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.

How it's made: It's A Trap!

It's A Trap! - 2013

I have a love hate relationship with the time spent taking this photograph.

This specific image was a breakthrough for me because I finally figured out how to successfully photograph black colored LEGO (lots of strategically placed index cards and carefully bounced light)

with only 7 frogs on hand for the photo shoot it was necessary to combine several photos

This photo was also a huge pain to shoot. Unfortunately when you correctly photographic black LEGO you can also see every speck of dust. I physically removed as much dust as I could (Vader had been sitting around gathering dust for years) and removed what little remained digitally.

Color correction, brightness/contract correction and more frogs added

The Vader minifigure is precariously balanced and he kept tipping over when I would begin to place the frogs on him or if I would accidentally bump the table.

I only had a limited amount of frogs (7) so I had to take several photographs and combine those together to get the small horde of attacking frogs I wanted. Looking at the final image now I am suffering from Spielberg regret and I should have added more frogs.

Final corrected photo

Overall this photo was an extreme exercise in patience, but it was worth the time and frustration.

So next time you are walking around and randomly see a small group of frogs, steer clear or you may be the victim of a random attack.

Revenge of the Puppy

My youngest dog is in the process of exiting puppyhood and although he never really destroyed or chewed anything up to this point, he has managed to destroy several things this week.

The latest victim...my Techinc Vader Helmet.

This helmet was special for me because it was a part of the 1st LEGO set I purchased as an adult.

I guess I need to put my "waiting to be sorted" box a little higher up and out of the reach of puppy teeth.