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Thanks to HispaBrick Magazine, I was given the opportunity to review the latest release from the Arvo Brothers: Alien Project. You may know the Arvo Brothers from their gorgeous MOCs, or from their previous book on the Kaneda's Bike from the manga/anime Akira. Obviously, this book is all about their model of the Alien, from the Alien's movies franchise. It is divided in four chapters: Estimations, Construction of the model, Instructions and Gallery. 1. The Book The book itself is a very nice object, with a hard cover and 220 full colors pages with lots of pictures and artwork. I'm sure it can appeal not only to the AFOLs, but also to Alien movies' fans (tested and confirmed). You can view more detailled shots of the book on the Arvo Brothers' Flickr album. 2. Estimations and Construction The first two chapters are my favorites. They show the efforts needed to plan and build such a model... while writing a book about it. From size and scale determination to choices of parts, there is a lot to learn on how a model of this size and quality is designed. There is a nice blueprint of the model that indicate all its sizes. 48cm tall and 20cm width, we can say that it's a relatively big creature, not as much as the real model from the movies, but still I wouldn't like to cross one of these in a dark corridor... Why use these parts and not these ones? All is explained in this quite interesting chapter. Each section of the model is also lengthly commented. It's always nice to read what a designer (or two) think of his own model. This is maybe my favorite page of the book. It's the chronology of the 20 months of the project. 3. Instructions This may be the only reason for people to buy this book: the instructions. Sadly I'm not able to build the stand or the creature, but I can still give my impressiosn on the instructions themselves! And I must say that they are amazing. Throughout the 24 pages for the base and 116 pages for the Alien, the steps are pretty easy to follow, and for the more complex ones, the builder is guided with visual indications like brick outlines, studs connections highlights, guiding dashed lines or combinations of them. There are also alternates builds for hard to find parts. The Alien is composed of 1526 bricks, and the base of 466. By my standards it's not a very high amount of bricks, and since most part aren't rare, it's not an important investment if you want to build the model. The catalogue is maybe the weakest point of the book. Not for its design or content, but because you'll have to manually convert it to something like a Bricklink wanted list. But this is perfectly understandable as you'll have to buy the book if you want to have a look at the part inventory Nevermind, Missing Brick confirmed that the book come with a part list in electonic form that can then be used on Bricklink! 4. Gallery The book ends with some beautiful pictures of the model. If you still weren't amazed by the creature when you reach page 197, I'm sure those shots will convince you! 5. Conclusion This book is a lot more than just instructions for a model. It's a journey from the genesis of a project to its completion, detailling every steps from the drawing board to the photography studio. It shows that what we AFOLs do is not just playing with children plastic toys, it is Art. If you want to learn more about the project, if you want to build this model, if you want to convince a friend or a relative that you're not just playing with toys, I encourage you to get a copy of this book while it's still available! You can grab a copy from the Arvo Brothers website. And don't forget to visit their Flickr or Facebook accounts. I'd like to thanks again HispaBrick Magazine for providing me a copy of the book, and I'd also like to sincerely apologize for all the time it took me to finally post that review.
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:: Crentium A08 :: After the board approved the alliance with ALIEN, I was offered to learn about the ways of the Terrestrial. They seem to have advanced in farming and terraforming planets we have not discovered yet. It seems that they use snow and water to grow biomass. And they use awesomnium to power the machines that make snow out of the water that is hidden within the very atmosphere. I talk to one of their officers and he has the approval of the ALIEN council to teach me, or so to say Kawashita, the basics of their farming technology. For a price of course, so after the tour I head back to Orinshi to collect the payment. to be continued... soon! making and melting snow Logistics and command farming and growing Overview - check out my flickr for more detailed pictures
