Recon Through the Valley

i recently created my own squad of clones. (for traveling through the wilderness) it consists of a single commander, two basic soldiers, a hotshot, and a lone stealth scout. they are currently very basic looking, and they can only be identified apart from one another based on their cape/cloak styling.

the scout's cloak has a hood that is functional and can be pulled down or put up, altho one may wonder why they would need such a thing as they wear helmets already.

i was in Death Valley for some reason, and had a good time. there were lots of cliffs on the mountains, and at times i was worried that my minifigs would lose its balance and slide down and off the mountain.


the top picture was indeed macro, and that cliff didnt look like a huge drop...maybe in minifig scale it did. but in our world, it was still about 5-8 meters from the ground. The lower pic's from that point to around the mountain still took several hours. on the right of the minifig, the hills had a trail ontop them. the path was about 35-45 centimeters wide.

kendo and batcave

recently received one of these. its not out in stores yet, so cool that. i wasnt going to buy this set, so it worked out fine. the joker mini fig looks a lil more mature then the older one, and the batman fig is different then the older one, by just a smidge, the utility belt is different. and the emblem on the chest has yellow around it.

Bruce Wayne is a much better figure then ever before, bane's head has a more boxy feel. the poison ivy figure is completely new. it uses the same hawaiian girl hairpiece as the collectible minifig.



also received an early stocking stuffer. its an add on to the ninjago series, but i wont be playing the game. it does come with cards, and weapons, and say it is a "kendo" version of cole. if anyone has tried kendo, they'd know that the shinai (sword) is wielded with both hands on the hilt, which minifigs cannot do. so instead, they can hold their weapons in a nito-ryu style, one weapon in each hand, a dual wield. The bogu (armor) is very similar to that of the samurai collectible minifigs. the helmet is a completely new piece, and the face shield does not open up. it is a complete one piece like a knight's helmet with openings for the face, and is in two colors too!

I like the packaging....it reminds me of those toys at the Japanese supermarkets that are put together in a snap fashion, and comes with a little bit of candy.

SO! What does Santa Look Like?

Its finally done. My fifth Lego film!

it ended up longer then i anticipated... and the flow of the story seemed to be ok. on the other hand, as the creator, flow always seems ok. i have found out that for stories that i felt that had a good flow, only 1 out of 5 viewers understood it. 1 would be "brilliant! wow!" and the other 4 would be "what...just happened here?" The last film seemed to do well even tho myself didnt feel it was that good. It was short and to the point. a longer film may just be a little longer then what a normal person's attention span can keep up to these days...

This film took alot of incoherent-ness to make. i was just tired from work and other priorities, and i was supposed to rest up and go to bed for the next day. but i came home. was pooped. and HAD to make something. Had to finish.

Filming took about 39 hours. sound took maybe 6. and editing took only 2. if i take away the preparation of the film...meaning all the tiny drawings i had to do besides the sets, it would come down to maybe half of the hours. i drew just a lil more then 400 of those lil hand cut bubbles.

Story goes as follows~ (SPOILER- So watch film first!)
Boy at home gets call from friend.
The talk about Santa.
Boy gets intrigued/curious
Boy goes to ask father who tells him one thing.
He goes out in search of Santa
He gets told another thing about Santa. (this repeats)
He gives up and goes home.
Where he actually gets to see Santa.

BTW. anyone know what the boy's dad's occupation is? =]

Mad Holiday Heroes

These sets arent supposed to come out till next year... but Toys R Us is already selling them. I'm guessing they are making a mad rush to make sales for the holidays...because wow...look at these prices! so high! (image above taken from the ToysRUs site)



here's the correct pricing from the Lego site. Much more reasonable. I'm not in a hurry to get these sets...I DO WANT THEM, especially the catwoman set...but for now, my funds will be towards my visit for an outdoor trip. =]

Meanwhile, i'm waiting for the new series of the blind packs still... and i want to have a Thor (from avengers) minifig! His helmet seems cool enough. i've been using a 2x1 brick and a telescope for my Thor figure's hammer so far. And still....Lego Group still wows me with yet another series...


thats a pretty big ring, buddy! looks like a bracelet or bangle. but hey, not like minifigs have fingers anyways. i wonder if the aragon fig will look similar to the Thor fig?

and all this time i've been teasing orlando bloom with this picture i took.



looks like, they will have a true Legolas minifig for him in the end! (pun not intended)

(my 5th story/film is coming along slower then expected. Not having the right equipment makes a difference. i once heard the story of how James Cameron didnt like how his cameraman filmed a scene, and he tried to do it himself. he settled because the camera was too heavy. LOL.)

Imaginative Lil boys...

trying to figure out which lil boy i should use in my next project... a few combinations i have tried.... and no HAN. you cant be in it. sorry.

Free Shirt

today i received this awesome free shirt in the mail courtesy of Lego. unfortunately, other then to pose for this shot, i'm unsure if i will be wearing this shirt. ya see... it is a large. i wear a medium comfortably. maybe i'll cut out the characters and make a custom piece of clothing instead with it...

Unclear film shorts, need to slow down

Up until the last two films, all of my films took nearly a month of planning to create and make. altho i may not take a month to film, i DO come up with the storyline nearly a month in advance. and during that month, when i have time, inside my mind i 3dimensionally put the cogs and gears of the film together, and puzzle over how certain parts are filmed and built.

my last two films, are 19 hour films. 19 hours... meaning i come up with the film idea in a few minutes, i figure out the storyline in twenty....then i have to wait 10 hours before i can even get around to doing them (due to life and its priorities). i do the film without much thought other then the idea at hand, instead of pondering the idea and how to expand on it.

so lil parts about the last two films...in case people DID miss it, and get confused.
first off- indy jones hates snakes. second of all, the older ninjago sets had old ninja hood pieces, which carried a weapon on the hood, so that once removed, the weapon or tool was no longer accessible. the newer versions... the mask and the back weapon holder are separate from each other.

finally, the dinosaur known as REX has movable arms and legs. the similiar sized DINO from the new DINO sets do not. i have just recently picked up a set with a much larger t-rex (5886). from the images on the box, it would appear those do have moving legs and arms...PLUS a movable jaw. SWEET! i will have to look into that later once i have more free time.

star wars notes- mace windu is played by an actor named Samuel Jackson. 'nuff said. whats' the deal with anakin and asoka? its not told about in the clone wars series...but fans do make up stories and wonder about the relationship of those two. han and leia seem to get along "well."

the most ridiculous thing that happened today was my attempt at being a "hardcore lego enthusiast." trying to build a set by feel only in the dark, and only remembering the box art as reference for putting the set together! luckily, the set had only 87 pieces, and it took me nearly 90 minutes (while on a car ride home from tonight's escapades) to do so.


-most recent new sets_ **sorry for the bad quality, webcam**

Han Solo and the mistle TOE

Decided to make a holiday themed short using grab bag pieces + Star wars minifigs....wee early hours. which may be a bad idea. Short's direction and storyling took about a few minutes, filming took a couple hours...but at the wee morning hours... i think my hands weren't steady, and i wasn't fully coherent.

my last short... i felt like i didn't have enough time to make a decent film due to lack of time. but that's actually not an excuse as this more recent took less time, and came out much better quality. (unless you put the indy and zane skit to comparison, then no, as thats nearly double the fps.) having a direction in mind makes a HUGE difference.

I didnt realize it until i scanned my shelf of minifigs....that the Lego Star Wars females were not as plentiful as the males. So pairing up wasnt as easy as i had hoped.

i thought about adding voices to the video. i wanted mace/jules to say. "hey baby" and anakin to say, "what the-" and "whoa!" Maybe even a "come here, snips." Leia saying "hey you" or "hey there stranger" in sequences that needed it, add giggling all around. some live audience "awwws." and social chatter. but i didn't, mostly because i felt that while these added things would make the film more easy to understand, and more interesting, it also bumped up the 'G' rating to perhaps a suggestive 'PG.' if a younger audience was watching this, or someone unfamiliar with American culture/tradition, i won't mind thinking that this party was about finding "dance partners" while at the party over "hooking up."

maybe i'll go back and add those sometime. (yes...sometime. echo.)

as i write this, i'm not sure if i'm coherent as well. maybe i should blog in the morning instead. i'm not a huge huge fan of ninjago. but i saw the transforming sets today. still can't understand why ninjas needs jets and helicopters. a motorcycle makes sense. ninja 250. indy's not going to be too happy, but they have guys in snake suits and white snakes.

Happy Turkey Day!

(apologize for not the best... filmed, edited, and added sound in just under 4 hours.)

you may need to own the old ninjago sets to understand whats going on. (to compare to the new ninjago sets) =P

No Pugsy, Animated Avi?

I got excited this morning when i loaded up the Lego site on my computer....i spotted Pugsy the bear for sale! or so.... i thought... my region had been switched, and pugsy the bear is only available for UK customers. =[ ( i like the BBC narrations on the planet earth blue rays... sure beats oprah's narrations, thats for sure.)

meanwhile, is the VW van worth getting? i can recall when one point in my childhood that such a toy would have been perfect for me and my brother's cherished figurines. We had used them for everything, altho where they originated from was far from a toy store.

mini modular....oooooo. looking forward to that one. I'm not sure if i should be excited yet for the new DC sets to come. superman? pffffft. boyscout. new batman, has a back graphic. gonna score at least one of those. dont NEED a wonder woman, but should get at least one. I'm hoping the new catwoman looks somewhat different then the last one. New marvel sets should be heaps of fun. i'm looking forward to that new Hulk mold. =D

I recently received an email asking how i can improve on the Lego site. its a fun quirky site as it is.....so there isn't much to improve on the Lego site right now, but won't it be great if~

in my VIP top right corner, be able to customize an animated AVATAR that greets me whenever i log into the site, and when i surf the site, it sits in the corner and makes comments on things i am looking at. if i'm unsure, i can click on him, and he will say things like "yeah! a good choice!" "don't look at me!" "wow! look at that one!" "i think you already have that one..." and "yay!!"

Green Fever

Think Big, Green Lantern., a photo by wingtorn on Flickr.

After all that work with the green this and that on my last and more recent film (see last post), i must have been influenced somehow by the color green.

i may have seen blue and pink and orange knives before, but for some reason i have never seen one this shade of green before.

maybe it was on impulse, but i do enjoy a nice knife now and then. So i picked it up.

Green Lantern here, helped me carry it home.

The BLADES of DOOM

i know. i havent updated my blog in a while. well... that's because i was working on this. =]

that's right! our FOUTH film is complete!

Filming took an unbelievable 26 hours over 6 days. Editing and piecing together the footage took about 3 hours. Sound was a lil tricky and took 7 hours. (it would have taken less time, but there was a power outage! not fun at all! =[ )

The green stuff was really hard to work with. Getting the right hardness proved to be a challenge by itself. i had to play with the batches for nearly three days before i could even start shooting. The problems that arose included stickiness, melting, and unstableness.

The original idea for this film was a throw around. It was something like a joke we talked about in the car while driving, stopped at a traffic light. i recall that night actually. i wrote it down. that was months ago. then less then two weeks ago, i dug it up, and came up with this lil short.

Its not for everyone, and i apologize if it doesnt make too much sense. in the end, it doesn't really have anything to do with GL. But, what if he did think about these things? >=]

non of the green stuff was wasted. it was probably a bad idea..but most of it was eaten by me. =P

Chalk Drawings

A 3D street painting at the chalkfestival in Sarasota, FL that caught my eye. From different angles, they look completely different. Amazing stuff!



meanwhile, the dino sets on close examination didn't have the same weapons as shown in the "confidential" toy release catalog. The rifles are merely SW rifles with a syringe mounted on top. No separate mold for a sniper rifle or shotgun in sight. Now i can only look forward and hope the new ninjago sets will look the same as the ones seen in the new toys to come catalog...

White Ninjas

So i set forth to find the new Dino sets at ToysRUs. i looked at the shelves, i talked to customer service, and i watched them punch in numbers into their systems. and nobody had any of these sets. but as this screen shot shows...these sets should be out. Somewhere, i suppose. The truck that comes with the triceratops set looks vaguely familiar. perhaps it was designed by the same guy that worked on the Alien Conquest sets? (Earth Defense set#7066)


meanwhile while looking to find a dishpan that fit my sink at home, i came across a bunch of these guys. The white ninja from the ninjago series in polybags. these sold for half price. Altho ninja's dont usually come in white, i am finding uses for the the pieces that come in this set. not a bad find! (i'm actually a lil confused as to what the contraption on his back is. wall climbing mystic legs or wings of a glider? i changed the pieces around enough to make it into some kind of dessert mount.)

(i also discovered that the elaborate pounding of the making of mochi is necessary. without that process, the mochi has a consistency very similar of mashed potatoes. not quite the bouncy stuff i am accustomed to...)

2012 Sets, already?

I'm itching to go to a Toys "R" Us and picking up some of those new dino themed sets. I just spotted them on their website. They arent supposed to come out until 2012....but apparently ToysRus has them already. I want to get a bunch of raptor sets, (ambush attack 5882), and have to decide which T-Rex set i should get (5886 or 5997). Those new dinosaurs are looking pretty sweet, kind of in the color scheme as playmobile's toys. (speaking of playmobile they started to sell blind series packs....very much similiar to that of the Lego CMF series...) they are also proportional to size to a minifig it seems... =]


I've never really been a fan of the racerz series. other then adding the parts onto the rc base racer, they never really did much for me. We did get a few sets...thinking that they would be great for maybe background cars, but that never worked out.

these new racerz look more fun as they now incorporate unseatbelted drivers that can get tossed out of their pimped out wheelz. i'm already thinking up what i can do with sets such as these. ;]


i'm on the fence about this one. i LOVE Lego batman sets as it is...but for some reason this set doesnt really sit with me well. its much too simplistic, and something about the half built structure of the batcave, altho makes it more playable for children, doesnt quite impress me as a good display piece, or prop. the old one was more dark and batty-like. i'm still not sure if i will get it.


I made this scene awhile ago. turns out that TLG has decided to make a mini Lego set alongside Anakin's Jedi Interceptor (9494). it will have an Anakin that has two faces. One side is sleep dereived Anakin, and the other side is a creepy emo anakin, along with the robot that they stepped on during the film and the platform that slowly melted, and Anakin got cocky, then messed up by Obi-wan.

Halloween 2011

Hey y'all! Happen Halloween!

and for your own sake, stay outta trouble? =]

And i thought my jumbo minifig was big...

Kind of old news. Big this big ol Lego man washed up on the shore of Florida somewhere. TLG denies anything to do with it, but it seems that it was an artist that showed up one night and dumped it onto the shore. Very unlikely that it drifted off from somewhere and ended up on a beach. Its being held for 90 days until someone claims it. If no one claims it, it belongs to the person that found it. Now if i was in the area...like LIVING there, i would be tempted to take it home. claim it.... but i would think the police there would fine me for littering a giant piece of plastic in the ocean/beach.

Our trip out to the Dessert

So what happened last weekend.... we went out to the dessert in scorching 90+ weather just to camp, hike, and climb. Despite the heat, it was pretty amazing that we didnt get as burnt as we thought we would... compared to 70+ weather at say disneyland. Does it have something to do with the fact that it was out in the wild, where the sun was unchanged by say pollutants in the air that "magnified" the power of the sun? I dont know much about the rest of you, but i tend to get sunburned while standing in line for the matahorn, or space mountain.

the night was chilling and we awake to wearing more layers then anticipated. but it soon changed as the weather made its way in the 90's. Sunblock was still a must however.

One of the trails led to a place of natives' "cave drawings." Three of us stared at the petroglyphs trying to make sense of them, if any. I spotted something that looked like a Nerf football. They didnt have Nerf footballs back then did they? well they had to come from somewhere... like the Chinese that invented spaghetti, and the koreans supposively

inventing "pizza." well. it was something. and if anything why was there a mermaid in the drawings? It was unlikely the natives would move across the land and go towards the sea to find such a creature.

As we made our trek across the dessert floor, our buddy MikeKoba (voice of seadoo guy and japanese business man) followed us and took many pictures of us walking. He might have 300+ pictures on his camera, and enough to make a time lapse of us crossing the dessert. If anything, it would help us in our bearings in case we got lost and lost our compasses.

This is by far one of my favorite photos i took during our trip. off the path of one of our trails, was an old mill, rusted, and under it was a geared mechanical pump, which was used to draw out water in its better days over 70 years ago.



The trails were fun and gave good muscle to legs. Kayyyyy however, needed help down little cracks and shimmys.

And while we were there.... we did some rock climbing.

My Crew

My Crew, a photo by wingtorn on Flickr.

I decided one day to make my crew into minifigs. The clothing and facial expressions are fairly close to the real person.

From left, Mikey and his wife. Mikey gets cold easily and wears that ski jacket even in 60 degrees weather. His wife loves pink and seems to have impeccable luck. Mikey likes to get technical.

Stev is my boy. He's my right hand man. His photography skill and techniques astonish me. As most of your have figured... he, is the one that works with me on our Lego films.

Then its me. I have school pride, even tho it was long ago. I like sharp objects, and i wear jeans with interesting patterned belts. me and stev arent angry when we dont smile. its pretty normal, dont worry. =] I'm the curious/bold one.

then thats Richie. He's the outdoorsman, and wears a beanie even when its 90 degrees out. When it comes to gear and outdoors know how, he's our man. He wont admit it tho.

We're off to do 3 different things sometime this week. Let's see how that goes....

More Trunk Space

More trunk space, a photo by wingtorn on Flickr.

I had been meaning to get DUPLOs for my lil buddy. He's 3, and very curious and touches everything.

One day he poked his hands into a bin of older Lego bricks. He sat on the floor and proceeded to put them together. Or at least attempt to. at first he had trouble figuring out that the pieces need to be lined up in order to be connected. But once he figure that out, he made stacks that looked nothing like what he said it did.

Thats ok. its healthy and good for the child's imagination. He only recently started talking more knowingly.

when i saw that he had built this lil trike'car, i asked him, "oh nice! is that a tractor?"

"nooooo," he said. "car....with big trunk! mommy like!!"

=]

Protector of the REEF

Our THIRD Lego film completed!

Aquaman does MORE then just busting baddies! He is the protector of the reef!

We are fans, as other fans may have noticed that we used the 4th version of Aquaman, and not the original seahorse riding, vagrant looking bad boy, or cyborg version.

The film is not as touched up as other films we did, but we feel that it is more clean then the previous ones. Filming took about 15 hours over a course of 4 days, editing and piecing together the footage took about 4 hours. Sound was tossed in which took an additional 6 hours.
One thing i also noticed was the stereo sound. if the video is played with mono speakers, not all of the sound was heard. with stereo R&L speakers and even a subwoofer, more of the sounds were heard. i have a set of speakers that allow me to hear more then several layers at a time for full enjoyment of jazz scores and planet earth videos, which have other sounds not necessarily needed to be heard.

The reason only about 5 days were spent on it, was because my goal was to do one film per month timeline. so the rest of the month, me and my friends were hiking, spelunking, driving around looking for the new POTC black pearl set from a place that didnt already get sold out, and OH YES... we were playing Carcasonne with our friends. the new expansions are ridiculous. for instance, the Tower.

The animating didnt take too long in general, but overall, a couple of the hours were spend trying to make the water scene "work." Also at times, i felt the film became a lil TOO long. So i ended up cutting off tidbits from it. if it was any longer, we did feel that it would distract and bore the audiences. this never really happened before, but since we do have extra footage... i can make a deleted scenes reel sometime perhaps.

some people have been asking, "what are these easter eggs you speak of??" well easter eggs are hidden little details of characters referenced or added to the film to make it more "funny" and may include gags, jokes, or just characters from other series. for instance, this AQUAMAN film has only 3. one of them is another DC hero is present, but not spotlighted. oh, i know B-boy Killa Croc and Sunny Mista Freeze is there, but they are there to enjoy the beach, not to bother anybody. so for Mista Freeze, i am glad he was finally able to enjoy some off time. as for the hidden DC hero, you'll just to pay attention. and dont worry, its not batman, or any character far off from the Aquaman realm.

Series 7 minifigs Already

I had just barely gotten excited over the series 6 minifigs. The genie, the statue of liberty, and the minotaur. Just look at these newer figs to come out next April! i am digging the poseidon, the hippie, the kigurumi rabbit suit, and the little red hiding hood. cool pieces from other figs that intrigue me include the bagpipe, and the pink hair piece.

2012 SW preview

I'm stoked. TLG is making more Lego Star Wars battle packs. I hope they will continue to sell them for $11.99 each and not more. i feel sorry for the ppl that paid more then it was worth just to get the Bariss Offee fig in the Swamp Speeder set (8091). Unless of course, they liked the design of the speeder, in which case, great for you guys. =) **wink wink**

They are remaking the X-wing, as they have discontinued it time and again. a friend of a friend, Will, said they he would pick up an X-wing if they started to produce them again. guess he has to pick one up then! There is also a new TIE fighter. Its a maybe purchase for me, but only because it comes with 4 minifigs, and one of them is a droid.

Anticipating this set.

picture from grogall of germany. many thanks!


Comes with specific stormtroopers.....you know what that means.... =]

Evolution of Scaly Man

Evolution of Scaly Man, a photo by wingtorn on Flickr.

My version of the evolution chart. If mammals came after reptiles roamed the earth for millions of years, wont it be possible that a croc to walk on two legs, and retain armored skin and instincts?

now sure if he'd be a hoot with the ladies tho!

Hike to Dawn Mine

Crossing the Creek, a photo by wingtorn on Flickr.

Over the weekend, me and some friends decided to try the hike to the Dawn Mine. The hike took a little bit longer then i thought it would, due to some slight cautions we were taking.

The hike took a total of nearly 6 hours, altho the way back took only 2 hours. we were lucky, as the sun starting to move down, we were only lost on the way back for a mere 20 minutes. still....it was rather scary.

the stream led the hike's trail from the lot to the mine. in this comparison, our adventurer had to cross a much wider river.

Black and Gold

Black and Gold, a photo by wingtorn on Flickr.

Recently picked up a newer GShock. I have had a pair of black high tops with gold accents for a while now. it goes with some shirts and jackets....but i thought, "hey a wrist watch would be nice too."

And here it is, the new Mudman. I've only had it for a few days...but i'm hoping it holds up better or as well as the GX56 series. i dont see any "extra" shock protection that the GX56's have, but it maintains the Solar Function, and adds a moon phase and compass feature to it.

i wasn't going for a specific culture when i got it, i just wanted it to match...but apparently with Lego elements, its very "hip hop" ish.

Pirates 4DISC box set with mini Black Pearl

Zounds! too bad i already have the 4 movies on individual DVD boxes. this box set comes with the black pearl in Lego. from the looks of it, its not too hard to build on my own. but i DID stop to look at the box and offer...

Black Pearl

Wow.. the picture on my last post recieved 94 views in the first 20 minutes after it was posted.

anyways, on to the good stuff. =]

The Black Pearl from Pirates of the Caribbean was released today in stores for my area (officially, it was released this past sunday....). i've already bought mine. and have yet to build it. i am determined to finish the gunship (7676) first before any other sets....it looks like i am already being sidetracked by the sith nightspeeder (7957) and have already assembled the minifigs.. -_- (at least i finished the M. Falcon.. i was a lil disappointed that the airlocks didnt actually 'go through' the ship, but was just for show.)

i have known about the Black Pearl for a while now, the set itself doesn't look all too impressive, but for those of us... that LOVE Pirates of the Caribbean, despite bad reviews, will get the ship anyways. There is a flying dutchman coming out next year, (cough cough) but for now, i will have only Davy Jones to enjoy with this set. at least this means i no longer have to use a kitt fisto minifig for my POTC creations. why does it even come with this set? well, the flying dutchman will have an EVEN spookier captain.

An Inspiration

For some, their role models are athletes and music artists. For me, it was this guy. To me, he was the da Vinci of our time. I've had this lil minifig of him ontop of my computer along with my kozik bunny, kid robot figure, and jawa. i'd like to share him with the rest of the world. He also started Pixar. Where ever he has gone now, God bless.

Pet Shop

so I got the pet shop. I actually got it a couple weeks before the official release date. Some stores are nice enough to sell certain sets if you ask nice enough. Very often set are sitting in the back of the store, and they can't take them out and put them on display till the official release date.

finally got the chance to build...just one side. Its the apt complex. Here is what I got so far...




fairly nice. I like how the back has an interesting stain glass next to the balconey. Why are they growing all these vegetables on the roof? Are they supposed to be for getting higher then the average veggie?

Lastly i like the cellar doors located at the back of the complex. It can be used for a scary monster that comes out at night and eats kids. The only downside, is that the section above it doesn't lift up. So can't see what kinds of horrors and dead bodies the monster has ravaged.

This girl actually came with the set. Whats up with the all red and corset? bet she's into vampires...

Halloween Parties

So Halloween is coming... which means there will be a time to shoot Halloween themed pictures, and maybe some parties too. Which brings me to here.

The thing about making a Halloween party image is that ppl tend to go "oh yeah imma throw in my figs from so and so set, it's awesome." but they tend to forget, that when Lego made the fig, it was supposed to be an actual fig of a specific person. So if that fig shows up, it's not a kid in a costume. It's the real deal. Take my joker for example, think about high school. Did anyone actually go all out for a costume just to get girls and drink? So my kid here has maybe the jacket, sprays his hair green, styles it, and does the powder make up. He would never have another occasion to wear purple pants again, so he wears his jeans.

More Guns to Come in 2012

I'm actually pretty stoked, I found out a couple weeks ago, that TLG will be coming out with sets that have guns in their sets. As Lego originally stated, they dont use guns in their sets to keep the children's minds more clean and long from violence. The new sets look very "Jurassic Park" ish.

The guns to be expected are sniper rifles and shotguns. To be more exact, the Lego Dino sets are as follows.

882 Ambush Attack – USD$8.95
5883 Tower Takedown – USD$17.95
5886 T-Rex Hunter – USD$62.95
5887 Dino Defense HQ – USD$89.95
5884 Raptor Chase – USD$26.95


The prices seem reasonable, altho I havent seen more then a glimpse of the few sets from the images scattered around the internet. TLG is very quick to remove images, as the sets for next year are considered "confidential" up until next year anyways.

I was just thinking that the girlie components to Lego had faded away, since their last line, "Belville" did not do so well. I'm not even sure how many ppl out there bought those sets. Old sets occasionally show up on Amazon, but those sets, i have not seen too often. Lego has decided to try this hand again. Hope its not all pink bricks...

3931 Emma’s Splash Pool – USD$5.95
3932 Andrea’s Stage – USD$8.95
3933 Olivia’s Inventor’s Workshop – USD$8.95
3061 City Park Cafe – USD$26.95
3065 Olivia’s Tree House – USD$17.95
3183 Stephanie’s Cool Convertible – USD$13.95
3315 Olivia’s House – USD$62.95
3930 Stephanie’s Outdoor Bakery – USD$5.95
3187 Butterfly Beauty Shop – USD$22.95
3188 Heartlake Vet – USD$35.95
3936 Emma’s Design Studio – USD$8.95

With Comic Con's last showing, i'm very excited for the newer superhero sets to come. Batman sets will always be welcome... altho the market does seem a lil saturated with batman sets to begin with. I'm wondering what kind of sets there will be with Green Lantern, and Superman. I'm only guessing that there will be a phone booth that transforms Clark Kent to Superman, like Barbossa did in set 4181.

Things You Can Build with 8014

I was getting my shampoo at my usual place, when I unwittingly glanced at the "on sale/clearance" section. There, sitting next to Bakugan (which was 35% off), was a stack of Clone Trooper Battle Packs (8014). The sale price stickers on them read, "$7.39." This item is usually $11.99, altho in Toys "R" Us, they got for $14.99 (or $17.99 during the holidays).

I apologize for oinking out on these sets, but like those crazy shop-a-holics on tv sitcoms, i swept my arm over the shelf and pushed the boxes into my cart. There were a few droid sets, and as i placed them back on the shelf, a Lego hungry mom swooped into my cart for my goods. When i informed her that those were mine, she merely gave me a dirty look and insisted that she thought i was an employee putting boxes onto a shelf, despite my non uniform/colored attire.

I took them to the cashier, and for some reason, rang out to be $6.28 per set. I made it home, with no problems, unless i count the mom i saw in the parking lot later who purposely pushed her cart at my car...

Hey.. I got away with less then ten boxes in the end...thats fair game, the way i see it. Its not like i walked off with 2 dozen boxes... thats a lil obsessive, even for me.

Those sets are your basic walker sets, but most people that buy them are after the clone trooper minifigs. While we can always follow the instructions to build the walker, i find that there are other things that can be built using the same pieces from the set.

For instance, we can build...

...a speeder. Fit for one clone trooper or two. Or just for one trooper and his radio intercepter unit. If SW isn't the thing, why not a ....

..derringer anybody? Those sets seem like a great bang for the buck, not just for the minifigs, but also for the pieces that come in the box. Altho... me paying $14.99 for one at Toys "R" Us, is highly unlikely.


Combine two sets, and see what kind of other walkers you can build. Its not in the picture... but turns out with 5 boxes, a person can build a 10 legged beast of some sort complete with turrets and holders for drop troops.

The M. Falcon (7965)

I recently picked up the SW, M. Falcon. I was lucky enough to get one for under $100USD at Toys "R" Us. They had a promo that day. Plus it came with a free Harry Potter minifigure set (30110). Right away, when I got home, I noticed that the box was around the same size of the Queen Ann's Revenge. Yes, the Queen Anne's revenge came out awhile ago, but I got sidetracked and didn't get to work on it yet.

But the M. Falcon had more pieces, but less minifigures. The beginning of the build was a little bit bumpy, as the early pieces' connections didn't stay in one place. They swiveled around on their own.

I was rathered enchanted when I had to put there pieces for the turbine hyperdrive engine. These are the pieces normally found for hubcaps.

Then came an annoying part. I had to build a large quantity of these guys...

after building about 4 of these, I had a pretty good idea of how to build them on my own. That is, until i ran out of pieces to make more of them. Here's what i have so far...

I do like the control panels.

The fact that there's a mass of them instead of just one radar screen makes me like it that much more. That's all imma build tonight tho. I have to work on assembling some of the series 5's that i picked up the other day. OK, "some" is an understatement. =]