Yatkuu

Wow, that's a nice find and you have definitely put it to good use!

Thank you all for the great feedbacks! This was definitely one of the toughest challenge I ever took part in and regardless of the contest outcome I’m really happy to see the work we put into this one was worth it. It’s a good point. I suppose changing this connection to a 2 stud wide one would be simple enough to address that concern. I remember that when we discussed this feature we used as reference the Heroica board games that can be reconfigured at will using these standard plate connections.

That is a very well thought design and you have really pushed the modularity aspect to the extreme. I’m not sure LEGO would be willing to use such advanced building techniques on an official set but I’m very impressed by your rock work techniques. Also, congrats on being the first team to have posted an entry in this tough challenge!

Good entry guys! The modular aspect is simple yet works perfectly just like the official Modular buildings do. I can easily imagine expanding the sides to add more buildings in order to form a complete harbor/sea front.

Well this is definitely an impressive entry, the presentation is top notch and the overall aesthetic of these sets is brilliant. My only minor concern is regarding the fact that a wall section needs to be removed to connect the 2 parts. Maybe I could be proven wrong but I feel this is something we would not see on official sets. I was wondering.. what is the brown door piece you guys have used?

Excellent presentation of a clever idea, well done guys!

Yatkuu and 6Kyubi6's entry - The Shark Reef

[pid][/pid] 246C Hello everyone! After countless emails, several hours spent over skype, 4 photo shootings and a few extra hours of Photoshop... I am glad to be finally able to present you our entry in this challenging contest! The Shark Reef “Black Jim”, also known as “Shadow Jim”, Captain of the « Sea Disgrace » ended up stranded atop the Shark Reef following a course plot error from his first officer Charles Cooks. Charles is a former navigator of the Royal Navy who got fired because of a bad drinking habit… on the day of the wreck, he wanted to try a new shortcut to get to Tortuga faster because he was out of Rhum. The moral of this story is that you should never trust a drunk navigator.. but if you do, make sure he’s well stocked with liquor. So here they are now, stuck on this lonely reef. Black Jim sometimes flogs his slave to kill the time and keep his spirit up while Charles dreams of Rhum bottles and keeps plotting courses the Disgrace will never take. Detailed views of 6Kyubi6's entry Captain Black Jim, flogging his slave. And here are the detailed views of my entry. The general idea behind this set is that you can combine it in several ways. The two halves of the ship are connected via a technic pin hidden in the rocks. The "Shark head" reef on the other hand can be moved around and attached about anywhere you want to the other parts thanks to the small rock connection (the one with the cross and skull). I must say that I completely underestimated the complexity of this challenge as designing the sets was only the beginning. Being able to present our idea in a convincing way turned out to be a much greater difficulty. Anyway, I am proud of what we achieved to do, I hope you guys like it! A big thanks to my partner in crime, for all his advices as well as all the picture edits. Thank you to Eurobricks for this opportunity and best of luck to all in the contest! [bloggedcp][/bloggedcp]

Thanks again for all the nice comments! Very true, they are always smiling and helpful. Last week-end was Kidfest in Raleigh and as a consequence the store was packed. I mean there was literally a crowd of people waiting for the store to open on Sunday morning. The employees kept their cool. Well, for a long time I was certain Sebastian was a lobster. When I did a bit of research on the characters I realized he's actually a crab.... that's when it hit me, I already have a crab! That's how I came to use this piece.

Thank you all for the great feedbacks and for the frontpage! That's the idea yes, however I'm not sure it really works as Ursula... so it could just be a regular big Octopus! It would be great if LEGO expanded the princess theme to also include the "bad guys".. Ursula, the Evil Queen, Cruella De Vil...

Hello everyone, Today I would like to present my largest MOC to date, a Disney Princess diorama. Princess galore by Yatkuu, on Flickr Rapunzel's tower by Yatkuu, on Flickr My first attempt at making a round tower... pretty happy with the result. I used a combination of 2 techniques found here and here. Brave by Yatkuu, on Flickr Ariel and the gang by Yatkuu, on Flickr Sebastian was a real challenge. I wonder why LEGO chooses not to make this character... but I'm happy with my version. Ruins by Yatkuu, on Flickr Under the sea... by Yatkuu, on Flickr Ok so this one is pretty far off from the themes I usually build in. The reason why I built this MOC is that I needed something "suitable" for the LUG community window of the LEGO store in Raleigh, NC. Most of you probably know already that any MOC that goes on display in a LEGO store must respect a few rules! Only child-friendly stuff, preferably from current themes... For anyone interested, this one is going to be up during the month of March 14. Except of course for the nice colors, I am not a huge fan of the Friends line but to be completely honest these Princess mini-dolls have completely won me over in the process of building this and I am now looking forward to see more releases in this theme. I knew upfront this MOC was going to be larger than anything else I had done before so I prepared it a little more than what I usually do. I started with a rough sketch. And then I did a prototype in LDD to get the proportions right. The community windows are about 64st wide, 48st deep and about 70st high... I think it will fit... well, I hope it will! I'm going to the store tomorrow to set it up. For the bricks, I was fortunate to find some Lone Ranger sets on sale and I bought 3 copies of the Silver Mine set, which provided me with most of the material needed for the landscaping. Of course I also had to get the 3 Princess sets... and in the end I spent an extra 70$ on BL. So yeah, it's not a cheap MOC but it was totally worth it. My wife and kid both helped me a lot and it became a family project to keep us busy during the snow days. Thanks for watching! *Edit* I added the picture of the display window. I mini-freaked out when I installed my MOC because the white frame is actually a little bit narrower than the display case and 2 base plates can't get it straight. I could not slide the dio at an angle either because it's too big... so an employee of the store had to actually take down the entire shelf right above the window so we could slide the MOC in from above. Happy ending, it looks great!

Holy crap the close up are amazing, the pediment is really epic. Haha, that's so cool, well done! Did Nate Sawaya showed up at the exhibit? I saw the Art of the Brick in the US but was very disappointed to hear that the author himself never came because the organizers of the show could not afford him...

Very nice, I don't believe I already saw a Belgian landmark made of LEGO at this scale before. You should try to have a picture of it with Philippe next to it, lol. I did not know about the "OLBC" LUG, I thought BELUG was the only one in Belgium... is it a new club?

Thanks Bonaparte, that sounds pretty reasonable!

One can hope! Right now TLG’ stance on what makes an appropriate LEGO set does not leave room for such products… but who knows, this policy could perhaps evolve one day. I think that CUUSOO could still be the answer to the existing demand for more mature content… but certainly not in its current model. Maybe one day the concept will evolve into a true crowd sourcing platform where the users must pledge cash for what they support and eventually have the actual power to obtain what they want. TLG could still keep a filter on the projects but they could make it more flexible. A few years ago I believe you could design your own models in LDD and buy them form a push of a button (Design by me?). I was in my DA so I can't say for sure what where the terms of that service but it appears the costs were too high and it was a failure. The same concept could perhaps be reconsidered and redefined from micro to macro. Of course any licensing ties would still make the process of releasing a set very complex but if there is a will to make things work I’m sure there are solutions to every problem. Anyway… the means are irrelevant until TLG decides to set free from their own self-imposed set of rules. On a side note, if LEGO does not do it… the answer could also come from elsewhere. BrickLink for instance, with the right interface could perhaps become a viable alternative to such projects (albeit at a smaller scale). In the meantime, the good news is that no one can stop you from building your own collectibles ;-) Well, they already do. Their current performances are just stellar, it's perhaps also one of the reasons they don’t feel like going down that road for the moment.

Haha, that is so cool Tom! I am really glad this experience lead you to organize this event. Collaborating on a contest project is a very different and much more rewarding experience than doing something on your own. Even if you don’t win you nevertheless usually make a friend in the process. Not everyone has the chance or the opportunity to be a member of a LUG and to know other AFOLs IRL so encouraging people to reach out to others is a great idea. I can’t wait to see the first entries show up… we are making good progress on ours… hehe… I do have one question, typically the contests on EB use a voting thread with one picture per entry, hence the importance to use the best possible shot. I’m not sure every team will actually be able to produce a picture that shows the 2 modules in it (heck, I don’t even know if it’s going to be possible!) so… will the voting thread allow 2 pictures per team?

A collaborative contest is a brilliant idea guys, that’s a great way of reinforcing the community spirit and having people connect. Merging pictures of the two parts in a single view will likely be a challenge but that’s bridge we will cross when we get there. In the meantime, it is my pleasure to announce that 6kyubi6 (France) and myself (USA) are a team! Good luck to all and may the best team win!

This is a very good point. Even without badges I am worried too that having different class of members would cause some imbalance in the community. Let's face it, being a LEGO hobbyist does not prevent some individuals from being jerks. How soon is it going to be until some folks consider themselves as being more important or superior to other non-paying members? This is something very different from the ranking system already in use, right now it does not matter wether you are a "newbie" "fellow", "knight" or any other rank, we are all guests here. Add money in the mix and I fear it will change the relationship between members. Another problem is that the moderation of discussions involving paying and non-paying members could become tricky to address. It could indeed be difficult for the mods to appear truly non biased by the membership category of the different protagonists (and the bias could be perceived as going in either direction). And if it comes to that, banning a paying member would lead to other complications as some people would probably ask for a refund... If the "ads" solution povides enough funding to keep the site running my vote is to keep it as it is now.

Plastic wrap your boxes and drawers (just like what they do with the suitcases at some airports). I realize this isn't exactly a very "green" solution but it's inexpensive and it will save you a lot of trouble should some of your tubs fall over.

For us the cost was around $20k... which is a lot but the company was covering it so we did not really worry about it. I heard you can find similar service for about half the price. As for being nervous, I was too but in the end it all went well! I only recommend you pack your collection yourself and you should not have any problems. Unless of course if the container falls into the ocean... Just kidding! Good luck!

Hello everyone! Jack Storm - The Island is a LEGO webcomic created by my good friend and LDD magician Pixel Fox. The first episode of this "Nate Drake meets Indiana Jones" story, can be viewed in its entirety here. I can't recommend it enough - just read it, you'll be blown away. On November 9 and 10 2013 I took part in my first ever LEGO public display. It was at the Comicon in Durham (North Carolina) together with a few members of the NCLUG. Since it was an event centered around comics I wanted to build some stuff around LEGO webcomics and try to raise the awareness of the public towards this type of creations. So... I built the the below two scenes that are loosely inspired by the original story. I was not really sure where to post this but since the builds fits mostly into the adventurer kinda theme I just thought it would be more appropriate here than the comics section. The Jungle Ralph Outback and his mercenaries don't really like visitors... which is bad luck for the planes that wander over their camp. JS - The jungle by Yatkuu, on Flickr Big thanks to Legogal for lending me all the palm trees! JS - The jungle by Yatkuu, on Flickr The crashed plane is mostly based on the set 7643. JS - The jungle by Yatkuu, on Flickr The buggy is a design by Pixel Fox. JS - The jungle by Yatkuu, on Flickr Ralph Outback (with the grenade launcher) and one of his mercenary. The Volcano This other scene takes place in a cave inside a volcano... Jack Storm (in blue) and Harvey are looking for an artefact - the guardian mask - but they are about to discover that as the name suggests, the item is well guarded! JS - The Volcano by Yatkuu, on Flickr Some alternate angles are visible on Joe Meno's Flickr - here, here, and here (Thanks Joe for the pics!). Big thanks to my wife who built the lava texture. I hope you guys like these two scenes, comments and critics are most welcome.

It was a tough contest, congratulations to the participants who made it to the top ten! A huge thanks to the staff for the organization, 177 entries... it has to be a record, right?

Sweet ride!

Here are my votes in this incredible contest. 23 Pisten Bully by Dr Spock (1 point) 29 Funicular Railway byEurotrash (1 point) 31 camper Coloniser by bricksy (1 point) 87 Camper tree house by Bayou (1 point) 99 Vammoth by brick laboratory (1 point) 106 50c joyride by Midi (1 point) 126 Gigantis ScorpioCameridae by Kosmas (1 point) 127 Pikachu camper by Lisqr (1 point) 154 Steampunk Camper by Pixel Fox (1 point)

I have the same problem, with the very same set... At least 5 or 6 cracked bricks. The set has been built once and has been sitting on my desk since. I have experienced cracked bricks before (mostly cheese slopes) but never as bad as this.