woensdag 30 september 2015

Today`s haul: Bricks and Playmobil

No, I`m not switching hobbies, it was just that at my auctioneering house, the final parts of their Lego they have been auctioning came with some Playmobil sets as well.

So I went to collect the lot today and then dropped by the goodwill store as well...

... only to find some more Lego in the form of this small, but still sealed Creator set for a measly 1.50 euro.

The final hauling was the episode 2 poster and an AT-AT Microfighter from the Lego S@H, so all in all a pretty nice day with some lovely small goodies.

Now to sort out all the Playmobil I`ve been gathering the past weeks and look for some trades for them...

Lego Build: Friends Magazine Easter Bunny

Considering this is an easter bunny that came with the Friends Magazine, and we are already autumn, this might have been just a wee bit overdue...

Now, I tend to buy those magazines when their are cool, useable figures coming with it, or like the Friends (and now also Elves) ones when their is one of the animals included.

This particular issue contained a simple build, but with a to cute rabbit to pass up.

The main part of the build is basically a light green corner piece, a 2x4 plate and a white piece of fence.

Some detailing is added on top of this.

Include some branches and a basket of chocolate candies, and voila, you have a simple yet effective small build for the easter holiday, and some lovely little pieces for the collection.

Nothing fancy, but for the price of the magazine, these thingies are rather okay.

dinsdag 29 september 2015

Saint Seiya Soul of Gold

Let our prayers be heard, the Eternal Golden Legend!

The latest anime series of Saint Seiya, we revisit the land of Asgard, which back in the 80s was a television only series to allow Murusada to complete his Poseidon saga.

The Lady Hilda of Polaris is no longer the representative of Odin on Earth, being replaced by Andreas, the former court doctor.  However, he has been possessed by Loki, and awakes the tree Yggdrasil, granting false blessings to the people to draw on their power.

Through this, he also brings the newest generation of God Warriors, some tied to the older series like Sigismund`s younger brother, into his fold.  But Odin, thorugh the body of a young girl named Lyfia, brings forth the most unlikely warriors to battle this thread as Athena`s bronze saints are fighting in Elysium.

He ressurects the twelve Gold Saints who had fallen before the Wailing Wall, giving their lives to allow the others to pass onwards!

In this series, they don`t have betrayers or evil intenders in their midst, they all work to the same goal, to free Asgard of the machinations of Andreas and battle the God Warriors in the process.

It`s a fantastic series, putting more light on the best generation of Gold saints and their personalities, even Deathmask (always my favorite as a Cancer myself) turns into quit an awesome character opposed to the really evil asshole he was in the original series, the Cancer cloth even reconnecting with her former wearer.

And believe me, when you see the final episode, nr 13, you`re going to forget about Seiya completely.  The epic battle between Loki and the Gold Saints, in their fully awakened cloths now with the help of Athena (in her urn in Elysium at that time in the Hades arc) is pure awesome, some of the best anime battles I ever saw, not only in Saint Seiya but over the whole line!

This... was... EPIC!

Lego Build: 76031 The Hulk Buster Smash

The Hulk Buster, or Veronica like it is lovely called, is by far the coolest set that Lego released in the wake of the Avengers Age of Ultron movie.

In the movie, Tony Stark designed this huge and powerful suit to complement his Iron Man suit in case the Hulk would go berserk and needed to be stopped... which of course he does, triggered by the (then still evil) Scarlet Witch.

The set comes with a heap of polybags, a sticker sheet and the comic each line carries.

The first part is all about the trap in which Scarlet Witch ensnares the Hulk to gain mind control over the monstrous brute.  As suche, they are also the first minifigures we get out of the boxed set.  I really like the Scarlet Witch rendition in Lego.

Starting with two black 2x4s and a light grey 2x10, we are underway to build the ensnarement.

This is mounted crosswise on another long section.


Using triangle pieces, connectors are added where the panels will come.


Those panels are stickered on one side, to reflect the `mesh` of the equipment plating.

Once added to the basic set up, we also include a long transparent pole on which the Scarlet Witch will be able to be hovering above the Hulk as she works his brain.


But then we move on to the other, even bigger guy in the set, the Hulk Buster itself.  The first bag for building this suit contains the third of the four figures included, being Iron Man himself.

The first thing we build for Veronica is the central part to which the torso plating and the limbs will be attached.  This is based around two plate wedges.




Technic bars around the middle secure the whole section together and make sure there is a lot of posability in this giant armoured exo-suit.



Small thrusters are added to the back of the body.

The first pieces of limb we are building are the armoured top parts of the arms.


Next up is the central torso part.  This can fold forwards, so you can place Tony inside the suit to control the mighty machine.





Now we need to make the small shoulder pieces in between which the head will rest.

This head is a cupola piece, printed with the design of the suit on it, which is fantastic as that would be a tricky element to add stickers to.

Adding this to the torso, we will be moving on to the bags that contain the arm and leg pieces.

The first thing though we get before starting those is the final minifigure in the set, the mighty Ultron himself.

The feet and leg builds are compromised of connectors from mostly the Mixels range and Technic angle pieces, all covered up by more regular bricked plating.






This results in the massive feet and armoured shins of the machine, and after building a mirror build, the machine can stand on it`s own legs.


Up next are the hands, with fully poseable fingers.  This is not an exact mirror build though, as the right arm, instead of additional plating, gets a stud launcher instead.





Once those are connected to the body, we can place Tony inside his high tech Exo-Suit.

It closes up nicely, but mind you you have to close Iron Man`s visor to be able to lower the Hulk Buster canopy...

And the full set stands together.  It really is a big and powerful looking machine

Of course, we also get some additional pieces from this build...

Like in the movie, Veronica is an imposing machine, and I must say I just don`t really get it why they needed to put an extra Ultron inside it.  He wasn`t really an essential part of this particular sequence in the film, but heck, a minifig villain is a minifig villain :-)