Masoko Tanga

LEGOGRAPHIA I

2009-04-12T18:20:00.005-04:00

We build LEGO to please ourselves, but a large part of the online community is about sharing creations. Ideas, themes, techniques have all spread thanks to the many sites setup to provide a forum for LEGO builders around the world. At the heart of these are images. A collection of pixels which to us, translate into another collection of blocks. Because of this, the quality of photographs has become so important.

These articles won't tell you how to start from scratch with a camera set on AUTO, one desk lamp, and a piece of letter sized white printer paper. No. I'm going to assume that most of you can figure out the basics, control your camera, make a half decent backdrop and provide enough light. I'm going to take you into the woods, into the thick underbrush - I'm going to give guidance into how to turn the mediocre into the great.

The easiest way to get okay, neutral, no complaints photographs of your LEGO creations is to build a lightbox. A cardboard box with the sides and tops cut out and paned with tissue or wax paper. A lightbox provides diffuse even lighting, and is the first step past those direct-flash, dark basement photos that we all started with. Many LEGO photography guides would end with the suggestion that you build a lightbox, but I'm starting with it. Build it, take some shots, and get over it. Break it up, and recycle it. It's a start, but it's boring.

However, the lightbox teaches us some lessons. What do those big tissue paned windows do? To know this, you have to understand shadows.

LESSON ONE: Light.

Standing outside during the day when the sun is up fairly high and there are no/little clouds, your shadow will have a very sharp edge. Standing outside in overcast weather, if you can even find your shadow it will have a very gradual edge. These examples represent Spectral and Diffuse light sources. A spectral light source is very small; the sun is all its glory is about the size of your thumbnail from earth, as such it casts a very sharp shadow. A diffuse light source is very big; on an overcast day the sun hits the clouds, which then become the light source - and they fill the entire sky (Sky > Thumbnail), this casts a very gradual shadow that fades out.

Which one is best for LEGO? Depends on what look you want. Diffuse light is going to even out all the edges and be less noticeable, Spectral light is going to give small highlights and accentuate any edge it comes across. So chosing between the two is up to you, what I will talk about is how to create both in an artificial fashion.

You're going to need some nice lights. Either a high powered desk-type-lamp, or a flash. Naturally, this lightsource is fairly small and will get smaller the further away you put it. So creating spectral light is fairly easy. To create diffuse light, you're going to need some sort of screen. Something like those panes of tissue from the light box. So however you want, make some sort of frame - the bigger the better, but don't make it akward to use, cardboard, wood, LEGO, whatever you make it out of is up to you. Then, fill the inside with a layer of tissue paper or something of the like. Now when you put this between your light source and your LEGO model, it becomes the lightsource and is much larger than the lamp/flash it self. The closer this screen is to the model, the bigger a lightsource it becomes. Make sure your lamp is lighting up the entire screen too, if not, move the lamp further away. This may seem counter-intuitive, as I've just told you that the further away it is the smaller it is, but the size of the lightsource has nothing to do with how large of a cast it gives.

Now that you know about light size and what it does, we move onto light direction. This is very dependant on the angles of your creation. If you have a spaceship, with a very big side that is full of greebles and you want to draw attention to those greebles, what do you do? The eye is attracted to contrast, so you want to see both highlight and shadow on them. Therefore, lighting them from the front probably isn't going to work, when you can't see a shadow on them it will just make them look flat. If you want to show texture, you have to rake the light across it. Beware. This will accentuate all texture. So while we may think that a wall of bricks is smooth, really there are small cracks between each brick and raking the light across will bring these right out.
So we can make the conclusion then that lighting more directly at a wall of bricks will better hide these cracks and make it appear smoother.

You can also use light direction to accent the edge of a creation. Say you make a spaceship with a striking shape, and you want to make an image that shows it very well. You need some way of drawing the eye to the edge. Again, contrast is the answer. The simplest way is to wisely chose your backdrop (light model, dark backdrop; dark model, light backdrop) to contrast your creation. But this lesson is about light. But how do you light an edge? Backlight it. Have your light source strike the back of the model and it will create a 'halo' or rimlight around the model. Note that the "back" of the model is all relative to how it is posed in the photo, and doesn't always mean that the light will be directly across from the camera. It can come from the side and still strike the back of the ship, so long as the back is turned to the side. Here is an example. You can see that the side facing away from us is outlined ever so slightly (note that this type of backlight also lights up the transparent bricks, making them resemble windows more). Now, obviously you have to have more than one lightsource when backlighting, because it's only lighting the side you don't see. But having more than one light source doesn't mean you need more than one lamp/flash. And this brings us into the next topic for today.

Contrast. The difference between two things. In this case I want to talk about the contrast between your lighted side and your shadow side. Lets pretend we're talking about a cube with one of the coners pointed right at us, so we see just two faces of it. You put your light on one side, and it only lights that one side; so while you've got very nice detail on the light side, you can't make out the other side at all. What you need is a fill light. You still want a shadow side, but you want to be able to see it too. The main thing about fill is that you shouldn't notice it. This is why you generally don't want to use another light that might cast a second shadow. What you need is a reflector. I use a giant piece of white foam core, or sometimes white matte board. All a reflector does is reflect light from your main light back onto the model. This will lower the contrast between your light and shadow sides, but will maintain them as light/shadow. The closer the reflector is, the more light it will bounce back and the lower the contrast. If you're in a room with a lot of ambient light that is 'filling in' your shadows and you want more contrast, get a big black board and use it instead of a reflector - this will block the ambient light without bouncing back much of your main light.

Now you know how to use a two light set up. Main light and fill. Which brings us back briefly to direction. You don't always have to light the side that is most facing you. You can make it the shadow side and light the side you see less of. Example. This can be a little more dramatic than simply lighting the most visible side.

The final topic for light is to add a third light. This one can also be called a backlight, but isn't the same as the one mentioned previously. The third light is lighting the backdrop. Usually, unless you've got some sort of diorama, you want to seperate your model from the backdrop. The best way is to get the model quite a distance infront of it, so that the backdrop falls out of focus. Another way is to light it. Say you're photographing against a white backdrop, but because of how you're lighting it's coming out darker, looking a little muddy and boring. You want it to dissappear. So, put a light on it, make sure to cover it all, and make it a bright light. You want to overexpose it from the main model, so that it becomes the brightest white. Here is an example, and while it isn't LEGO, or even a very good shot, the backdrop is pure white - so you don't even think about it. You can also use a backlight for more dramatic purposes. If you're photographing on a darker background, you can create a spot of light behind your model that will draw the eye. I'll point to this shot as an example. Now, this might be hard to do with a desk lamp, as you need to turn your light into a spot light. But all you need to do is use some black paper (the thicker the better) to make a cone and stick it on your light. You're making the light cast smaller, a spot light as opposed to a flood light. Alternatively, a small flashlight could work here, but might bring up some issues I'll address in the conclusion.

Now you know the three light setup. You can go where ever from here. Try using small reflectors to bring more light to certain areas, try making them out of foil, try out different contrast ratios (even try a silhouette), vary between spectral and diffuse light and work out what works better where. I'll end on a more complicated note. You should all know about White Balance as a camera setting. All lightsources have a colour cast, and white balance sorts out the colour of light your using and makes it white. Naturally, you can only balance for one colour of light at a time. So if you use a tungsten desk lamp (yellow/orange) and balance for it, but then put an LED flashlight for a backlight, it's going to look blue. And if you then balance for the blue light, you main light will look yellow. Unless you want this look, all your lights have to be the same colour. This can be faked of course. If you need to make a blue light yellow, just stick something yellow and transparent infront of it. Obviously this won't be completely accurate, but it gets closer. All that said, the colour of light makes no difference to a black and white image. Something rarely explored with LEGO photography.

Reboot

2009-04-12T18:16:00.002-04:00

While this blog is officially defunct on the whole, I'm rebooting the series below. I'll try to condense it and provide a more unique collection of information than other photography how-to's. Thanks to all those who read Masoko Tanga in it's heyday, she was a fun project and a nod to some of the very first LEGO themed blogs; but alas, it seemed she went the same way as the blogs she emulated.

So stay tuned for hopefully her last voyage.

LEGO Photography 101 - Week 2

2008-09-19T21:36:00.007-04:00

Week Two: LIGHT.

It cannot be stressed enough to the importance light has to photography. Photo = Light, in the Greek. Forget about your subject, it is just a coincidence in the scene of Light you are capturing. If you photograph LEGO in a dark and dank basement, then this week's lecture is for you. Today I'm going to touch on the importance of light to photographing LEGO models, and how you can harness it sufficiently to aid in giving you great LEGO photographs.

Firstly we must consider the application for which the photographs are destined. Taking shots of your LEGO creations must display as much detail as possible, true colours, and depth. This week I'll only touch on the first and second. Detail is very key, the photos need to look nice but foremost must provide a full capture of the model. With this knowledge in hand we can determine the type of light which will best suit us. Direct light is out. Much too harsh, and creates distinct and deep shadows. You need diffuse light, or in layman's terms, a large light source. What qualifies as a large light source? A cloudy day, a light tent or light box, window light (and this is specific, so wait), or reflected light.

An overcast day is the easiest as it requires very little work from you, however, you're really dependent on the weather. If you want to take this route - remember that the heavier the overcast the less shadow you will have. You'll also probably end up with dull colours that must be punched up in post-editing.

A light tent or a light box is about as fancy as you can get. You'll need a cardboard box, a box cutter, some box tape, and some form of half-opaque/half-transparent paper (e.g.: tissue, wax, parchment, etc.). Then go here and follow the instructions. This should cost you next to nothing. From here, you can take a direct light source, like an off camera flash, a lamp, or direct sun and make it into a diffuse source by shining it through the semi-transparent paper. The all white interior will also help bounce around stray light and reduce directional shadows. For the purposes of LEGO photography, the more lights the better - however, watch that you avoid mixing different types of lights and I'll get into this latter in the post (WHITE BALANCE).

Lastly we come to window light. When referred to as a photographic light source, it means specifically diffuse light from a window - not direct sun. So you'll need an overcast day, or a window facing North (if you live in the Northern Hemisphere) or South (for those in the Southern Hemisphere) - this position will avoid direct sun all year round. Additionally with this light source you must make use of a reflector to bounce back light and reduce shadows. Ideally you place your model at the far side of a window (from yourself), so imagine: (you)--window--(model). Then get the reflector right beside you pointing at the model, and get it as close as possible to the model - if it isn't in your way it isn't close enough. More on reflectors to come.

With options 1 and 3, you will need a backdrop. White bristol board will do excellently, depending on the size of your model, larger SHIP size creations might require a bedspread. Curve your backdrop, from a vertical surface to a horizontal one, to eliminate the background. Use the matte side of the board, you'll want to avoid the possible problems glare might pose with the glossy side. White is best. Once you are comfortable shooting on white, begin experimenting with different colours, darker drops help with darker models, and coloured drops can spark visual contrast (Tim Z, Spook, is good with this). However, avoid coloured backdrops until you understand White Balance. If you are using something larger than bristol board, look for something with a fine texture: bed sheets are good, bath towels bad - get the idea?

Reflectors can be had just as easily. They MUST be white, for the intents and purposes of photographing LEGO. Foam core, canvas boards, bristol board, illustration board, white cardboard, you see where I'm going. As mentioned above, if you are using a reflector, it must be VERY, VERY close. Light falls off very quickly from them, and an extra 10cm can make or break your shadows.

White Balance. O muse, help me through this one. Some of you are aware that different light has different colour casts to it, even though its 'white'. Our eyes to a pretty good job of auto adjusting and we don't notice it all that much. However, take a photo with a daylight white balance with incandescent bulbs and you'll understand how important this is. White Balance is all about getting neutral whites, without any colour cast. Cameras are able to adjust to specific temperatures of colour to neutralize whites, but only one at a time. What this means is that if you start mixing daylight with lightbulbs, incandescent with flourescent, you aren't going to be able to fix your colour cast without some intense and impressive photoshop maneuvering. So don't. Flash = Daylight. For more info on Colour Temperature see wikipedia: [link]. Do yourself a favour, stick to one light colour, set your camera accordingly, and be merry.

Okay, I've done all you said, but my photos are all grey!

18% grey. What? Okay, here's the deal. Computers level tone from 0 (black) to 255 (white) with 8-bit colour. Value #128 is also known as 18% grey. Camera light meters read scenes and expose to achieve an average of 18% grey, because generally this works. Experiment: shoot a white piece of paper (as the only thing in frame) on your camera's auto setting with ample light, and it will still come out grey. So when you photograph with a white backdrop your camera wants to make that 18% grey. Solutions? Either in manual exposure, or with exposure compensation you can 'overexpose' (by your cameras meter) until you actually get a proper exposure. Alternatively, if you can lock your exposure (as in, set it on something and then keep it set the same even while photographing something entirely different), make a large wall of dark grey bricks and give it ample light, then fill your frame with it and take an exposure reading. Dark grey is probably fairly close to 18% grey. Try it, and shift either way until your exposure is proper.

Note that if you are using a dark backdrop, like black per se, your camera will try and overexpose to make that black grey. Learn to know what you camera is doing and act accordingly.

I hope that all wasn't too much to take. If you're lost, read through it again, slower around the parts that confuse you and use google to do some more research. Once you get your head around it, it isn't hard and you'll wonder how you managed to conjure up half-decent shots before. Next week I'm going to move on to the taking of the photos, shutter speeds, apertures and tripods galore!

LEGO Photography 101 - Week 1

2008-09-06T12:21:00.002-04:00

With this post, I'm going to start a series named "LEGO Photography 101". The objective of this series is to provide in-depth tips on how one should best photograph their LEGO creations. As Lukas helped to explain, photography is VITAL function of presenting your creations online, and the best photography will give the model the best response it can get.

How hard is it to achieve great photographs? Not very. There is a little bit of work involved, but as you're spending the time to build your models in the first place, a little effort for photography isn't much to ask for. How expensive is it? You probably have all you need already.

In order to provide in-depth tips, I am doing this as a series and each week (hopefully) I'll post an article relating to only one part of the process. There are many guides available at most forums that are all-in-one stop shops, so if you're completely lost on LEGO photography you may want to use one of those as your main education and treat this as additional help.

Week 1 : Is my camera good enough?

With the digital revolution well established, the choice of camera has become an even more complicated process than before. Back in the glory days of film, a camera was only as good as the film put in it. This is probably why film cameras have a longer life span than digital, there was just much less to them. This also presented you with a very large selection of results depending on the type of film you may have used. With digital many users are prone to taking the pictures straight from the camera and doing nothing to them. While they may view this along the same lines as not editing prints they got from film, one must consider that your digital camera only has one sensor and the number of ways that sensor can capture colours differently is severely limited. I can't imagine using the same film all the time, therefore I can't imagine not doing some sort of processing to my digital images!

Anyways, getting back on topic, with the limitation the above mentioned one must be careful when purchasing a digital camera. Your first big decision will be between a Point & Shoot or a DSLR. You're not training to become professionals, so a Point & Shoot will do the average LEGO builder fine, therefore, I'm going to focus first on the Point & Shoots and then touch base a little with DSLRs later on.

With a point and shoot you have one lens, so you better make sure you've got good quality optics! It all really depends on what else you may be using the camera for but consider the following: large zooms will not give you as sharp photos as smaller zooms, there will just be more glass in there; watch for "optical zoom" and "digital zoom", the former means that the lens is actually moving to zoom in and the latter means that the camera is just cropping the image - the former is thus much preferable, digital zoom is a cheap gimmick best avoided.

For photographing LEGO there are some key features you want: Exposure Compensation and White Balance. Aside from those, you won't NEED any other controls. Many Point & Shoots might not have specific White Balance Control, but will have different shooting modes (indoors, outdoors, night, snow, etc.) that are set with different white balances - if your camera has these, experiment and see which one gives you the most neutral whites when photographing your LEGO models. Don't get carried away with Megapixels, and don't choose one camera over another because it has more. The actual image sensor on a Point & Shoot is much smaller than 35mm film and it is the size of the sensor that matter more than how many Megapixels you have. 6 will do fine. Anything more, and your just trying to see how many people you can cram into a phonebooth. Bad idea. You're just going to end up with more noise/grain.

Marco is an excellent feature present on many Point & Shoots and will allow you to get very close to your Model when the feature is activated. KNOW how close your camera can get to its subject while remaining in-focus, and don't exceed those limitations.

With all that said, most Point & Shoots will work fine as long as you know how to use them and are doing so properly. Always read your manual! It will provide good camera specific information that you need to understand.

Now I'll touch a little on DSLRs. If you're interested in photography aside from snapshots of your LEGO models, you may want to look into one. However, if you are unfamiliar with how to take a photograph manually then I would recommend you purchase a used 35mm film SLR and learn the basics from there. 35mm film and equipment can be had very cheap, and older equipment is very reliable! The less electronics, the longer it will probably last - I have cameras from the 1920s in perfect working order. Some people like to think film is more expensive than digital but they ignore the low cost of older and used SLR bodies and the high cost of DSLRs that will probably be in need of replacement much quicker.

Regardless, if you know about exposure and manual controls, and have access to a DSLR you can take very good photos of your LEGO models! More control over image taking will result in you being able to respond to different situations much easier. You will have access to Exposure Compensation as well as Manual Exposure and proper White Balance controls. If you are shooting your models on Manual, make sure your aperture is set to a relatively high f/stop to make sure all of your model is in-focus. It depends on the model's size, your focal length, and how close you are, but you don't want to be shooting any more open then f/5.6.

Many of the things I said about Point & Shoots applies here too. Sensor size is much more important than Megapixels. DSLRs are slowly becoming fitted with Full-Frame sensors, which is fancy terminology for saying they're finally the same size as 35mm film. Most DSLRs still have APS sized sensors, so again 6mp will do just fine. Don't overspend for features you may never need or use.

When choosing a brand, know that they will all perform splendidly. Don't listen to anybody saying one is better than another, they're speaking out of their rectum. Consider if you have any old lenses, if/how they can work with a modern DSLR, the selection of lenses the company offers (will they suit your needs?), compatible flashes, what type of memory card (all mostly CF), but MOST importantly - how does it feel in your hand? Go to the store or find a buddy with one and feel them out.

That ends Week 1 of LEGO Photography 101. With all luck I'll move on to our next topic next week which will be the shooting environment!

The Hundred Days

2008-08-29T22:10:00.005-04:00

Vive le Masoko Tanga! This blog has been defunct for quite sometime now, I was hit with school, work, something of a social life, and a general dim age has descended upon my hobby of LEGO building. Tom may actually be dead. Well, who knows, perhaps he might strike at the flanks with a well prepared article. Enough talk, I move to the point of this post, and a most glorious point it is - to restore Masoko Tanga to its previous prestige!

Lukas, a Young Spacer who unlike myself still qualifies as a TFOL, has advanced his skills far passed what they were when he started building. I've known him loosely since he came to the Classic Space Forums - I've always been a relative outsider, and my inability to attend festivals will leave me to this fate more or less indefinitely. I've always held Lukas in high regard, he never becomes egotistical about his skills, never lowers himself to blatant elitism, and generally tends to avoid internet drama - skills which seem to be lacking in the general Space community these days. So I sat down at my computer today and had an interview with him! I know he was recently interviewed by LAML, so I tried to ask questions that weren't of the basic and obvious variety.

Now, in the last couple of years the demographics of the LEGO community have really changed. Back in 2003, you could refer to the online community as the AFOL community and it would make sense, the majority if not the entirety of the community at places like LUGnet were adults.

"The starting group in toy chat rooms, LUGnet, and ultimately Classic-Space was started by men pretty much over the age of 30" says Lukas, "I think that the age demographic of the more intense LEGO community declined as time went on. ... along with a burst of internet activity, young people joined in". LEGO has and always will be targeted at the young audience, so its not as if the fans don't exist. By the time of LUGnet many younger fans were even online, as Bzpower is an example of, and smaller forums like Saber Scorpian's. But the group isn't the same as those, today there are many younger fans who show the same level of skill and effort that was previously only possessed by AFOLs.

"We weren't aware of this more intense way of building until we were old enough to get on the internet and realize we could participate too". I think the last part there is ringing on a greater truth. At the start of my online excursions, settled into the Lego General section of Bzppower forums, I became aware of the AFOL .Space (who were not yet on Classic-Space); it never really occurred to be that I could join them, at least not at that stage in my building skills.

Lukas also came from a smaller community of younger builders, "I think it helped me ease into the serious building". There's a certain change that occurs in the mind of a LEGO fan when they discover a trove of people online who share the same passion, and another more significant change when that group is weeded out of those who will move on from LEGO once they pass the target age; "I realized how much people really cared and how much work other people put into the hobby".

There is also something to be said about coming from such a community and how it plays out upon a builder's skill and attitude, "if I had hopped right into Classic-Space, Classic-Castle, [or] the higher up forums it probably would have been more of a shock, and might have turned me away from the hobby". While harsh criticism is the best way to improve skills, sometimes it does a lot of good to be grounded with others around the same skill level.

"It also gave me a feeling that some people are very stuck up.... The high standards go both ways". There is often a thin line between tough love and though. Sometimes the though love is needed, sometimes just the though, and other times neither. Its a situation that is dependent upon both sides as to what is needed. When I finally immigrated to Classic-Space forums I knew that I was going there for harsh and real criticism, of the kind you can't get there today. Such, I was not deterred when my first handful of models were largely dejected. Still, I was putting forth my best and hoping to make it better.

"People should put their best foot forth. ... the models that they have worked on the most and are most proud of" says Lukas, touching on the hierarchy of builders within the community, "some people reject all people who, while [they] might have incredible ideas or techniques, may not be able to make a spaceship with a consistent colour scheme". Luckily in my stay at Classic-Space there was no rejection of community members and I received the 'tough love' I needed.

"I still poke my head into both the higher-up and the lower forums, just so I can get the best view, I suppose".

Another recent change to the community was another migration. Just as many members left LUGnet and splintered into separate forums, many members are using flickr these days to host images of their creations and to interact with the LEGO community.

"I still dislike thinking in terms of better and worse builders, but it does exists, and a forum where any builder, no matter how inexperienced [and] no matter how many years of grammar can join, things will go downhill eventually. This is one of the reasons why I enjoy flickr so much" that is, the ability to control who you are dealing with - while at the same time being part of a community with such a large pool of members, new and old.

"It makes it easier for new people to join, .... and with such a web of users, new people can quickly find experienced builders and learn from them". Whether or not flickr has the longevity that no other community site has achieved, remains to be seen, but it seems to incorporate a lot of features that people longed for in the sites of old.

We then moved to questions involving building. This blog has always had a soft spot for Microscale Space, so I kept the questions focused. Microscale has risen anew in the last couple years to heights of prestige never previously enjoyed. It seems like such a specific genre, but in fact it is the most open of any building style.

"Once you toss the minifig out the window really anything can be made.... it lets extraneous parts get unique uses and doesn't destroy my collection. It also allows for a myriad of unique shapes unrestricted by gravity or that pesky thing known as 'common sense'".

Why then did it take so long for Microscale to become an established and popular style? Before builders like Mike Yoder or Jerac came along, microscale was relatively obscure and the only models that enjoyed celebrity were those of Paul Baulch.

"It just goes with the ebb and flow of building styles and fads. I feeling it fading a bit nowadays but that's fine. MICROSCALE WILL STRIKE AGAIN". Hah. Perhaps it has something to do with the fascination many AFOLs had during the LUGnet period with producing SHIPs. When you have enough parts to create big ships that fit with minifigs, microscale doesn't even begin to enter the equation. However, as mentioned earlier there was a great rise in the number of serious younger builders - who undoubtedly had much smaller collections than AFOLs and therefore couldn't produce SHIPs.

I dared to dive into the builder's mind and clarify a few details about the thinking process that goes into creating a model.

"Generally when I get an idea it comes in shape form, then I decide whether that should be in microscale or minifig scale" he admits that occasionally this process is reversed. I know that I usually separate my scales and sit down with the intent of building in one particular scale. However sometimes there will be a shape or a configuration of parts that will get me thinking abstractly, and scale is left in lieu until I reach a part that grounds it.

"Depending on my collection and how some parts work out, details may change but for the most part I get my idea out there the way I wanted it to be.... if it doesn't end up the way I planned you don't see it" for the most part, he says. Working abstractly can be good, but it also can end with wasted time and effort.

I moved onto the final topic I wanted to question Lukas on, and that was the photography of LEGO models. Is it really so important to properly document your model?

"Immensely. Sure a poorly photographed but amazing model will get known eventually, [brickshelf user] kero40 for example, but good photography makes the model the star of the show, rather than your dirty laundry or the gritty background you chose, and that makes the model more appealing". There have been a few attempts to educate the masses how to do this simply, I know because I've written a few of them and hope to publish another here on MT soon, but perhaps education through suggestion isn't enough?

"A few contests of late have required decent photography, which I think is a good rule" and here I tend to agree. For the sake of the builder, nothing can compare to seeing a model in person, so good photography is very important in giving your viewer the best impression.

"Good photography should bring out the depth of the model, but when you can physically move yourself around it you get a better sense of where parts of the model are in relation to each other" this means that bad photography is going to seriously detract from a model and undermine it's success with the community as a whole.

So how does Lukas photograph?

"I toss a sheet of poster board up against something in natural sunlight. I own a nikon D40 DSLR camera which I take the pictures with and then I touch them up with Photoshop CS3". Now, not everyone has access to CS3, but I know many a good photographer who makes due with the plethora of free options floating around the internet.

With that we brought the interview to a close and Lukas left to attend to other business, but I hope this article has touched upon atleast one subject that has been the musing of your mind and that you'll continue to read as Masoko Tanga turns a new leaf and hopefully puts out many more such articles before she keels.

Jupiter Jazz; Q&A with Nnenn

2008-04-11T23:00:00.005-04:00

It's been a while since the last interview so here's a brand new one to sink your fangs into!

...
Tom: Well first of all thanks for your time Nnenn, we're glad to have you here at Masoko Tanga. Browsing through your creations one of the things that strikes me is that you're not afraid to experiment with colour schemes. I can see bright blues and oranges, lime greens and even some neon parts amongst many others. Do you have a way of picking a colour scheme? Just a random selection from parts lying around or a process much more complex?

Nnenn: My colour choices are a mixture of randomness and some level of expertise. I've taught enough college art courses to know that red/yellow/blue aren't the primary colors, browns/tans are mostly dark and pale oranges (so blue/teal compliments work well with them), colors are most intense at completely different values, etc. etc. But I'm also old enough to have seen color trends in fashion, design, art, or wherever, swing all over and come full circle; so there is a lot of subjectivity involved, it's really nothing more than current opinion. I always chuckle when I see someone comment about how 'those colors don't work.' So mostly, randomness can be effective... heck, rainbow schemes work if there is some intelligent hierarchy involved.

Tom: Are there any colours in the Lego parts-spectrum that you detest?

Nnenn: No colour, and few schemes, are detestable... so I don't mind rare Lego colours popping up, unless it's at the expense of something that could otherwise round-out a regular colour's part palette.

Tom: How much planning would you put into an average Moc? Do you rely on scribbled notebook sketches and L-Draw designs to test the waters or do you prefer to start out with just an idea in your head and a few bricks in your hand?

Nnenn: I almost never plan a model beforehand, though on rare occasions I'll do a 10-second sketch of something that pops into my head so I don't forget the basic shape. Mostly, I start with no more of an idea than 'large spaceship, fighter, mech, tank,' or whatever. Sometimes I just play with a few pieces to see if they can be arranged together into some fluid but dynamic form; I'm often surprised with the results (seriously)... I often think: 'wow, I couldn't have thought of that in a million years.' When teaching creativity, I usually stress working in the moment and letting go of preconceived notions; results that happen spontaneously are usually far more interesting that those that stem from careful plodding. However, notice most of my builds are not overly large... something that does, in fact, take a good deal of planning due to engineering considerations, time, parts, etc.

Tom: You've got a fair bit of theme-variety in your galleries but you're of course best known for your Space creations. Are there any themes that you've never built for that you'd like to experiment with in the future?

Nnenn: Although I enjoy the tangible process of connecting bricks at my whimsical discretion (read: playing with Lego), I am really fascinated with space themes in general. The combination of these interests seems ideal right now as I view both with limitless creative possibilities. But no, if I was restricted to building only themes like town, castle, steampunk, etc. I would probably sell my collection.

Tom: You mentioned ideas popping into your head, what builders inspire you?

Nnenn: Unusually perhaps, but the better builders don't really inspire me per-se, I note their technique and finish but their models are done well enough that my imagination sees little room for improvement. What gives me an immense amount of inspiration (and motivation) is seeing really poor, amateurish creations on Brickshelf.com. Kids don't have the conventional constraints that adult minds feel necessary; hence, all the really wacky designs out there that we instinctively scoff at... but if George Lucas, for example, were to add some polish and fly it through the right setting, suddenly it's totally believable.

Tom: Now you've gained much notoriety for not being afraid to experiment with clone bricks and other Non Lego items. What's perhaps the strangest Non-Lego item you've ever incorporated into a Moc?

Nnenn: I've always felt that rubber bands are really odd things to include in creations: they're tactilely opposite of bricks. But actually, there hasn't been anything really too strange... that's yet to come. I plan on building a big wooden frame to hold a really large ship; it saves me from having to deal with substructure engineering, something which I could not care less about, and focus on the aesthetic design. Lego does this sort of thing all the time but I'm sure a few 'dedicated purists' will be snippy about it.

Tom: And lastly, out of all your creations do have a favorite and for what reason?

Nnenn: I'm notorious among those that know me for not having favorites... for anything. But I usually feel whatever I'm currently working on is the most amazing thing ever, then after a few days (and pictures) later I look at it and wonder what I could have possibly been thinking... so I start something new to compensate.
...

Many thanks to Nnenn for the great interview! Nnenn's work can be viewed at either Brickshelf or Flickr whatever your fancy.
Now be sure to join us at the same bat-place and same bat-time next week when I'll be back to the usual irrelevant ramblings and communist propaganda that you've grown to love/ resent.

Domain Switch

2008-03-23T18:07:00.002-04:00

Just a heads up, my current website at masokotanga.unicornbreak.com will soon no longer be mine, I'm moving to bren.brittwilson.com. As such, this blog has been moved simply to masokotanga.blogspot.com.

Thanks all,

The Management.

The Dead Flag Blues

2008-03-22T09:48:00.003-04:00

I'm afraid I'm becoming so terribly busy this year with school, work, art and photography that I've entered what is best described as a "controlled dark age". A sad realization, but one I cannot get around. My March Break consisted of more work than any normal week, so I had no time to build what-so-ever. Fact is, my LEGO bricks have been loitering in my closet since October. With any luck, I'll have sometime in the summer - but that could be wishful thinking. I continue to browse brickshelf and flickr, so don't think I'm going anywhere. Although, I've grown a little disinterested in CS.com, and my only forms of criticism will come from either here or flickr.

So today's review is one a recent Nnenn creation, the MB-4 Vauggen. This Messerschmidt look-a-like is pretty typical of Nnenn's style -- which can usually be separated into two categories, the crazy awesome spacecraft [example], and the crazy awesome and built after a theme spacecraft [example]. This falls into the latter category. If there is one thing that Nnenn knows how to do, and there's actually several, it's shaping. The rigid forms on the MB-4 give it this retro-robust-industrial look that gives the ship an entirely different feeling than if it had been rounded with spindly antennae. This rigid look makes the airframe feel solid and strong, this fighter isn't a delicate little pansy ship, it'll kick your ass.
So another thing Nnenn does very well is decal design. Most people when they find a skill they are good at, latch on to it like a parasite and bleed it dry. Where is this going? Nnenn demonstrates here that he can still make beautifully emblazoned ships with just the brick alone. This allows an otherwise flat and boring surface to become a point of visual interest, and being brick built we can assume that a little more forethought might have gone into their placement. Another technique that breaks up the flat surfaces of the MB-4 is Nnenn's use of multiple grays. Many people were disgusted and appalled when LEGO introduced the "new" grey (or 'bley'), but I really think it's opened a great door of opportunity for builders - the look Nnenn (and many others) has created with this multi-grey affect would never have been possible before; except perhaps with extensive use of clones, which will probably never catch on with the community at large. If the MB-4 was all one grey, it would still be great, but the monochromatic variation really adds a great realism to the model.

So don't miss Nnenn's MB-4 Vauggen. Adore, study, and copy its various effects into your own repertoire.

Heretic Pride

2008-02-15T23:00:00.005-05:00

Yes I know, updates have been sparse as of late and it's oh so uncool to beat that proverbial dead horse about it every time. Rest assured, they'll be no equine beating 'round here anymore as we have no horse left to beat. The last time I saw the Masoko Tanga horse it resembled a styrofoam tray of supermarket mince-meat. I thought for today I'd try something different, so I present to you my adventures with "the-Shelf's" random folder button and my discoveries both good and weird.

I found this rendered TA-138 German Jet Moc which is quite lovely. I myself have tried building fighters based on similar design but have met with no success as I could never get that weird barrel shaped fuselage right. The no-frills wings look fantastic, a great rhombus shape with no fancy crap to spoil. From the same historical vein there's this German Flak cannon, its extraordinary level of detail and accuracy actually classifies it as gun-porn. It's a shame half the pictures are so tiny. This tiny VTOL craft is pretty fancy looking but I think its lack of bulk brings it down. Particularly in the turbines, they look great at first but they don't hold up to close inspection. I much prefer the engine cowling design on this other VTOL craft that I found. Sure its not exactly sleek and streamlined but it's a good example of innovative parts usage. The ski-feet landing gear apparatus is adorable. This Phantom chicken walker may not have cute feet but it makes up for it by looking totally bad-ass. Though I can't help think that the poor lighting maybe strategically masks a few design faults. Regardless, I really love those jet engine looking things and the antennas.

Have you ever found yourself watching Revenge of the Sith and wishing for a tiny horribly burnt, scarred and limbless ABS Anikan to clutch in your sweaty palm and stroke reassuringly? Well just enclose your cherished Anikan minifig of choice along with ten dollars USD in a self sealed envelope care of B-Shelf user Legomanics and he'll do the rest. Your Anakin will be crafted with the finest of dollar-store cigarette lighters and even comes included with a certificate guaranteeing depreciation. And according to Keika03 "if Anakin was still Anakin, the galaxy would be.." something like this rather cute little viggnette. Good to see that under good-Anikan's rule Galactic sanitation, public transport and public time-pieces are supported.

Here's a great L-Draw model of everyone's favourite trundling death machine, th e m am moth Tank. It's the version from that one Command & Conquer game that every one forgot about that's actually pretty good. Those slanted windows fit well and the way those arches curve over the shoulder and hip joints is simple yet really quite effective. Nice toe-hydraulics too. No matter what anyone says it's a true fact that we all need a strange robot walking cat at some point in our life and and anyone who says they don't lacks a soul. However it goes without saying that said robot cat lacks whiskers, an esential part of any cat be it organic or arterficial. If robot cats aren't your kinda thing maybe robotic spiders are more your kind of thing? Bounding straight from arachnid to Marsupial we have a robotic Mech Kangeroo by B-Shelf citizen Izzo. I get a feling of Deja Vu from this Moc like I feel like I've allready talked about it here and before. I just don't know, maybe I'm loosing my mind and tomorrow I'll wake up and my walls will be white and padded. Next there's a cool Alien head that looks like it has dentures. Despite being limited to a diet of mushy-peas this alien is quite cool just like this rather funky and poseable bot. Take note of the swept back robo-hair style. Here's some wheels for you whether you like 'em modern or steampunk and I adore this odd-fighter. I think it's the weird round orb-y cockpit shape combined with the cool wings that does it. Lastly, I discovered this really cool piano and an L-draw render with possibly one of the worst names of all time. Prove me wrong folks.

Maybe You Can Owe Me

2008-01-13T10:16:00.000-05:00

Wow. So I'm putting in my applications for University and College (for those state-side, they're two different types of schools altogether up here) and suddenly it's dawning on me that things are going to change a lot and soon. While I don't have to go through any stressful single life-determining test like Tom did, they still don't make your last year of high school any easier; I don't foresee any building from me until summer and depending on where I'm going to be calling home next year, summer could be optimistic.

Today's feature is from Adrian Florea. Any space builder probably knows that Homeworld and it's sequel(s?) are prime inspiration for the community and many play the game religiously, and even those who don't still know more than they should about the various ships. Today Adrian (or Olog) brings us his Vaygr Bomber. At first look I actually thought he was posting more concept art, his photos have been done to mimic the colour scheme and organisation of the art. One aspect of building that is being experimented with more lately is this concept of crowded colour schemes that work. We all know what a rainbow warrior looks like, and that's not what these are. It probably got a kick start when Peter Morris' work starting getting attention, and then when he finally joined the community - from there various builder have been tooling with the idea that colour schemes don't need to be as rigid and clean as they usually are; no longer builders fear throwing in elements of random colour! Of course, I'm not recommending that you start tacking on colours at random, some thought still needs to go into this. Tim Z (Spook) has taken on the idea and executes it quite nicely, his building style is very akin to the concepts of Homeworld - which is where this dirta-chrome idea probably took off from originally.

Back on topic, Adrian comes through with this idea and what you get it something that just doesn't resemble LEGO bricks until you look for studs. His repetition of the zebra stripe likes to play funny tricks with your eyes and instantly gives the model this bizarre sort of dynamic unity of form - it's like a weak optical illusion that you can't stop starring at. The jagged edges and red pontoons(?) keep the entire form contained and definitely add a deadly look to it.
On top of this, I think he took the photos outside: and it looks pretty cold. What dedication.

What Planet is This?

2007-12-31T12:00:00.000-05:00

I remember when I was a kid reading a book about future predictions that was written in the early seventies and being amazed by it. Then just last week I rediscovered the same book and was blown away by it once again. For example do you know that by the year 2015 we'll be living in cities on the moon and using magnetic tape to record sound, data and audio? I also discovered Paleo-Future which is a fascinating little blog that specialises in showcasing the future that never was. Simply put, a collection of future predictions from as far back as the 1880's. My fav would have to be Quasar and it's curiously named buddy "Maid Without Tears" M.W.T doesn't look like the kind of robot that would be content with serving tea as snapping spines clean in half looks more like its kind of thing. Quasar is slightly less intimidating due to looking somewhat like a piece from a snakes and ladders game. Don't let that catch you off guard though because rest assured it's probably the brains behind the robot revolution against humanity. Don't drink that tea, lady! This amusing post shows off some Parisian artwork made in 1910 envisioning what life would be like in the year 2000. I love how in the future personal flying machines and drive-by wine waiters co-exisit so happily and how mechanical arms will do everything for us.

Another one of my discoveries was the exceptional conceptart.org which is incredibly useful for dissolving particully stubborn builders block. The concept art ranges from pictures of freaky genetic freaks of nature all the way to intergalactic starships and Mechs. And now it looks like it's time for a word from our sponsor.

Tired of your old cramped Moonrover and the way that it stuggles to accend the sides of even the feeblest craters? Do onlookers laugh at your outdated Starcrusher-battlecruiser that takes hours to disintergrate a single planetoid? Or maybe you're just in the market for a new family starwagon? Here at honest Frank's Intergalactics we've got a huge range, I guarentee it that I've got a good deal for you right here. Just take a step into the lot.
The Y-24 Spiral is quite a dreamy piece of geometry suitable for your next bombing raid, cosmic assault or freighter escort operation and it's only had one previous owner, a Mr Paul Cyberhawk who only used it on Sundays to take it out on planetary assaults. That's not your kinda thing eh? Well if you're looking for something more in a giant arachnid killing machine well I've got just the ticket for you. The Lime-Quad is just what you're looking for with only one previous owner a gentleman by the name of Mr. Shine. It features excellent rear suspension, leather trim and it's one of the easiest Spider Mechs on the market to park thanks to the abdomen mounted rear vision camera.

Now come over and have a look at this here Starfighter, what a beauty we just got this in on Thursday off a bloke by the name of Jeremy. It's called the Avarice and its got an excellent warp-drive that'll take you from here to Jupiter and back in the blink of a Morlocks eye. Some people say those old geared thrusters are a little dodgy on these early models but I wouldn't listen to them. But if you're looking for more of an anti-fleet starfighter I'd suggest the Spiteful Dagger from Alan-Industries which features quite a lovely paint scheme and comes with bonus optional extras such as sunroof and external heavy blaster pods. Just don't put excess weight on the struts as they tend to bend on these older models. I know your type, you're looking for a freighter for heavy hauling aren't ya? I shouldn't be telling you this but out the back we've got some new stock out back that you might be interested in so let's just say it fell off the back of a truck shall we? Well go no further then a genuine Patrick Patwood series S pa cesh ip Parts Freighter which is a quality piece of machinery. Check out the sleek skeletal H-Superframe and the roomy bridge which features an excellent view and for a small extra charge I'll throw in a coat of aero-shine to protect that lovely finish. So how about it, interested in buying anything so far? Well, come back anytime then..

A drum role is required for the introduction of next segment but since we've blown the intire Masoko Tanga budget on elaborate sportscars and labor saving mechanical arms you'll just have to imagine one. Start those drums right now as I announce this weeks Award 'o' Shame winner which was sent in to me via anonymous email. Some person by the name of tomm has decided to grace Brickshelf with pictures in glorious of a weird blue thing which is either some kind of adult toy or a salad eating utensil. After further perusal of his gallery I discovered something that everyone should experience at least once in their lives. Tiny custom Mythbusters Minifigs which are quite accurate and quite creepy. Congratulation tomm, enjoy your award. Feel like getting involved in the spirit 'O' shame? Anything done by the Lego Community or by TLC is elegible for the award, if you wish to dob something in please shoot off an email to me or leave a comment below with the details or url. If you're nomination is chosen you might win an exciting prize like a monogrammed Jpeg image or maybe even an enveolope full of irrelevant newspaper clippings. Wow.

The time has come and we've reached the end of another post, whether you've been a long time reader or if this is your first time I'd like to say thanks. And tonight whether you be with partying with friends and family, drilling for oil on one of our nations many oil-rigs or serving time in one of our nations fine penitentiary's have yourself a happy new year.

Synaptic Circuits De-luxe

2007-11-26T00:25:00.000-05:00

As usual, apologies for the lack of updates. This time of year is far too hectic and way too time consuming for everyone as you all no doubt know from personal experience. Rather than building further upon that rant I'd rather just jump right into the Mocs straight away starting out with the entries for Goldman's control the action comp first.

Tukguy's Analyze is best described as a Medical examination that would not be too fun. There 'aint no lolly pop at the end of this ride but it looks as if there may be a one or two during the ride, all-though probably icy-cold, stainless steel and fairly unpleasant. It's got cool hose usage and Minfig cleavage but not nearly enough spinning blades of medical death in my opinion. Note the rows of hoses sitting offside looking rather unsettling. I love the array of lights, bells and whistles arranged above the MRI machine reminding me of a pilot-fish using its natural light to lure the unwary into its maw.
Arpy brings us "Incompetencing the world to its doom"which teaches us valuable life lessons such as that opening up an intergalactic conduit between universes is a bad idea if you're just the janitor. And also that parallel dimensions are not all inhabited by future Dystopian society's and mustachioed evil dopplegangers but sometimes by pan-galactic monkeys with neon hooks. I adore the little greeble pit on the left and the Bionicle parts usage on this Moc is gorgeous. Just check out the way that the orange tubing is weaved through the ball sockets to create a rim around that X-pod middle which then expands outwards into a weird tentacled battering ram tipped with a silver Bohrok hand shield. Lovely.
Yoder satisfies the blood-thirsty side of us all by showing us the titular 'Better Axe Somebody' If you're Friday nights always seem to be terribly dull and passive why not take the family out to the Friday night Axe fights? Enjoy the excellent slanted killing floor, marvel at the cages behind the fighters which no doubt house wild beasts and socialise with hordes of fellow blood crazy spectators. Don't forget to admire the skeletons in the pit too. BYO melee weapon.

The short and fast Moc round-up starts here with Legoloverman Blue Canary which mixes old-space with new-space with sexy results. The solar panels on Bluetiger7's S2 satellite are constructed with rows of trans-smoke 1x6 slopes which look fantastic . Also from the same guy there's a nifty little space caravan with a compact design to be admired. The Riqueza gas miner shows that Jerac's Microscale stuff just keeps getting better and better. It's got detachable containers, teeny tiny hangers, gas tanks and lots more. Another venture into the world of Microscale is the SORS Romeo 3 by Arpy, the runway and the the docking claw score definite points. And finally from B-shelf user Giters there's an unusual snub nosed work in progress, nice work keeping the shape streamlined and I think the canopy placement looks pretty darn good

Now I present a new regular feature for my posts. It all started when my constant and violent abuse of the random folder button brought me to Rweseloh89's B-shelf gallery. Deep in its murky depths on a dusty and forgotten shelf I discovered the frankly amazing and self explanatory "Award 'O' Shame". I thought it was such a good idea that I decided to steal it. This week the first Award 'O' Shame goes out to Brickshelf user Sheep33177 who was so elated with his Spongebob minifigs that he decided to photograph and post them into and under every single folder category on B-shelf. The runner up is Pepa Quin and his Mouse Droid which was also discovered on B-shelf. Thank you for your contribution Mr. Quin but I'm afraid nine slightly varying pictures of the same three piece droid isn't nearly enough. Also, I was severly disappointed in the lack of instructions. Congrats to our winners. If you've got someone or something in the Lego Community or Company you would like to nominate for the prestigious Award 'O' Shame just shoot of an email to me, leave a comment or perhaps shoot off a flare or two into the air. Groovy..

Now finally here's today's random Brickshelf gallery find of the day is the Lig htn ing hotrod which includes a Lego John Travolta. But don't let that spoil this great little Moc for you, I think this Moc belongs to that fifties movie Grease but I'm not sure. I've never seen the Movie but I feel incredibly dirty for knowing that its features dated teenage rebellion musical numbers and stared Olivia Newton John. Now if you'll excuse me, at twelve I'm booked in for a lobotomy at the Analyze med table in to remove all knowledge of the film "Grease" because I feel terribly dirty. It's either that or the slightly cheaper option of good ol' bleach and steel wool.

In Rainbows

2007-11-18T22:26:00.001-05:00

Good evening everyone. I'm usually apologizing for a lack of updates, and I could continue this trend but beating a dead horse isn't very fun. I'm in that last year of school where you have to decide what the hell you want to do with your life and apparently there is a lot of work to go along with that. Had a nice holiday in the form of a school trip to Italy, it was real nice to be somewhere else for a while. Plenty of shots on flickr from that trip, and there'll probably be more come Christmas when I get a full account. Here are some pretty examples:

So with my mind still in other places and boat loads of work ahead of me, LEGO has essentially been put on the back burner. I haven't even really been keeping up on most everybody else's work. So far be it for me to try and keep you posted and informed on current works, when I myself am not. This would be a post where brickshelf's random feature is highly lucrative and ideal - however the days where said feature would be ideal and the days where said feature actually produce ideal results must run on separate calenders. Instead, I did indeed find a recent piece. A piece, as in one, so I'll try and make this long winded.

I don't really think the Arvo brothers have actually ever made anything that on some level (most often on many) I don't love. I choose the term love over like here because there's a hint of jealously and admiration, as opposed to just general interest. Their recent make of Giger's Alien is creepy, smooth, and organic and inorganic in the same TV dinner. There's a certain feeling in this, and most arvo pieces, that every element put into place on the final model is the only one that would work. Every element flows so well that you stop looking at the model as a collaboration of different shaped ABS blocks and more as something that has been sculpted. Each section moves so seamlessly into the next that the model transcends its own medium - which I believe is a concept I've ushered as one of instant gratification on this blog. Adding to this is the idea that the build itself still isn't enough. If the Arvos had simply built this Alien, posed it in some classical contrapposto with less movement than a mortared brick and taken the photos in a gloomy basement apartment with the flash on - chances are it would still be seen as a high point of building achievement. That, however, is not what we get. What we get is an Alien in some sort of dynamic post-kill contemplating pose (with drool for extra glam) captured with such beautiful photographs that even if I put the Lego builder in me aside, the photographer in me steps forward to give worship. All this knowing how hard black Lego bricks are to photograph.

True to Giger's vision (award for the most phallic head ever), the Arvo's produce another stunning work. And with that I'll probably be silent for sometime again, so if you would mind Laura, get me home tonight.

Fed and Watered

2007-10-22T00:00:00.000-04:00

Rather than boring you with boring tales of an ultimately inane and crap-ulouse nature I'd thought I'd strap on my goggles and bathing cap and dive headfirst into today's Moc's straight away.

Introducing the titular Jaguar Force mecha by corebookg7 of Brickshelf. I have no idea if this Moc is an official alternate model or just a fan built alternate but either way it's a pretty fancy looking feline vision of loveliness. The side boosters/ cannons look right out of some fancy anime mecha show and those paw/toe claw wrenches are quite cute as is the sword-tail.
The cockpit on this however is quite crap, pull the minifig out and it'd look about a hundred times better. At top speed, (assuming he hasn't fallen out by then) the poor guy would have a spine similar in appearance and density to that of a large sock filled with lemon jelly.
Having nothing to do with either footwear or sugary desserts is the MaK Fireball SG which is a lovely old fashion diving bell style hardsuit by Tromas. The hatches on this thing are absolutely ace with no pun intended, the ace and bullet hole decals add a lovely layer of personality to an otherwise fairly drab Moc. And I like that little spoiler thing sticking out of the shoulder chillin' on the back there. But's this Mech's suffering an ailment that's seems common to a lot of mechs, the dreaded tiny feet syndrome. Niels Bugge's Railgun spider might have a lame name but it doesn't suffer the small feet disorder most likely due to the fact that it's an awesome phallic spider cannon death machine usefull for defending planets and shooting cans. The big gun of the Spiders namesake is fairly impressive. I love the way the monorail noses form an attractive boomerang/ U shape which sandwiches in the greebles like tasty cream filling. Great use of cockpit domes, the ones behind the gun stacked up in that peculiar vending machine/ can dispensing machine fashion are uniquely awesome. The cockpit placement on this couldn't be more perfect.

Also under the Lame parts contest umbrella we have the Anti Satellite patrol bug gy which features a slightly smaller gun but however utilises a Castle Roof and a basketball hoop in an interesting way. It's even got a little control room instead of a back seat which is not really a room as such but more of a control-hole for the techs to sit down in and do some serious controllin' and shootin'. In a minor nitpick it's a shame that those windshields aren't made in a six stud length variety, cause the 4x4 one is adequate but ultimately sucky.
The Accentor by Nic Dean has a crap name that makes it sound more like a brand of escalator than a VTOL killing machine. Any boring and generic name like the 'Predator', 'The Stalker' or the'Phantom Sky Cougar Delux' would be way better. Trivialities aside it has some decent but fragile looking rotors and a really neat flowing tail design. The ramp is cool but I can't help wonder just how much you can fit in the interior which is hopefully practical and not just for looks. Which is precisely what Felix Brun's Spacecrane v2.0 is all about, a beautiful exercise in function over form. A lovely old-school cockpit choice and two big pneumatic cylinders on top which look great but there really is an absence of hoses. Surely a solid and manly industrial craft such as this needs far more hoses to pump around various fluids which are no doubt vital to lifting stuff.

David C's Crimson Angel support craft is pretty cool, what stands out on this for me is the engines that sit neatly tucked in underneath the lame-part cowling. But the rest of it to me seems fairly boring as I feel like I've seen it before. Hippotam has built a handy Space roller which is just dandy for dealing with the pot-holed space-roads and troublesome protesters of the future. I particularly like the sporty stabiliser fins and the knee height doors. Who here hasn't found themselves sitting and thinking to themselves that construction vehicles also need fancy sports versions? Just imagine a star studded movie premier with all glitz, glamour and fancy cars. Rolling up to the red carpet is a sleek cherry red cement mixer with thick black tinted windows. The Gull wings doors elegantly slide upwards open. It's Ferrari's newest model of course, the Concrete Panther. On slightly less insane plane of thought there this Hardsuit by Incayne with is kind of similar to the diving bell hardsuit that was observed earlier but much more jolly and plump. And it gets bonus points because it shares a name after a totally awesome song and because it's also packin' a shoulder mounted spoiler too. Ley Ward/ Whateverly's has presented the Eye in the Sky which is a huge space donut thing that features a cool focusing ring of transparent goodness that shoots lasers. I guess it kind of looks like a gigantic magnifying glass with a broken handle.

Also, I saw this on B-shelf and thought it was somewhat kinda cool. May it bring much joy & happiness.

Death is the Road to Awe (dancing with myself)

2007-09-13T21:40:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the lack of posts from me, I went on vacation. I didn't build much over the summer, threw out some stuff at the end, but now I'm in school and the building is grinding to a halt. But, I have been working on the website! You may have noticed the header change here to better fit in with the main page. So check out http://masokotanga.unicornbreak.com to see the intro page that took me much longer than it should have! Both sections are up, however the extent of both is limited. The galleries all look fine for me, but apparently the font didn't embed because whenever I view a gallery on another computer all the writing is 'off'. Sigh. The Art section of the new website is sauntering along, the galleries there will be similar but different in presentation. Making a website is quite the frustrating project, and unlike the guys at Next-Gen Design I don't have Kepplah to code monkey for me. Also, watch 'The Fountain', buy the soundtrack, and die happy.

This post has been mulled over for a while, so I'm not going to give much of the average variety. No, today's update will run more like The Histories than any sort of review show. Today I'm going to look at my preferred topic, Microspace, in retrospect. A search on Lugnet of 'Micro' and 'Space' comes up with a few topics reaching back 11 years, with MOC topics showing up around 9 years and the first with pictures still accessible at 7 years ago. There's a topic from Jon Palmer talking with Mark Sandlin about what would become Zemi's SHIP Gallery (also 7 years ago), 6 years ago Bryce McGlone talks about a Japanese page of micro-mecha originally link to by a fellow by the name of David Perry - the page has since moved and my amazing ability to not understand the Japanese language leaves me to think said content is long gone.
This seems to be the main problem with looking this far back into the LEGO community's past without any real strategy or tangible sources; links dry up and folders are lost to the ages. However, one sees the names of those who are quite famous in the community today, Mladen talking about some micro-mecha, a link to a page once containing some works from Ken Takeuchi. I guess that is one problem of not being in community back then.
I think microspace has always been at least the hidden passion of some LEGO builders, the more popular solution is to build space ships in scale to Mini-figures, this gives a better sense of realism and allows for a pretty detailed interior - featuring spacemen. But somewhere, someone never has enough pieces to build their dream boat in scale to a mini-figure. What do you do? One way to realise the vision, at least partly, is to build it at a reduced scale. While I wouldn't say microscale was a bastard child of the space community (it was liked) it never garnered any glory or popularity until it's first mention on the Lugnet .Space Timeline: "Paul Baulch takes microfig scale to a whole new level". These are among my favourite all time LEGO creations, and the most inspiring: The Lance of Athena, and The Empyrean Flame. I think any space builder who knows which end of a drill bit to use knows at least one of those names and the creation behind it. Those two ships really gave microscale a name, and started a slow rise in microspace building. They were built a while ago if you judge it against a time-line of the community - against a time-line of LEGO, the revolution of more shaped slopes had come, though not to the extent we enjoy today. As it was, the Lance did something that few had really seen with any larger build (whatever scale it may be): it had shape. This wasn't your everyday box with decorations of Greebs and guns, this was the real deal. Both are huge, representing an enormous investment in parts seen most effectively in the repetition of numerous types of slopes. Both the Lance and the Flame are great milestones in Microspace, and though techniques may have improved you could argue that we've never really seen anything of their stature since.
Things become a little harder to trace in a timeline from here, I turn to the search engine on Classic-Space to see what comes up. There's a few results that talk about micro-gravity and renders, a few small ships by Sastrei, some of my own earlier attempts. Over all there's some interest in mircoscale but nothing monumental.
So the next great piece I found was the micro dioramas of Mark J. Stafford. Great because they were an entire setting of micro, one could see how different pieces interacted with each other and in turn create a better sense of scale between them all. The Octan Refinery does a few things: it shows us the great extent greebles can have on micro, they're not the same as greebs at minifig scale but work to convey more robust industrial workings of a ship (or anything else); it also shows the effective use that simple slopes can be put to to achieve shape. Baulch's big work showed this to some extent, but the size of his two more well known ships defeated this aspect.
The refinery seems to have opened up a new can of Microscale, and the summer of 2006 is filled with wondrous creations from a plethora of builders: Peter Reid, and Justin Vaughn. It was about this time, spring '06, that I began to try and microscale in earnest. I'd been building for a few years now, but it wasn't until Mike Yoder came on the scene that I really wanted to try and be better. I think Mike said once that it was some of my microscale that helped inspire him to build microspace himself, so I felt obliged to try and offer some friendly competition when he floored me with his awesome building skills. The result of this was the Lancaster, the first in a series of three capital ships that were an on-going experiment for me. I feel like sometimes I build in stages, currently I'm trying to design civilian ships and see what space is like from a non-military view. When I built the Lancaster I was trying to build a capital ship - what does a ship need to be a flagship? It must be big, powerful, but must be a multi-role ship. But every ship needs to have some focus to it, otherwise it's slightly good at everything but very good at nothing. After the Lancaster was the Emperius, now with focus on a carrier and long range weaponry. It was still missing something, and I grasped for over half a year to find the right design. I was no longer sure what it was I was looking for however. Mike continued to kick ass, and the building genre was growing (and growing). When I finally pumped out the Eos, after I think seven separate attempted builds, I felt that I reached a milestone. The Eos itself was a pretty shapeless ship, and yet somehow I still admire its beauty - I achieved with it a great advancement in my skills concerning its individual parts, even if as a whole it was visually disengaging. But as I pushed my limits with larger ships, a new builder was experimenting with more manageable sizes: Spook. When I first saw Spook's microscale it was a little chunky and uninteresting, but his skills grew quickly and he soon surpassed me with both style and skill.
Microscale as a building genre was now quite established and diverse. Content that the style had picked up, I turned back to my own progression as a builder. I had achieved what I wanted in terms of technique, so I turned to experimenting with shape. I had quite a few stagnant ideas sitting around from my quest for the Eos, so I knew where to start. I wanted big guns, and classic style. This came together in the Argos, which of all my ships contains the most striking shape - especially for it's size. By now everyone was looking to try their hand at a microscale design, but it wasn't the typical fad bandwagon - it was a much slower build up and obviously is more open-ended than any fad. Lukas, J5N, not to mention Nnenn who had been building the scale for some time now. There was/is even talk about collaborating a microscale space base for conventions, along similar ideals of Moonbase; and rise of a special flickr group, one which breathes on a regular basis.

And there it is, a small history of Microspace. A little bias, and probably missing a lot, but there it is. The interesting thought I'd like to leave you with is this: What will the next generation write on this subject? Who will be remembered as doing what and what models in specific will earn respect as the time goes by. I'm sure there were more microspace builders back in Baulch's fame, but I wasn't there and now we see the things that get remembered.

Pushing the Sky

2007-09-10T00:00:00.000-04:00

Many apologies for the delay, my Internet connection has always been similar to that old couple in the beaten up flintstones-era car dragging a caravan at a whopping speed of 30 in the fast lane. Well that was my Internet, but now imagine that same car but the caravan is full of bricks and that the wheels mysteriously vanished a couple hundred miles ago. In short, 20.0 kbs Dial-up is a curse so terrible and vile that I wouldn't even dare bestow it upon my worst enemy and I miss my 40.kbs. Anywho, just yesterday I got to do something I've always been longing to do, I got into a plane which then climbed to about ten thousand feet and then the door opened and I stepped out of the side of it onto the little platform and jumped. Skydiving's a completely amazing and disorientating experience, nothing like weightlessness but probably as close to it as you can get without spending a few hundred thousand dollars I reckon.

Anyway, onto the Lego, the lame-parts space-defence contest deadline has been extended to the 23rd of September which is good news for both the lazy and those who had a legitimate excuse. (who are also lazy) Be sure to check out the competition as there's some fantastic entries.

Luke's Wipeout inspired Orbit Racer is undeniably blocky but I think that's a main part of its charm. It's been quite a while since I've played Wipeout so I'm assuming the hinged panels on the wings are either Airbrakes or maitience hatches but whatever they are they're a fairly nifty and practical addition. I like the cockpit choice but I feel that the nose could be a little sharper. Peter Morris's Wraith has got a nice nose on it and some neat looking thrusters but the wings look a little uncoordinated. Kind of looks like a Star Wars version of a Wraith Dart from Stargate which makes it a good wing-man or adversary to the Buzzhawk which is also by Peter. The gears as thrusters arrangement looks really good as the gears do a way better job here than any cylinder, axel or wheel could. I love the mowhawk but I'm sure the blasters could do with some fattening up. In a similar vein we have the Jethawk from Adam Nies, it's got a nice colour scheme and I really love those compact winglets and their accompanying blue tipped thrusters. The Grey Gosling by Roy T Cook looks like some kind of bizarre amalgamation, it's a ship with a front like a semi-trailer and a rear end like and grey fluffy cloud, which is actually pretty cool so go check it out.

I've heard plentiful praise awarded to the Pc game Crimson Skies in the Space community so I finally gave in and picked it up. If you haven't heard of it, it's a Flight-Combat Pc game set in an alternate 1937 where nations and continents have been split into warring factions and where sky pirates and lawmen roam the friendly skies in a wide assortment of blimps, zeppelins and bizzaro fighters. I finally buckled and picked it up just yesterday but unfortunately it won't work properly for me as it doesn't get along with Nvidia graphics cards.
Problems regardless the combination home & hanger Zeppelins in Crimson Skies struck me as beautiful things both in design and concept and would be pretty amazing in Lego form if done well. I did some sleuthing and discovered that it doesn't take much research to learn that Lego Zepplins are fairly rare and illusive beasts. There are a handful of smaller ones but there's only one big one out there and that's Ash's rendered Daryabar. My research also confirmed my initial assumption that there are too many words for them, zeppelins, airships, dirigibles or a blimp or whatever you want to call them. Back to the first point, big blimps are in short supply but there's slightly more smaller ones out there thanks to that rare Adventurers balloon peice that's restricted to modest small Zepplins due to it's size. It's fairly obvious why there's a shortage of Airships, one being the obscurity of the aircraft and the second being all in the challenge of tackling the balloon and making it look good. You can't just sweep the problem under a convenient balloon shaped rug, because after all a Zepplin balloon would just look like a strange looking caravan wouldn't it? The midsection or waist of a big balloon could be easily done as with plates and click hinges to produce a big hexagonal cylinder preferably with tiles over its surface to make it nice, smooth and balloon like. That's the easy part done, the hard part lies in capping off the ends off smoothly. Take the Darybar's ends for example, they've been capped but the technique used to cap them doesn't look very balloon like.
Moving onto new ground there's two Mocs that I know of out there that aren't Zeplins but similar to the original Crimson Skies multipurpose Zepplin vein, those being Adrian Drake's Dewy and Nathan Proudlove's Mistral. The thing I like about the Mistral is that it has a ton of great details like the spikes surrounding the gunner the mass of pipes and of course not forgetting the bike sitting on the flight deck and those lovely big steam boilers. (Huzzah for Roborider wheels!)
The Mistral proves it's worth as a lovely steampunk craft but on the more whimsical side of the divide there's the Dewy which serves as the giant roasted chicken fighter-carrier of the skies. Like the Mistral, the Dewy has a great amount of detail both exterior and interior and looks great. The large scale application of the built up plate technique used to build the hull is simply fantastic. Perhaps this same technique would be perfect for the balloon on a big airship?

Now come on people, get your building caps on and let's see some great Lego Airships!

Wicked and Weird

2007-08-02T12:23:00.000-04:00

I recently journeyed to see Transformers, I know it's been out for a while now but my laziness is beside the point. It was allright, some unessacary silly bits mixed in with some really great bits and visual candy and maybe a wee bit too long but very enjoyable none-the-less. Afterwoods I got back home at about two 'o clock and immediately started rummaging around my room for the G1 and G2 transformers I owned as a kid. Unfortunately, Lady time has not been kind to them as they're all missing more than their fair share fair of various guns, limbs and other choking hazards. Regardless, they're still great for swooshing around ones desk with the all important accompanying engine & shooty sound effects even if they look like they've all been mugged.

Speaking of Transformers, Florea Adrian showcases his amazing Decepticon Shellshoc k Moc. I've always admired Lego Transformers, I think it goes with out saying that a lot of skill and patience must be invested in the model to ensure a balance of quality between the two forms. There's not much I can say about this that hasn't already been said. The Halftruck is a lot better than any Halftruck moc I've ever seen and would look completely at home in a WW2 diorama. The detail is brilliant as the front grill and towbar looks simply outstanding and I love the rear turret gun.The robot mode is quite awesome but it doesn't really have much character to it. Maybe that's just because the aesthetics of the more realistic and sleeker style of movie transformer don't lend themselves to as much character as the old bulky transformers from days of old.

One Moc that is simply not getting near enough love is Kev Levell's Hornet smuggling ship. It's easy to guess where the inspiration for this ship came from but I think there's plenty of variance and original touches in the design to diferententriate it from everyone's favourite Firefly class transport. For example the wedge slope forks on the wing tips are a homage to the Reaver ships in the series which had the same kind of thing going on. Though I think the engines are a little weak as to me they look more like last minute additions rather than a central part of the design. It would have been much better if the booster was incorporated into that lovely round and bulbous bee-rear-end. Despite the lack of thrusters on it I do like the stinger on the end as it adds a tiny bit of character to the ship which is good. The landing pads look really great but unfortunately due to they're size and complexity it doesn't look like they're retractable or fold-up-able which unfortunately means minus minus points in my book. This ship doesn't disappoint with smuggling compartments as it has a fair few. That Golden C-3po that's hiding in one surprised me as I had no idea that TLC had started making them chrome gold plated as opposed to the dull pearl-cream C-3po's of the past.

From Jerac a strange looking mechanical beasty known simply as Mechos or the Biterer. I don't know weather it's supposed to be organic or man-made but to me it looks vaguely like somekind of Alien Hybrid from the Alien fims that happens to be packing a pretty wicked pair of dentures that could easily fit around an elephant. Not forgetting the simple but effective red eyes that perfectly add alot of menace. I really like the design of those flat feet too, they're neato.
Zach brings us his unusual and interesting Microscale siege ship, The Oktober. All around it's a nice simple working design but maybe a bit too plain. I really like the orange on this but it's more of random splodges rather than a focused coulorscheme. I think a large scale ship would be great with an orange paintjob like this. As it's a colour that's usually confined to small creations and not given large scale application due to to uncommon nature of bulk orange bits I think. The slopes look nice on this but the bridge sticks out like a sore thumb and really needs a bit of trimming down and sleeking up. The engine design is really boring, dead boring. Much could be done to improve it, even a few bits of pipe and tube running alongside the axles would do visual wonders.
Yet another Slam variant, this one by Sir Bugge is shrunken down to pocketsize.Excellent use of that Dino midsection, it fits in quite smoothly. I really like the big nose mounted minigun on this, the little dog in the corner with the nasty bark. I can just imagine these things flying in formation a big swarm, like big metallic piloted space locusts.

The widespread occurrence of a global Lego building phenomena hit me the other day, one of which to my knowledge, shockingly goes without community acronym or title. (Gasp..) There it is, somekind of mind bogglingly complex part that you've been working on to perfect for the last few hours. One more piece and it's finished, the tiniest bit of excess pressure results in profanity when the Moc flings itself into multiple corners of the room. Usually the Profanity and shattering are a few seconds apart, the common builder will sit in dead stillness with whats left of the shattered remains lieing in his or her hands. It takes a few seconds of realisation and eyebrow twitching before the profanity kicks in. There is also another variant of this that has the same end result but occurs when one tries to alter something on an allready perfectly good finished model. There is no name for this global occurance and there is no cure, we're in the dark here people..

There's a Starman in the sky

2007-07-20T12:10:00.000-04:00

You could say this has been a turbulent week for the LEGO community, the ebb and flow of Brickshelf and the colourful opinions of the users who - used - it. The current outlook is that brickshelf will be available again at a price of $5/month. While I'm not one to object to the site wanting money - I don't want to imagine the bandwidth it sucks up! - I think the price is a little steep, especially if the site is to stay much the same way it is now, i.e.: without any real features. Suffice to say, though my opinion of that site and realization of its importance to the LEGO community, I don't think I continue to use it.

However, either way we must go on. So here's some LEGO courtesy of flickr galleries. First up here is some microspace by user J5N, some glorious dark grey and green ship and a robust looking space station. The space station was a response to Mike Yoder's own Space station, however is probably a little less suitable for any sort of standard than Mike's. I'll again emphasize the robustness of the station, it looks like some sort of piece you might find in an engine. Aside from the station, J5N has a small micro Strikeforce, an Advance Frigate, and the beginnings of a light carrier. It was actually the small ship that sits along side the space station that inspired my own current freighter project. It's funny how certain builders will build with specific colours, even if just for a few projects, and then those colours become something of a symbol for their building. If you see any microscale ships in yellow, most people would probably guess Yoder is behind them. Likewise, whenever I see dark grey and green I think of those industrial and somewhat gothic angles of J5N's microspace.

Next up is a ship from Moyblik blogger Lukas. Not particularly known for microscale, he proves that he has a wicked skill for the scaled building and a nigh topped colour blocking and coordination skill. The Asclepius is essentially an ambulance for space ships, named after the Greek and Latin demigod of healing and medicine. Definitely an interesting concept and something quite original. On to the construction, I think it's one of Lukas' best builds. The pointy shaping of the stripes is by far my favourite feature and really gives the ship a better sense of third-dimension. Carefully placed antennae and greebles add to the realism without becoming messy, and the lobster claw front bay is simply wicked.

Now we have Mike Yoder's microscale capital ship the Empire Son. Measuring in a 98 studs the Empire Son is nearly SHIP classification. The long and slender yellow body is decorated with white stripes and many docking arms and turrets, a few stickers, and an emblem from the good ol' 1999 Naboo Starfighter. It's pretty well armed too, it actually made me think if any of my ship's would stand up in a fight! I should mention that the thumbnail picture on the right here is actually of an earlier WIP version, but does however link to the finished MAJ gallery, I'm just a little sceptical of brickshelf and maj at the moment, probably without reason, so I'm just going to keep all the thumbnail's from elsewhere. Mike borrows from a number of sources with this ship, a small gunboat from Nnenn, and a turret from Simon Tzidik. Over all an interesting build, taught me a few things I have or will be sure to steal in the future.

Last is a bit of microscale from Tony Barth. Built in that Ken Tucky, Soren style. There's only one picture of this so far, so there isn't a whole lot to comment on, but this has wonderful shaping and colour blocking, and that greebley section near the aft end is love at first sight. It's a wonderful example of the angled brick hull technique, which I never have been able to use quite right. Excellent model, I hope for more.

Peace out, and remember to wait out the storm before jumping ship!

Something Blue

2007-07-17T00:00:00.000-04:00

Today on Brickshelf just one thing, one single and solitary message declaring the site discontinued. This isn't really a surprise to me, it's an event that I'm sure many of us have been expecting to occur at some unknown dark date for a long time now. Considering that B-shelf has been operating for at many years now as a free service with up only, advertisement, donations and upgraded member accounts to supplement massive running costs. Considering all that lot, I think it had a fairly good run. However, it was quite an rude and unfair move nuking the site without prior warning. A lot of history has been lost, the work of the many builders who have come and gone over the years turned into mere digital dust. This whole dilemma is going to have huge ramifications on the community, Brickshelf was at the dead centre of the vast Lego community web. What happens next is totally uncertain and unpredictable. Who knows, it might be down for good or might only be temporary the details are unknown. Best not to brood over unfortunate news or the probervial spilt milk, time for this weeks Moc sightings.

Peter Reid has built quite an interesting bot, powerful and intimidating yet also thin and frail and vunerable to the slighest breeze but oh-so gracefull. There's some awesome parts useage going on, the joint-tech is wonderful and I love the droid bodies on the forearms and you've just gotta love those deadly dexterous razor-tipped hands. Great hips too. Shame about the scrawny exposed ankles though, or the Achilles ankles in this bot's case. Not forgetting the the show off Red Vader helmets which are extremely cool and as one would guess as factory mistakes, also extremely rare.

This cargo carrying hover-skiff by Lego Kid strongly reminds me of the classic Rockraiders, albeit Rockraiders matured slightly with a greater focus on a streamlined and industrialised form. I really like the inclusion of the tail lights and the plentiful cargo storage on this but I feel that the front windscreen could be better implemented, either by removing it, refining it or removing at all together. Now that's something cool I'd like to see, Rockraiders reborn and as built by the fan community.
Be sure to check out Spook's newest Microscale creation, the Spinal Fury. It's a fantastic Alien-like microscale model that boasts a ton of character combined with a wonderful asymmetrical shape with great colouration. Not forgetting the name which is in its self is quite awesome. I particularly like the quad-pronged antenna setup. Quite unusual and attractive. Thought has even gone into the stand, it looks very sleek and elegant.

Next up two Moc cover versions or tribute versions, where the individual builder builds their versions of Moc's that have been previously built by another builder. A fantastic but rarely executed idea, it's always interesting to see the variations in individual style and technique manifested in the end result. Peter Morris has manifested this fairly nippy looking white ship which was based on Jamie Neufeld's Gunraven. It's a nice ship overall, but I'm not familiar with the original and I'm not overly sold on this remake. In both the original and the cover version I feel that in some small areas the slope work has been slightly overdone. Slopes are your friend most of the time, they can smooth things out a hundred percent or they'll just provide a poor mask for the blockyness. However on the remake, I'm quite partial to the simple but very effective rows of 1x1 slopes as heatsinks on the sides which look really good. Speaking of engines, I also like the the cones posing as maneuvering thrusters just behind the thuster. A quad thruster arrangement instead of the twin would look great, shame the Travis-brick doesn't have an inverted-stud brother so four thruster-cones could be accommodated instead.

Also from Peter Morris we have the Bat-Slam, of course based on Chris Giddens origin al classic model but as pimped out by Batman in his spare time. Very cool. I really like the way the wings fold down, makes me think of a dark and lofty barn in the middle of a dark and stormy night, inside; rows upon rows of these Bat-Slams hanging from the ceiling racks like bizarre Vampire-tie fighters ready for the taste of blood. (perhaps oil instead?)

Last but not least Mirandir, aka Johan Karlsson has built this fun and fast little Classic-Space style one-seater hovercraft or buzzcraft as I prefer. I like the ladder as an engine grill on this one and the landing rig on it is strangely quite cute. Nice work!

Life On Mars

2007-07-06T16:33:00.000-04:00

Hah, just completed the in-class portion of my Driver Ed class, wow was that boring. Hopefully the in-car lessons will make up for it, though perhaps it was just the idea of attending full day classes the 2 weeks into my vacation for a whole week tinted my opinion. A great TV show finished up it's first season just last saturday and it was one of the best shows I've seen, the name for those who've not made the connection is Life On Mars a British show with the basic premise of a modern cop waking up one day in 1973, he believes he is in a coma. I also recorded and watched Das Boot the other day, I would rather have seen a subtitled version - I hate dubs. Aside from that it was an awesome movie, really depicting the harsh life aboard a U-boat. To complete this intro: I also yesterday downloaded a Turbofax16 game called 'World Championship' and man is that a riot, nothing beats retro sports games.

First up is another Neo-Classic Space model! I can just hear your joy. Of course, me and Tom would never present you with the same things over and over - and this Neo-CS model is definitely a different one. Built by none other than our skilled friend Nnenn, the Ula-kit 319 takes conventional CS shapes and throws them out the window without a thought. At first glance I thought this was some Microscale creation, but upon further inspection found that it's only Nnenn being creative with Canopy pieces - there is a classic looking pilot tucked away in there. With a distinct Japanese feel to it, the Ula-kit looks as much deadly as fragile. I'm absolutely in love with the cockpit and all it's knobbly shapes and SNOT construction. A work to be studied and admired. A warning to purists though, if you're still unaware Nnenn is famous (even infamous) for his use of clone brands and what some may consider crimes against the brick. While not a lot of this bothers me, I would hate to unintentionally offend my readers. This will however be the only warning I will give.

Next is some microscale from a builder fairly new to the CSF circuit: Martin (or is it Marcin?). At first glance, you can just tell what this is - and that's probably why I love it. Clearly from one picture I can see a hanger, a bridge with a plethora of sensors, and overall more greebs than you can shake a stick at. But as with most LEGO models, and most especially larger microspace creations, getting into the small details is where the magic is. My favourite details on the Terrestrial are the sunken gun emplacements, this is something that has never occurred to me while building and I don't really know why, it's genius! This model features excellent colour blocking and greebs to make anyone envious - and Martin doesn't stop with just sunken greeb pits, grey greebs hang off the side of the cruiser and keep it from looking even a little too plain. Bravo, and keep a watch on this one.

To finish off I've got not another model but a new flickr group (sorry tom!). Now I know what you're saying, "oh dear god(s) and all that is holy, not another flickr group" and I was a little sceptical at first about it as well, thinking that it would fade into a stale floater like the majority of Lego flickr groups do - but I think we're all making a concentrated effort to keep this fish swimming: Microspacetopia. It's name gives away a few things about the group, it's about microscale space, and everyone (except those who chose not) is an admin. The idea being that giving everyone an equal share in power would motivate them to be an active part of the group. So far the group is rolling along at a steady pace, though it is still early. Check the place out and be sure to contribute if you build microspace yourself, or if you don't - don't be afraid to leave an outside opinion.

Bone Broke

2007-06-23T11:29:00.000-04:00

School is over. Those last couple weeks were a pain in the arse, but it's done. So what does this mean? Well, hopefully it means I'll be back on the building circuit - I thought I might go the way of Tom there for a while (jokes). Of course, I give Tom a pat on the back for that interview, maybe I'll top it one day. Getting out of school also means I'll have time to renovate Masoko Tanga, again! I've been wanting to try and separate the Art from the Lego, because I think the Art deserves a larger and more devoted section. So I'm going to work on some flash galleries very akin to those on my sister's new site: Unicorn Break, easier browsing and I'll still leave links to brickshelf for those larger images. In the end I think it'll be much more streamlined and organized (as far as the coding/design goes!), really the idea is to make the site more of a gallery layout as opposed to the news like layout it has now. The design involves this lovely piece of Space Art I did: [link].

Onto today's features. We'll start with a quick glance at some Neo-Classic Space by Peter Reid (legoloverman). It definitely leaves behind most CS conventions, yet still conveys the theme - it's that instantly recognizable colour scheme, pulled off with much excellence here by Peter. The modernization continued even to the figs, which feature newer faces and the modern style helmet. One thing I must add, there's no elegance to this model, I might go far enough to suggest the concept is actually quite ugly - one betrayal of the original theme, while boxy and rigid it still carried a sense of elegance that this misses.

Peter Morris built some mircoscale, one of which near rivals Baulch in shear size: The Asteroid Processor/Harvester. So wow. That's pretty damn big. Peter's messy building style comes in handy with this one, giving a true slapped together industrial spacecraft look. Adding to it's grace is a series of pictures that show the ship processing an asteroid, this ship was built with it's intended purpose in mind and that wins some bonus points. Numerous secondary details, like the pumps and hoses that enable the ship to link up with Peter's Bulk Transport really help in giving the ship a blanket of support. It's not enough to be believable on your own, providing a working backdrop really heightens the realism.

Lastly we have a microscale sci-fi city design by brickshelf user Sly420. It makes use of the abstract shapes of many well known pieces to achieve a believable city scape. Yes, that is a rocket tail - but what if I use it like this? Using pieces to this effect always generates praise, perhaps this isn't the most ground breaking example but it fits the general theme. There's not too much to say about this one, but take a good look at it and make use of the various techniques they employ throughout it's construction.

How We Operate

2007-06-20T18:30:00.000-04:00

An article or two back I did a spotlight on an amazing Lego sculpturer who goes by the name of Arvo. Arvo, aka building brothers Ramón and Amador recently agreed to an interview for Masoko Tanga.
...

Tom: Well first of all, Ramón & Amador thanks for your time and the interview. I've heard that you two guys are brothers, joint building partnerships like that are fairly uncommon in the Lego community as far as I know. How does that work out? Do you both work on the same model or do you both work on individual projects?

Ramón & Amador: Exactly, we are two brothers and we imagine that it is not a very usual case. But overall we are friends and we always have had the same interests, VideoGames, Films, LEGO, music. All our MOCS are done by both, we take the initiative from a suggestion, an idea or a recollection so that we both contribute ideas. For example; while my brother tries some technic in a certain part of a MOC I can suggest some modification or even to construct the modification, or construct in another zone. In the Ford GT each one constructed a different part, but always together in permanent communication. This is the most important aspect; communication. Even in the small MOCs this is our way. I remember when we did the "Headphones", four hands are too many hands in this cases but it is the only way of constructing that we know, to construct together is very fun.

Tom: Your models quite often have very intricate and complex designs. Before you guys start work on a Moc, do you plan the design out before-hand in anyway such as L-Draw or just quick pencil and pen sketchbook sketches?

Ramón & Amador: Each MOC has its own beginning, sometimes we begin with some sketches in LDraw. In this program we put parts together like a "puzzle". This program serves us to know if it is possible to obtain certain forms. We do not worry about joining the pieces inside the program, we are only interested in obtaining the form. Obtaining the form is the most difficult thing, to join these pieces it is only a problem of technic that is normally relatively easy to resolve. However, almost always we start by constructing directly with bricks.. on the bed!, the most comfortable place of the world to construct.. you can rest and play without moving of this place.. incredible! To construct directly with bricks is the fastest way, and the best way of knowing what pieces we will need. Anyway, before this, we obtain all the possible pics of the object that we want, we take measurements and concentrate on those more important details. This step is very important for us, although it is not always possible.

Tom: A lot of people have commented that your work looks like that of an engineer. Do you guys have any background in engineering or arts or similar fields?

Ramón & Amador: In fact we are engineers, we work in different companies but every day we join for a few hours to speak or to play LEGO. We suppose that this is related to our technic of constructing but not so much with our conception of the forms. Since our childhood we have been acquainted with the plastic arts thanks to the studio of painting and sculpture that our mother has always had. We were growing up and discovered music, the music is a perfect complement to the image. We dedicated years to make music for advertising which allowed us to accede to software design. Our first videoclips were made with LDraw. LEGO + Electronic music is a perfect combination.

Tom: Looking at your B-Shelf gallery I see a lot of cars and a wide variety of creations from varying themes like Akira, video games and Alien. What kind of Mocs do you most enjoy building and is there anything in particular that you guys tend to draw a lot of inspiration from?

Ramón & Amador: Yes, it's true. Although we feel very comfortable constructing vehicles (the references are in the street!) every time we feel the need to construct other things. All our references come from our childhood and adolescence. The Seat 131 of our mother, the Vespa P200 of our father, the typewriter of our sisters, all the 80 and 90's videogames, even some animation films and comics. Nowadays there are two projects in our mind, the first one is to continue the Alien theme with a sculpture of the adult Alien and the second one is to do a sculpture of Ironman, our favourite superhero. We are also studying to translate the human musculature into the LEGO-language to emulate it.. and we’ll probably start in a few weeks.

Meanwhile we continue making little MOCs. Really, smaller MOCs are more fun to construct!
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Many thanks to Amador and Ramón for their time and for a very insightful interview! You can check out all of their creations right here on B-Shelf. Also thanks goes out to Mike who was the original owner of the Lego blog interview idea before I blatantly stole it for my own deviouse ends.

Music When The Lights Go Out

2007-06-09T20:21:00.000-04:00

Sincerest apologies for the drought, this last week of school is hectic. School, friends, and a recent addiction to Empire At War (in that order) have taken up large amounts of time. I'm really all written out at the moment, so this post won't be very long, as is the usual custom here.

If you're not privy to my love of Neo-CS then you should have someone throw rocks at you, however, if that doesn't tickle your fancy then you can take a gander b-shelf user DrClark1's au courant Classic Space Cruiser LL924. Featuring two toned grey hull with blue secondary colour, complete range of 'accessories' [read as: weapons], room for two persons, dual analogue controls w/ 22 character type pad, and personal mechanic.

CS member Carterbaldwin built a Homeworld-esque fighter craft. Featuring a beautifully crafted silhouette, modern and stylish colour patterning, adequate warning labels, and a choice between a main colour theme of grey or red. Well done.
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Lastly, here's a polychrome Roman temple done in an relatively Ionic style. BTW: I'm a sucker for classical architecture.

Riders on the Storm

2007-06-06T04:39:00.000-04:00

Apologies for the recent updates drought lately, it seems it's been a fairly busy and hectic part of the year for a lot of us recently. Anywho just a quick post today, a short wrap up of the last week or so's recent Mocs and the usual ramblings you've come to expect from me.

With the sheer overabundance of fighters doing the rounds pretty much everywhere these days it's always pleasing to see variation in the standard fighter-formula rear it's head every now and then. Bernard Wiseman's Jet Trainer is one of those, it's not one of those all-too-common armed to the proverbial teeth starfighters you’ve seen a million times before, just a simple jet for learning the basics. All those budding ace pilots had to learn in the first place didn't they? All those young and starry eyed Starbuck's, Skywalker’s and Yeager's all had their training wings firmly affixed at some point. If you can't tell all ready, I really like this little trainer. I love the way the fins are arranged around the central thruster, simply beautiful! Nice wings too, that ugly clunky nose could do with a little cosmetic surgery though. And notice the neat pop-out landing gear and the simple but effective double-seating pill canopy. It even has a ground crew and a refuelling station, such detail is a definite plus in my book. The ladder is great, I must remember that design for my own devious usage. We defiantly need more Mocs like this, how about some more Trainers and perhaps even some support craft like re-fuelers and ECW craft? Where are the top-secret and horribly unstable test aircraft piloted by handsome dare devils with a devil-may-care attitude and an overpowering stink of dollar-store hair gel?

Remember that scene from Aliens with the oblivious Jordan family cruising onwards towards certain doom in their trusty family surface rover that looked like the bastard off-spring of a moon-rover an armoured car a big-rig and the family sedan? Yeah, that's the first thing that came to mind when I first set my eyes on Yoder' lunar Pick-Em-up Truck. It's packed with some very nice features, for example check out the extremely cushy interior. And as a plus there's plenty of room in the back to store stuff, not just stuff but a lot of stuff; boxes ,toxic chemical waste, Alien eggs. You name it, it can carry it. (Maybe..) Excellent sticker use there with the familiar yellow and black caution markings on the steps and the exo-force ident-numbers stuck on the roof. Excellent!

Also in the Rover category we have Legohaulic’s Moon Jalopy. I was expecting a run down crank driven rover when I read the title, but instead I was greeted with quite a sleek and sporty looking moon cruiser. Jolly good show old chap!Be sure to check out Jerac’s very swish devolved X-Wing. I love the idea of this one, literal reverse engineering of the original X-Wing to make it look like it flew out of something steam-punk related. Gotta love those nifty flippy flappety wings. Also in the Moc cards this week Nathaniel Mollen’s extremely nifty PCS L.A.M.P made an apearance, great rounded wings there and a nice unusual shape.

Twin Layers of Lightning

2007-05-17T00:26:00.000-04:00

I have to agree with Brenden's sentiments on Children of Men, it's quite an amazing movie and if you haven't seen it already or are planning to, get your hands on a copy immediately in any way shape or form. Some brilliant ideas and concepts combined with awesome visuals and a hero that's as far detached from the gun-ho Rambo stereotype as can be. Without spoiling anything, I can safely say that I really thought that the open-ended ending was quite wonderful and unique. Want it to be a happy ending with smiles, chocolates and roses? Or would you rather an ending on the opposite end of the spectrum? It's open ended, make up your own mind about what happens next, that's what I really liked. On a whole, the detachment from the usual Hollywood clichés was quite refreshing

Also in cinema news this week, Terminator 4 and the possibility of the subsequent spin-off Sarah Connor chronicles have been announced. Two camps have developed on this, those who have already started lining up outside the cinemas and the grumpy old farts like me who think the series should have ended after the second. I loved the first two movies; the second one's my favourite film of all time. The third was a fun movie but I don't really consider it part of the Terminator mythos. But hey, I have the power of human choice and my disposal. I'll always have the first two films to worship, I can just plug my fingers into my ears count loudly to myself and ignore subsequent (and blasphemous) instalments. They can butcher the series but the originals will always remain! Who knows, they might even do a good job on this proposed forth instalment.

Enough of my ranting, onto the building blocks. Mysterious B-shelf sculpturer Arvo shows us all a thing or two about sculpture with an amazing baby Chestburster model. Just look at that awesome tail, the various tubes running down the sides and into the head are extremely well done and visually effective. And just take a look at those teeth, sharp and deadly, excellent parts placement and usage there. Not forgetting of course, the blood dripping off the side of the platform which is totally gorgeous in every way. H.R. Gieger himself would be proud. Not stopping there, check out his super street bikes which are apparently based from designs from the movie Akira. They come in three flavours, the red streamlined and street-savvy Kaneda design.

If that's not your thing, there's the slightly more rugged looking Tetsuo model available in either tan or white, the colour scheme's not the only difference, all-though similar, both have slight physical variations in their designs. I like how the detail includes the throttles on the handle bars and even extending to visible gages and switches on the tan variant. Everything flows so well, there's an absence in rough and blocky edges as these things are so amazingly sexy and streamlined.

Jamie Neufeld brings us the newest addition to the grandiose Vance Quatam's garage, the Quantum Super Thunder Galactic Robo Fighter: Atomictron 7. Very cool, I love the use of the X-pod for the head and that combination Punk/ galactic-crimefighter mohawk atop it looks marvellous. By the looks of it, those white cylinders on the back suggest that this Bot's even packing a jetpack. Gotta love those rugged and tough ribbed boots too.

The tiny pitter-patter of multiple feet on metal grating is becoming an all too familiar sound these days with the sudden rise and popularity of multiped spider-mechs in the community. There are quite a few noteable examples out there but Onosendai's one really stands out for me, as opposed to the usual scrawny and delicate design favoured by most Spider-Mech builders, Onesendi has decided to go against the flow. In this current WIP, the metallic arachnid in question is beefy and well armed and yet maintains quite an attractive and slim figure. I really love that turret, great use of Bionicle parts on that. Nifty use of life on mars canopies as leg armour too. Can't wait to see it finished.

Jerac brings us a nifty idea with his good and evil fighters. If I had a choice, I think I'd rather have these guys hovering above my shoulders than a boring old devil & angel combo any day. The sense of scale is great, I like them but I feel that the evil fighter looks more like some kind Mech or weapons platform. But then again, maybe that’s a good thing. Going against the grain and challenging the usual fighter design and all that. It would be interesting to see this idea applied to other styles of Mocs; Mechs, Capital ships etc, etc.. Town fire-stations? Who would dark Firefighters be anyway? An organised gang of tax-funded arsonists? The mind truly does boggle.

On an ending note, here's a quick little Moc from Chuck, The Gi Templar Hardsuit. The gun is a bit oversized, looks like it wouldn't take much for the poor fellow to loose his balence and topple over. I like the mace, it's pretty cute but purely decorative. Is it just me, or am I the only person in the world who was taught at a young age to refer to maces as 'Bommy Knockers'? Weird..

Life in a Glasshouse

2007-05-13T10:44:00.000-04:00

Bit of a busy weekend, but I was beginning to notice that my 'to blog' bookmarks folder was starting to hit double digits, so I have to clear house. Still haven't dismantled and sorted the Delian, so no actually work yet so far on my Astropolis theme idea. I have however been writing aimless columns of text in my sketchbook trying to come up with some backstory. I was happy because I was able to include the 'legends' of my past faction sort of as an unclear past - almost like the epic poetry of the real Greek archaic period. I think that was a vital part, because the character of that old backstory has been with me for a long, long, long time, and I feel that he at least deserves some tribute/mention as I move on. Recent film I've seen: Children of Men. I believe Nick posted a review on review'd when it first came out, and I've wanted to see it for a long time but only got to recently. Damn, that was good. It seems that there are fewer and fewer 'classic' films these days, i.e.: those that will outlive their release period; but this is definitely classic, the almost optimistically depressing feeling left in you is quite amazing. Now, I will try and run through as many of those bookmarked creations as possible:

First up is a Battlestar themed microspace cruiser, the Colonial One. Simple techniques and a little messy and unruly in areas, but startlingly accurate. It is kind of nice when you find some one's creation online, who you've never seen before, and it's simple yet wonderful. When I go on building streaks during vacations I feel that each model gets progressively more over complicated until I hit a breaking point and can't satisfyingly finish the model I'm working on. It's most noticeable in the fact that each one gets progressively bigger and bigger. Back on topic, System-man's Colonial One is simple, small, but accurate and effective.

Next up is some stuff by brickshelf user Xulm. I caught wind first of his Formula A hover car, and then a few days later added his odd looking microscale to the list. The hover car is neat because it takes a very simple existing idea and spaceyfies it. Everything in the model flows nicely, the colour blocking is great, and the details look proper. It's another thing to add to my 'try this' list, which is now overwhelmingly longer then my 'done this' list. His microscale certainly made me think for a minute or two, he definitely takes a different view on the future and all of his models feature flat featureless 'shields', and then the other side springs up like a city. I find something interesting and realistic about this approach, the shield seems to block radiation and other energies - as told by his interesting looking Illustration. Of course, then one of the microscale ships appears to not be for space, but underwater! This left me completely confused, and I decided to stop trying and just enjoy the aesthetics. Though, admittedly, his ramming frigate Illustration is great.

Moving right along, I featured brickshelf user Towel's Wolfen last time, and since then his similarly built Arwing caught my eye. Now the design of the Arwing as a ship itself is a little more simple and robust then the Wolfen, so that taken in you notice that Towel's Awring is also a little more simpler and robust. The colour is a little less on the numerous side, but blocked just as well. I think this is an interesting model for its clunky shaping, which is usually met with disappointment, here it seems to work out.

Jerac made a little microscale ship inspired by Mike Yoder's work. The building seems to make it look much smaller than it really is, I suppose a combination of the studless nature and the clearly defined shape (which can sometimes be lost in larger models). I like the use of trans-yellow for the bridge, creates a subtle and streamlined look, less obnoxious. The blocky engine section is also pretty cool, looks like a mass of machinery barely holding itself together. Plus, teeth/spikes = luv.

As a side note, seeing as the last halfish part of this post was written over a week later then the beginning, I recently was able to get myself a dvd copy of Fritz Lang's Metropolis. I've been looking for one for a few years now, finally watched it last night - wow. You have to take certain things for what they are, and understand the times they were made in, but it was beautiful.

Secret House Against The World

2007-04-28T00:50:00.000-04:00

I'm about to lock horns and engage in mortal combat with a mighty beast, the sorting beast who is well amongst many a builder. I've been putting off this battle for what seems like ages simply because I'm a terrible procrastinator. All I want to do is build, which I do manage to do but it tends to get a bit frustrating at times. Example? All I require is a simple light grey 1x3 wedge slope. Simple, no? Now, with everything sorted this would take about two seconds or more commonly a simple and quick 'vulture-ing' procedure to remove the part from another Moc. In my current un-sorted state, this process usually begins and then concludes with the discovery of the elusive piece under my foot and a wasted twenty minutes. If things continue at this rate, I'm going to need a team of professional Sherpa's and a flock of specially trained part-sniffing mountain goats just to find a single 48x48 baseboard.

This week in the building community further evidence has surfaced that suggests Nnenn is not actually human, but some kind of freaky building robot from the near-distant future. Not just one excellent new Moc, but several excellent new Mocs have emerged in the last week or so.
My favourite would have to be the Hazulukoth Flying Carnivorous Earwig. Those shapely wings are simply gorgeous, it's those tan blocks of colour that make 'em great. I think the single thruster fits into the design neatly but I'm not a fan of it. When I imagine the whole thing in flight the single thruster makes me think that the whole craft would be rather unstable at best. Oh yeah and the kill-tally detail, I'm in love with the kill tally detail. Very cool stuff.
Next off the Nnenn assembly line we have the Jula mobile defense platform. I can't remember exactly if the Soviets had any spider tanks in Red Alert, if they did, they looked just like this. The whole thing reminds me of a soldier drone from the first Starship Troopers movie. Excellent use of those Alpha team canopies, nice armour too. There's only one thing that bugs me, the lack of an eye. In my opinion, soulless metallic killing machines just aren't complete without some-kind of evil glowing HAL-esque eye-of-death.
We also have the very funky looking X-wing Evolution and its partner the extremely groovy and unconventional Padarion fighter. The squadron markings on the wings look absolutely stunning and I really like that Swan neck cockpit design. No doubt, by the time you have finished this paragraph kind reader, there will already be a dozen new Nnenn Mocs posted. So keep your eyes peeled!
One cannot fail to enjoy Arpy's little yellow bubble car that makes life better . Oh yeah, that it does in spades. It's such a simple and effective design, perfect for mass application on any Moonbase layout. I always like seeing bubble domes in Mocs, they always manage to look good. The boosters are in the same style as the rest of the craft and fit in well but one cannot help feel that they look slightly tacked on and last minute.
In the blue corner we have Big X's aka Danny Rice's Sharkbot, weighing in at a meaty eight grams and packing quite a nasty bite. Some fancy footwork present in the foot design, why the claws are unnecessarily capped off with mini-fig hand remains a closely guarded secret. In the red corner Rodney Bistline's Space Squid. Hailing from the depths of some dark moon crater Space Squid is the master of the infamous sucker punch and head-clamp techniques. Also well known for excellent use of those weird grey technic tube bits that only ever seem to find use as starship greebs. It'll be a tough match but my money's on the Sharkbot, it's just those teeth for the win you understand.

Onto the Odysseus WIP by B-shelf user b3rl1go, as some of you might know I've been watching this thing with intense interest over the last few months. Good to see continued effort on this thing which is inching its way towards what will be quite a glorious end result. I admire that lovely big neon-green eyeball, is it the main bridge and control centre for this Moc or is it simply the business end of a giant laser? And what exactly is this Moc, some kind of Alien Mothership or a deadly super-weapon belonging to a nefarious James Bond villain? I'm intrigued by this Moc and its super weird design. And curious about the strength of its skeletal frame-work, I imagine that the middle collum would support its fair share but obviously it’s not going to support everything. Makes me wonder just how heavy this Moc is all up.

I guess it's time to get back to sorting, Winamp silently humming away in the background, I've got the radio as a back-up, I'm going to do it. I shall conquer the sorting beast today! Well maybe not now there's something interesting on Tv in just a few minutes. Maybe tomorrow, maybe..

Death of a Shade of Blue.

2007-04-22T17:39:00.000-04:00

I have to start off with some sad news today, aside from the recent death of Kurt Vonnegut. A few of you might know that for the past two-ish years I've been running a '.Space' in a small LEGO General section of the BionicleZonePower(BZP) forums, a small refuge of spacey hope in an unlikely place. Its produced a good number of space builders over its relatively small 3 year reign: Tom here, Arpy, Justin Long (taurithod), and myself (forgive if I've missed a few). Well, life is an unforgiving organism, and over the last 2 years the pace there has really slowed. When the group was launched it was a huge success and it was what drew me back into system Lego, and Space. And for that, I really owe that little '.Space' and its first curator Spongey (see I wish I was a Spaceman). But given that it seems we've dried up the creative well, I took the liberty of closing down the group. A sad move, but all dogs have their day, and hers has passed. RIP.

Interesting uncompleted project from Nnenn here today - we need an acronym for that - a dirty looking microscale ship. It makes some excellent use of BURPs and contains a wonderful looking technic frame. The engines are quite hot as well. And engines are always a fun topic during builds, many people always seem to struggle making a design that's worth while - and although Paul Baulch's article is a great read, someone really needs to expand on it... Maybe I should? Other notable places on Nnenn's ship include the detailed entrance to his hangar, I really do like the sentry/control towers and the control hub on the inside is a nice touch. I'm not too keen on his gun designs, but that's also a hard aspect of building. Maybe I aught to whip up an article on that as well.

Next on the blog list is a fighter, and a microscale ship - all in one. Usually microscale fighters don't get a whole lot of street cred. if they're built in a larger scale. On the contrary, if one thinks of microscale as a seperate technique of building used for more then just ships that would be implausible in mini-fig scale, then I think the idea of a larger scale fighter in micro is kind of interesting. Anyways, brickshelf user Towel created their fighter after Star Fox's arch enemy's craft - The Wolfen. theirs is specifically based on the one from Star Fox Assault, and although I've never played that game, it seems that the overall design of the Wolfen hasn't altered a whole lot since good ol' Star Fox 64. Towel's approach is built using a variety of techniques - from the pretty complex to the very basic, and where this might look bad on other ships, their use of colour blocking allows them to really pull it off. I think it really goes to show that a great MOC doesn't have to be made entirely of complex techniques - it just has to be executed well. I'm really liking the colourful engine block on this ship too, it reminds you that this ship exists in the realm of video games and not strict-realism. Check it out, it's a really awesome ship design to begin with, and Towel has pulled it off nicely.

I've got plenty more coming: New member on CS, pezzab, was noticed on brickshelf shortly before his arrival with his BFAI (Brute Force And Ignorance) fighter. Now, although I haven't heard/seen the words from his mouth/posts, I think the ship is supposed to be a sci-fi german fighter, hence the BF part and the colouring. This is an interesting ship, it's really boxy and it works. His use of SNOT makes his fighter look plenty smooth and strong, and seems to allow for some visuals to be worked into the design. And when we turn the fighter over and take a good look at her belly, I think it increases my love of the craft even more. There's something about the landing gear bays - maybe its just the uneven stepping in the doors - that make them look sturdy and robust. Although I think the landing gear itself is lacking. There's a great use of colour in this model, the nice touch of sand green in the missiles is beautiful and the red/white striping around the canopy is great! Pezzab's a pretty new builder, although there are a few other things in his brickshelf; keep an eye on this one!

My last feature here is a bit of a double feature. I've always kept my eye on Brickshelf user Kero40, his wide array of Homeworld themed microscale is interesting and very inspiring. His two latest works are pretty awesome. There's always been something that attracts me to his clunky and messy style of building, whereas some builders would fail miserably when attempting a style along these lines, Kero seems to know almost exactly what he is doing. It seems to be that he builds a basic frame of a ship, and then just begins to throw stuff on - and yet, it works. He has also got a particular skill for using medium sized BURPs to great effect, making smooth uninterrupted panels among the chaos and greebles of the rest of the ship. Some might say however, that his chunky colouring can be quite distracting - a few maybe even hideous. But click around and you'll find other ships that he has built which are very cleanly coloured and show that again - he knows what he is doing.

I'll go specifically first with his Pirate battle-carrier. This represents his clunky building style perfectly. Eclectic colours, mixed smooth and greebley sections, and big large turrets that still don't seem to betray scale. This ship really looks like it's just been clobbered together from a bunch of other craft, and outfitted with massive cannons. It's messy, and that's how it's supposed to be. Scattered windows also do great to bring in scale, and the small accompanying craft really adds some realism - I don't quite know how, but I think that I'm going to try and do the same thing in the future. The mass block of engines at the back work, though I wish they were more then wheels.

Next is his Sobani Remote Trade Gateway Spaceship. This is quite the juxtaposition to the above work, it isn't really messy, the colours are cleaner, and there's no turrets of varying sizes. Instead this ship seems to be very well planned and structured, which being that the last ship was for pirates, seems fitting. The two large yellow hangars are great, and I wish I had whatever piece he's using for them. The smooth hull is dotted and creased with inlays of detail, striking the imagination - one particular trench along the middle near the front with the barring (what piece is that?) is quite intriguing. Engines are, again, a bit disappointing - however they do work with the design. And again the use of smaller support craft bring an odd sense of realism to the model.

Alright, I've written myself to death. Fitting no?

Soviet Kitsch

2007-04-10T00:12:00.000-04:00

Alternate history has always been somewhat of an interest of mine but I've never really taken any major steps in fully exploring the genre apart from miraculous short stories and the wonderful world of Red Alert. That was in-till I picked up the first book in John Birmingham's Axis of Time Trilogy, Weapons of Choice World War 2.2. That was a month and a half ago, now I'm up to the third and final book and I'm well and truly hooked. The jist of it is that in 2021 an experiment in experimental teleportation technology accidentally flings a modern naval taskforce back to 1942 and punched smack dab in the middle of the American taskforce a day or two before the battle of Midway. Modern tech falls into the hands of both the Allies and the Axis and doesn't take long for all hell to break loose.
The social and political ramifications of such an event are explored plus plenty of action and modern-warfare techno-babble thrown in for good measure. Not for the squeamish though, as it tends to get quite gory at times. It's got a fair bit of humour chucked in too, I particularly like Himmler's loathing of Microsoft products and his insistence of including music in all his Power-point presentations.

Onto the Mocs all ready..
From Trevor Van Aalst we have an unusual little creation, a mash-up of a classic 918 police car and a Classic-Space cruiser. Very cool, very cool indeed. I dig the T-shaped tail and the sloped rear compartment however I personally think the belly looks a bit weak.
From Dan Rubin we have a brand new Galactic inquisition Moc and it's about time too! A very cool cross shaped fighter with some seriously slick looking ordnance. The triple-missile packs are excellent.

From Peter Morris this week we have a pretty unique creation, The Rusty Pickup. What more can I say? This Moc will be love at first site for some and yet cause others to become involuntarily reacquainted with yesterday's breakfast. I love it, the whole thing’s a mess but for some reason it just works and blends remarkably well. But this aint no rainbow warrior, sure it's got the colour-scheme of one but what it doesn't have is a haphazardous design that one would tend to associate with a rainbow warrior. Beneath that rainbow guise is a nicely shaped ship. There's defiantly some tasty bits on it, I think the engine pods look pretty snazzy in a cool retro-ish fifties car kinda way and the spotlights are nice touch too. For some reason I really like the placement of those turret-ball bits on the front. Fuel tanks perhaps? Weaponry? External space-hopper storage? Whatever they are, they're cool looking that's for sure.
Zach, aka Bricknut brings us his very Arwing-ish PCS Fast Action Squadron-commanding Turbofighter or F.A.S.T for short. The pill like canopy design looks great as do the serrated wing edges and the diamond shaped ear-fins. The nose is lovely and smooth and its accompanying nose blaster is a nice touch. However I don't really think the rear antennas fit smoothly with the rest of the ship, they greatly reduce the overall swoosh factor of the ship and look pretty last minute.

I really like what Matt D has done with his CSF logo entry, The Crimson Fox. The vertical configuration as opposed to the horizontal looks really unique. One of the things I noticed about this one is the hinge plate in the fin that allows the canopy to open, bonus points for that one. And I particularly like the use of slopes down the sides there.
If you haven't all ready, check out the K-52 Abtula by Nnenn. I haven't got much to say about this one that’s already been said so you’ll just have to trust me when I say it's pretty darn good.
Yeah, here's another fighter and it's from Nnenn again, introducing the Live Gaming Fighter or the GLT if you prefer. This one boasts sharp and crisp clean lines with some nice features like the simple-but extremely effective intakes. I really like the painted on cockpit and pointy tail. The GLT reminds me of my own Falcon fighter as the two share a pretty similar profile. I never got around to finishing it because I never felt completely satisfied with any of the wing designs I came up with. But looking at the GLT I can see possible solutions to the Falcon's design problems. I might dust her off and make some kind of attempt to finish her, but at the moment most of her parts have been vultured and replaced for the benefit of other projects. The yellow, red and orange colour scheme isn't a very fetching fashion for a graceful lady such as the Falcon, no wonder she's been hiding away in a dark and dusty box for so long.

Be sure to check out Jehkay's Rabbit Rover, planetary exploration and mineral detection has never been cuter! Probably best not to get on its bad side though..

I'm With You

2007-04-08T11:51:00.000-04:00

So back up a few posts, and Tom is talking about the reinvention of his sub-theme. I think everybody at least had a personal theme in their childhood, and probably still has it - its theirs and that's why they like it so. So I've had my own since I was probably about 7, playing with duplo. It slowly evolved until it became what I used in Bzp's .Space, the Federation Advance. Very stereotypical and missing large amounts of originality. Now it was over the course of this faction that my building skills really improved, I went from rainbow warrior to the disciplined colour schemer I am today; but each time I build I feel like the faction's unoriginal presence is betraying me. So for a while now I've been tossing around ideas to form a new sub-theme, something that goes with my styles and colour availability and is relatively original. Now I've been doing a lot of reading in the subject of ancient Greece recently, both the Iliad and Odyssey, a condensed history book, 300 (even for its not really historical values), and the Aeneid (roman, but greek in its telling). I'm also taking a class, and will be taking another next year. I really like Greece, there's something romantic about crafting one's history into epic poems, and the belief that maybe some of it did happen. So what does this have to do with Space? Well the idea came of a diverse sub-theme, one which contains several styles in itself. Astropolis!

Alright, here's today's feature. Jerac always comes through with some interesting looking microscale ships, and the Cerberi is no exception. His style always combines a sturdy and heavily armoured ship that spins off many delicate and intricate looking greebles. And he's never one to turn down the outer-hull technique. The Cerberi is also an experiment in turret design, which is one of the more troublesome aspects of building microscale. The scale of the gun always seems to large, but Jerac demonstrates some ingenious thinking here and comes up with a few fancy looking designs. Excellent use of droid arms as well, wish I had some in something other then tan! The rear fins around the engine are a great touch too, despite not really having a large impact on how the ship looks or operates, they provide that finite addition of detail that brings the ship to life. Manuvering Rockets = Win. The only thing I really wish had some more details are the engines! Albeit, engines are a difficulty, but I think if you think of them as an interesting challenge and start with a basic idea in your head then it does become rather fun to tinker with various ideas.

So once I perhaps come up with a logo, bit of a backstory, and an MOC or two - I'll unveil this new venture into sub-theming. I've also got a frigate for my old faction lying around, interesting build but nothing revolutionary.

Damn Your Mood Swings

2007-04-01T19:27:00.000-04:00

The most recent contest to grace the Classic Space boards is the Put your MOC in the CSF Banner CONTEST, quite a simple concept really: Make an MOC in the general shape of the spacecraft in LEGO's Classic-Space theme banner. We're already getting some awesome entries, SNOT away!

Nnenn gives us a splash of red and a dash of lt-Blue with his APX Cloutmas. It has a seamless shape and its built in a different and interesting scale (may have to try that myself). Of all the spaceships that have come and gone over the years, its the CS logo ship that stays mysterious and illusive - I doubt the designer of the logo had any idea, but doesn't everyone just wonder what that ship really looks like? I think this pretty much sums it up.

Legohaulic's is my other favourite so far. Both my favourites do kinda look similar, heck they even use that vogue colour combo of red/blue. I think both would be unquestioned if they were able to slip a win.

I really hope I'll be able to enter this one, I missed out on the Microspace contest on Flickr that I was so gun-ho about, that was painfull. Keep an eye on this though, its really creating some flashy entries!

Black Wave/Bad Vibrations

2007-03-25T11:54:00.000-04:00

I'm happy Tom got his dose of classics. I myself downloaded the NES Legend of Zelda on the Wii, its really damn hard and one day I'll get through it, then its on to Link to the Past. Ocarina = my first Zelda game. So life goes on much as it once did, school is busy, attempts to get a job are unsuccessful. I haven't built in a long while, but I am trying to scrap together a microscale gunboat. I think however, I'll make this a long project and keep the model smaller - in an effort to perfect.

I've got a few features today, in hopes to elongate this belated post. The first is done by Spook, he came in recently to the microscale scene and has really progressed the genre. This makes me feel like crap, because quite frankly I don't think I've progressed my own skills in some time, I still haven't mastered the angled brick hull plating technique - a combination of my lack of building time and laziness. I really like the concept for this Lanceship, seems like one of those romantic sci-fi fantasies. Of course, it doesn't joust in the typical sense - its really just a big gun. But it gives me ideas about creating a Lanceship of my own. The colour usage in this is great, there really is something about light blue and grey that catches the eye.

Next up is the Minerva, quite obviously at the very least inspired by Gundam. There is something about this, although I've seen better techniques used, and there's some block patches in this creation, it still looks good - and coherent. The slight curve of the back, the angling of the wings. It all comes together in this oddly beautiful ship. Each part seems to do a great job in helping another come to its apex of form (i.e.: they compliment each other). I just look at this and think that it could really to some serious reentry action or something. And despite the larger blocky nature of the piece, smaller aspects come together in a very complex way - the small designs on the back fins are a testament to the power of the brick, whereas someone like myself probably would have printed off a decal, this builder shows that the brick can be used by itself to great effect.

Lastly, here's a WIP that keeps surfacing on brickshelf. Normally I stray from Star Wars creations, the general census among spacers being that most everything has been done too much - this caught my eye. Its going to be a rather large scale build of the Invisible Hand, the Separatist flagship seen at the beginning of Ep3. There's already a few builds of it hanging around brickshelf - but what really caught my eye on this one was the use of bley and grey and the raised panel effect. The raised panel specifically makes the ship look like its been clobbered together from various sheets of metal and not just carved out of a single piece. So keep an eye on this, should prove to be pretty cool in the end.

Thats all the time we have for you today folks, tune it next week, same time. Same place. Well, scratch the time thing, no schedule will hold its reigns on me.

Warm Lonely Planet

2007-03-25T00:10:00.000-04:00

I've also been absorbed in my own tasty slice of retro-nostalgia gaming goodness. Three years ago I was promised that a bunch of ex-rental N64 games would go on sale in "just a week or two from now". And just last week, they did! Zelda Ocarina of Time and Vigilante V8 for me. What's not to love, Ocarina of Time one the best games ever made and Vigilante V8 which is an automotive destruction derby where various over the top 70's stereotypes battle to the death. Awesome.

A follow up from my last post of sorts, in the last few days there seems to have been a mini-revival of the Sea Monkeys in which some new creations have emerged from the depths belonging to none other than Felix Greco and Joe Meno. So go and check them out already, the Stingray Forsaken and an assorted bunch of Sea Monkey goodness. The armoured crab mecha is my favourite of the bunch. It's packing a nicely built crustacean exo-skeleton and some very tasty looking spindly crab legs. The new look evil sea-monkey battle-suits are pretty nice too. I'm looking forward to seeing some new sea monkey Mocs and hopefully adding one or two of my own into the mix.
Also in the cards this week we have a little Steampunky-ish floatplane, the Spyglass Reconnaissance Craft by Scotty. Very cool, a little sketchy in places but still very cool none the less. There's some nice boat usage in this one, the Indian canoes as pontoons and the rowboat for the nose. Nice! Not really a fan of the engines though, they just kinda sit there supported by sticks with only a thin bit of hose connecting them to the body. Speaking of Steam-Aviation, on Flickr this week I saw a really cool new propeller design but unfortunately I’ve lost the link. Basically a ship’s wheel with clips on the pegs, and on those clips wedge plates are stuck and angled. Anyone know what I’m rambling on about? There’s plenty of uses for a big propellor design like that, I reckon by fitting in a few more blades it would make a really nice jet turbine. While we’re on the subject on Steampunk flyers check out Darktide's Stirling-Flyer which is really quite cool because of its unique backwards design and nifty cockpit design and also Jerrac's Flying Machine which boasts an agreeable and tasty engine design combined with a pair of very lovely looking floaty wings.

On the spacey side of things we have a fun new concept from Tim Gould, ships shrunken down and turned into ride-on variants ideal for placement outside the local corner shop or old-school coin arcade. Presenting the ride-on Viper, Don Escargot and White Base. There's a lot of potential in this idea, Mini ride-on Serenity anyone? Or how bout a Mini Cowboy Bebop Swordfish ridden by none other than the legendary dog walker and bounty hunter, Spike Speigal?
Andrew Lee's Space Limo is not getting the attention that is deserves, probably because of the photography which is a little dark but advert your gaze past it and feast your eyes on one very sexy hover Limo. This particular Limo boasts a lovely organic flowing shape topped off by cool Matrix-ish hover pods with slick tubing that runs down the sides and leads into a nice beefy greebeled engine. Oh yeah, and look at that lovely interior, in my big book of moccing criteria that means bonus points. And when you're done looking at that be sure to check out the rest of Andrew's hover cars.
I'm not normally one for over exaggeration and hyperbole so you'll have to trust me when I say that Nannan Z's Voidfighter is absolutely magnificent. At first I didn't even realise it was Lego, it's so sleek, smooth and pleasing to the eye, all the individual components just flow so well. It's also got some nice sticker usage going on. But just don't go looking at the belly, keep your eyes focused on the topside. Actually I take that back, the belly does look pretty nice compared to the bellies of a lot of moc's out there today. It's the wing undersides that look a bit ugly but that can't really be helped, a nice underside mid-section that has got it where it counts.

Lastly, a cute little number by Nelson Yrizarry that goes by the name of 'Catching the Elusive Drumstick.' Dream on you crazy dreamer-fig, one day you'll catch your dreams.. one day.. someday..

Wandering past the mirrors gaze

2007-03-08T04:07:00.000-05:00

You might remember the battle to the death between me and my computer? Well three weeks ago my motherboard, hard-drive and modem decided to sign a group suicide pact and explode in unison with a tremendous bang. The parts took ages to arrive but just last week they managed to show up. Sure the bill's a bit steep but it's great to start a fresh with a computer that doesn't overheat every five minutes. Everything backed up except three years of accumulated bookmarks, bugger..

Anywho just yesterday I finally got around to picking up one of the new Aquaraiders sets, the 7770 Deep Sea Treasure Hunter in this case. (And Josh Pyke’s new album Memories and Dust, yay for me!) Anywho It’s a nice little cheap set with a sharp lookin’ mini-fig, the sets not perfect but there’s defiantly some handy pieces such as yellow technic half brushings, black wedges and robot arms for example. Looking at all the sets in the line I’m not really impressed, the old school clunky 97 Aquaraiders could totally quick the arses of these newbie Aquaraiders any day in my honest personal opinion. All though I must admit Tiger Shark Attack looks allright, I might scrape up some funds from in-between the couch cushions and grab myself a copy. I like that little turret dealy a little bit too much me thinks.
It’s funny, it felt almost nostalgic to hold the box in my hands because it’s been so long since I last bought a set. Years ago I used to spend every penny on tons and tons of new sets every year and then came the bley invasion and I lost interest in new sets all of a sudden. Last year all I bought was two small Exo-Force sets and one creator set, Bricklink suddenly became the sole provider for all my Lego needs.

I thought I'd do something different for a change, this old crusty nineties Aquazone lover has always had a nostalgic soft spot for underwater stuff. So from the past few years here’s some of my favourite undersea Mocs.
Let’s start the party with one of the main staples of Aquatic moccing, the Sea Monkeys of course! Who or what are the Seamonkey's you may ask? The Seamonkeys are a fan created subtheme centered in the Aquazone world. Sea Monkeys are normally LoM Aliens with big flippy floppy tails commuting about the place in organic ships shaped like undersea critters. Be sure to check out the Attack Crab, Lionfish Command Vehicle and the Hammerhead fast attack vehicle. I really like the Lionfish as I just love the sheer organic-ness of the design and the unique parts usage.

On the more realistic side of undersea exploration we have Little Davey’s Abyss inspired ROV Explorer Research Sub. The Abyss is a great movie by the way, be sure to check it out if you haven’t already. The attention to detail is great, my favourite bit would have to be the manoeuvring prop mounted on the arm. I love the detail in the boom mounted spotlights, how a visible bit of cable runs from the sub to the spot-light. Nice! If there’s one thing it needs though is a few more spotlights and a better design for those grabber arms.

Next up on the agenda some brick built undersea wildlife. Fishing boats, snorkelers and deep sea divers beware, Quint and the Orca aint going to be around to protect you! PepaQuin’s Opee Sea Killer is brilliant, what’s not to love about this bloated and aggrivated oversized piece of tuna? Just look at all those fabulous rows of sharp white teeth with bonus lethal Alien-esque spring-loaded tongue. The bright yellow eyes are simple yet extremely effective.
Also in the undersea wildlife category we have a nice Giant squid by Little Davey. Simple construction techniques used to good effect and that beak looks pretty darn cute.

Something I’ve always wanted to try my hand at is a cramped and aging Undersea utilitarian outpost of sorts. Doctor Device beat me to it and produced his own vision of such an installation. Sure you may look at it and call it boring and featureless but in reality, what’s an underwater base going to look like? It’s not like all the pretty decorative things and bright paintjobs are going to be useful yet alone seen in the murky depths anyway. Sure the big colourful bases associated with Aquazone are pretty awesome in their own right but it’s this kinda base that I prefer. I particularly like the defence turrets and the tank storage rooms, it’s also apparent that in this particular vision of a utilitarian undersea future that hats and hair have been outlawed.
Check out this Jellyfish vehicle from builder Azumu, or if you wish to be technical about the name ‘the underwater type inquiry machine’ hmmmm.. It’s a kind of a weird Jellyfish shaped exploration rig that can split up into two halves, one half is a cool hovering transparent can type thing with a large spotlight and inclosed pilot. I’m not sure what the other half is so I’ll let you work that out for yourself. This thing is built using some pretty nice techniques and there’s no denying the fact that it’s strangely awesome.

I know I’ve missed quite a few good ones, life without all those bookmarks is hard you know!

The Past Is A Grotesque Animal

2007-03-02T09:11:00.000-05:00

I apologize for the lack of posts. I got the Wii, and pretty much haven't stopped playing it. The NES Zelda is very, very hard. I'm also trying to find time to squeeze in building my interior for Nightowl's contest. Well, not so much time, but space - my room is a mess thanks to moving some uncompleted furniture, so my desk is covered with books and other stuffs. I hope I can get it done, I really do. I can't let Yoder go without a fight.

Today's feature is by another of my favourite microscale builders. Known as BrickCommander on B-shelf, also goes by Primus. He has a lot of Star Wars ISD scaled ships, and even for a person who usually steers away from SW, his stuff is nice. His work for today is from the ALIENS movie. At first look it appeared much larger then it actually is, and it took a study of the engines for me to realize how compact this really was. It's always a goal with microscale to make the model appear larger then it actually is, it means that your execution of build has wonderfully fit to the shape and concept, i.e.: you can see a ship in there, not a lump of bricks. I'm not one for renders, and I would rather this be real, but I stuffed my pride for today. I've also just come to the realization that the ventral turret is of a near identical design that Jeff Dostie came up with, minus a pair of binocs to cap the barrels.

Definitely take a look at this if you build Microscale yourself, good inspiration and a great example of a small scale ship that appears larger. Now, if you'll excuse me there is some NES Super Mario calling my name.

The Sunset Tree

2007-02-13T21:10:00.000-05:00

Boy do I feel old. Four years ago, January 29th 2003 I posted my first Moc to Brickshelf. Four grainy, unfocused 400x300 shots taken on the kitchen table with a standard analog camera of a Bionicle Moc I had made. As the cliche goes, time sure does fly..

Anywho, onto the random Spacey thing of the day. The custom job on this Colonial Viper MK2 model kit is absolutely beautiful, check her out for yourself. You're probably siting there right now and screaming "sacrilege!" and "burn the infadel!" at me at the top of your lungs. But just take one look at it and I dare you not to be impressed. Just look at the incredible attention to detail in the paint work and battle damage, copper wiring has even been used to greeble the thrusters. In somewhat related news, I was on the hunt for BSG wallpapers just yesterday and I came across this little cache of awesome. Have patience, the site seems to go up and down more than a yo-yo. I'll upload the pics to my Flickr if the site has suddenly stopped working. Anywho if it's working, right there at the bottom of the page, huge lovely profile shots of Vipers, a Raptor and the Colonial One. Keep flipping through the pages and you'll find some new-school Cylon Raiders and some beautiful old-school base star blueprints. Not forgetting the awesome wallpapers too, I'm using one right now and it's totally awesome. And you should too!

Anywho, onto the Legoes!*
To get us started a new creation from Felix at last! Gip's Metro Yacht. There's some lovely curves going on and a great interior to match. Next we have Spook's Angelfire tank, it looks really good. There's not much of a description to go along with it but I can easily picture it as an specialized tank for hostile arctic environments. I like the idea of the weathered effect with the grey and bley mixed together. But I don't think it really works in this example in my personal opinion. One idea I'll be stealing for myself is the 2x2 turntable bases used as tiling detail, they look really cool. I like the mud-flaps too. Zopalin brings us his nifty lookin' Space SUV. Its got a nice compact and angular design. Nice bright colours too. Not much of a fan of the detached steering wheel, perhaps some levers on the pilot's sides would work better? And the groceries stuffed into the back is a great bit of detail.
Jerac's Nebulae Gas Miner successfully pulls off that lovely industrial feeling. One look at it and you can tell that its designed for versatility and function over aesthetics. I love the way that the bridge sticks out of its own little notch on the hull like a big greeble. And the thrusters look really good, nice arrangement of wheels there. And bonus points awarded for the lovely crisp and clear photography.

I guess after writing all that I'm even older now, still pretty young compared to a lot of others in the community though. Still old enough to put a cane, driving gloves and suspenders on emergency stand-by in the 'break glass in case of crankiness' box though.

*complaints/ exploding gnomes can be forwarded to tomb136 at gmail dot com

Moscow girls make me sing and shout

2007-02-05T21:43:00.000-05:00

Finally, more entries are trickling in for the BZP Castle contest. I don't think the hype has ever been as big as it was for the Third contest (this being the fifth), possibly because the theme: build a spacefighter, was open and appealed to a large building fanbase. The whole scene was much busier back then too (see I wish I was a spaceman).

Speaking of contests, right now seems to be popular, the MicroSpace contest on flickr (see new Current Event links) particularly sparks my interest. It is because of it that I was scouring brickshelf for inspiration on little bits here and there. Thus, today's feature came to my attention. Rokko-class Space Battleship, colourful in that way that you know it can only come from our Asian friends. Striking in it's angles, it achieves a powerful silhouette - though I do think the bridge section is ten times as large as it need be, it just seems like a rather large "please, aim right here" type of bridge. And while it probably gives it that said detectable Asian look, I think it really detracts from the shape and makes the whole thing resemble a gun prop from Power Rangers.

Several other features could use 'sprucing': Engines are a little plain, they work but they could be better; and the two forward guns the same.

Picked up two things on the way home today. First was an Aquaraiders set, the Deep Sea Treasure Hunter. I love it. It represents to me the kind of models that LEGO should be producing for every theme: Small, relatively cheap, packed with good parts! I usually end up buying mostly those less than $10 CAD sets, just because I'm short on money most of the time, and if they were all like this I could die happy - right now. My other purchase was the new Of Montreal CD Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? Pure goodness, and definitely not your typical listen. I'm going to see them in March, so I recommend them to anybody.

In other news, I transferred Masoko Tanga over to the new Blogger - so I'll be playing with the features for a while.

I wish I was a Spaceman...

2007-01-30T21:55:00.000-05:00

With my exams coming to an end, I've got the whole next week off! This gives me time to enter the numerous contests running at the moment. Of course, nothing is more enjoyable then enjoying a cup of coffee at 10am whilst watching a works crew tear up your snow covered lawn.

Today I turn not to a single MOC, but a single MOCer. His name, well I never knew his real name, but he went by Spongey (short for Spongebob SquarePants). He was the first Curator of the BZP .Space topic, and thus I owe him a lot of gratitude for pulling me back into space. About a year or so after he started up the .Space topic on BZP however, he fell into his darkages. Never heard from him since, and that was about two years ago. He was (among others, Tom) the very first exposure I had to space building, minus the 'Cool Creations' page in the Lego Club Magazine. Does that count? Anyways, I've never forgotten the guy - he was a very likeable character and I'm sure he'd had loved CSF (or just CS, as it is now).

He was a pretty good builder, definitely carried influences of the 'famous' AFOLS of the time. I say of the time, because being a member on CS for a few years has really made me realise that there are far too many great builders out there and the field is ever expanding. At the time I also didn't know of CSF, and it probably didn't exist at the beginning, thus there was a major gap between a kiddy forum like BZP and the AFOL realm of Lugnet. To summarize: the world of AFOL space building seemed a lot more foreign to me back then. Where was I? Oh yes. He was a good builder, I look back at his various models now (stuff like: the Chimera, his Courier Ship, his Steampunk, and the White Knight) and realise that although they aren't perfect, they are really good. Especially for a member of BZP with no CS to get real reviews and criticisms. It only makes me wish more and more that maybe one day he'll be back, and begin to hone his skills once again. There really was something about his building, prehaps his versatility - I can't count the number of individual themes he built for, and seemingly mastering the feeling of their colours and motifs - at times better than the theme creators themselves.

He was, if you will, the Ideal Space Builder. He was versatile, as I've said. He also wasn't perfect. What? Everbody loves a builder that churns out perfect models, but then what's the point, if they can't really better themselves? Perhaps its more that he showed promise to be a much better builder, given time and support. He also wasn't a dick. Being a great builder doesn't simply revolve around actual building skills, Spongey was a great way for me to be introduced into Space Building because I wasn't slapped around and called a moron. He was really someone I aspired to be, in the MOCing world that is.

As I mentioned, about a year after he started the .Space topic, he left and fell into his darkages. A shame. I volunteered to continue the .Space topic, and he accepted, and I've been running the place for just over two years now. It's a lot quieter these days, it seems that a lot of the raw space talent that had been floating around the BZP gene pool has since moved on to better environments and there's no new talent coming in. My only theory on this is that many of the builders from the earlier days were around before the advent of Lego Star Wars, and thus to them there was space without a license; this fan-base is dried up now, a lot of the younger kids these days are sheltered inside a Star Wars box or are following SaberScorp in the mediocre-to-bad Halo Lego Crusade.

Anyways, this post is really dragging on. The moral? There's nothing bad about thinking back to the classics, whatever they might be. I wish I was a Spaceman, the fastest guy alive...

Safety, Fun, and Learning (In That Order)

2007-01-24T22:48:00.000-05:00

Todays gimmicky spacey thing of the day is the Cyborg Name Decoder. Go ahead, go nuts and find your inner Cyborg self or something.
S.T.I.N.G.R.A.Y: "Synthetic Transforming Individual Normally for Galactic Repair and Accurate Yelling"
Time for me to get to the point and do some accurate yelling about Mocs and stuff then.

Big X's F-220 Claymore is a big modern-near-future jet with cool guns and intakes and stuff all over and a cool name, seriously what more do you need to know? Click the link all ready! It lives up to its awesome name thats for sure. The overall shape and modeling is really good, oh yeah and its got some sweet lookin' intakes. (Dear reader, you might have noticed that your author is starting to develop some kind of twisted intake fetish, your author fears for his own mental well being and is scared.. help..)
And just look at those thrusters they're beautiful, nice use of taps. The angled and jaggered back fins look good too. The neon-green rockets under the wings are a bit meh, I like the idea of weapons being a different colour to the body but in this case I think the green might be a bit too strong. Perhaps some white rockets with red stripes instead? Speaking of weapons, I really like the smooth transition where the gun barrels meet the wings surface.
All though it reminds me more of a futuristic Russian jet than something from the American F-series of jets. The nose and cockpit area reminds me of a Mig and the little bumpy rough bits over the topside surface give it that strong, lasting and easily serviceable characteristic that all good Russian jets have. You know what they say about em 'able to be repaired by a small child with a basic toolbox in the middle of the Siberian tundra'

Through a recent post on Snoikle I became aware of hermit-Keith's courtyard diorama, this Moc is new to me cause missed it when it was first put up whenever that was.
Don Rubeen goes to court! Control the action! Exciting courtroom paperwork action! 12 yrs and up! Come on Goldman, you haven't gone soft in the head have you? I'm disturbed by the lack of trademark violence, Hippies and grill tiles. Well actually there's one hippie in it if you count Dan Rubin's cameo appearance I guess. It is actually pretty good, there's some nice detail going on and there's the usual monotonous grey pallet and over-use of a billion plants and stone ninja wall bits to keep ones eyes happy.

Mike Yoder brings us a few awesome Aliens themed interiors. He has done a really good job at capturing the dark foreboding industrial atmosphere of the Aliens universe. Dark lighting is used to good effect in this. Then theres the awesome details, the ribbed tubes that run down the shadowy corridors bring to mind a sinister Xenomorph that could be hiding in the darkness. The ominous skeleton in the control room chair and all the little greebs around the place, oh yeah and those windows above him. And I love the custom skull sticker on the Marine armour, it looks spot on.

Hysteria

2007-01-17T18:08:00.000-05:00

Exams are drawing close. Why did I take yearbook? So besides some yearbook deadlines, an art piece, and a presentation on Homer for english, I'm free until formal exams start. Not really free. Bought Serenity on DVD the other day, been meaning to for a while but finally got around to it - now I guess I'm on the hunt for Firefly DVDs.

Today's feature is stolen wholesale from Lukas: Best of 2006, Space.

Microspace:
Mike Yoder pulls down the award on this one. Mike came onto the scene in late 2005, and his continued micro works stole 2006. I'd been building micro for a while, but it wasn't until Mike came around and created something for me to challenge myself against that I started trying. He's really been a boom to the 'genre', and his work has helped me improve mine.
Honourable mentions: Horvatits, Jerac

Minifig Space:
Definitely a harder genre to award, many more builders. I'm gonna hand this one to Nick Dean (Kcaster). He came on the scene just as another builder, but he's built up quite the reputation by now. This award goes specifically for his "krestel", his first SHIP and amazingly one of the best I've seen.
Honourable mentions: Chuck, Linus

Misc. Space:
This one is hands down for me. Arpy. He tinkers, and he shows, and he tinkers, and shows. It's because of this tinkering that he's really earned my respect as a builder. I've known him online for a few years, and he's definitely matured as a builder - this year is a great example.

Gravity Won't Get You High..

2007-01-06T03:54:00.000-05:00

And so 2007 is already among us already, where did the years go?
And with the new year comes Triple J's Hottest 100! Huzzah!

Anywho, this week we were of course introduced to the first pics of the new Space sets. I'm neutral, I don't hate em and I don't love em, I just see em as just another Lego theme. I think the problem most people have with them is that the majority got their hopes up and expected some kind of exact follow on in style and concept from the original 70's & 80's Classic Space. Kids today don't want the grey-block star-ships of yester-year. When I was about 11 and just getting into Lego again Insectoids were the big Space sets at the time. At that age if if I was given a choice, 9 times out of 10 I would have picked Insectoids over Classic Space back then. Why? Because they were exciting and bright too my 11 year old brain, "spaceships disguised as alien-insects? Awesome!" I still love Insectoid's cause of that little old thing called Nostalgia..

Now onto the Mocs..
Great to see a newie from Paul Brassington, in this case a groovy Aliens style AP C. I've always wanted to build an Aliens APC but I could never work out how exactly to build it's mysterious Tardis like interior. It's probably the best looking Aliens APC out there. Gotta love the twin cannons on the back, that Alien looks pretty wicked too.
The only thing that bugs me is the little wimpy unprotected looking window at the front.

Also this week, Jmlizard brings us his nifty looking Spyrus VTOL Space Cat. It's got a really pleasing semi-organic shape and form to it. Those triple curvy engine struts look great. And I really like the trans-blue antennas at the front, they fit in quite well there. Nice interior work too.

"He had lots of guts"

2007-01-03T21:12:00.000-05:00

Christmas has come and past, but the snow has yet to arrive! So much for living in Canada, my polar bear is burning up! I received the 007 collectors' edition as a present(s) this year, and they're pretty much the only thing I've been watching - aside from Enemy At The Gates, awesome movie - and I've gotten through about 16-17 now, with only some of the Roger Moore movies left. Brosan is my favourite Bond; with Moore being my least, too many bad sex jokes and not enough being a spy. I think my favourite film of all is Goldeneye, the first Bond film I ever saw and the one I know most about due to the infamous Nintendo 64 game. I've also now seen Casino Royale, and holy crap, Bond is actually a secret agent with a license to kill! Craig is ruthless, and brings a definitive seriousness to the role that Dalton never fully achieved.

Today we have a double feature special. First is Spook, member of CS and Flickr. Two of his recent microscale creations have caught my eye. His style is vaguely similar to Soren's, although much less Japanese looking in technique. The first feature is his Medical Freighter. The hottest part of this ship is without a doubt the bridge section; the use of multi-decked windows and more greebs than one can throw a stick at come together to produce a bridge with an aircraft carrier vibe to it. The design also uses several practicalities that one might find on a future spacecraft: cylindrical fuel tanks, radar, red/green wing lights(bonus points), and large cargo holds. The use of a simply duotone colour scheme with single small splotches of colour is pulled off perfectly. Still a little rough around the edges. Also see his Orbital Platform + booster, same style.

Now an announcement many have been waiting for, many have hoped for, dreamed for even. Its been years since the Life On Mars LEGO Space line.

LEGO SPACE IS BACK! Picking up essentially where the LOM line left off, this time with clear villians and heroes. I'll dodge out the commentary at this time, and leave you to ponder among your own thoughts.

The Ice Storm

2006-12-24T14:52:00.000-05:00

Oceanographer's Choice

2006-12-21T03:57:00.000-05:00

The moral of the story is to never rely on anything with a microchip in it for anything. In short my computer is trying to kill me and its not going to stop in-till one of us ends up in several bits in a garbage bag at the dump.
Anywho, let this weeks journey begin..
First off the bat we have ATDudley's Panther Hovertank Which looks rather nice.
Its got some nifty detailing going on such as the grills in the intakes and the rows of jets on the underside. The separate sections and hatches for gunner and driver are also a nice touch. Bonus points for interior detail. The back of it looks a little bare and vulnerable though, and maybe some more tiles or grills on the sides would help smooth it out a bit.

I've been watching the progress of this WIP at the moment, what can be best described as a big cyclops space ring ship thingy, or simply as the 'Odysseus' I'm intriuged. I love that big neon eye in the middle, this thing looks like it would be right at home as some kind of crazy boss ship in Starfox. Can't wait to see it finished.
We also have a Salvage Craft from Spook Its design is simple and yet complex at the same time if that makes any sense. Gotta love the cutting laser and the little headlamp looking things. Even though its an industrial craft I think it could do with a bit of brightening up, perhaps a thin orange racing stripe down the middle or some smaller red highlights?

Now I've decided to experiment with something different this time. Instead of another recent Moc, I'm going to drag out a 'classic' Moc out to comment on.
So here we have Dan Jassim's A-Wing carrier. The absolutely fabulous predecessor and grandaddy of both the Dragonstar and Explorer. I remember seeing this back in 02 and being in absolute awe of the sheer size of the thing. You've gotta love the detail on this thing, like the launch bay, sensor array and the control tower. And its even got an interior whcih is totally cool.
Defiantly something to look back on for sure.

The Arcade's On Fire!

2006-12-19T17:16:00.000-05:00

If you live under a rock and haven't already, check out The Arcade Fire's new song Intervention, if you look hard enough you can find an mp3 lying around. It's got that same old Arcade Fire sound while giving a hint of where things could go. All hail the Canadian music scene.

Today's feature isn't microscale, as one might expect from me, or even space for that matter. Today's feature has some of the best building I've seen however, so take a good look. It's the Frankfurt Train Station, I've never been to Germany, thus I have never seen the thing in real life - so whether or not this is an accurate interpretation I don't care. What I do care about, it the amazing amount of detail this thing has, and the amazing techniques it uses! The curved arch is a wonderful example of simple techniques put to amazing uses, and the effect is a smooth - yet still textured - curved roof. This model achieves something I always love, it doesn't immediately appear as LEGO. That I think, makes the penultimate MOC: the ability to take a very recognizable medium and use it to such profound reaches. So take a good look at this one, it's inspirational.

Know Your Onion

2006-12-13T19:20:00.000-05:00

Today we have a special feature: Some (most, I hope) of you should be familiar with Mike Yoder's work, and would know that he had a bit of a fall from the community a short while back because of personal issues. It was a grave wound to the building community, and me personally. But luck have it, he's back.

We're in the gods favour today, as he comes forth from [seemingly] nowhere with a model bearing that good 'ol yellow colour scheme that's some familiar with him since that move. For added flavour though, there is a red stripe (yipee!). The Code Enforcer carries a similar construction theme to most of Yoder's recent works, but there's a good deal of improvement among the finer details - and the photography is crystal clear this time, it seems to have escaped the usual compression blender. I'm liking the railgun on this thing, he says it's his first attempt at one and it turned out pretty damn well - they may be basic, but that just leaves less room for error. I'm particularly liking that this model doesn't seem to have any barren spots, that is noting that looks like it was given second treatment or looks unfinished.

An awesome return from an awesome builder. I'm really liking those rotating front guns. Its sad to see someone go, but all the better to see them come back, so: welcome back Mike.

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

2006-12-02T12:56:00.000-05:00

First snow today, mostly gone now but the fact remains where the snow doesn't. Its been a gloomy week, and I think my mood really depends on the weather and this week was pretty cruddy weather-wise; maybe this first snow could signal a change. Some thing to look out for: Nick's new team blog Review'd with Chuck, Jordan, and Andrew.

Some may recall my fondness for creations flown under the Neo-Classic Space flag. If not, then now you know. Why bring it up? A quick scan of brickshelf today revealed a gallery by Molly Friedrich which held an interesting model. The other two builders I've featured with this style (seen here: [link]) still had a very conservative restyling of the classic-space theme.
Molly on the other hand, produces a Neo-CS model that looks rather dashing. The other examples retained that very blocky look of the old CS models while updating curb appeal or building techniques, Molly's seems to attack both with a high degree of change. When I first saw the brickshelf I though this was someone's interpretation of an Arwing from Star Fox, colour scheme seemed right. Now the building styles of an Arwing and any CS spaceship are quite different, thus my surprise when I discovered the truth. I'll cut to the point: this thing looks profoundly more deadly than other CS or Neo-CS models, and I like it. It helps too that this thing is built in two 'modules'. I look forward to more, and hope this gives some effect on future Neo-Classic Space models.

Another interesting thing to bring up today is the discussion on Classic-Space.com about the proper grammatical usage of the term LEGO. Is it a Noun, or an Adjective? And does The LEGO Group dictate to the public how to use this term?
My take on it, and you can stop reading now if you don't care: Whenever I've used the word Lego, it's always been in direct reference to the Company or it's product. And thus, perhaps in casual conversation with another Lego enthusiast the word itself is all that is needed to convey what you're really denoting. However, I agree that when speaking to a mind uneducated on how the term should be properly used (and by should be, I mean how it's creator and owner tells us how it should be used) that one should use terms like LEGO Brick, or LEGO Justice. Why? Because enthusiasts of Lego know that when someone says Bricks, or Lego they know what that someone is talking about - however when talking to a non-enthusiast they might see all building block toys as the same thing, thus one must define that they mean the products of the LEGO group.
The most popular corrected usage of the word is Legos [Lay-goes], as in "I want some legos". Personally I've never really used the term and thus it does seem wrong to me. What ever your opinion is, make sure to read the topic and post your own thoughts on the subject.

Satellite control.. reaching out into other worlds..

2006-11-30T04:44:00.000-05:00

Yay Its all over! I've suddenly gone from a period of seemingly endless work and study to a period of seemingly endless freetime sitting around partying, playing Quake and being stupidly lazy. I unpacked all the Lego yesterday. And let me tell you, after four months of Lego separation its total euphoria to click those bricks together again after so long. Maybe I'm over exaggerating with that euphoria comment.. nahhhh trust me, its just that good..
This month on Moc Watch..
First off the bat Graznador gives us the White Stripes Bot, some nifty odd parts usage, gotta love the Bionicle lid on the bottom there and the x-pod middle. Nice stumpy bot fingers and you've gotta love the spirals to.
Sajuuk brings us the ME-363. I mean sure, yeah its a little on the blocky side and a bit clunky in some parts, but to me it looks loaded with potential. Theres that odd stripey triangley nose, those big gorgeous engine pods and the unusual swept forward scissor like wings.

Next we have Turkguy's Enforcer Fighter its pretty nice. I like the little snubby nose guns. Those pods look great, as are their thrusters, unfortunately none of the pics give a good view of the thrusters. The only beef I've got is with those grey fins at the back, Maybe it would look better without em. Or maybe if they were white instead, thats excused though cause the white one are harder to come by I guess. Also bonus points cause he read its reviews, went back and fixed some of the problems.
And I can't sign off without giving a mention to Carlos's Christmas Beetle Mecha. Cause its cool.
Now if you'll excuse me.. I've got some building to do..

Set Fire To The Third Bar

2006-11-17T15:50:00.000-05:00

The Wii comes out this weekend. I really don't feel like lining up, so maybe I'll do a drive by Saturday night and early Sunday, see if it's crazy. If so, there's always next weekend. Set fire to a heat resistant oven mitt the other day, smelt something and thought it could be melting - didn't expect it to burst into flames, kinda scared me.

Any ways, here's today's feature. Peter L. Morris (I assume) made a new addition to his brickshelf. I love his photography, on some of the models you can barely tell if it's real or just a kick-arse render. His style is kinda odd: patchy colour schemes and a mix of smooth studless sections to studly areas - and yet still his models look great. Albeit, this could be from the excellent photography; good photography can almost make the worst model look good. This, is far from the worst though. He shows a variety of neat looking SNOT techniques, and a good use of 1x1 cylinders. Its always a good day when something of his surfaces on brickshelf - and given that today is also a Friday, its a very good day.

I better be playing Twilight Princess within the next three weeks, or pain... lots of pain.

A big orange swirly thing in space..

2006-11-09T05:56:00.000-05:00

I’m actually still alive. Its been a while since my last post which sucks, but on the other hand only one more exam to go and an easy one at that! Yay!

Anywho I’ve been thinking, my old tired Black Sun subtheme? It needs some revising, a make over, a shiny new coat of paint. But hang on a sec.. scrap that. I’m throwing the old volvo and its new paint right out the window. Lets just scrap it and replace it with a fancy new rocket car with kicking bass and wicked flame decals. But maybe I got a little too carried away there. Not an entirely brand spanking new subtheme as such, basically just what I’ve wanted Black Sun to be ever since I did the Talius and Sariya. In other words more like this and less like this. But this time I think I’ve got the required skills to make the more organic and spikey design to work with some degree of success. I think. Oh yeah and the name needs changing to, names stolen from SW can only last so long anyway. Now I’ve got this idea for a really nice attack frigate, I’ve just got to work out how exactly I’m going to approach this new look Black Sun. hmmmm..
Oh yeah and the 8-ball, she’ll finally be finished soon with any luck. As she’s been gathering way to much dust in dry-dock recently.
In other recent news..
Dan’s Lightning Moc is pretty cool, I particularly like the long pill style canopy going on, the lightening bolts and intakes are also pretty nifty lookin. Though, I don’t know what it is but somethings seams missing from the overall design.
Once again, Jerac effectively shoves a crap load of playability into a neat little package. This time in the ever so nifty Steampunk Catamaran. When you roll it over the ground all the little bits and pieces and greebs move about, I mean how cool is that? I’m particularly drawn to the little papery tent dealy in the middle, though however its innards look plain, flat and boring and are in need of some detailing.
And if you haven’t checked out Brenden's awesome Eos Battlecruiser go do so immediately!

Better Be Heaven

2006-11-04T18:51:00.000-05:00

Yoder's been separated from the vast majority of his Lego collection, this seems to have resulted in an explosion of building from him. 2+2=5. He's got the main wave of a recent microscale building bloom, which was instigated by Jerac (blogged below). They contain the same essential colour scheme, though this just seems to help in the comparison of the ships.

First up is the Ventura MkII, a light gunship. It's definitely got an interesting shape, and it looks more fightery in style. Looks like a wasp, or a hornet - the big engine cylinder in the back like the abdomen. I'm unawares if this look was on purpose, though it seems that if it isn't then Yoder had some indirect influence running through the veins. Colour scheme is tightly kept here, red stripes are perfectly placed. The various uses of blacks and greys is a little spotty, but only if one begins to get very picky. It would really be interesting to see this in a minifig scale, to see how certain parts would be built scaled-up. Now that I look at it, I think that 2x2 slope on top could be lost, but I'm just getting picky myself.

Next! The Gluckliche Reise long range freighter. A quick google search of that brings up... well, it's MOCpage and some viking boat clipart. Oh well. Very different in scale and shape from the Ventura, it's actually slightly reminiscent of the Rising Phoenix which he did. Slightly. The use of those inverted slopes on the nose is a great idea, I used it for the engines on a cruiser and the engines on a fighter, but here it's all the more front and center - a greater use. The stud-inserts fit well with the greebs on the front of the nose, though some part of me wishes the antenna were off centre. The bridge truly conveys the look of a spacified cargo ship, very similar to the big tankers and ships of the present. The use of yellow to act as the outer hull plating it great - that whole outer hull technique is a favourite of mine, as was mentioned in the previous post and probably several before that - and more to come. The 2x2 round tiles on the bottom give a neat shape and look, seemingly fit for containers of some kind. Engine pods are go!

Dogstar One! Destroyer-class frigate. This one is the basis of the next cruiser too, so it's even better for comparison. With this and the other small ship of Yoder's I saw on flickr [link] , the Apache Rose, I think he had a spurt of Battlestar influence. This much less than the Apache, but it still has this feeling of a battlestar, particularly when looking at from a rear angle. Something about those engines. I love the dark-bley turret, and tried using it on a recent ship, but didn't have enough claw/gun barrels to pass around. The offset secondary bridge behind the main one makes me happy, being offset and all. Not sure I like the square cannon on the side of the nose, just doesn't fit. This one also lacks that special hull plating effect sadly, which I think would have pushed it over the edge of awesome. Plenty of sensor antennas though, those always seem to help with microscale.

Two! As if the first weren't enough, he went and turned it on it's side. I like this one better, it's more vertical construction [compared to the last] seems all the more spacey. The bridge on this one seems to suggest a larger scale, and the little bits tacked on the side further this. This one uses the hull plating effect, however less than the freighter, it still does. The use of grills for the inner hull is cool, a quick way to make a small place look greebled when low on parts. This rendition of the dogstar seems more military than the first, I'm betting that I'm making that connection from the more vertical construction mentioned above. I'm curious how he made the neat flame effects on his photoshop'ed pictures, it looks rather neat.

Anyways, I guess that about wraps it up. I missed actually featuring the Apache Rose, though I think it's too small for me to try and come up with something long winded to say. Check out my newest microscale, feature on Snoikle.

Street Spirit

2006-10-21T09:42:00.000-04:00

I think I've gone through 7 WIP versions of a battle cruiser I've been working on since mid July. For some reason or another, I've hit this massive builders block and it's sticking around. I refuse to admit defeat and just scrap the whole project - it will get done. Today I'll blog the reason of my most recent scrap and rebuild, Jerac's Merchant Cruiser the Edouard Guillaume:

Firstly, the shape. This mix of a bulky sculpted look and a skinny grim look, with the main body and the nose being their respected points of assesment. Yet despite the contrasting styles throughout the design, it all flows and has a very coherent look. It's not a box. As some of my past WIPs had begun to look like, instead this features areas that look quite fragile and pull of a very spacey and futuristic look.
The countless bits of black greebs poking out from all unseeming locations also help with that spacey look. The look that the red [and white] is really just this outer shell of visually pleasing hull, and that underneath there's really a ship of chunky mechanical greebs. This 'shelled' look is a look I always like, it gives the ship a better sense of realism, that it was built from the inside out, and that it looks like it could actually be used as a ship.

I'll leave you now, for I've got a microscale ship to work on - and the inspiration is flowing through the veins. Carpe diem.

Okay here I go..

2006-10-03T07:55:00.000-04:00

Firstly I’d like to thank my good friend Brenden for the invitation and cool intro dealy.
Secondly, well I’m 18, just finished school, sitting HSC exams in a month and currently juggling procrastination and study. Oh yeah and thinking what I’m going to do with the rest of my life. And I think I rank pretty high in the no-buildy club ranks at the moment. (I hope to change that soon though)
Anywho enough of my inane self-warbling, I’ve gone and picked out three of my favourite Space Mocs of the past week.

On B-shelf this morning I noticed these totally awesome Daleks and K-9 by Blakes7. If your reading this Blakes7, post some more pics!
Scale down the oversized Dalek-plunger-death-ray and I’d be willing to trade first born sons, vital organs and family members for one of those marvellous Daleks.
Then theres Jerac’s garbage truck/ smuggling ship which is totally cool, its got playabilty galore with all its greebs, hatches and doodads. I particually like the space-junk piled up in the back. Oh yeah and the steering vanes are an awesome touch.

I’m a sucker for Cowboy Bebop, and as a result Legoswami’s Hammerhead Moc has snagged my attention. It may only be a render but I think it would translate nicely into real bricks. There are a few areas that need a bit of work such as the claw, but beyond that minor nitpick the colours look crisp and the shape is sharp with some nice angles going on. Gotta love those propeller housing boosters and the hose-made harness in the cockpit to.

Thanks for reading this and its good to be posting here.

And then there was two.

2006-10-02T15:55:00.000-04:00

Just a quick update today: I'd like to welcome Tom Buckland as my new blogging partner. I strive here to be different from the many other blogs out there, and one way I thought was to have different perspectives - besides having the schizophrenias, there was only one way to do this. I've known Tom online for a few years; he was one of the few great builders on Bzp when I built for .Space there, and he's the main reason why I'm at CS now.

What better way to get a different perspective then to have someone from the opposite end of the Earth! Albeit, we both recognize Her Majesty the Queen as head of state, but he's on beaches during winter while I huddle under the warmth of a scarf and a peacoat.

We've also got a good number of hours between us on the Greenwich Mean Time scale. You know what that means? 24 Hour Blogging! I jest.

Welcome Tom, and happy blogging. I'm sure he'll post a quickie introducing himself soon enough.

Sing to me, O great Muses

2006-09-29T21:16:00.000-04:00

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!

2006-09-22T18:22:00.000-04:00

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

2006-09-19T19:28:00.000-04:00

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.