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.