Sing to me, O great Muses

I've begun reading The Oydssey, having just finished The Iliad for english class. I've always loved greek mythology, but even more so now. The Iliad was just so powerful, each side beating back the other and winning glory. I suppose I was tainted by seeing the horrible movie of Troy, and I wish I hadn't seen it and it hadn't influenced me whilst reading. Diomedes was my favourite mortal, him and his crazy attacking Ares; Pallas Athena (Or Athene as my translation of the Oydssey names her) was my favourite of the gods, I had favoured Phoebus before, but I got angry at him for whisking away every Trojan hero who got on the downside of a fight within a cloud of mist - and for teaming up on Patroclus. O Patroclus, O Achilles; those Greek loved their men.

That was a fun tangent. In my mind I thought of the subject of today's post, which is Classic Space or the Classic Space Revial as it where; Classic Space to Classical, which reminded me of the Iliad. Anyways, without further delay.

A recent post on CS by a Chad Smith featured a Classic Space 2.0 MOC; essentially a Classic Space themed creation 'revamped' with modern pieces and building styles.

I was never really a fan of Classic Space. I suppose it was a 'had to be there' thing, and being a child of the 90's I'm a far shoot-off. I lived with Explorians and Pirates. That said, the look of this creation takes the classic retro look of CS and puts it into a context that Teen Fans, like myself, can get along with. The SNOTed grey wing base smooths out the studdly look of the CS ships and is probably the main factor in modernizing the design. Before I go into fine details, I should note that the other intriguing thing about this model was that although it was based upon the same idea it's still very much different from Paul Hanson's Neo-Classic Space, seen in the second picture of this post below.

I found the Neo-Classic Space a few months back, and it was the first time I felt the feelings I'd described in the above paragraph. It took an outdated CS design and brought it forward in time. But still, it's very different from Chad Smith's. Chad's featured a less classic looking canopy and cockpit design, though his engines were a toss back to CS. Paul's features still a more retro shape to it, while Chad's feels more like a streamlined bullet train with wings.

As I look at both of them in comparison now, I guess that Paul's is much more of an updated technique only and the shape and feeling still looks retro; Chad's on the other hand comes through on both sides, modernizing technique and style.

Pick and choose to your liking, either way this Classic Space revival look is really catching on with me, and who knows - maybe with some shopping I might pitch in.

Sing to me again, O great Muses, another time.

LGD#4 Under the Sea!

The latest Lego General Disscussion (LGD) contest as come to an end! I seem to have won again, though it was much closer this time around and I think there were others who desevered to win more than I - but don't question the mob. The theme was simply to build an undersea craft or base that could survive the deep depths of the ocean. Unfortunatly most things ended up looking more like spacecraft then submarines, but there was a few select entries that really orchestrated the theme.

The Coralier Deep Sea Exploration vessel was built by Justin Long, and is a great representation of the theme. To overcome the overall spacey look he simply made it look like a fish. Simple, yet oh so effective. It looks like something that would be the villian's vehicle of choice in a humorous spy movie.
The side greebles are on of my favourite parts, the use of smooth tiles gave it a more robust look; greebs usually look cool but you are left wondering why such equipment would be left to the elements (space, as it was) ? Here it seems that the greebs are build for being outside the craft.
Great build. Looks like a fish, acts like a fish (Chomp-Jaw Action!), so it must be a fish. Came a close second place, my pick for winner.

In the Sea Bases section we have Sea Station NAMOR. Built by Ean Henninger, Arpy as we know him, NAMOR is "one of several undersea bases designed to gather information about marine life and topography." It's a box on the outside, and judging that that was all to be seen on the entry pic during voting it was probably a cause of Arp's low vote count. Frankly, if they'd seen the inside he'd have kicked ass. Aside from the wicked NAMOR type on the exterior, it's a box. On the interior though he's got everything but the friggin' kitchen sink. Wait, he's got that too. The best part of course is the big red button, no base is complete without a button you should never touch.




Lastly there's mine own entry. The KSS Alexandria was a testing platform for technology that was to be eventually used in space. Built under the new and mysterious banner of the Astra Foederati. Really, it's the biggest thing I've built and 76 studs and it suffers; part supplies ran low, and that created some rough areas. On top of that, I've never really build a minifig scale ship to house more than one person, so it was building in an entirely new field. I do like how it turned out, it looks like a sub and that's all I was really going for. She won me my second LGD, though less deserved than the first it won by people's choice. Perhaps it marks a new page in my building, maybe we'll see more and more larger craft from me. Look for more of the Astra Foederati, that's for sure.

Renovations

Masoko Tanga's blog is once again going under renovations. Now I'll be running on blogger, but still hosted on Masoko Tanga. Much easier than what I was using before, and hopefully much nicer looking. Bare with, we'll be back up and running soon enough.