Another Blogger You Should Read

Ever since things have started getting slow here, I've been thinking a bit about the various other LEGO-related blogs out there that my readers may not know about. I hate to leave my readers in a lurch, and while no other site uses the same format as this one, there are quite a few other blogs by LEGO fans worth reading (particularly if you're an avid fan up for more than just one model per day). Yesterday's rush of moon-landing tributes brought out some nice blogging on all four blogs by this one blogging wunderkind I know of in the online LEGO fan community. The blogger I speak of is BrickTales, an admin at the Classic-Castle.com website and the author of MicroBricks (a microscale-themed blog), VignetteBricks (a minifig vignette-themed blog) , GodBricks (a blog on LEGO and religion), and MinilandBricks (a blog on the "Miniland" scale used at the LEGOLAND parks). All four are excellent niche blogs and certainly worth following - not to mention their uses as libraries of models in their particular themes. Bruce's writing is aimed at adults but generally all-ages friendly, and his surprising command of both LEGO and larger issues means even the potentially controversial subject matter of GodBricks is always handled in an intelligent, inclusive and inviting way. For a sampling, check out these posts from yesterday about the moon landing: Moon Mission (MicroBricks) Happy Moonday (MinilandBricks) From the Earth to the Moon (GodBricks) One Small Vig For Man... (VignetteBricks)

...and yes, I just posted that instead of a model for today. It was worth it, though!

What's Going on with LMOTD

If you've visited this blog in the past month or so, you've probably noticed that we haven't been posting much lately. There are actually some good reasons for this. There are some behind-the-scenes changes going on - long story short, I'm slowly making this more of a community site, with the ad revenue here supporting contests which will be announced in the months to come (we've already begun planning the first - I'm hoping to have an announcement to make about that sometime this summer). While we do want to keep this blog going while we're bringing in more people and planning contests, we all have other things going on that are pulling us away from posting here. Matthew (Brickapolis) is in a bit of a "real life" crunch time, and recently became a man of mystery. Chris (Duckingham) recently started a phenomenal LEGO-based webcomic called "The Brick Side". I (Dan) recently got through some large school projects, graduated college, and started working at a promising start-up. A new LEGO store in our area is further distracting Matthew and me from blogging (what sort of coverage/appearances/volunteering we do for the grand opening festivities remains to be planned). So here's what's going on right now: We'll try to post models when we can, but no promises that we'll actually be daily for the next few weeks. I'm currently looking for more LEGO fans to help write the site - we're looking for people knowledgeable enough about LEGO to write long-winded blurbs discussing techniques and history alongside daily models (we want to make sure we keep the same level of quality in future posts, even as we keep trying to increase the variety and frequency of posts). I'm going to continue editing and scheduling the blog - we're looking for contributors to write about models and LEGO news and then save the posts as drafts in Blogger. If you are interested in writing here at the LMOTD blog, send me an e-mail at legomodeloftheday@gmail.com - I'll try to be in touch with you ASAP.

Brick Town Talk

I'm planning on covering some group layouts later this week as the minifig-scaled model, but today I'm mentioning another model (since I've already written about it elsewhere). As a big fan of the Café Corner kit and original models made to work with it, I've long been a fan of the blog Brick Town Talk, which features news and models related to these incredibly detailed town models. Brick Town Talk has a different format from this site - here, I focus on models and builders and a general tone, but Brick Town Talk just documents all the great things going on in that one theme with a quick link or two, not usually going into commentary. The idea is to show other hobbyists (primarily adults) what ideas are being used elsewhere in the world. Considering how busy I've been lately, it might surprise you to hear that I've recently joined the Brick Town Talk team and started posting there. However, that format - one with no rules on variety or content, and with considerably less links and commentary within posts - takes much less time to post in. Since I have most of my recent LEGO news and creations set up to load automatically in Google Reader, it's not too hard to find models. It takes only a minute or two to provide that one link that Brick Town Talk requires, but it can takes about 15 minutes to an hour for each post here (since for LMOTD, I have to skim through photos for objectionable content, track down details about who built it and where he/she posts his/her models, write commentary, queue it up for a time when we haven't seen many other things like it recently, keep track of holidays, resize photos, moderate comments...) Earlier today, I wrote (in addition to a post for tomorrow for LMOTD) about an old-fashioned building facade for Brick Town Talk. That post still has a bit of commentary a la LMOTD, but most posts there don't. Think of this one as a bonus model-of-the-day. I probably won't cross-post to both sites very often, since that niche should only show up here once every month or so with my current posting schedule (and of course, it's now my only outlet for excellent town models with disturbing things happening inside). It is likely that I'll (when the work isn't duplicated) post about models here and then copy the commentary to the other site - with scheduled post publishing here and no schedule on BTT, it's possible things might show up there before they appear here (which was also the situation before). While BTT is aimed primarily for adults, I do think it's fairly kid-friendly - and it's certainly a great way of finding new town ideas to try, regardless of how many parts you have or how old you are. If you're interested in the hobby and town buildings at all, it's essential viewing. They have an RSS feed and two posts per week (on average - there are no rules for how often to post there). Be warned that occasionally something uncouth might come up, but it is a great blog and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in detailed town models.