x2 brick, so it would look similar to the minifig magnets when capped. Any thoughts or feedback is most welcome!

I hope you enjoy it! It really is a fun little game. Ideally if you can get four other people involved, it makes for a better quest. I played this game a lot with my brothers and friends when we were kids, has a lot of fond memories for me! On a side note, these are the Lego versions I made of the four player pieces; the Barbarian, the Dwarf, the Elf and the Wizard: A little generic I know, but that's kind of the point in the game I guess. I'm most happy with the barbarian, and I'll surely be replacing the elf with one of the Collectable versions from now on! I'm not really happy with the wizard (there is literally no change to him except a staff in place of a wand, otherwise he's directly out of impulse set 5614).

Wow, it's fantastic - I love it!

Thank you for the offer! I hadn't thought of modifying the game at all, simply replacing the plastic figures with Lego ones, but I suppose the sky's the limit in terms of what one could create... hmm... I'll have to put some thought into that! I might have to give that a shot to see how it turns out! Thanks for the tip! I've never really gotten into Brickquest, but I'll obviously need to take a closer look at it now. So, my Bricklink order arrived earlier in the week - and much to my disapointment I had stupidly ordered the wrong angled slope to make the mage's robe. But while the mage will now have to wait for my next order, I was able to get some dark green torsos to make my elven scouting party! I've now got 15 of the official elves, who will form the warrior ranks in my little woodland army. I'm picturing my five rangers here with five warriors, just for comparison. None of the faces are all custom yet, I'm going to see about printing them on transparent stickers, as all the printing will be darker than the plastic. As always, any feedback is most welcome, cheers!

A yellow version! By Crom, why didn't that occur to me?! So while I still haven't fully solved the problem of no darker flesh legs being available, at least now I've got two other options. Yellow: I think this is the correct CMYK values for light flesh, but it seems to be curiously absent from Peeron's colour charts. If anyone knows for sure, please enlighten me! I was just intending to give him one of the old style long hair pieces: Very nice work there! Have you ever sculpted any parts for Lego? I'll take care of the Lego incarnation of her then! An all yellow Lego world? Well, problem solved! And for anyone who hasn't already come across this parody before: "Conan the Barbarian the Musical" Enjoy!

Thanks for all the compliments everyone! But I realised I've made a slight mistake, I used the slightly darker flesh tones hoping to resemble Conan's "I spend all day in the sun wearing a loincloth" tan... but I don't think Lego have ever released legs in that colour! Does anyone have any suggestions? Should I redo them in light flesh? I'd prefer to keep the tanned look if possible, but can't think of any other options as paint would just scratch off the legs the moment you sat the figure down. *ED-209 strokes beard in contemplative fashion* I don't have a site, no. Just various EB threads! I don't mind you writing about my decals at all, I'm quite flattered! You were planning on making one of Red Sonja though, I wouldn't be stepping on your toes? I was thinking of perhaps doing a Brigitte Nielsen version, but couldn't see an easy way to recreate her mullet! Maybe the comic version would be more practical. I'd be happy to do commissions if you had something specific you were after, PM me if you're interested in discussing it further.

I assumed you recoloured them, I can't see any set of circumstances where the colours could come out like that by accident! But yeah, they look good; I want to see how the purple mage turns out! Hmm... could form the basis for an updated Black Falcon decal? I totally agree with you about the gems, I hadn't realised it until you pointed it out but the difference between the armour and the gems on the green decal was much greater than on the blue. Lighten the blue gems too much and they start to look too similar to the silver elements - you were right, red is the best choice. LOL, well thank you very much! Some occasional words of encouragement and an endless supply of new ideas is all I need! Thanks! I look forward to seeing your elves! Hello White Nun, and welcome to the board! I think your figure turned out very nicely, despite not being Lego! I'm not familiar with the brand, but curiously it almost looks like a miniature Play Mobile figure. While I don't wargame myself, I'm thinking about remaking the old Milton Bradley board game "Hero Quest" with Lego. Just for fun really. Do you customise your wargaming minifigs? You should post pictures of your army if you do! Oh, and the PVA trick sounds interesting - do you water it down at all? I think he looks sad either because of the way the light catches his forehead, or the way his helmet crops his eyebrows - the first face I posted is just a straight repro of the official one, I swear! But yeah, obscure the eyebrows and all you're left with is a mouth that's turned down at the corners. Not that I think there's anything wrong with that mind you, he almost looks like he's tired and saddened at all the pointless barbarism of war. Or am I reading too much into his little featues? And Aveal, I just received my BrickLink order today! And while I won't have an army, I should have a small group of stealthy elven rangers to show on the weekend.

Wow! *picks jaw up off the floor* I don't think the look of the buildings are as nice as the Mediaeval Market Village, but I'm really pleased to see Lego including more civilian sets! Plenty of new moulds and printed parts, return of the pitchfork, a bucket for the smith, let's just hope we see some new faces too! Hmm... I'm going to need multiples of both the farm and the smithy...

Speaking with DrNightmare, I had the idea of putting together some decals of Conan the Barbarian, based on Arnold Schwarzenegger's break-out role in 1982. It's not as accuate as I'd like, because short of resculpting some hair I won't be able to get his leather headband to sit over his hair. But nevertheless, here's the decal: And here's a reference shot for comparison:

My apologies, I meant to address this in the last post. But as you mentioned, the official Lego shield does not have a gem set into it, which was why I did the same in mine - just to try and keep them as uniform as possible. And now that I think about it I guess it makes perfect sense, a sheild would take far too much punishment to warrant spending that kind of money decorating it!

You know, when I was making the blue torso my first thought was to make the gems red. But then I thought, well the official ones are green-on-green, so shouldn't mine be blue-on-blue to match? Plus if I wanted to make a red themed clan of elves, I'd be able to use the red gems there. But, seeing as you've brought it up I'm happy to go with my first instinct of red gems! I fear that even fastidious elves would have a hard time keeping a white cloak clean! Thanks very much! I'm glad people seem to be enjoying them! All the elven decals are in 600dpi, so it should work without a hitch if you're printing from an image editor, even something as basic as MS Paint. On the other hand if you plan to compile multiple images into a Word document or something (as I know some people do), I'm sorry but I'm probably not much help to you as I've not done that before. I do make the images a fraction of a millimetre larger just to ensure print coverage to the very edge of the decal. Good point. Lego's elk head emblem is perfect for the wood elves, but I was never quite happy with it on the blue shield. I took your suggestion and tried a couple of sea animals, but found that they just looked too hippy-like to work. So anyway I settled on a bird , which I based on some clipart I found: PS: I like the idea of doing a red clan (or possibly more rufous), so I'll keep your idea of a squirrel in mind and see how that looks! Woo, I'm very pleased to see some physical figures taking shape there! Are you tinting the colours yourself, or are the purple robe and orangish female torso some sort of anomoly? Of course I'm more than happy for you to tint them as you wish, and I'm hoping that you have - otherwise I can't figure out what would have gone wrong! Also the problem with your average grade of paper is that it's usually porous enough to cause the ink to bleed. Not such an issue when looking at a whole page of course, but when looking at the tiny sizes of Lego figures it's much more noticable. So yeah, I find it's always worth using the better quality papers/stickers for this kind of thing, just to help keep things sharp. (That's also why I print on a laser!) I'd love to see your Red Sonja when she's done! Are you intending to base her on the comics or movie? In fact, you make me want to go and make some decals of Arnie as Conan the Barbarian! Best of luck with them!

Very nice work, and very much in keeping with the vintage look! But did I read that correctly; are the images printed directly onto the plastic?

I'd like to see one of Foggy Nelson from DareDevil, and one of Happy Hogan from Iron Man! Separated at birth, or is its just two birds with one stone?

Slick, I'm particularly fond of the dark red!

Update time! The final decal to reproduce the official Lego elf, the legs: My inspiration for these decals are based on the official Lego elf (well, I'm sure that's obvious! ) with a dash of pop culture elves thrown in for the other designs. A bit of LotR, a bit of D&D, random fantasy novel covers... I dunno, I'm not conciously basing the designs off anything in particular. I'm not all that familiar with Warhammer, but I really quite like the idea of blue-clad High Elves seperate from the green-clad Wood Elves. So I did some re-colours based on your idea, but with a brown cloak. I'd envisage sand blue arms with regular blue torso: Thanks! I have to admit that in person you can tell that it's a sticker, but it did turn out quite nicely (if I do say so myself! ) My printer is just a fairly standard HP colour laser, and I printed it out on these Avery labels: http://www.averyproducts.com.au/avery/en_au/Products/Labels/Shipping-Labels/Matt-White-Labels-L7167CL-20-Pack-199.6-x-289.1-mm_959770.htm?N=4294963181&Ns=Rank|0||Product%20Number|1&refchannel=1de32bbe8338a210VgnVCM1000002118140aRCRD I plan to use the standard elf hair for most of them (I've got 15 so far, I'm thinking of leaving it at that and bulking things up with another ten or so custom figs), but mix in a bunch of these: As far as I know, it's the only hairpiece available in tan that would really "cover" the ears. I might try my hand at sculpting something, but I'm still weighing that up. I would like to spend more time making decals, but work and other stuff always seem to get in the way! And I need to work to earn money to spend on Lego - it's such a vicious cycle! Cheers!

Excellent work as always, Tin7! Despite the shortcomings of the Daredevil movie, I'm really digging your fig of Bullseye! And now I've got House of Pain's "Top o' the Morning to Ya" stuck in my head!

I only came across your request in the Wishlist after I'd already made the shields, but I thought I'd post a link there too just to make sure you saw them. I'm interested in this sticker machine, I looked them up online when you mentioned them. How do you find the results? I've printed a sheet of some stickers, and while I wait for my parts to arrive from Bricklink, my dark green Kingdoms wizard has donated his torso to give us this jerkin-clad elven ranger: (The warrior on the right is unmodified, BTW.) Any feedback is most welcome, so please let me know what you think! Cheers!

Not sure if you caught it in my thread Baylego, but I've made one in my series of elven decals! I've done the ovoid shield (like the official Lego one), and the same design for the normal triangular shield and the small round one favoured by the skellies and dwarves: Cheers!

Thanks guys, I really enjoy making them! Thank you sir, I do feel that my work is improving somewhat over time! When I get around to doing mine, I'll probably just be printing them on plastic stickers. I've never used water-slide decals myself, but if you want to use them it's probably worth looking in hobby shops; I understand they're often used for model cars and aeroplanes. But if you can't find them locally, I'm sure you can get some off eBay or something? So, *claps hands together* time for a few more designs! The elk-head insignia on the small round shield (the ones the dwarves and skelletons use): Another slightly jaunty looking face: And an older face, for an ancient elven king/sorcerer/high-priest: I decided against giving him facial hair. It seems to me that elves, even older ones, always maintain youthful looking features - greying hair, a few lines, etc. Any thoughts on that? Should I do one with a moustache or beard, or would that seem wierd on an elf?

It was my pleasure, and thank you for the suggestion! Please post the results if you do use it. I did take the liberty of adding the dagger, I'm glad you like it! I made it in sand green too: And in trying to come up with some different faces to give the elven ranks a touch more individuality, I felt we needed an elf exuding even more arrogance than the official one! And while I'm here, I'll add my repro of the official elven ovoid shield: and my take on the same design as a triangular shield: I hope everyone likes them, and as always any constructive feedback is most welcome. Cheers!

A sticker machine? Sounds interesting, does it put an adhesive coating on the paper or something? Thanks, I was hoping that the female elf would come off looking cold and aloof! Given that longer hair could/would cover her ears, there's a few suitable hairpieces that come in either tan or the bright yellow. I'm planning to use these ones: http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=85974 http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=59363 Thanks for the kind words! No, I haven't applied any of the decals yet, the Series 3 figures have only just been released in Australia (well, in Melbourne at least - can't really speak for the rest of the country) and I'm still buying up all the elves I can get my hands on. Once I've done that I intend to plan out how many of the other designs I need to flesh out a balanced army, order some parts of Bricklink, and then I'll put the decals on figures! Obviously if anyone else gets there first, please do share! I have done some other decal designs, mostly super heroes, some requests from the Decal Wish List forum, and a few other bits and bobs. I think that the elven ones look more polished than my earlier ones, and although I have posted all of them on the forums here it might be easier to look though my PhotoBucket page if you're interested: http://s574.photobucket.com/albums/ss186/EdwardTheRed/Lego%20decals/ Thanks very much Thestral, and it's funny you should mention this; that was actually my original motivation for making the jerkin designs! To me, the scale armour looks a little too cumbersome for an archer. I hadn't thought to include a quiver strap, but I love the idea. And yes, I'm certainly interested in making more! So here's what I came up with, let me know what you think: And if you've got any other ideas please tell!

Great work as always! Are Omega Red's whips on loan from Christo's Whiplash figure?

How do I personally do it? I use a colour laser printer to print onto A4 sticker sheets, and cut them out with a scalpel and steel rule. I usually aim for clear plastic stickers rather than white paper ones, but it does limit the colours of Lego parts you can use. Pretty straight forward really, you can get the sticker sheets for inkjet printers too, just make sure you get the right ones for the type of printer you use! I'm presently looking into how much it would cost to have a comercial printing agency print directly onto the plastic (like real Lego parts, and a few of the third party custom sellers), and it's not too expensive per unit - but there's a hefty initial set-up. Sure, of course you can ask! I've only really been doing Lego decals since I joined this forum, so that's about two years too. But yes, I am trained in design - a post-grad in electronic and graphic design. I use Adobe Illustrator to make them, then Photoshop for a little tidy up. It's just practice really, I feel that I'm none too good at doing the faces - there's something of a caricature skill to match the official ones! I also reference as many elements from the official parts as I can, try to hit those same design notes, just to make my decals look (hopefully) in keeping with the official parts. Good idea! I'll work on the shield over the next few days, but in the meantime here's my repro of the official face: And an equally stern looking female elf: And a slightly happier looking version of the official face : I was thinking of doing a few more, but couldn't think of distinguishing features to add. I realised that you never really see facial hair on elves, and they seem too youthful and pretty to have facial scars... If anyone has any other ideas for elven faces let me know!

LOL that's awesome! As one of those wonderfully cheesy villains, MODOK has always cracked me up! A great job on such an ridiculous character!