maandag 29 februari 2016

Inspirational Lego #59

Another week has started, and as we enjoy this extra day in the year, even though it`s still a monday, here we are again with a new selection of 10 great builds I found on the internet.

And I tried to cover another wide range of intrest with my eye candy selection

We start with the amazing Floating Island by Cesbrick, a builder who makes truly magnificent medieval builds.



Sea Chant Castle is another great piece of fantasy medieval work, with a certain `cuteness` in it`s building style.




I keep being a fan of the 1986 movie Aliens, 30 years after release.  This dropship and AFV build is just great, and look at the micro aliens at the front!

Talking micro space, here is another great build from Star Wars episode 7.

Pokemon celebrated it`s 20th anniversary this year, and this Charizard build is plain fantastic.

A fantastic butterfly sculpture

Chibi Gundams, they are a great theme to build in Lego, and this RX-78 is greatly executed.

I like this little build for the way the curves of the rubberboat are done, and it was my inspiration for something similar I did last summer in Andromeda`s Gates.

This convention picture is a fantastic collection of the Castle theme, including at the front even a rugby game.  Lego Blood Bowl anyone?

Tyrannosaurus Wrecks is a cool looking dragster build, though I imagine him having trouble getting to the steering wheel properly.

And that is another week worth of nice pieces that might inspire us for some great builds!

zondag 28 februari 2016

The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle - Arthur Conan Doyle

Last year, I bought the full set of the The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, illustrated with Lego builds instead of the classic drawings, through Kickstarter.

Now, the reason for this was actually threefold:
1. I like Sherlock Holmes (the classic works, not the series so much)
2. I like Lego
3. When the Smurf gets english at school, Conan Doyle is usually on the required reading list.  With Lego pictures it might be a tat more intresting to learn them...

Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson investigate the curious discovery of a blue carbuncle in the crop of a Christmas goose, abandoned by a man during a scuffle with some street ruffians.  Holmes makes a series of deductions concerning the owner of a tattered old hat recovered alogn with the goose, and thus sets out on the trail of the audacious thief who stole the precious stone five days previously.

In this book series, the short stories comprimising The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes have been illustrated with Lego builds instead of the classic Sidney Paget drawings.  The builds are made such to really closely represent the original drawings, and adds an extra twist to the short stories.

Each of the stories has been released now in it`s own booklet form, and it is great fun to re-read these little gems from my youth years, and theymake classic (pun intended) additions to the Legobrary!

The Haul Report #18

A bit of a special thingie this week to kick of the Haul Report.

A little thingie I bought with some nudging from my GF... Pirate undies!!!!  press the skullbones and unleash the cannon!!!

Okay, so that might not be true, it was just a cool boxer with the glittering Jolly Roger on it ;-)

I also received the latest (and last, I didn`t renew my subscription anymore) issue of the Transformers Club magazine.  Another nice comic in it and all, but seen over a year, the high price for a european subscription don`t really make it worth the buckos anymore.

I also got some nice bricklinks in this week.  Quinnsville is going ahead greatly, and actually should be completed this week, just one more little parcel with yellow slopes to arrive for that.  But it literally EATS light and dark grey studs as the roads and such are all cobblestone styled.



The GF also found these nice Friends sets, of this year`s actually, in the local supermarket.  I love the range, and this birthday subtheme is great with it`s sweet colours and great animals.  She brought along two for me, so one will be build, and one I`m keeping either for an exchange sometime, or for one of the future raffles I told you about yesterday.

The final score of the week is a classic.  The Lego Battles game puts Pirates against Knights against Spacemen on the classic DS console.  I found this through a Facebook group, and I dusted of my Pikachu DS especially for it (yes, I have a Pokemon DS, I`ll show it one day)...


So a nice and varried haul this week for sure, see you back next sunday for the weekly grabbings...

zaterdag 27 februari 2016

Classic Lego Build: 6825 Cosmic Comet

Roight, after all the announcements of today involving the `expansion` of this little site on the internet, it`s time to get back to the core business, brabbling about Lego.

In today`s classic build, we travel back 30 years into the past to meet a set from the far, far future.  We build this nice little set from the Classic Space range, released in 1985.

The Cosmic Comet is a 35 parts set, and comes with a single minifigure, a white legonaut.

The base of the vessel is two of the blue wings, and a triangle piece for the nose.  These are connected at the underside of the vessel.


Round bricks are added under the wings to serve as landing gear, while a connector is added to the front for it`s searchlights.

On the top of the vessel, a seat is installed for our brave spaceman to travel the galaxy.


The engine is made up of 4 trans-red cones, connected to the backside of the seat.


The antenna array is put in the nose of the vessel, while steering handles are placed at the front of the seat.

Add a camera at the front and trans-yellow tubings, and the vessel stands completed:


Though Space is not really my theme, there have been some sets in it I really liked.  Unfortunatly, this particular set isn`t really doing something for me, I find it a bit to bland for my liking, even a simple printed control panel would have improved it`s looks in my eyes...

The Relaunch Lego give-away!

In order to celebrate the next step in world domination, or at least the next step going forward of this little corner of the internet, I`m kicking this off with a Lego give-away.

Something modest to get the things going, this will be a price handed out to one random person on my YouTube account, AND who has actually entered the contest.

What can you win?  The first prize ever I`m giving away is this Limited Edition Ninjago Zane polybag, that came with the Lego magazine of Ninjago.

Of course, shipping is free worldwide.



What do you have to do to enter?

* Subscribe to this YouTube channel

* Like this video

* Comment on the video
 
And that is it!  Easy no?

If you want to keep in touch of any future events I might be thinking of, make sure to check out my website,
at http://tomsche69.blogspot.be/
and our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/tomsche69/


I don`t know where this road will be going in the future, as it is a very first experiment, but if this proves to be fun and do-able, I`ll be doing more give aways and raffles in the future for sure!


Coming soon to this little corner of the internet!

Coming soon* to the Società di archeologia e cimeli...

* A guided tour through the junkyard
* A Facebook page
* Monthly Raffles
* Rejuvenating the YouTube channel
* Give aways on said YouTube channel


* every mention of "soon" is calculated in my own personal timescale, called Tomschanigans, and are not relevant to existing 60 scaled timescales.  Tomschanigans use a 475981 scaled periodic table.**

** this means I`ll actually do it somewhere during march or april when I get around to it***

*** that is no guarantee





Scoring Free Lego?

In today`s opinion piece, I`m going to rabble a bit about how I decided to try and `score` free Lego during the course of 2016.

Ever since I`d won that awesome Battle of the Five Armies in a picture contest last year, I`ve been thinking about this, and then I stumbled upon a YouTube film telling how to go by and get Lego on the cheap.

One of the tips in that, is Lego Give Aways.  These fun little contests are often run by people on YouTube and they raffle something away once they reach a certain number of subscribers to their channel.

I have been surfing YouTube ever since on a daily basis, looking for those kinds of thingies and have entered a few at the moment of speaking.  Nothing won yet, but we keep on trying as it usually involves nothing more then liking and commenting on a video, and usually it`s about small prices anyways, but he who doesn`t honour the small...

There is also THIS cool contest running at the moment, where you get to name the builder`s city.

Facebook is another matter.  Usually this involves sponsored adds, and by liking, sharing and commenting, you open yourself to a lot of advertising on the social media medium.  I haven`t looked or searched for something like it on Twitter, but it`s probably out there as well.

A different matter on Facebook is the Brickagram group, run by the cool Phil.  He entertains us three times a week (usually wednesday, friday and sunday) by running his chat box on Twitch while playing and streaming Lego Dimensions.  Often this is coupled with a give away draw if a certain number of people are active in the chatbox at one time, currently the price up for grabs is a Dimensions Gimli fun pack.

It`s also through Brickagram I won that contest last year, as he often runs small contests for prizes, and he also tends to do some great raffles where you can buy a ticket and win something really big.  The current raffle being organised is for the classic Batcave set, so check the group out on Facebook.

I`m not quite sure what the odds would be to actually take something home through these channels during the year, but like I said, it`s all costing me zilch and you never know what might fall in the mailbox one day.

So wish me luck and keep your fingers crossed :-)

donderdag 25 februari 2016

Classic Lego Build: 4195 Queen Anne's Revenge

Let me start today`s build report with a confession.  I admit that the Helicarrier I bought last year, was a misbuy.  Sure, it had a great build, sure it comes from an awesome franchise... BUT...

It just looked horrible after a while when displayed.  It`s the same thing I never really have gotten into Star Wars and her big sets, it`s just a grey `lump` sitting on the shelf.  Albeit at 6 kilo`s, a strong shelf...

On the other hand, I always wanted the Queen Anne, one of the sets I missed out during my Dark Ages, but unlike the Black Pearl I wasn`t willing to lay down 250+ euro for this vessel, no matter how pretty she is.  When checking BrickLink, I did notice that the Queen and the carrier approached each other these days in a `udes, complete` state... so I went out and looked for an exchange.

I found one with someone I knew through the LCC Facebook group, so at the lunch gathering at the end of january, both where exchanged and the ship joined my collection at last.  And the GF was happy that that ugly hunk of grey was gone ;-)

The set comes with seven figures, of which personally I like Angela the most.  Great torso print, awesome headpiece, a truly nice female minifigure for use in the Pirate settings.

The first thing we will be building is a desk, including a great looking Jack `voodoo doll` microfigure, and the bits and bobs we will be placing in the ship at the end, like barrels, the cannons, that sort of things.




We start the actual ship with the hull, made of prefab parts both front and end, and 3 of the smaller ones in between.  These are connected with Technic pins and plates on top to secure.



The sides are slowly build up as we start work on the front cargo hold, which connects with the mast for adding extra stability to it.


The rear gets rudder installed, and this is perhaps the one thing I`m not wild about.  It is just to short, which becomes very clear if the ship is displayed on a shelf.



The front support is then inserted into the hull to be able to put the front mast and the bowstatue in place later on.


The sides are build up some more as the gunports now become clearly visible.  This includes `fake` ports, that are just the shutters against the prefab hulls, not having actual openings or space behind them.  That way she can appear bigger then she is, with 5 instead of the 3 actual gunports on each side.


We put round tiles on the bottom to be able to have her displayed easier and secure the hull sections some more.

The railing of the upper deck then gets placed above the ports, as we proceed to build the anker and her chain mechanism and place it in the front section of the galleon.




The aft section now slowly is getting build up, which will feature the captain`s cabin for one, as we close of the front with wedged plates.




The bone railings add to her gloomy appearance.


The bow statue is a skeleton with a burning body.


The actual captain`s quarters is then getting build, and we place the desk we made at the very beginning inside this room.



High it rises, adding to her `size` by having a very high but narrow aft section, and a transparent window with probably some of the coolest stickers Lego has produced is inserted.






Small pieces of cloth are hung at the sides of the roomsection, as we put the steering wheel on top of the cabin.






A smaller stickered window is then placed behind the wheel, and again bones are everpresent to mark her out.



The topside is then rounded out and placed on the ship`s backsection.


A very gruesome railing with a lot of skeleton heads spans this area, as well as some skeletons that are attached to the sides.




The very large lamp of the doomed is then constructed and hung from the back, a really cool looking build if you ask me!






Masts and rigging are then on the menu, and we start with the smallest one, containing the triangle sail, at the back.



Working forward, it`s the middle mast, complete with Blackbeard`s personal flag, that is raised next.




And as the front mast is also installed, we proceed to make all the crossbeams for the sails, and add those to the front and middle masts.







The VERY GORGEOUS (dixit the GF) burgundy sails are then rigged up to the mastpoles.

The front beam is then the final part we put together, and another triangular sail is attached to it, rounding out the vessel`s sails, and the build itself.





The ship completed:

The only thing left to do then was to give her a good clean-up using a can of pressurised air, and the Queen Anne`s Revenge was ready to complete the shelf facing of the Black Pearl.