Mysterious Minifig

From what I've seen, generally it's only the licensed theme stuff, like Star Wars, that shows any significant rise in value. With something like what you have, it probably won't go up a lot. You can always hold on to it and see.

This will sort of be my end of year wrap-up, since I really haven't done much blogging lately. I just want to cover the highlights of the year, along with a few pictures. Right away in January I started my co-op in Manufacturing Engineering with Bobcat Company in Bismarck, ND. It was significant in more ways than one. Primarily, I mark this is the point where I officially moved out from my parents house. I had been gone at college since the fall of 2011 and had an apartment with 2-3 other guys since the fall of 2012, but I always came home when school was out, both over summer break and winter break. When I moved to Bismarck in January, I left with no intentions of ever moving back. One of my younger brothers also took over my room at that point, so I don't really have a room to go back to. Working for Bobcat was also my first 'real' job that I started where I had no prior connections to anyone there. At almost all of my previous jobs, I had connections that helped me get in the door and get started. On March 15, I got married to the love of my life. We had initially picked that date as it would have been the start of my Spring break, had I been in school. Since I was working it just ended up being a week off of work. The wedding went well and there weren't any disaster stories that you sometimes hear about. The reception also worked out nicely as well. We had originally been concerned about the number of guests, but the hall ended up being at capacity instead of overflowing. For our cake we had a LEGO topper that we had found at the Mall of America LEGO story when we visited it the previous fall. Since we were out in Bismarck, we ended up taking about three trips out to western North Dakota to go hiking. The first trip was to the south unit of Teddy Roosevelt National Park. That's where the two bison pictures were taken. The second trip was to the north unit of Teddy Roosevelt National Park. And the third trip was to some of the hiking trails that were south of the north unit. The third trip was mostly a geocaching run. We wanted to find a bunch of the secluded Badlands caches. Many of them had not been found in over a year. The panorama was taken on top of a butte in the badlands. Imaging being surrounded by that on all sides with no signs of human activity except the road. The train, we saw when we headed off of the interstate looking for a heavy rain we could see in the distance. The rest of the year, after the summer ended mostly consisted of working my way through another semester of school. It was a little rough at first, but after about a month my brain was back in school mode, instead of work mode. I was also promoted to head teaching assistant, since the previous head TA had finished school and was now working in South Dakota. I only have 1 year left and then I will finish my degree in Mechanical Engineering. Current plans are to stay at NDSU and continue on with earning my Masters in Mechanical Engineering. That will put me in school until the end of 2017, but it should be worth it. To go anywhere in most larger companies a Bachelor's degree won't get you very far. 2014 was a good year and I am looking forward to another good year in 2015. I'll leave you with two other pictures that I've enjoyed from this year. The cat's name is April and my wife brought her with when we got married. We're not 100% sure what kind she is, but if you google flame point birman, all of the picture look like her, so it's probably a good guess.

This is really well done. There is so much to like about it. The lime was an interesting color choice but you did excellent job working with it. The color scheme turned out pretty nice. The feet are really well done. I'm impressed you were able to get the foot to bend. The rest of the body is similarly well done. The head is also pretty impressive. I like how much detail you were able to include in it.

You did a really nice job on this MOC. I was going to the say the upper arms were kind of thin, but you did such a good job shaping the limbs that it makes perfect sense to for them to be that thin. Everything about it is so well done, the shaping, the color scheme, even the back is finished.

The bow is cool. I've never seen that done with Bionicle before. You've put together an interesting assortment of Toa. Some of them look like they're too simplified. Argareth is probably the worst in that regard. It just seems like his torso is way too thin. The rest of them have decent torsos. I looked at Jodurak and was wondering what was going on and then I read the back story and it made sense. It's kind of cool how you built the robotic arm and leg. I haven't seen some of those pieces used for MOCs before. You also have some interesting parts usage with the heads and mask on Roia's legs.

It seems like it's unfinished. A large part of that might be that the color scheme doesn't blend well. The light grey in the lower legs stick out to me just a little too much. Those pieces also make the lower legs seem a little to wide compared to the upper legs. The torso has a pretty interesting design though. It's kind of cool that you able to incorporate the heads in as shoulders. Overall, it's a very interesting looking Toa. Thanks for sharing.

I think this one looks pretty cool. I like the head as it looks pretty unique. The color scheme is also really good. The orange really contrasts well with the black. The legs and torso look pretty well done although it seems like the arms are a little thin, especially the upper part. Both the weapon and the staff are pretty cool. Overall you did a really nice job on this.

I think you did a pretty good job with these. The build isn't too complicated, but they still look nice. The color scheme works fine. The glue is an interesting way of connecting the chest armor. It's a little bit unconventional, but I think it works. Overall, very nice job on these. Thanks for sharing.

It looks very interesting, although it doesn't seem like it's complete. It seems like it should be a four legged machine and the way you have it posed it's standing on it's back legs. The color scheme works well though, even though it doesn't have a lot of variety. I would try to add a head or something behind the mask because right now it looks like the mask is floating in space.

It's an interesting concept and the glowing is pretty cool. I don't know if the build is the best though. The arms and torso look good, but the fett and lower legs just seem too blocky to me. You did a pretty good job avoiding that on the rest of the body. I guess that's kind of what happens when you use a lot of system pieces though. Overall though it's a pretty cool concept and I haven't really seen anything like it before.

Even though it's pretty simple I think your self MOC still looks pretty good. Not everything needs to completely custom. Depending on the purpose, a simple construction can work fine. I think you did pretty good job getting this one to look the way you wanted. The color scheme is nice. Also, nice use of the rubber bands to add a little more bulk to the arms, I almost missed them.

The bulky build works pretty well. The MOC looks pretty tough and strong because of it. I agree with one of the previous posters that the thighs could be a little bigger, but I don't think it hurts the overall MOC too much. The rest of the MOC looks good. The color scheme is also well executed. It's kind of cool that you were able to incorporate the Mata feet into the torso. It's not something you would usually see there.

This one looks so cool. For a fast MOC you did a really good job on this. The mask is pretty cool and definitely makes this MOC unique. The feet are also well done. A lot of people would have just used the standard feet, but I'm gald you added the extra layer to the bottom as it looks pretty nice. The air pack on its back as well and the hoses running along the arms and legs also look pretty nice. I don't really have anything to complain about since you even managed to do something with the simple forearms by including the hoses.

Together as a whole all of these go together pretty well. The builds aren't to complicated but there is a nice consistency between each member of the team because of that simplicity. I think I like Kolasi the best, but that might just be because you used gold colored pieces. Xyleke is my least favorite. I'm not sure if I like the dark blue along with the green. The blue matches Kolasi, it just seems like it's out of place. Ponos is good too, I don't like him as much as I like Kolasi, but his color scheme works. Very nice job on these.

I this guy is pretty cool. The afro adds a lot of interest and definitely makes him stand out. The rest of the build also appears to be pretty solid. I don't really see any gaps. I'm not sure if I like the multicolor flashlight. It seems like it would have been better to just use one color.

Both of these are pretty interesting. It almost feels like they're not complete though. There are some gaps that sort of bother me. The Fire Brawler looks fine from the front, but not as good from the back. You have some interesting build though. The feet on the fire brawler are interesting although they don't feel complete because the previously mentioned gaps. The 4 claw hand is also pretty cool. These must be pretty big because I don't think the 4 claw would work on anything smaller.

There are some many colors but somehow you've managed to blend them together well enough to make it work. The body it self is well done as it appears finished and well filled in. The amount of detailing you included is impressive. I have to agree with Sumiki though, that I'm not a huge fan of the hands. They're probably the worst part of the MOC. They're just too simple when compared to the rest of the work you've put into this.

I like the Matoran. There's not a lot there but it's still nice for nostalgia's sake. The Toa of Shadow is really well done. The weakest part is definitely the forearms. There's just nothing there compared to the rest of the arms and the legs. You mentioned trying to fix that though and I'm not really sure what else would work there. The rest of the arms and legs are good. There is plenty of bulk there that helps to give him a pretty strong look. Overall nice job on both of these.

It looks like it will be a fun little short. I'll have to try to remember to watch it when it comes out.

It's an interesting concept and I think you did a good job with it. The color scheme is pretty straight forward and the model is looks pretty nice. I don't know if the entry picture does it full justice though, since by itself it doesn't appear very fearsome. I suppose looks can be deceiving though.

All of these are really good. I think my favorite is Jacko. Your description matches the pose perfectly. The spider is also pretty good as well. Do the mixel eyes come in the different colors or are those just extra colors LLD will let you use?

I like this a lot, they look very cute. Using the diver flippers for the feet was a good idea. They work well.

I took a look at my linear algebra text book and it kind of had an explanation. I'm attaching the two images that kind of show the proof. I'll try to explain some of the stuff in there since I'm not sure how much of the concepts your class has covered or if you know all of the notation. Image 1 The first thing is the definition of a Matrix multiplied by a vector. I'm assuming you understand most of he definition. It's basically how we switch between a system of linear equations and a matrix. Where is says x is in Rn, that means the dimension of the vector x, or the number of entries in x. The bottom half is somewhat of a proof for multiplying two matrices. One note on that is that b1 - bn are column vectors like x (without the sub script) while x1 - xn are constants. If you don't really like letters, I redid it it using numbers to show what all the letters are saying. I guess I didn't completely finish, but you should be able to tell that it works out to match the rules for matrix multiplication. Image 2 Please let me know if you need additional clarification on any of this.

This is an extremely impressive MOC. It is also one of the most usual creations I have ever seen. It has a nice flow to it that gives it a very organic appearance. The pony tail is nice and Gresh's mask works perfectly for this application. The color scheme also works pretty well. You did a good job blending the blue and the green together. Overall a very nice MOC. Thank you for sharing.

The foot piece as part of the head is certainly striking. I'm not really sure how I feel about it though. I don't have a problem with the legs, but it seems like the torso might be a little bit too long. I suppose that could be corrected by making the legs longer and thicker. The color scheme is okay. You do a good balancing everything there, but it feels like it's just a little busier then it should be. I think it's an interesting moc and the head definitely makes it stand. Thank you for sharing.