Vivaaaaaaargh

Legoland California opened its Las Vegas miniland display a couple of years ago now, and I had the pleasure of studying it up close recently. But I would never have noticed the exquisite figures below among the 100's that I saw there, if it were not for these images by bestgesture...




...that last one has special significance for me, since I was actually married in Las Vegas by an Elvis impersonator. (No its true, I was! We even had call girls instead of bridesmaids and danced in the aisles while Elvis belted out some great numbers. God, I hope it was legal!)

---

Apparently these were shot for an article in the San Diego City Beat covering the opening of Lego Las Vegas.

For anyone who assumes that winning a job as a model designer for the Legoland theme parks would be some kind of a American-Idol-esque "dream come true", you should read the above article, which includes interviews with the likes of waffle-builder extraordinaire and master builder Eric Hunter.

Its quite an eye-opener, I can tell you!

Now 25% WIDER!

The Living Brick is now 25% wider. This is good. Why? Because I don't have to scrunch down all those beautiful Flickr images any more. Flickr images are available in a 500px size, but I was having to scale them to 400px to fit on the page. Now we can enjoy them in their full glory!

Hurrah for CSS hackery!

Macro Mary

I'm not sure what the exact context or signifiance of this scene by Ernesto Carrillo is, but it has all the right moves: Nicely shot, nicely composed, a person, a plant, and lots of cute little details. I have no idea how he got the model lights to glow like that!



For some reason the lady photographer appears to be dressed some kind of anachronistic pre-war 'bonnet and breeches' outfit (with clogs?), but I'm not sure what this signifies. Perhaps Ernesto can explain it to me. Nevertheless, she looks very smart, and is clearly dedicated to her art!

Check out Ernesto's photostream for more angles and closeups...

A fraktion of the size

Austrian builder 2x4 has been getting some good (well deserved!) coverage out there recently for his ambitious Battlestar Galactica hangar deck, complete with captured Cylon raider...


I think he may have one-upped the Chief with that ship and the accurate hangar detailing (sorry, Ryan!). Anyway, what may be less well known is 2x4's excellent microscale versions of BSG ships. They are to die for! Here is a selection...



And the wet dream doesn't end there! He also has a collection of 37 microscale and midiscale Star Trek ships, each one instantly and clearly recognizable to any self-respecting basement dweller...



Ok, so who else was suprised to see Katie Sackhoff actually wearing make-up at ComicCon? I also have it on good authority (from a friend who chased after him) that James Callis was 'tiny'! Ah, celebrity stalking hero worship can be a difficult thing sometimes...

New and improved "Visual Index"

I am retiring my original experimental "Visual Index" page, which was supposed to contain a thumbnail link to every MOC featured on this blog. It was just a pain to maintain and I had given up some time ago. It was also very slow to load, since it had to pull every thumbnail image from its original source. Pretty dumb idea, really!

But as Mr Spock once said, nature abhors a vacuum. I also find dogs abhor vacuums too, but I don't think that's what he was really talking about. Although dogs are part of nature. A kind of very slobbery part, I suppose. Are vacuums part of nature? I mean, there's always a lot of wierd stuff growing inside mine...

Anyway, from the firey ashes of the old Visual Index, I bring you the all new Visual Index! Its super groovy, and super new. And would probably have a smaller carbon footprint, if it actually had feet.

To be precise, its actually the photo pool for the new Living Brick Flickr Group. Which of course introduces a massive bias towards Flickr here. Nah, whatchagonnado? All the best stuff's up there anyway!

In unveiling this new Visual Index, I'd like to GIVE A BIG SHOUT OUT to all the folks who's MOCs I have previously featured, who were kind enough to add their images to this new pool. You've done me a solid there, chaps! Let the good times roll on...

xx
oj
 

I'm m-e-l-t-i-n-g!

As I sit here slowly drowning in my own sweat, courtesy of the current Seattle heat wave, and thinking "Its just too bloody hot to be sitting in front of a computer", the following MOC by Jordan Bradford seems strangely appropriate...



Pop quiz (Category: Ethical dilemmas)
You find a poor helpless snowman rapidly oozing down the drain on a hot summer's day. Do you...

(a) Heroically scoop him up in a wheelbarrow and whisk him to the safety of your kitchen freezer, encasing him in a healing blanket of cherry popsicles.

(b) Stuff his brains down your underpants and congratulate yourself on not wasting $500 on that portable air conditioning unit.

What would you do, hot shot? What. Would. You. DO?!

(..apologies, the heat is driving me slowly insane...)

Synthetic Lego

I love it when my different interests converge! Swedish electronic record label Beem Music have created a bunch of neat microscale versions of classic 70s and 80s synths for their website. Here are a selection...





Of course, any fool can see that the kit shown above comprises (in order): Juno 2, Roland SH1000, Mac SE, Revox B77, another considerably more accurate Roland SH1000, Linn 9000 Drum Machine and Prophet 5.

I love the way they've captured the essential details that define each model, such as the positions of the control banks, lights, patch cords and wood panelling! All this just screams "ongoing set" to me! They certainly put my efforts in this area to shame.

Ok, now off to find some hair gel and fish out my old Flock of Seagulls records. If I owned any Flock of Seagulls records, that is...

The Making of a Jedi

While working on the "Tour de Force" models, I finally got round to creating a visual record of my building process, using the Obi-Wan Kenobi model. Enjoy!

Tour de Force

- All photos and 'stories' are now available on MOCpages.
- Original full-sized images are available on Flickr.
- You can also pick up the T-shirt on Zazzle.
- See all these models at BrickCon 2009 in Seattle!

Check back later for a bonus "behind the scenes" story!

Ochre Jelly is very tired now, and is preparing to slither back into his hollow for a while. Thank you for watching. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

"May the force be with you, always!"

Tour de Force, Episode 3: "DROIDS"

"You know, R2, I'm so glad master Skywalker treats us as valued members of the team." ...<chirp, bleep bleep, whistle!>



"Snips, that's an awful lot of battle droids coming our way..."



"But master, Captain Ackbar said we have to defend these droids, even at the cost of our own lives..."



"You're kidding, right?"

...

"Tell fish-face we're going to switch to Plan B..."



"Oh dear! Why am I such a poor judge of character?"

Tour de Force, Episode 2: "SITH"

Fear. Fear is the Sith's ally. Using your opponent's own fear against them, is the greatest advantage in battle...



To sense their fear, even before their foul stench reaches your nostrils, will allow you to be prepared...



And will give you the edge when the Jedi trash launches their filthy sneak attack...



"You will be victorious, because you are Sith. It is your right."

Tour de Force, Episode 1: "JEDI"

In any siutation, the Jedi must carefully consider all his options...

"Halt, Jedi scum!"



But in some situations, there can be only one response...



And one outcome...



"No room for doubt can there be, Obi-Wan."

Coming soon: "T2F"

A quick slice of history...

Today is Bastille Day in France, which is kind of their equivalent to July 4th.

(...well actually probably not; I'm just dumbing this down in case any of the 'proliteriate' have not heard of FranceLand!!).

Anyway, this minifig scale guillotine by Grrr31 seemed appropriate!

Because showing a picture of a Lego croissant brick would just have been a total cop-out, n'est ce pas?!





Hmmm, I think its time for me to go eat some cake...

Water feature

I probably scan of the order of 1000 thumbnail images a day looking for Lego creations that impress me, so as I wade through screen after screen of poorly photographed Bionicle creations and poorly tagged Legoland vacation photos, I do sometimes spot some interesting patterns among the 'good stuff'.

The latest meme du jour, among the castle building clan, seems to be use of color and texture to create highly artistic water effects...

Professor Eggplant


Rocko


Garbageman13


CJ Edwards (previously blogged)


So good you could almost dive right in!

"Of course you know, this means war..."

Mrs Monster is definitely giving her other half a run for his money with this ambitious representation of Marvin the Martian. Of course, I'm expecting this to be followed up with a model of Bugs, complete with matching space outfit and disintegrator!?!?!



    

"Oh ma darlin', oh ma darlin'..."

I'm not normally one to post about space ships (yes, what is the world coming to?!) but "Clementine" by fivebonez kind of captured my imagination.

The enlarged cockpit, front-heavy stance and 'toed' landing pads give this the distinct feel of a cat about to pounce. I also appreciate the deliberatly excessive detailing and color scheme - seething and organic!





And for those of you that are into this sort of thing, it has fully detailed interiors with tons of playability!

And the winner is...

Time to do a bit of blog house cleaning. I'll be removing the current set of polls to make way for some new content. So let's see how the polling went. The people have voted. And the people are all wrong, damn you!

Most awesome 1 x 1 brick
76% Cheese slope
23% Lamp
(...right, and what are you going to need to stick your cheese slope to half the time; yep, a lamp brick. Doh!)

82 colors
43% Just right
39% Not enough
17% Too many
(...almost too close to call!)

Cutest
45% Raccoons
29% Puppies
25% Kittens
(...nods approvingly)

Mini figs
96% Good
04% Bad
(...shakes fist threateningly)

Fave scale
75% Mini-fig
20% Massive
04% Microscale
(...will you people never learn how wrong you are?! Also remember that to-scale, the microscale vote is actually equivalent to 4980% at mini-fig scale)

Fave theme
45% Space
27% Town
22% Castle
04% Pirate
(...town had this for ages; space pulled in at the last second)

Fix! Fix! Recount!

Itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow micro scale bikini

If minifigs built Lego it would be microscale. But what if microscales built Lego - what would that be, nanoscale? Here young JimmytheJ gives us a glimpse into the possibilities of such a mind-bending alternate reality. Or he might just be taking the piss, I don't know...


The point being, I don't have to actually tell you what the above 6 bricks represent. Its obvious. And therein lies the beauty of the art.

I've enjoyed many of Mr The-J's hyper-minimal creations. They're like little tiny Lego thought experiments. Sort of like Sudoku for microscalers! Here are some of his other massively compact works, to help you flex your creative micro-muscles:




I wait with baited breath to see what JtJ will produce once he gets more than $20 worth of Lego on the table at one time! ;-)