One for the ladies...

Or rather, one full of ladies! This new Vintage Minifigure pack (vol. 5) includes four of the most memorable female 'figs, including the forestwoman, the female ninja, and tube top girl. "No CS minifigs" is the only thing running through my mind when I see this, but I guess you have to sacrifice some things for a full-female Vintage Minifigure Collection. 

TLG assure us that the quality problems with the previous Collections, but that doesn't mean it won't be made in China. These things have to happen, guys. We'll just have to grin and bear it.

Clutch Powers to be released TOMORROW!

It's been a while since I blogged the trailer of the full-length Lego film Clutch Powers, but now I've just received an email telling me that the film is set for release tomorrow! It will be available on DVD and as a digital download.

So, if you're interested in it, here's the trailer. There are four other clips that you can find on YouTube here.

And, if you need any more information, here's the synopsis:

For the first time ever, see the creative world of LEGO® come to life in the all-new feature-length DVD movie. Meet Clutch Powers, the best builder and explorer in the LEGO®universe as he heads off on his most dangerous mission yet. Join Clutch and his team of LEGO®experts as their adventure leads them from LEGO® City to the Space Police prison planet to the medieval world of Ashlar where they must help the rightful heir to the King’s throne find the courage to regain the kingdom from the evil wizard Mallock the Malign. Their brick-building skills will be put to the ultimate test as they face off against Mallock’s skeleton army. Get ready for an action-packed adventure like nothing you have ever seen before, The Adventures of Clutch Powers!

~John

AFOL: A blocumentary

I remember a few days ago, Karrde posted a link to this very interesting Lego documentary on his Facebook account. Since it's been featured on TBB and in Flickr Group discussions all over since, here it is featured on Brickspace.

The documentary, or 'blocumentary', includes interviews with several AFOLs, ending up with them showing off their skills at BrickCon 2009. So, though it's 30 minutes long (way way too long for a short film, if the director Jess Gibson actually wants to show it in festivals), just keep watching and you'll get to see Jordan Schwartz (Sir Nadroj) talking about his 'whimsical style' at the end. Though it may be slow, it's worth it for that and just to inform yourself a little more. Enjoy!

LINK.

~John

Brickspace Dictionary: Five-Wide

Five-Wide (n.) (Five Wide)

A five-wide (also 5-wide) is a type of minifig-scale vehicle. The Lego Group (TLG) produce cars that are four studs in width, and trucks that are six studs in width. Five-wide is an alternative to building with an even number of studs' width, but should only be used when it is needed, as it is not always necessary.

Builders choose to use a different width, five studs wide, for several reason. Firstly, it is more to scale than either 4-wide or 6-wide. Four-wide is considered too short because there is not enough space for two minifig-scale seats, and some more complex details are harder to achieve with only four studs' width to play with. Six-wide is thought of as too wide for a normal car, and is preferred for vans and trucks.

Five-wide also provides the builder with a challenge, whereas 4-wide may be considered 'too easy' to build in. Because of the odd number of studs, five-wide presents many problems when it comes to adding details to the car. It can help some features - such as a central ridge down the car's bonnet - but with other features, it is hard to find space to offset the studs. The innards of most five-wides are a mess of offset plates and complicated half-stud measurements.

"Is that car five-wide? Cool!"

"I built this car [in] five-wide, it was really hard"

Photo credit: Legohaulic 'Ford Model A Pickup' 


Need more 5-wides? Check out the Flickr Gallery!

Shannon Young's guide to ratios

A lot of aspiring builders get very confused by all the measurements involved - half-stud offsets, headlight bricks, brackets, and the 5:6 ratio (brick height to brick length). I must admit than even I have never fully understood the measurements of headlight bricks, though I use them regularly in my building. Luckily the AFOL Shannon Young has recently written an easy-to-understand guide to all SNOT techniques. Check it out here. It's essential reading for any builder!

~John

Toy Fair 2010

Those nice guys at FBTB (From Bricks to Bothans) have been snapping pictures of all the new 2010 sets at the 2010 Toy Fair. Below you can see links to all the sets that were displayed there. There are multiple angles of each set, so don't hesitate to click away!

Star Wars

• 8089 Hoth Wampa Set
• 8093 Plo Koon’s Starfighter
• 8095 General Grievous Starfighter
• 8096 Emperor Palpatine’s Shuttle
• 8097 Slave I
• 8098 Clone Turbo Tank

Prince of Persia

• 7569 Desert Attack
• 7570 The Ostrich Race
• 7571 Fight for the Dagger
• 7573 Battle of Alamut

Harry Potter

• 4737 Quidditch Lesson
• 4738 Hagrid’s Hut
• 4840 The Burrows
• 4841 Hogwarts Express
• 4842 Hogwarts Castle

Atlantis

• 8076 Deep Sea Striker
• 8077 Atlantis Exploration HQ
• 8078 Portal of Atlantis

Space Police

• 5983 SP Undercover Cruiser
• 5984 Lunar Limo
• 5985 Space Police Central

World Racers

• 8863 Ice Race
• 8864 Desert Truck
• 8896 Road Bikes
• 8897 Power Boats
• 8898 Race Cars
• 8899 Jungle Boats

Power Miners

• 8191 Lavatraz
• 8190 Claw Catcher

Kingdoms

• 7946 King’s Castle
• 7947 Prison Tower Rescue
• 7948 Outpost Attack
• 7949 Prison Carriage Rescue
• 7950 Knight’s Showdown
• 7953 Jester
• 7955 Wizard

City

• 2824 Advent Calendar
• 3180 Tank Truck
• 3182 Airport
• 3221 LEGO Truck
• 7566 Farmer

Hero Factory

• 7145 Von Nebula
• 7158 Blaze Bike
• 7160 Drop Ship
• 7162 Rotor

Games

• 3837 Monster 4
• 3839 Race 3000
• 3841 Minotaurus
• 3834 Ramses Pyramid
• 3862 Hogwarts

Racers

• 8211 Brick Street Getaway

Creator

• 5658 Crocodile
• 5508 LEGO Deluxe Brick Box
• 5892 Jet
• 5893 Pick-Up

~John

The Nightmare before Christmas

The Nightmare before Christmas, originally uploaded by brainbikerider.

It doesn't matter what season it is this new vignette by flickr user brainbikerider is great featuring many excellent details from the musical The Nightmare before Chirstmas like tombstones and an excellent Jack minifigure.

Mobile Launcher by legoloverman

Launching, originally uploaded by legoloverman.

This new micro-creation by popular micro-scale Peter Reid (legoloverman) is great and features loads of details for anyone of any skill to take in. The usage of old LEGO elements (the trees are in fact official) is marvelous. Great work Peter.

La Resistance!

The Resistance is discovered!, originally uploaded by _Matn.

This new creation by Matn on Flickr is fantastic. From the often seen floating rock design and very nice rope bridge to the floating balloon contraption. Great work Matn!

Happy Dane Cook-aversary!

Sure, it's a couple of days late, but that doesn't mean I can't celebrate the one year-anniversary of Dane Cook being beaten up in Brickfilms! On February 9th, 2009, Dane Cook was slapped by a hobo with a fish.

Now Dane Cook-slapping veteran 0ldScratch shows us his never-finished Dane Cook film...

~John

What is this I don't even

Spastik Chuwawa is hilarious. There's no doubt about it.

~John

A room with a view

I'm not sure whether I'm envious of the explorer in Jalkow's JRC entry... on one hand, you have a great view from the top of that waterfall, but on the other you have to live in a tower which is as wide as you are - a tight fit!
I really love the crazy look of this little vignette - the bubbles on the waterfall are a nice idea, but not mots realistic effect I've seen used. The rock work is amazing, the tower straight and simple, and the whole thing has great little touches that remind me of some of SlyOwl's creations. Jolly good work.

~John

More Minifig Collection pics...

As we draw closer and closer to the minifig collection's release date, we inevitably get more and more pictures of those desirable minifigs. Now, FL from Flickr has found some close-ups of individual minifigs through Nori-Gallery on Brickshelf...

At the moment there's only pictures of the Robin Hood-like minifig:

FL correctly suggests that you should keep checking the Brickshelf gallery, as there's a folder there that hasn't been moderated yet. Who knows what it could contain?

And yet again, we have no idea of the quality of these minifigs. TLG have assured us that the 'crappy plastic made in China' problem was simply an issue with manufacturing... but will these minifigs be made of good ol' Danish ABS? We're yet to find out, but I certainly hope so.

~John

AFOL survey

Lawrence Abrahamson has just emailed me to let me know about the AFOL survey he's conducting for a college project. Being the kind, helpful and loveably crazy guy I am, here's a link to his survey. If you're an AFOL (Adult Fan of Lego), and have some time to spare, spend it on Lawrence's survey. It shouldn't take long.

His message:

Calling all AFOLs...If you are an adult that builds with LEGO, please take this short survey: https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dDNyX3VneEJmQjV5bnA0UE9CUVU1QUE6MA  We are collecting information as part of a research project looking at the LEGO brand and its loyalty of users. Thanks for your help.

They are only using the data collected in-house for the project.
~John

Minifig Collection - Wave 2!

Remember the Minifigure Collection? The one that hasn't been released yet? Well, it seems that we now have images of the second wave, to be released in September this year. Talking about getting ahead of yourself!

Courtesy of Dano as always, this picture shows the first wave of minifigs on top of the podium whilst the second wave - including a mime, a Vamire, a pop singer and a Mexican - are standing around the base.

This second picture gives us a close-up of some of the second wave's figs. Most notably, the Roman centurion - TLG's way of politely saying 'up yours' to BrickForge. Then there's a remake of the Vampire 'fig, the perilously un-PC Mexican (plus maracas and poncho) and some guy with new skis. I seriously can't wait for these to be released...

~John

Space Police III 2010

Dano's got his Animé-loving claws on yet another batch of leaked images - this time of the Space Police III summer sets. There's some big 'uns as well...

First up there's 5985, a Space Police base and we all knew was coming eventually. The quarter-domes are huge - so there's opportunity for some big cockpits there. And hey, don't forget the little truck!

Another addition to the Space Police's fleet is 5983, a set which a Flickr user called, very rightly, the Space Police Turbo Sub (it's certainly shaped that way). In this set you can see the new alien, which features in all three new sets. They're clearly trying to get the new fig out there as much as possible.

Then there's the alien's ship, set 5984. It's pretty much an alien-styled duplicate of the Space Police ship, with the same alien plus some purple-suited fellow.  This set looks decent enough.

So there we are, here's the completion of the SPIII line for 2010. We've had the small sets, and now here's the big ones. These aren't licensed - so it looks like we'll get some big sets that are actually affordable nowadays.

~John

Building the Forth Bridge - and how Lego inspired the Falkirk Wheel

This video from the BBC looks at an amazing model of the Forth Bridge, built by British AFOL Warren Elsmore. You may also know Elsmore as being the creator of the fantastic St Panras station MOC shown at STEAM last year. 

There's also a short interview with the designer of the Falkirk Wheel. In it he talks about how Lego inspired the design of the wheel and also helped to solve engineering problems... so please check out the video here!

Here's a snippet from the BBC journalist's interview with AFOL Elsmore, about the Forth Bridge MOC:

"The parts they had problems building on the real bridge were a problem for me too," said Mr Elsmore. In particular, he said, the point where the pylons and bridge supports meet on the base were very tricky to render in Lego.

Just as in the real bridge, some parts of the Lego model are in compression and some in tension. The structure even flexes when under load. The bridge is regularly shown off at Lego shows and some bits of it have to be replaced when Lego trains have been running across it for a few days.

When nature calls...

... I Scream Clone's Itchycrotch Creek Outhouse answers. There's a great rickety look to this otherwise simple outhouse that I really like. Oh, and don't forget the stream round the back!

Whilst we're on the topic of I Scream Clone, it seems he's been up to a lot of Wild West building recently. Here's his stagecoach - second only to Sir Nadroj's. There's some great parts to it - note the tumbleweed and the hawk, based off Legohaulic's design.

It seems I Scream Clone is on a roll - let's hope he continues with this Wild West series.

~John