Having mastered the force and tamed a giant frog on Dagobah, Rey returns to Jakku to finish off Teedo once and for all.
I finally got around to building this amazing frog MOC that uses the parts from the 31007 Power Mech creator set. It’s definitely the best part of this creation, and all credit goes to Vaclav for it’s design. It’s an extremely creative re-use of the parts in the original set, and a pretty ingenious build, even if following the 3D instructions can be a bit of a challenge.
Once I finished the frog, I was inspired by this picture from the creator’s page, and I knew I had to do something.
Having just gotten Rey’s Speeder yesterday, I figured the minifig of Rey with her hood would be perfect. Her seat is made mostly from parts in the microfighters line.
Does the LEGO Finn in your avatar/logo actually exist? Is there an Adventure Time set that I missed?
Sadly no, the Finn the Human minifig in my avatar is not an official set, but I have super high hopes that this idea for an Adventure Time Minifig Series will actually get made. Here are the details/sources as far as I could found after a quick search.
I’ve created a rotating minifig stand because I’ve been doing a lot of photography for this blog. I like creating animated gifs that show minifigs rotating so that you can see the whole model. I wasn’t happy with the results of rotating the minifigs manually, so I built a technic-powered stand that rotates the minifigs precisely every time. If you’re interested in building something similar for yourself, you can download the instructions as a PDF, download the lego designer file, or see the pictures below.
Previous results from rotating the minifig by hand:
Results using using the rotating stand:
Two minifigs at a time
Building the Rotating Minifig Photography Stand - The PDF instructions have slightly more optimal parts usage than the photos below, and may be easier to follow. I still don’t have nearly as many bricks as I’d like, so I had to improvise a bit. You can make any substitutions you need as well.
This is where the PDF instructions and Lego designer model end, but I found it needed some more room to hold onto it while making rotations, so I added four 2x2 bricks as feet and mounted the whole thing on an 8x16 brick base.
Lego Star Wars Microfighters Series 1 X-Wing Fighter 75032
This isn’t the most exhilarating of builds, but getting a minifig and R2 series dome that are exclusive to this set definitely makes it worth the original retail price of $9.99 us. Several years after its initial 2014 release, this set will likely only appeal to collectors now.
The Minifig - This one’s exclusive to this set. Having the print go all the way down the legs is some nice extra detail. It’s too bad the visor is printed onto the head instead of as transparent plastic on the helmet like some of the newer sets.
This is a micro build of a building known as “The Rotunda” in Charlottesville, Virginia at the University of Virginia. I grew up in the area, and decided it would be a fun building to do this on a micro scale. It’s definitely more of a tiny representation of the building than an accurate, scaled representation of all of its features.
The Inspiration (view on Google maps)
The Parts - The 30 parts used only cost a total of around $4-$5, but you will likely have to order them from multiple vendors online that have them in stock and pay separate shipping for each. This means it could cost around $40 total to get everything. Here is the full parts list. The cheapest method is of course to use pieces from your existing collection, and make color substitutions as necessary.
The grey pieces I used are light bluish gray, but any similar light gray color will do just fine. The dark red pieces could be substituted with a light/dark brown, or anything that looks like it could be bricks. The white pieces should really be white for the best effect, but you can get away with using light gray.
The Build - download PDF instructions
Alternate Version with Statue - You can include the statue in front of the Rotunda if you want, but personally I think it makes the model look a little too busy. Ideally the trophy/statue piece would be black or dark gray, but I only have dark red and blue versions at the moment.
To create the alternate version, just pull off the front 1x4 tile and replace it as follows:
This is a MUST HAVE set for any collector with amazing minifigs and some great, exclusive, printed pieces. The minifigs are amazing, especially with their proton packs, and the car itself is an absolute joy. The build was extremely fun with some amazing highlights, especially around the way the side windows are built and mounted at that perfect angle. The final piece feels extremely solid, especially with the amount of 2x2, inverted, round caps used underneath to lock everything into place. The model weighs more than I expected, and has some amazing detail on the roof.
The Minifigs - The minifigs themselves are great. Peter, Egon, Ray, and Wilson each have a normal, and a “scared” face, and the torso pieces are uniquely printed with their initials on the front, and name on the backs. It’s a shame the legs don’t have some printing on them, and shoulder patches with the Ghostbusters logo would have been a nice edition, but these are GREAT overall.
This set comes with a great display plate build that’s great for collectors.
The proton packs are great little builds on their own:
The Box - Like all of the other Lego Ideas sets I’ve gotten so far, this comes in a premium-feeling box.
The Parts - If this set wasn’t collectible enough for what it is, the pieces included make it even better. An extra piece separator, while not amazing, is never something to sneeze at. The exclusive, printed Ghostbosters logos and ECTO-1 licence plates are GREAT. This set also includes so many shiny, chrome pieces that are useful in any custom build.
Getting another piece separator is always nice. :-)
You’ve got to love those exclusive, printed Ghostbusters pieces.
So much shiny chrome.
The Build - This was an absolutely amazing building experience, and must have taken around 2 and a half hours at a leisurely pace. Watching everything come together is a trip down nostalgia lane. The lines are clean with mostly smoothe surfaces, but there are just enough studs showing to be clearly Lego. Maybe I’m a big softie, but I had tears in my eyes by the time I clipped those perfectly mounted side windows into place.
Lego Star Wars Microfighters Series 1 Millennium Falcon 75030
It may be small, but it’s the ship that made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs! The Millennium Falcon is one of the best microfighters sets out there. Even at the comically tiny scale common to its series, it is unmistakable.
The Minifig - Harrison Ford! This minifig is is only available in one other set (Mos Eisley Cantina). The head features two faces, and the half smile side is a great tribute to Harrison’s wry expressions.
The Box
The Parts: This set has some great parts, as well as an EXCLUSIVE, printed 2x2 round brick used as the cockpit, which would make a pretty good R-series droid head in any custom build.
The Build - This is a solid build with no hollow areas. It is pretty fun, and should be accessible to young children just starting out.
Review & Pics: Star Wars Microfighters TIE Interceptor (75031)
I LOVE the look and idea of this microfighters set, especially at the original price of $10 US, but it definitely has its shortcomings. A year later, this set isn’t worth the $20-25 US you’ll have to spend on Ebay unless you’re working on a collection. There are no extremely rare pieces, and the completed model is a bit fragile to be played with without pieces falling of. All of that said, the minifig looks great!
The Good: This set meets the criteria of the microfighters line, being tiny representations of larger ships that can shoot and have a mini fig. It’s pretty cool looking, and very collectable being part of the first microfighters series.
The Bad: The model isn’t a particularly good representation of the original TIE Interceptors. Even at miniature scale, the proportions should still evoke the original ship design, but this set is much too bulky in the center.
The center cockpit of this set is too large in comparison to the wings, and the airy feeling of an orb floating between two blade-like wings is gone. I know it’s hard to do microfighters well, but this one falls shorter than the others.
The completed model is a bit fragile, and doesn’t stand up well to even the most gentle play. This one does better on a shelf than in the hands of your children, which is a shame, since part of the appeal of the microfighters series is giving young children cheap sets they can play with.
The Minifig: Interceptor Pilot
This is a very cool looking minifig, although the helmet was very loose in my set, and comes off if you try to lift the model by the minifig’s head.
The face underneath is the same generic “angry clone” we get with many of the other Star Wars baddies.
The Box: Sadly the one I got on eBay was quite worn, but at least everything was sealed.
The Parts: There’s not much to write home about here except for maybe the transparent, printed disk that’s used for the cockpit, and the donut-shaped disk, both of which come in only about 10 sets.
Review: Lego Star Wars Microfighters 75033 - Star Destroyer
This is from the original Microfighters, and is a clever miniaturization of an iconic sci-fi starship, the Star Destroyer from Star Wars. Who can forgot the opening of episode IV from 1997. The star destroyer enter’s the frame from above, eventually taking up virtually the entire screen, and dwarfing Leia’s ship. So how does this bricklet-sized version hold up?
This is the second of the Microfighters series I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing (the first being the First Order Snow Speeder), and there are definitely a few gems in here. I’m discovering that even though the sets in this series are relatively small in both size and part count, they are great for showcasing a few clever tricks for mounting things in unusual ways. The best parts of the Star Destroyer has to be the use of flat 2x2s with a central propeller shaft to hook the seat plate onto the bottom of the craft (which is actually the side of the blocks that make up the base). The bridge is also attached in a clever way, with the center bump of a flat 1x3 inserted into a 1x1 brick with a hole in it in order to mount it in reverse, providing a texture contrast to the rest of the ship. The main drive engines of the ship are also mounted in a fun way in the back, using transparent, light blue mini radar dishes for the engine flame.
Overall this set was fun to build, but it left me wanting more. If you’re looking for an amazing building experience and have the budget, then go with a larger Star Destroyer set. If you’re looking for collectability and a fun, quick experience with some clever twists, then this is a great set for you.
Lego Minecraft 21113 - The Cave - Review & pictures
This is my first Minecraft set, and I have to say, you get a lot of brick for your buck! There are a ton of light gray blocks in here, so if you need some for your collection, then this is the set for you. It’s a fun set overall, but not particularly complicated. Probably best for young Minecraft enthusiasts, The most fun parts as an adult were definitely the building the spider and special ore blocks. I’m much more excited about doing Minecraft #21115 - The First Night in a week or so.
The minifigs: This set comes with two minifigs that are unique to the Minecraft themed sets: Steve and a zombie. As far as I know, Minecraft is the only theme that contains minifigs with square heads like this.
The Spider: Although not technically a minifig, the spider is a very fun figure in this set.
Details: There are a few fun details in this set like the torches, TNT, ore blocks, spider, etc.
The Box:
The Parts:
The Build: Pretty basic except for the spider and special ore blocks. Lots of bricks.
This is my first introduction to the Lego Microfighters Star Wars line, and unfortunately for my budget, I’m in love. This set is from Microfighter’s series 3 (2016), and I’m going to have to go back and buy all of the previous sets from series 1 and 2, which won’t be cheap. Since they’re out of print, you can’t find them in stores anymore, and your best bet is eBay.
One of the best features of the sets in the Microfighters series is that they provide a relatively cheap way to get some awesome minifigs while still giving you something fun, and often amazingly cool/cute to build (depending on your perspective. Here’s the figure that comes with this set:
The next best thing about Microfighters is the vehicles themselves. I haven’t seen The Force Awakens yet (I know, I know), so I’m not familiar with the First Order or their snowspeeders yet, but the this set is still awesome. If I love building the AT-AT from series 2 half as much as I enjoyed this set, then the creative team behind this series will have done their job and then some. God I can’t wait to get my hands on the other sets!
The box:
Great view of the set with nice background effects and featuring that shooting piece.
That’s right Lego, tempt us with the x-wing in the photo and the other sets in series 3 right there on the back of the box.
The smaller bag comes with some good standard pieces, as well as the white clip that is used to hold the gun in place. You can never have too many 1x2 grills, nor too many neon, round 1x1s. The 2 flat 1x1 printed white pieces are great for use in any Star Wars or other sci-fi looking builds.
The larger bag comes with the minifig itself, as well as some neat “L” shaped pieces that allow interesting options and are used in building the back of the snowspeeder. The round, clear base pieces are also great for any hovering or gliding builds. Another shooting gun never hurts either.
“Extra” parts:
I’m finding sets give you more and more “extra” parts that are not used in the build itself. I wish the sets from my childhood had done this. My collection would be much more complete today. Again, I love having the second, flat, printed 1x1 tile.
Conclusion:
Even though this is not the most exciting of the minifigs (unless I see episode VII and it turns out snowspeeders rock), I feel like this set is still worth having. It was a great introduction for me to the Minifighters series, and I absolutely loved building it. Recommended.
How’s this for a bit of nostalgia? I noticed some of the key pieces while sorting my childhood collection, and was able to dig up the instructions online after a bit of searching. One of the cool things about this set is the red 1x1s with hooks that are mounted on the antennas in order to rotate and lock the cockpit visor into place.
Review & Pictures: LEGO, City, Space Utility Vehicle (30315)
Find this set for sale on Amazon.com
This was another purchase to get the astronaut without having to buy the larger spaceship sets, which can be purchased on Amazon.com in medium, large versions. Both look awesome, but for now I just wanted the minifigure, and it was a lot easier to drop a few dollars on this as an impulse buy at Target than to shell our much more for full sets. The radar dish is nice, along with the little 2x1 control panel. The only bad thing I have to say about this tiny set this set is that I want the big ones even more now. :`-)
Review & Pictures: DC Super Heroes, The Joker Bumper Car (30303) Bagged
Find this set for sale on Amazon.com
I got this tiny set today as a cheap way of getting the Joker minifigure. I was pleasantly surprised by the number of parts in this set and how much fun I had putting it together. It’s a friggin` bumper car for crying out loud! The wheels on the bottom make it look like it’s gliding, and the mounting of the bumpers is quite clever. For under $10, this is a cheap, fun way to get the Joker minifigure while still getting a little set to build and play with. That said, you can definitely skip this if you're going for one of the larger sets that already contains the joker minifigure.
TLDR: Get a hold on your childhood Lego collection by going digital and getting organized.
There comes a time in every Lego enthusiast’s life where you go from that jumbled bucket of legos from your childhood to attempting to impose some kind of order on your collection. Yesterday was that day. My son got some new sets for Christmas, and I realized how much I missed it. The only problem is that I’m much more organized obsessive than I was as a child.
Manuals are fragile things. No matter how durable the actual bricks are, Lego instruction manuals are fragile things, and they rarely survive a few uses by young children. The solution? Go digital. You can download PDFs of instructions for recent sets from the official Lego site. If you’re looking for older sets, you can often find them on BRICKSET, or by searching Google for the set number and “lego instructions pdf” and digging through the results for download links. For example:
6054 lego instructions pdf
Step 2 - Start Tracking: Track your collection on BRICKSET
As your collection grows, it you probably start to forget which sets you actually have. BRICKSET is an amazing site I found recently that allows you to track your sets and mark others as wanted. You can easily see all your sets at a glance, as well as stats and other neat things about your collection.
There are a few mobile apps that integrate with BRICKSET, and it seems to have a ton of potential for the obsessive Lego enthusiast. I’ll probably be hacking together an app or something in the future given that they provide a nice web service API.
The best thing about starting to use a database site like this is that it can help you rediscover sets you own but had completely forgotten. By finding a particular piece or minifigure, you can look up all sets that item is included in. I was able to find several sets from the late 80s this way and rebuild them!
Step 3 - Get Organized: Sort your Legos for easy accessibility
It’s easy to find what you’re looking for when you’re starting out, but as you gain more sets, finding specific pieces gets hard, and it’s not always easy to answer questions like “do I have enough of X to build something like Y?”
Some particularly serious collectors will sort their collections by set, keeping individual pieces in their original boxes. This method can be impractical for most people. Boxes take a lot of space, and it makes creative building almost impossible. You would have to dig through all your sets to find the pieces you’re looking for, then put them all back in their separate boxes when finished. The solution? Sort by color, size, type, etc.
It can be a daunting task to organize an existing collection by color and type, but it’s not that bad if you divide and conquer. Just create more and more specific separations as needed. When it starts getting hard to find things, start by estimating what color you have the most of, then pull them out and put them into their own ziplock bag. Something sealable with a slider makes it easy to know your Legos won’t go flying. Keep separating colors out into their own bags as needed.
Here’s how I broke down my collection, going from least to most specific:
By color, or similar color then
By size - approximate or ...
By longest edge (e.g. all the 1x1s, 2x?s, 3x?s, etc.) then
By shortest edge (e.g. all the 3x3s, 3x2s, 3x1s, etc.) then
By height
By type (normal bumps, smooth, etc.)
By exact piece
If you don’t have that many Legos, you probably only need to sort by color to make it easy to find specific pieces quickly. At some point you may find it hard to find that tiny 1x1 yellow flower petal, so it makes sense to sub-divide your yellow pieces by size, etc.
My solution at this point in my current collection, I went with several storage trays with adjustable dividers. I got about 10 plastic jewelry organization boxes on sale at Michael’s (you can find something similar for sale on Amazon.com), and they are making it so much easier both to organize and find things in my collection. This one for sale on Amazon.com looks promising as well.
pixelskylines
origamiaround