So I'm still too lazy to do proper front page reviews with custom pictures, write-ups, and massively edited video... and also we've stopped doing Youtube Livestreams. But I still have a backlog of sets I want to build (and talk about) so I'll be posting a few more brief blog reviews with images via Instagram! (Since Flickr has it's whole image count thing). So without further ado...
Ninjago's 70678 Castle of the Forsaken Emperor
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Gotta be h
So we are now on the third wave of Collectible Minifigures featuring DC characters, only this time it's not branded as coming from The LEGO Batman movie. I'm personally a bigger fan of the generic CMFs so the increase in licensed themes isn't always to my tastes, but I'm a sucker for good figs so I wanted to collect some. Granted, I haven't had the most luck so far with these... LEGO Online order gave me two Green Lanterns and Joker (the latter who I did not want.) When I visited the LEGO Sto
Another quick set review, picts from Instagram!
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This set is $49.99 with 604 pieces.
I'd been eyeing this Spider-Man set for a while now, but it was a little too spendy and I had my eye on other sets. Besides, I've already got Spider-Man and Venom, and Spider Gwen wasn't super detailed, so I tempted my expectations. But then I got it as a birthday present, so it all worked out in the end!
The figs are okay. Spider-Man and Venom are great; super
I think my new way to do set reviews will be via Instagram. Sure, I'm limited to square photos only, but it's the easiest at the moment. There's not exactly a ton of room for text, but I can elaborate here if I really want to!
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This set is $59.99 and has 447.
I totally got this set for the Triceratops. The coloring of the dino is new, but I believe the mold was reused from the 2012 Dino theme. And we've had three or four waves of dino
Bionicle Pens strike again!
Black Six recently sent me a rare Bionicle Toa Nuva pen he found at BrickFair NJ this year. (Don't worry, I paid him back for it.) I've been able to track down the Toa Mata pens and their mini Toa masks, but the Nuva variants have been a bit harder to come by. Instead of a mask clipping over one of the beads, it has a pin attachment to a head shaped bead. Sadly the pin itself isn't compatible with Lego elements, so the mask only attached to the head bead
So I've helped make a bunch of Bionicle mosaics over the last nine years. The first couple we did as a large group, but over time people's interest (and parts collection) waned, while my interest in making cool Lego mosaics has grown. I gave up on trying to do big group projects after I ended up doing over half of the 2016 "group" mosaic, and instead Chocolate Frogs and I have done a couple of smaller size ones that have traveled around the convention circuit.
But...
We're coming up
So BZP got a revamp, and only went down for a few month. Now it's back and I have to get used to all the changes!!
I think the blogs got the worst of it, TBH. Although this does seem more in line with other personal blogs I've seen elsewhere on the internet, so it's probably a modern template that's cool for everybody but those of us (like me) who are so used to the old BZP / Invasion format. This new one looks like it could incorporate pictures better, so that's something I'll have to s
Aladdin is one of my favorite Disney movies (making Jasmine one of my favorite Princesses) but I’ve been disappointed that she hasn’t appeared in more than one Lego Princesses set. Well, this year she gets to be in a couple, likely hoping to capitalize on the live action Aladdin movie coming out. The biggest one of the Palace Adventure, so I picked that up. It’s $29.99 with 193 pieces. The main draw is the characters. Jasmine has appeared in one set before as a minidoll (included in the pictur
Here is Lego's latest Ninjago spinner / action / unique character only available here set: 70644 Golden Dragon Master! Some people might be enticed to buy these because of the figs. (Guilty.) Some people might do it for the pieces. Some might do it for the action. And some people might mistake the price of these things and think they're getting a legit set. (I mean, really, $15? I get there are more pieces, but did this new design really need to be this big... or needed at all?) Piece wise, th
Technically the Harry Potter Collectible Minifigures aren't supposed to hit shelves until August, when the whole Wizarding World line releases worldwide. But my local Fred Meyers scoffs at such release dates, and there were at least five boxes to choose from, three unopened! So I spent way too much time feeling out my favorites... which accounts for most of the series! For the record, I did not get Dobby, pajama Harry, or Credence because I don't want them. I did miscount and so I didn't bu
There was some talk in the forums a while ago about the Bohrok pens, an abstract collectible item from the era of excessive Lego merchandising. In looking up some pictures, I discovered a relatively cheap copy of a Gahlok pen on BrickLink, and because I have no impulse control, I now own it. And since I previous wrote a review on the Lewa and Onua Mata pens, I decided to do the same with this one. So without further ado... It seems like the standard pen case for the Lego pens at the turn of
Ninjago occasionally releases a set that’s basically an arena for the latest spinners. Usually it’s a couple of walls built to contain the spinners with a few functions and themed sculptures thrown in. Some of the designs are better than others, but mostly their appeal is in playability or unique minifigures. Well, in the case of 70640 S.O.G. Headquarters, I totally got it for the figs, although 530 pieces for $40 did convince me to get the full set and not just Bricklink Lloyd’s exclusive fig.
The Black Panther movie was pretty epic, and there were two Lego sets to go with the film (in addition to a jet released with Civil War). So today I’m taking a quick look at 76100: Royal Talon Fighter Attack ($29.99, 358 pieces) and 76099: Rhino Face-Off by the Mine ($19.99, 229 pieces). There will be some moderate spoilers, but I won’t go too in depth to the movie. Between the two sets, you get seven figs from the movie, hitting most of the main cast. T’Challa appears in both sets in two d
I was planning to do a full review of this set, but after sitting on it for two months, I realize I don’t have an awful lot to say about it. Soooo... I’m saving myself the effort and just doing a short blog review. This set consists of two motorcycles, a popular vehicle to create in the theme. (There’s generally at least one motorcycle set per year, usually around the $20 mark.) This set goes for $29.99 and has 308 pieces. There’s not exactly a lot of great pieces here, but white, dark azur
So this is what I've been building for the last couple of days. (Helped that Andrew sent me back some of my older mosaic plates, because I really needed to steal some pieces from them.) This is a scene from the Skybound season where Jay and Nya get back together at the end of it, which is one of my favorite scenes. However, the background in the screenshot was meh, so I swapped it out for a more unique skyscape shot of Ninjago City, including Borg Tower. As for interesting techniques used here
Man, I've been putting this one off for months waiting until just before the movie premier to post this! (Truth time, there are older set reviews that I'm still working on. Sigh.) I'm waiting to see how many angry Youtube comments I'm going to get on this one. I hummed the theme music, added snarky captions, and generally felt meh on the set, so it's bound to set off a few folks. (Tis good to know I set the bar pretty low as the worst BZPower reviewer.) Anyway, for the TL/DR (which probably
I've been trying to work out a deal for some custom printed minifigure torsos for another project, and then I got thinking about how cool it would be to have printed torsos for the Toa, and then perhaps even printed heads too! Custom Lego fig prints are more common nowadays, so in theory it wouldn't be too difficult to pull it off. But it would still be pricey... but one way to bring down the price is to order in bulk. And it occurred to me that there might be other fans out there also intereste
So for all the missteps of the Lego Ninjago Movie, it did have a couple of decent songs to go with it. I was listening to the album, and the song "Heroes" is a pretty decent pop song. It's not as addictively catchy as "Everything is Awesome" but enjoyable. "Operation New Me" and "Found My Place" are also good, but I don't like "Dance of Doom." The instrumental bits are also nice, but they're not quite as iconic as those from The Lego Movie. There's an Asian / action movie vibe, but it's not supe
It's here! Say what you want about the movie, the sets have been pretty epic, and this one had me drooling from the get go. I won't be able to build it straight away (have a few things to clear out first) but it's going to get built sooooon. It was either get this set or collect all the other Ninja sets from the theme... so I chose this. It's only about half a month's rent, plus the largest Lego set I've ever purchased. ... and yes, I know it's probably the priciest way to get civilian Kai,
I made it back to BrickCon again this year, having missed it last year. This was the first time I've visited as part of the public since 2008... and I realize just how hard it is to see all the MOCs during public hours. Got to hang out with some old friends and meet some new people from BS01 who were fun to hang out with. (And one kid who talks 100MPH and is really opinionated about Bionicle!) There was a lot of cool stuff on display, although between chatting and going out for lunch, I didn't
A true Ninja knows when to admit defeat, and alas I must too. The Lego Ninjago Movie was kinda meh. There, I said it. I mean, it was a good movie and stuff, but it is definitely the lesser of the three Lego movies. In fact, there were some of the TV show seasons that I think would outshine it in terms of story and characters. (Tournament of Elements and Skybound, to be precise.) I thought there was potential that it didn't quite live up to, so yes I was kind of disappointed. So what foll
So the Ninjago movie comes out this week... or rather, tomorrow. I had been planning to see it Thursday night, only to check and see that, actually, they don't have any showings for it Thursday. And the showings on Friday are either too early in the day (AKA when I'm at work) or too late (AKA going to bed cause I have work on Saturday too.) So alas, I won't be able to catch the movie until Saturday afternoon, making me jealous of everyone who got a chance to see it early. Anyway, despite my ea
So I just watched the Lego Elves series on Netflix. I've seen the previous two seasons (episodes, they didn't really last that long) and while it was a decent story, the animation always seems a bit off, and the voice cast wasn't always the best. Well, the voice cast stayed the same for the most part, but either they got better or I just got used to it. The animation, however, is way better; you can definitely feel the Voltron / Avatar vibe to it. I was expecting the elemental uses to be a bit m
Based on the promotional material, we've seen a lot of human Jackie Chan making ninja jokes. So my theory is that the LEGO Ninjago Movie is merely Jackie Chan playing with his Lego collection and making up a story for it.