8/365

It's #legoplankingthursday over on instagram again today. Stormtrooper Bob enjoyed the afternoon at a local park planking in the fountain.

5/365

Coming to the end of foundation demolition on my friends house

4/365

Enjoying a little break in the sunshine before is rains again this afternoon

3/365

2/365

Day 5 and nearing the end of house demolition. Stormtrooper Bob was on hand this afternoon to help tear out some of the foundation.

Wild Kingdom of Colorado

Deep in the wilds of Elbert County Colorado lives a legendary wild turtle. Stormtrooper Bob was lucky enough to catch a rare glimpse of this elusive turtle who vanished as quickly as he appeared.

Mutton Bustin'

Several yeads ago when I went to a local small town rodeo it quickly ended with a tornado and a tree which collapsed onto the stands where we were just sitting moments before. Luckily no one was hurt and the rodeo was rescheduled for another day.

This year there were no tornado's, downed trees or pouring rain and the rodeo went off without a hitch. My friends 6 year old son wanted to participate in the Mutton Bustin' event which is held each year. He did really well and held onto the sheep for longer than any of us thought he would. To commemorate the event I built him a LEGO sheep.

Mark 1 Arc Reactor

 Arc Reactor built for the June Part Challenge

Final corrected image of the glow in the dark Arc Reactor

Original color cast of the glow in the dark LEGO dish

WIP - Robot

Started working on a red robot build late last week and it is coming along nicely. there is not much beyond what you see here and some of the colors shown are stand in parts until I can order the correct colors.

Out of the Ashes...

a new racing ship is born

This ship was built over Memorial Day weekend made entirely from parts in my "waiting to be sorted" LEGO bin. A lot of the parts are from the disassembled ship I built for the FBTB Gunship Alt Model Contest.

For some reason I latched onto the name Jupiter Jump Ship so this is a Jupiter Jump Class Ship called The Phoenix.

I was completely out of stickers so I ordered a few sheets from a local seller on bricklink and stickered this one within an inch of it's life earlier this week.

Of all the ships I have built over the last few weeks this one is the largest and by far the most sturdy.

This ship was played with for hours by 3 little boys ages 3,4 and 6. The only parts that fell off were the engine ports, which I even manage to knock off from time to time.

That being said this bruiser of a ship will just plow through the competition. There is no need for agility as The Phoenix will just push you off the race course as it passes and continue on its merry way.

Etch A Sketch

I still vividly remember the reason why I built this MOC. I was standing in line at a Walmart checkout and there were a stack of pocket Etch A Sketches. Looking at the knob on the toy I realized it was almost 1:1 scale with the 2x2 round brick and I would possibly be able to build a faithful recreation of the Etch A Sketch in LEGO.

The most challenging part of the build (besides my lack of red parts) was the grey "drawing screen" The height of the opening is a little less than 5 studs high so the 5th tile is actually partially pushed into the bottom of a 2x10 plate.

The internal support system is also a little weird and uses 4 lightsaber blades to perfectly fill a few small areas.

The "Etch A Sketch" text was added digitally, but I would eventually like print the text onto the build and take this one with me to a brick convention sometime in the future.

I am still very happy with this build and would not change a thing. I was also gratifying when my friends asked me why I was sending them pictures of an Etch A Sketch as they did not realize at 1st glance it was made out of LEGO.

Flickr Stats

If I manage to check my Flickr stats at the right time of day my graph looks like a mountain range. The highest peak is always a weekend and the lowest is usually on Wednesday. The lowest point in this graph is because I checked my account as a new day was starting for the Flickr stats. My flickr day seems to start somewhere around 7pm, and I'm not sure why that is.

Flashback Friday: 1957 Battleship

new photo - 2014

Lets blow off the dust and roll the clock back to June 2012.

I keep less than 1% of the MOC's I build and the 1957 Battleship playing board is one the builds I have kept and display proudly in my office.

If I remember correctly this was the 1st or 2nd "everyday object" I tried to build in LEGO. As this was the beginning of my adult building career I had virtually no bricks, plates or tiles to work with so this one took almost a month to complete. (I had to order at least 90% of the parts)

Although it took forever to finish I was, and still am, very proud of the way this build came together.

original photo - 2012

Out with the old, in with the new

A few days ago my office chair died a sudden and tragic death. No amount of duck tape, screwdrivers or 10 ton epoxy could fix the problem so I had to face facts.

I needed a new chair.

After a few agonizing days of using an uncomfortable kitchen chair I finally picked up my new office chair today and it's like sitting on a pillow of clouds and rainbows.

I should have thrown out my old chair years ago.

Catch of the Day

My friends son Nathan, who is 5, has started to draw quite a bit in the last few months. He also love to throw out LEGO building instructions and do his own free builds, which are usually pretty darn cool.

I've decided to start turning his drawings into LEGO creations for him and 1st up for conversion from drawing to LEGO is his Lobster.

The Original Drawing

And for those who wonder how much correction goes into these photos here is the original, uncorrected image:

Not much correction was done to this photo. Colors were adjusted, areas were darkened and the photo was cropped.

Revenge of the 5th

Today we celebrated yet another Star Wars day, Revenge of the 5th.

Nightmare Freddy

The new and improved digitally printed torso for our Nightmare Freddy figure

available for purchase here

And the original Freddy first created way back in November 2010:

 Laser engraving ABS plastic has severe limitations. 

If you use to much power you melt the plastic and get a "ridge" around the edge of the engraving.

If you don't use enough power it's not deep enough to color fill 

The wider the graphic the harder it is to color fill
etc., etc., etc .

Back in 2010 a laser engraver was the only machine available to me so I worked with what I had. Although I wish I could have started pad and digitally printed years ago I don't regret the engraving years!

Batman

Original quick sketch for this build

2nd sketch used for building reference. Final build is pretty much 1:1 scale with this reference. Some proportions were changed, mainly the nose cover

Final Build

Mickey Mouse

This build started out as a quick pencil sketch on notebook paper. This drawing was used as a sizing guide when building the Mickey Head MOC. The sketch worked surprisingly well and eliminated any guess work.

DMC12 Delorean - Back to the Future