It's never too early to start planning builds to donate for next year's Creations For Charity - we expect next year's fundraiser to be larger than ever before.
Details: Duncan "donuts_ftw" Lindbo recently came across the Buzz Lightyear wing element from the Disney series of Collectible Minifigures and built this beauty. This microscale version of the X-Wing Fighter (from Star Wars, now also owned by Disney) also makes great use of the new Flat Tile 1X1 ½ Circle, White element (found in a few Mixels sets) to get the shaping of the wings right at this scale. There's also some clever studs-not-on-top (SNOT) work - note the lime clip ring plate in the cockpit to connect the two 1x1 plate with tooth elements on the sides. Notice that (although I'm not sure how he did it - perhaps white clip ring plates attached to either side of the lime one?) the bottom set of wings is attached upside-down relative to the cockpit and top set of wings - a nice bit of symmetry that keeps the handle bar plates from marring the shape of the spaceship.
Details: Our friends at BZPower recently posted video of the BrickUniverse Raleigh 2016 LEGO Online Community Panel. LMOTD contributors Dan and Matthew were both on the panel - myself (Dan) representing this blog and Matthew representing Beyond the Brick. Also featured on the panel were Scott Barnick (contributor at New Elementary), Andrew Bulthaupt (admin at BZPower), George Barnick of Brickipedia, and Stephen Forthofer from The Brick Show. We discussed a number of aspects of the online LEGO fan community, focusing on how each of our outlets within the community uses various sites and platforms that are a part of our ever-growing community. You may find interesting the parts where the history and future direction of this blog are covered, but much of the conversation was about the sheer size of the fan community today - which is more interesting for those of us who are willing to jump on panels but are shy about the whole self-promotion thing.
We will (eventually) be covering BrickUniverse Raleigh 2016 in more detail.
Details: While I (Dan) continue to be largely absent due to personal issues (I'm now moving to a new state again), I have still kept building and kept attending events. At one such recent event (this year's BrickFair Alabama), I was interviewed by our friends at Beyond the Brick about my Super Mario Bros.Piranha Plant. While the mechanism still doesn't run smoothly enough for me to be completely happy with it, it's worked well enough to take to shows - but I've been avoiding documenting it online until I've had a chance to make it work better (in this clip, it's already lurching along at a slower speed and sticking a little). I'd like to revise it further to fix the motion problems and to try to capture more of a world from Super Mario Bros. - perhaps with a few more moving characters.
This model debuted at last year's Maker Faire Orlando, which coincided with the 30th anniversary of the original release of Super Mario Bros. It also works out nicely that Piranha Plants were actually green back then (as compared to the red that's currently more common). Not that colors showed up on my classic Game Boy, anyway...
Channel 4 over in the UK has recently put out a brilliant documentary that chronicles some great behind the scenes action at LEGO. Many topics near and dear to the LEGO community's heart are touched upon and lots of notable LEGO fans are featured prominently.
Fortunately for those of us not in the UK, a kind YouTube user by the name of "Legoboy" has taken the time to post the documentary in its entirety for your viewing pleasure.
(Please note that the video embedded above was viewable at the time of this posting. If at some point in the future this video is no longer viewable please alert us as such and we will attempt to update this post with a working video.)
EDIT 3/5/2016: Channel 4 now has this documentary available on demand online.
Details: Nuju Metru has taken his building in an interesting direction here in that he built these MOCs as a LEGO theme. Instead of a detailed sculpture or gigantic, expensive creation that would never be marketable, he has created a line of playsets. Each and every model has several play features, mostly rubber band launchers (none of that cheap flick-fire stuff) and collapsing structures. The models - or should I call them sets? - cover a variety of price points. Tying it all together is a fantasy storyline. Pictured is the Siege of the Portal. Be sure to check out the different creative sets on BZPower and FlickR.
