This is for a story project I've been working on on-and-off since at least 2015. The writing is almost done, but I always meant to include some artwork for it, so finally got that bit started today. I'm somewhat happy with how the gradients turned out. Eventually I'll get around to posting it on BZP. I'm proud of it, but I doubt it'll get any views, given the levels of activity on this site nowadays.
Last Friday was a pretty terrible day. I watched the Saturday evening news, and the first ten minutes reported about five deaths that had occurred on Friday. One of them was a friend of mine who had died in a car accident. It’s really sad, because she was such a great person. And it kind of reminds me a lot about car accidents. When people drive irresponsibly or just aren’t as cautious as they should be, then things can happen. I’ve heard stories of how a fatality from a car accident effec
Day 0: I picked up Swert and the Island. Day 1: Kakaru and his brother Russell arrived in the morning. Some goofing off took place, so we didn't get to the convention super early, but we were the first Bionicle group there. Got the Mata Nui Island model set up. It's not perfect; besides the flaws I've already pointed out (one word: porportions) but Steven also wasn't able to bring down all the plant elements, so the forest isn't as wide-spread as it was last time. But we have masks for t
Swert and I continue to work on our Mata Nui Island model, built at City Blocks Lego Art Studio in Tacoma. Day 2 What we spent the most time on was the mountain and volcano (again.) I managed to add a peak to the mountain in white. While you can't see it from this angle, the Ko-Koro Sanctum is included. Dan, the guy who runs the studio, didn't like the mountain and forced me to revamp it twice, but I think it's finally looking good and natural. Swert finally finished the volcan
After having no new sets all through January (except the Series 4 Mixels), Fred Meyers has come back strong with a bunch of new sets in store, including City, Chima, Bionicle (but only Kopaka, Onua, and LoSS), Ultra Agents, and (most excitedly) Elves and Ninjago. I'm planning to save a couple of purchases for the double VIP points from Lego stores in March, but I couldn't resist and purchased a two of the three new Ninjago sets right away. (They didn't have them all there.) Expect reviews shortl
So I know lots of y'all have already heard about this, but I'm just going to officially say it. Kakaru recently moved to the Portland area, and we're going to move into an apartment next week to share rent and stuff. Our rooms will be full of Lego... and not much else because we spent all our money on Lego. Yep. ... ... APRIL FOOLS!
Well, apparently my entry is gonna lose in the System Building Contest Poll. That was pretty much guaranteed, since I never win in BBC, and I've had a lot of experience to back it up. But it didn't help that NOBODY FREAKIN TOLD ME WHAT THEY THOUGHT OF THE MOC IN THE FIRST PLACE. Is it good, horrible bad, fine but not enough to shine compared to the others? I dunno. Granted, the same thing happened with my COT short story. (ultraviolence, I thought we had a deal. I read and reviewed your
Kay Kay, MOC time. I have a couple of new WIPs to post up, and they're all related to Space, really. First one is the modular SHIP. Backstory, since the original post got lost in the data purge of 2013: I want to make small, colorful ships that can be connected to each other to make a longer SHIP. So without further ado... Each one is ten studs long, has three holes in the front and three axles in the back so they all fit together. (It's a snug fit for these three ships when putting t
It may or may not get off the ground, and kinda depends on things outside my control. But here's some concept work. Props to those who can figure out exactly what I'm planning to do with this. (And go ahead and complain about it if you like, it might just fall on deaf ears)
This is the part where I normally type some self depressing rant about how the year sucked and why I hate myself. (You'd think there'd be some positivity for the coming year, but there usually isn't.) But 2015 wasn't a terrible year. It was not a great year, but now I'm angry at outside forces instead of myself, so yay progress. Plus, y'know, we have the Toa reappear as sets; always a plus. So here's to 2016; I hope the world doesn't come crashing to a horrible and devastating end where we a
This year, I attended both premier Lego conventions on opposite ends of the country: BrickFair and BrickCon. I've heard a lot of claims that BrickFair is better because... um, well, because so and so said so. Having been to both, I feel the need to properly compare the two conventions, and note the pros and cons of each.
And, as a disclaimer, these are all my opinions. I am not saying that one convention is BY FACT better than the other. These are my preferences and feel free to disagree
Soooo... I just probably spent too much in the span of 15 minutes, including a couple of first-time ever purchases. To begin with, I registered for BrickCon. (This is the not-first-time purchase) Yeah, everybody else is getting excited for Brick Fair, but I'm not going and I've already sent in my MOCs that cost $20 for shipping. So there's not much for me to do but be envious. Instead, I need to start planning for my next big convention, and hopefully I'll have a cool MOC ready for it soon. An
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
More Instagram photos and videos
Gotta be h
Temple of the Avohkii by Xccj, on Flickr With Bionicle's return, we must make known our presence, less our human sacrifices been made in vain! (What, you think people left BZPower because they grew out of the theme? Get real.) This is for a BrickCon project that somebody in Port-LUG said they wanted to put on. Since an email and a Flickr group a couple months ago, nothing more has been communication, so I assume it's still a thing. I guess I'm also in a couple of contests. I got my game s
So I got an interview for a position at a new movie theater they're opening next month, which could offer a nice summer job. (Yes, Ben, I totally stole the idea from you. ) They had this big thing where we could go meet with somebody there and fill out applications and such. But there was one conflict. Their training sessions for the jobs is the same week as Bricks Cascade. >.< It's a bummer, but hopefully I can work around it. At the very least, I can ditch the convention mid-d
(Click for news post) Whew, did it again. Collectible Minifigure review. All 16. This time with more pictures too per fig... added some "group" shots with each one comparing it to a similiar fig. Lots of writing to make this happen. Lots of picture taking, picture editing, ext. (Thank goodness I learned some of the batch features in photoshop, would've been a pain to each one individually instead of the whole group automatically.) Also, a good bit of coding too. But yeah, there's Seri
Okoto Socket Mosaic by Xccj, on Flickr Not going to talk much about this; it's a concept idea I had, a mix between a sculpture and a mosaic of the new Okoto island. Maybe it's just me, but the shape just doesn't seem iconic or anything, so it's kinda hard to tell if I matched it well enough? Now I want to do the Mata Nui island in the same style... but all my sockets got used here, for the most part. I tried some new things here. I flipped every other column to mix things up, although this m
Unless you live under a rock (IE don’t read the front page often… which a surprising amount of people don’t seem to do) you’ll know the huge success that the Bionicle Mosaics have had at BrickFair these last two years. Chocolate Frogs and Nukaya organized the projects, and then regular members brought or sent in the pieces. They’re working on another one for this year too, but that’s not what this blog is about. See, BrickFair may be the largest convention for BZPower folks, but it’s not the
So I got the Evo Walker. Mostly for the mini Kaiju, but there are some other pieces. But then I thought, what if I could make this build more of a challenge? Is that even possible? The answer is YES. BUILD IT IN A BAG!! You can totes do this. A big pain is that there's a little bag inside the big one with small parts, so you have to open that one inside the big bag. And for me, anyway, it kept getting stuck on the model. But yeah, if you want a challenge, build your Evo Walker in
593 pieces, $49.99
More Instagram photos here!!
I don’t mind that this is not called the Slave 1, but I do have to admit that this ship has been recreated so many times that it’s fairly ridiculous. Heck, I even made a custom Bionicle build of this ship already. And yet, I don’t have any copies of the actual model, so when I found this for sale at Costco I just impulsively bought it. Now I can at least add another classic Star Wars ship to my display.
The two figs are Mando and
For the first time, I think my post count rank has slipped! I was just checking the member list, where I ordered it by post count. From like 2005 to 2010, I was like in the top 70-80 posters on BZP. (Like, usually ten or so down on the second page with 60 members per page.) I mean, after the first couple years, I made progress, but for most years, I just made steady progress. I'd pass some members, and then other members would pass me. But I haven't been posting much this year, and it's a
506 pieces, $39.99
More photos on Instagram.
Ninjago always has to do dragons, and I’ve appreciated how they’ve continued to crank out various fun designs over the years. The Jungle Dragon brings on a slightly revamped design but with a lot of teal, so what’s not to love? Also featuring the new Island / Jungle theme, so a new round of characters!
You get four figs: Jungle Lloyd, Jungle Zane, PoulErik, and Thunder Keeper. The two islanders share the same torso design, with grass
Wow.
I wish I'd learned about the Lego Universe version of Lego Digital Designer. Can finally make accurate mini figs of the characters since I can change the color of any piece. These four turned out nicely.
