Hidden Delights.

Now you see it, now you don't - this microscale temple by mahjqa has a nifty feature, it descends into the ground! Make sure you check out the video to see it in operation!

Dr. S.

WW2 8x8 American Scout

This is one of my creations. This one is a WW2 American soldier scout scouting in a forest in winter. I am very sorry that I used Brickarms LCC, but I wanted it to really give you a feel of WW2. This was originally an entry for a contest called: "8x8 Challenge." My goal was to try and put as much detail as possible into an 8x8 base plate with nothing over flowing the edges. My favorite kind of creations are ones with snow. This encouraged me a lot because I love to build small cute creations.

If anyone wants to view my other creations see my MocPages page.

~Daniel

REVIEW: Lego Games

"Two reviews in a row? You must be crazy, John!" I hear you scream in horror.

"I am!" I reply, with a smug grin on my face and a look of insanity in my eyes. I then walk backwards through the doorway, never breaking eye contact. "I'll be back" I whisper. A spooky chill runs down your spine. "I'll be back..."

Er... OK, enough theatrics. I managed to get hold of a copy of Robo Champ, one of the new Lego Games. There's been some debate over whether they will be released in America or not (they are currently in Europe and the UK), but hopefully they won't turn out to be like the Pirates Advent Calender.

Let me break the news to you: I only bought Robo Champ for the pieces. Yeah, I admit it. There's some great pieces in it for a £7 set, including the new 1x1 with a hole in it. "What blasphemy!" I shouted when I first saw the pieces (only available in white) in the smart CG graphics for Lego Games, but I must say these pieces, six of which are in Robo Champ (plus one spare), are darn useful. Gone are the days when you had to use a 1x1x1 cylinder... you can fill your needs with a little plate-height guy instead! I must say however, despite the usefulness of the pieces, there is no real reason that they should be in the Games sets at all. From what I can see, the holes are only used to make the pieces look more like eyes. Did Lego think that its new audience could not imagine eyes from a simple plain 1x1? More to the point, robots don't even have pupils, so why have a hole in the 1x1? Hmmm...

Also in the picture above, you can see one of five (including a spare) dark green cheese slopes included in the set. They're new to me, but they were probably already in the Emerald Night. Think about it this way - either pay £7 for 5, or £70 for 36. Oh, wait, that logic doesn't really work out. Darn it, just buy the Emerald Night!

Here's one of my favourite new pieces: the Lego die (I'll call it dice from now on because it doesn't sound as scary). I remember I saw on Brickshelf a while ago that one guy managed to take the red 'super-travis' out of the little rubber casing it's in, but on closer inspection, it seems you'd have to cut the rubber casing off to do this. The dice is a really great part, and I'm sure if you get a couple of them you could make some sort of framework. The rubber casing is also very useful for when you're playing the game, as it stops nasty Lego-shaped dents in your lovely soft wood table, or stops nasty table-shaped dents in your lovely 2x2 tile.

Another thing to mention before we get onto the gameplay is the packaging of Robo Champ: it comes in a two-part box, with one part slipping into the other like a classic board game box. I even wish normal Lego sets had boxes like that - but there's probably a cost of making it like that. Also, nothing beats popping out those thumb-shaped tabs on usual boxes. Besides, who keeps their Lego in the boxes it comes in?

That's enough tomfoolery: it's time to play. That's right, my family managed to find Robo Champ (from where I had carefully hidden it), and started playing. I thought "heck, it's better than playing it on my own then writing a review about how I both lost and won each game simultaneously". The rules to Robo Champ are pretty easy, but there are a couple of confusing aspects to them because there are, to put it simply, too many sides to the dice - each side means something in the game, but two of these actions are virtually identical.

The gameplay is quick and fairly satisfying. I don't really play board games, so excuse me for leaving out all the details about how many players you should have and what should be changed. A clever thing to note, though, is that Robo Champ's instructions contain a few ideas about how to change the game - like introducing a fourth robot, or alternate actions for the colours on the dice. The game is customisable just like Lego, which is a clever idea.

The game, like all the others, comes with a little spanner piece which the instructions reveal is not just for show: it 'helps' to remove tiles from the dice. It works with some, but to be brutally honest, I prefer using these.

The Lego Games series is a very good idea. However 'a very good idea' does not automatically mean 'will sell very well' - the concept is novel, but most of today's children will not sit around and play a board game like Robo Champ, Lego or not. It's a shame, for sure, but the series is offering some great new pieces: the dice and super-travis, the 1x1 with a hole in, a 2x2 jumper plate (with a single stud in the centre), werewolf heads and, for the last time, the inclusion of the old skeleton (with the hanging arms). My advice: screw the gameplay, get the games as soon as possible - Lego Games are an opportunity you can't miss.

~John

December 21, 2012: The End of the World

This is one of my creations. It is a corner of a street in Los Angeles. The whole story I made up for it is below:

Los Angeles, CA, December 21, 2012: This was the beginning of the end. Doomsday. World War 3 (the last world war). This was the main and most popular hypothesis for thousands of years, from the Mayans to a modern day person; global warming, crisis, war, terrorists. And also my famous quote: "It's in human nature to destroy ourselves."

I'm walking on the streets of LA, or what's left of it. I'm 19. My name was erased from its original files, plus when the bombs fell I had a concussion which led to loss of memory and loss of hearing.

It started December 10, 2012: The terrorist had got their hands on nuclear bombs and missiles. Originally taken from the Chinese and Japanese. They believed that they were going to have a better life after they die. December 15, 2012: the Russian Federation was convinced by the Chinese "idea". They had armed and aimed at the USA and other countries. The launches where scheduled to December 21, 2012, 12:00 midnight. They had launched.

Some scientists had believed that this was a disease that led to the loss of the control of your brain. There were groups formed in different cities, and states. I was a Russian spy. Since I could talk in two languages, I was one of the chosen people for this mission to eliminate American commanders. Looks like I had the disease, like everybody else. Some groups were called: The U.S.A.H.S.A. (United States of America Human Survival Alliance) which was the main group; Rebels or how the Russians called them: partisans, they were organizations of hippies, and haters of war, all they wanted was peace. They were a large threat to Russian and American military bases and divisions.

A quarter of the USA's population have joined the Russians. Two-thirds were killed during the bombing. 30,000,000 were injured or missing.

Around 2156, human kind was wiped out from the face of the earth, from starvation, diseases, especially the Brain Disease which led to radiation sickness, insanity and going on murderous rampages.

This was the end of human kind. 2,000 years later after the end for Humans, the moon had been slowly moving away from the scorched earth and inch by inch, every year, eventually flew away from orbit. And that was the end for the famous planet called Earth. The only planet in the universe known to contain life - but not any more.

The End

German HeadQuarters (Reichstag) WW2

This is my creation of a Reichstag in WWII.

Opinions: Germany- A cautionary tale

In Berlin during the summer, the tail of a Lego giraffe outside the Legoland Discovery Centre in Berlin was stolen. The 30cm tail will cost the Lego Group €3000 and 15,000 bricks. The Discovery Centre was supposed to become a roaring success; I saw it as more of a laughing stock read more...

Blacktron goes Micro.

I really like this microscale heavy-duty Blacktron bomber by Peter Reid (Legoloverman). Apart from its sleek viciousness, it looks a lot like some of the SF concept art that formed a heavy part of my spacey upbringing in the 1970s. Glorious!

Dr. S.

LDD 3.0 Review

That's right, kiddies, after almost a month had elapsed since the should-have-been release date, Lego Digital Deisgner 3.0 is finally here! I've cast my critical eye over some of its new features...

PRICE

I must admit I was shocked to see that my 'brick packs' - LDD files with assortments of bricks that I wanted to buy - had dramatically increased in price. Luckily, after further investigation, it seems there's just an extra £5.00 fine for buying off LDD. If you buy your bricks from Pick-a-Brick online, you can get them for the same old price, sometimes even less. I was comparing the price of a collection of 1x1 plates that was previously £2.95, and it seems to have reduced in price now to £2.17 or around there. Well, unless you want to get sucked into the marketing of LDD 3.0, go ahead and pay the extra £5.

INTERFACE

The LDD interface has changed quite a bit since last time. On the left we have a 'docked' brick palette, with access to the new groups and templates features. On the right we have the extremely annoying 'guide to LDD' pane, reminiscent of the Office pane in MS Word that comes up asking if you need help and whether you would like to open a new document. Sure, this is useful, but the text in the help pane on LDD is extremely short - only one paragraph for each section. They obviously don't expect much reading expertise from their users.

Around your central building section there now lives a selection of transparent directional buttons, including zoom controls and the ever-helpful 'centralise' button. The new layout of those is not the best, but you can easily get rid of them by going into the View menu. The grid has now changed into a lattice of small circles, to show the studs. Unfortunately the half-stud markers are gone, so measuring out 'offsetted' portions of MOC will be harder. The new grid is also much darker and bolder, which is distracting.

One thing I noticed when I first had a go at building on LDD 3 is a clever little trick: you can now, with help from the software, place bricks in between studs, like in the middle of a 2x2 brick of plate. Of course, that raises certain false connection problems (see picture), but ultimately it stops you messing around, trying to beat the software like I did with LDD 2.

HINGE ALIGN

This is a snazzy new feature that pretty much fails at anything you ask it to do. Whilst the usual hinge tool has been improved, and has a static control in the top-left to help you align bricks at 90˚- or 45˚-angles, its new friend, the hinge align tool, was no doubt made for friendly purposes, but ends up being extremely annoying.

If you do the slightest thing wrong, try the slightest false connection, it starts going a little crazy. Put it this way: if you enjoy watching bricks twitching against each other trying to align almost ad infinitum, go ahead and use the tool. It even fails at aligning tracks, too.

GROUPS AND TEMPLATES

Now these I do like. You can quickly select bricks and group them into easily manageable...er... groups, then delete them or even create sub-groups. Though I haven't had a chance to try it out on a larger MOC yet, I'm sure it will be useful.

You can also use the 'hide' tool to invisible-ise a section of your creation and concentrate on an intricate detail inside other bricks. It too proves to be really helpful with large MOCs, and I just love the little hiding minifig graphics.

The templates feature, which can be found next to the groups feature in the same dock as the brick palette, is pretty much groups, but inter-creation. That is, templates are little models that can be dragged-'n'-dropped into any creation you have open. Very useful and better than the crap template models LDD used to have.

INSTRUCTIONS

To finish this review off, the good ol' instructions feature has had a reboot. It's much clearer, larger and had a lovely blue background, but the different types of instructions buttons (building, car, etc) have disappeared. Damn.

LDD 3.0 is certainly better than its predecessors. It's got some great new ease-of-use features, and is much more fun to use, and less frustrating (providing you stay away from the hinge align tool). It's completely free of charge (unless you buy something and get that ghastly £5 "you've used LDD now you pay for your good thinking" fee), so I strongly suggest you go and download it, or open up your dusty LDD 2 application file and let the automatic update do its work. LDD is certainly coming much closer to being as clever and flexible as LDraw or other fan apps. Now all it needs is an unlimited brick palette.

~John

James May LEGO program gets airing date

James May, as you may have known, has been building a gigantic full-size house out of Lego. It has just been announced that his series, Toy Stories, will be aired every tuesday at 8:00 PM on BBC2 starting from next week. If you haven't got British TV, you can find all the programs on the BBC's iPlayer.

I'm not sure which program in the series is the Lego one, but the others look great, too. The episodes should be available for the whole period of the series on iPlayer. Starting next tuesday at 8:00.

~John

Deja-vu: The day brickfilms.com crashed

I'm getting deja-vu here, by re-posting the first ever brickspace video post. Videos and other things such as tips and tricks & LEGO news are what make brickspace so unique compared to a vast array of other blogs. Please enjoy our first ever video, along with the original description, originally posted on the 17th October 2008 (This is before our birthday because the domain name did not register properly till the 21st, so we were only officially brickspace.org on the 21st) by me! Enjoy...

'The Day Brickfilms.com Crashed' was made by WeTheBrickfilmers (Click here to go to their page). This film is hilarious, and as the title says, it is about the day brickfilms.com crashed. There will be lots more videos when we rebrand, but this is just an idea of what it will be like. Enjoy!

-Luke

The day you've been waiting for.

This is it, folks.

No, this is more than it. This is IT. This is the official declaration: Brickspace is ONE YEAR OLD. We've made it. We're through. So, without further ado, here's a couple of announcements to make our big day even bigger. Massive, even.

Brickspace Opinions

Something that we've been working on for a while now is finally finished. We'd like to introduce you all to Brickspace Opinions, a new sub-blog. From the official press release:

Brickspace Opinions is the blogging revolution from Brickspace.org. Have your say by blogging mini-articles about whatever Lego-related topic you choose, and reply to others' articles with your own. If an article is a little too long for your reply, then just write your opinion as a comment. Brickspace Opinions has a comments system powered by DISQUS, which means you can reply to other comments and customize your profile picture quickly and easily.

Brickspace Opinions is advertising for people to help write for it, so please, if you interested, contact me at john@brickspace.org.

The second year of Brickspace
There's a lot of things I would like to say here, a lot of information about what I'd like to do with Brickspace in the coming year. Of course, I won't tell you all of that now, but if you really want to know, check back on some of the celebration posts - they reveal a lot of my plans for Brickspace.
My main aim is to make Brickspace a completely unique blog, being more like Brickspace Opinions, only with creations and videos and all the usual stuff. I want to aim more to opinionated content, stuff more to make you think rather than plain ol' "this is a creation it is good" stuff. Sure, that's good for you readers to get a quick idea of the MOC, but judging on the success of blogs like Brick Flotilla, so-called 'rant blogs' are becoming increasingly popular. Opinions is Brickspace's first step to becoming what I want it to evolve into by next year.

As for other features, you'll just have to wait. Anyway, enough disappointment - let's not spoil Brickspace's big day!

Thank you all, staff and readers, for keeping Brickspace going for one whole year. Without you, I wouldn't be here saying thanks to you today. Please, carry on reading Brickspace, and have another fantastic year!

Farvel, og tusind tak,
~John

Not your average blog.

Welcome to the fourth, and penultimate celebration post about the history of Brickspace.

Brickspace has always been on the frontier of unique Lego blogs. It's one of the very few Lego fan blogs that combines both creations and Brickfilms, and unites them under one virtual roof. It's this diversity in the content of Brickspace that has attracted more and more viewers to its pages each week.

Brickspace was originally a Lego-only blog, but along with its new name (when it changed into what we know today from Best of Brickshelf), it started to showcase a lot more than creations. The first ever video post was of the film 'The Day Brickfilms.com Crashed', and was blogged by Luke, one of the new members of Brickspace and the driving force behind the redesign.

Brickspace then started to class its posts by using small banners at the top of each post. The first few were Creation, Video, News and Site News, but here's a couple of others that you don't see so often, and some that never made it...

Back to the Future was a short-lived blog post series, which sadly had only one 'episode'. The idea was to revisit old Lego series and talk about how they were so popular, mainly the series which were being rereleased. I, as John, admin of Brickspace, give you my promise that Back to the Future will be back, someday. I'll never go off the idea.

'Bio' never happened, either. The idea here was to write a short biography of a builder (or Brickfilmer), and to eventually compile all these builder profiles into a special site or book or something. I'd still like to make an 'A-Z of Lego builders' book, but I doubt I'd have the time if I tried.

Here's something we certainly never saw: a competition. Don't disregard the prospect of a Brickspace competition: it's going to happen someday, once we build up the fund which we get from advertising here on Brickspace.

Speaking of post types which I'd like to see happen in the future, here's our never-used set review logo. Unfortunately, I've tried and failed many times to write a set review, but it always turns out to be too long-winded, and taking pictures of the set against a white background is tiring work. Someday, people, someday.

And so endeth the list of Brickspace post types of the past. I'm sure (or at least I hope) most of them will return in the coming year, and Brickspace will continue to be a Lego blog worthy of anyone's time.


That's all for this part of the Brickspace celebrations. The final part, which will be coming to you on the birthday itself (the 21st), will be all about the future of Brickspace. Don't miss it!

Birthday bash

Well, it's not only Brickspace's birthday, but it's also its founder's birthday. So here's a lovely picture of three men and a table, supposedly a birthday scene. What? It's animated, you say? Well, maybe. But if you even read Brickspace posts, I'm described as a reclusive member of Brickspace who pops up now and again. Well, here I am, popping up for you, John.

The cogs that make the Brickspace clock go round.

That's right, this third celebration post is all about the integral parts of Brickspace: its staff.

Back when Brickspace began, on 21st October 2008, it only had four staff: John, the admin who had been with the blog from the very beginning and three of his friends who he had invited to help him when the blog rebranded to Best of Brickshelf. Luke became the Editor of Brickspace, and has helped John with many, many features of the blog ever since. Stickman (sometimes called Tim) is a reclusive member of the blogging team, but always seemed (and still seems) to pop up every now and again for a quick creation post. Genesis sadly had to leave the blogging team in December, but she can still be found credited in the 'obituary' part of the staff page.

The new year brought with it lots of new features, as well as several new staff. The 31st of January saw Zack join Brickspace, after meeting John on the Bricks in Motion forums. Zack had been a strong pillar of the Brickspace team, always blogging now and again, making sure the blog doesn't slip away into dormancy. Similarly, Doctor Sinister, a popular member of the Lego community, joined the blog on 20th February this year by replying to the staff sign-up form. He, like Zack, has posted on a regular basis, keeping Brickspace going through rough times.

As well as the regular bloggers, other people have donated to the day-to-day blog posts here on Brickspace. Builders like Teikjoon and Gorazd posted little, but still posted a bit to matter. Unfortunately Teikjoon left the community in September, so it is expected that he has also ceased his blogging duties.

You can always enlist your help, and sign up to become a staff member! Just click the Join link in the banner above, and become part of the blogging team which is so important to Brickspace. You can be part of Brickspace's future, and have your name go up next to the other great bloggers.

It's certain that, whether you choose to help blog on Brickspace or not, there will always be a top-quality team blogging on Brickspace. Who knows what the future may bring, and who will sign up to be part of Brickspace?


~John

Rock out with Cube Dudes

Cube Dude: Rock Band, originally uploaded by lights.

At least that's what flickr user lights is doing and who can blame him. This is one of the coolest Cube Dudes I've seen and the green cheese slopes are simply delicious.

LEGO Gladiatorial Combatant Contest!

LEGO Gladiatorial Combatant Contest!, originally uploaded by 'Zack.

A new contest can now be seen in the LEGO Gladiatorial Combat group. It features plenty of great prizes including Hazel, BrickArms, and custom decals.

Themes of this contest include Space, Castle, and Roman Gladiator themes. Each with other specifications. Its also being run by yours truly.

RUN!!

This fantastically realised slime monster oozes character and malice as it clambers from beneath the surface of the Earth. This colourful scene was brought to you by Cole Blaq.

Dr.S.

Brickspace through the ages

Welcome to the second celebration post about Brickspace's history.

Brickspace's logo has remained quite consistent, but one of the novels features of the blog was the different versions of the logo, to reflect current events like Christmas, or Obama's inauguration. Below are some of the best Brickspace logo variations.

Guy Fawke's Day, 2008

Hallowe'en 2008

Christmas 2008 (there was also a special bottom divider)

Easter 2009

Remembrance Day 2008

President's Day 2009 (with Lego creation by Brickspace staff member Zack)

The Brickspace logo, with its distinctive cube-and-rectangle graphic, is very versatile, as you can see above. However, with the new Brickspace 4.0 Flash animated logo, events like Hallowe'en or President's Day are harder to celebrate, because a lot more work is needed to create a special banner, re-upload it, then re-embed it into the site. At christmas this year, there will be a special banner, but sadly these won't come as often as they used to.

You may be looking at the logo and thinking: 'hey, that's not the Brickspace logo'. Well, in June/July 2009, Brickspace changed into its fourth version: Brickspace 4.0. This brought with it a new, friendlier-looking logo, without the harsh capitals of the previous logos.

The Brickspace 4.0 logo had only one other variation, for the launch of Lego Games:

That was the only variation of the new logo, for in August came the Flash animated Brickspace banner and the fun variation of the past was over. Even still, a whole new period had started for Brickspace: with a new, better-looking, easier-to-navigate site.


Stay tuned for the third celebration post!
~John