Inspirational Lego: Happy Halloween

While I will be spending Halloween not on the dark streetcorners but at an Upper-dare party tonight, there are some great builds that have shown up these past days.

All centered around the spooky, this is the perfect inspiration to share on the Unholy Evening.

Look at this zombified medieval castle for example, though the tower guard...

Another great Haloween costume has always been Jack the Ripper, terror of victorian era London.

Or if you go more States side, there is the legend of Sleepy Hollow...

Though a Hobbit build, and an excellent one to boot, this version of Lake Town has a certain creepiness to it.

Bionicle even lends itself to a nice Grim Reaper

And of course, there are no such things suited as Haloween buildings as medieval wizard cottages and the likes.  These three really have been the talk of the town on Eurobricks and far beyond lately, and they are awesome in every respect...

So enjoy your ghosthunting... or stay inside like these guys:

Kickstarter Lego Project: Bricks of the Mouse Guard

The Mouse Guard is a series of rather awesome children comic books created by David Petersen, and featured in a pretty awesome MOC as well recently.

Coming to you by Guy Himber (of V&A Steamworks fame, and writer of the recent Lego Steampunk book) and his compatriots, a campaign has been launched on the Kickstarter platform.

This will make a set of Mouse Guard heads compatible with Lego, and for the pledge of only 25 USD (plus shipping) like I took, you will get the full set once of Mouse Guard heads and accessories, as well as the exclusive Crate of the Matriarch.

By the time I`m writing this, the project has already been funded and now it is time to get to those stretch goals and score some sweet extras for the limited time they will be available!

Find out more about this project over on Kickstarter here.

Inspirational Lego: Erebor

This mightily awesome build showed up on Facebook last week, depicting the Lonely Mountain in better times before the dragon Smaug made it`s lair there.

It features the Dwarven fortress in full glory, and includes the merry town of Dale at it`s feet where life went it`s way.

The whole build is in minifigure scale, so you can get a pretty good idea of the sheer size of the model, as the windmill shows a good ratio of height next to one of the figures.

Even the Elves of Thranduil are present in the foliage at it`s flank.

Another awesome feature is the smootly cut out walls of the mountain city in the jagged rockworks of the mountain itself.

And those dwarven statues flanking the entrance are mightily well executed

Even if you are not into the The Hobbit theme at Lego, or even if you`re not a Lego enthousiast, builds like this are certain to drop your jaw!

Marvel Civil War!

Yesterday was perhaps one of those `geek high` days.  During the morning, Telltale confirmed they would be launching their Game of Thrones game still this year.  But at night time, the roof was blown of the house.

Marvel announced it`s movie schedule for the coming years, including, but not limited to, Black Panther, Captain Marvel, 2 additional Avengers movies... but most importantly, the third Captain America movie: CIVIL WAR.

Perhaps the best crossover storyline (bar the Secret Wars, though I don`t even think so) that the company has ever created, it puts the whole superhero community against each other, sided around either Captain America or Iron Man, as the long time friends and team mates go head to head with each other.  And that is coming to the theatre`s now in 2016...

Ironically, I was building my MoC, inspired about the cover of the classic series, just yesterday, before the revelation.  Because I wanted to build it for a while now (ever since I put together the Hail Hydra set), and the rumours of the past weeks had been picking at my intrests more and more.

So I wanted to have my version of the cover.  Cap and Tony face off amongst the ruins of the battlefield, Tony firing as Cap`s shield blocks the attack.

I went for the more elevated look of Iron Man, in order to build it on an 8x8 plate as a vignette, and with the blasts of his suit `leaking` around the edges of cap`s vibranium shield.

The background is then put on fire as the titans clash in their epic confrontation of ideals and believes.

For reference, here is the cover art I took my inspiration from:

And for those that missed it, the partial movie schedule ;-)

Minifigures series 12 online code numbers

Hey all,

It might be worth noting that the numbers of the Minifigures in set 12 are NOT the same as their equivalents for the online game Minifigures Online.

Though each polybag comes with the code for the model that is included in the bag, if you have them all piled up, these are not corresponding, so that might be handy to now if you want to exchange them and such...

Here is the list, first the name, then the number the figure has in the set and finally the number to unlock his online equivalent.

Wizard - 1 - 3
Hun Warrior - 2 - 8
Fairytale Princess - 3 - 9
Video Gamer Guy - 4 - 11
Battle Godess - 5 - 2
Space Miner - 6 - 1
Lifeguard Guy - 7 - 16
Prospector - 8 - 13
Jester - 9 - 6
Dino Tracker - 10 - 4
Pizza Delivery Guy - 11 - 10
Rock Star - 12 - 15
Swashbuckler - 13 - 5
Piggy Guy - 14 - 7
Genie Girl - 15 - 14
Spooky Girl - 16 - 12

Hope this is of some help or intrest!

Catching a Spy

What is all that noise? Hagen thought as he neared the mine of Karaz Modan, somewhere in the snowy peaks of Mitgardia.  Following the path way, he saw a few Yeti making anxious roars and bellows, obviously aroused by something.

Now, one has to know, the Dwarfs often employ these fierce warriors to guard their snowy paths high in the mountains, as they are as fierce as any warrior, strong as oxes and very well suited to the icy climate outside.

Approaching them, Hagen snapped down his visor and unsheated his sword, because when these guards where angry, something wasn`t right and even perhaps the mine entrance was under attack.  Looking up, he saw the winged shape of one of the Vulture people.  Vile and evil creatures, these wander the icy peaks learning all the secrets that they can and selling them to the highest bidder.  

Someone is very intrested in what is going on with the Dwarfs!

This is my entry for the smallest category of Chapter 3 in Book 2 of the Guilds of Historica, which has now turned it`s attention to Mitgardia.

However, this is also the one series of builds so far that I won`t be participating in with all 3 entries, although I had said to myself that when it came to `my` homeland, I would try and get a build in for all three categories.

The problem is namely one of pure figure issues.  See, the chapter is called `Dwarven Affairs` and in a very rough storyline synopsis, the Dwarfs are marching to war versus the Elves or the Drow, depending the side you choose, how they envision the pointy ears have been manipulating the bearded ones.

Now, I was in my `Dark Ages` when the Fantasy line of Castle came out years ago, and as a result, I have nearly none of the antagonist minifigures.  Not willing to cannibalise my displayed Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit sets for figures, this means I have a single `evil dwarf` minifigure from the CMF range, and not a single elf at all... bit hard to make entries that way.  I had been expecting mostly Vikings in the chapter, but humans aren`t actually playing a lead role in this chapter.

So that resulted in me picking the Side of Men, which is for the smaller category a scene where Dwarves are being spied on, the middle category comes down to humans trying to peacefully mend relations between Dwarfs and Elves, and category 3 expanding even further on this by telling a diplomatic storyline to solidify these relations...

But about the build...

As I said, I went for the smallest enty for the side of Men, in which the Dwarfs are being spied on.  Using the fluff a bit as a tool to make something at least fitting without needing any Dwarfs in the build itself, nor Elves, through the use of allied species (Yeti`s for the Dwarfs, Vulture people for the drow) I managed to create at least something.

I tried some things out in this build (with the eye of a very big project I`ll be undertaking once I completed all of the Age of Mitgardia builds, more on that once it is approaching) like the snot mining entrance, the completely frozen ground and the snowed under rockside.

I hope you like it!

AoM Phase II Stables - Preparing for snow

When it starts snowing in Mitgardia, it really can snow mightly hard.  And then it is time to stable all our fine northern horses to wait out for better weather and groom those loyal steeds.

The second phase of the Stables tree states you need to build, well, a stable.  Where phase I was just a horse and rider, the second part of the build line requires to have a structure where horses can pass the days and have a rest.

Oddly enough, when I was uploading the pictures from my camera into my Age of Mitgardia folder, it seems I have subconsciously developped something I might be calling `my style`.  Looking at my storehouse, regular house, now this stable and other builds, the grey to brown to grey again seems to be becoming something of a red line through my builds.  Rather odd, as I don`t tend to look at my other builds when working at the latest ones.

I opted for this build for an open stable, including a watering `bench`, slight Mitgardian colour accent, and snowy roof with some additional snow on the ground where it has slid off from the particular roof.

To tie in with the first build of the line, I incorporated the rider from there and his horse (which is from the Prince of Persia line) as he is preparing to feed his mount before unsaddling and stabling it.

I hope you like it.

Building Ideas: Efteling Architecture

Yesterday we went as I said to the Efteling with the whole family, and it was a blast.  Now, I did bring along my camera for once, as the amusement parc is reknowned for it`s Anton Pieck styled Fairy Tale Forest.

I figured, with a lot of the smaller kids around, this would be the first stop and that I could occupy myself in the meantime with taking some photo`s for having ideas to build later on.  Boy did this turn out different...

Those `little kids` (we`re talking age range 5 to 9 here) wanted to go rollercoaster, swinging boat and more of that... things this very heroic person faithfully watched while guarding the backpacks and such hehe.

But at the end of the visit, the parc was open an extra hour, we did went to the forest, and in the dark it is even more beautiful then during daytime, as it gets very atmospheric.

So I managed after all to snap away a load of pictures and have already found a few which will be a big help in inspiring some builds the coming months...

And thus concluded a nice day out with the family, and a brain on overload as my brickvision is kicking in ;-)