Some may say that building all in one, neutral, color is “easy” and perhaps a “cop-out” to avoid having to think about color I say that while this may be the case, it still looks good. It also makes sticker usage come to the forefront, as that’s where most of the contrasting color (mostly white in this case) comes from. There is a little bit of yellow and blue on this sucker, but apparently none of the photos are of that side of the chopper.

It also turns out that trying to photograph something with even a tiny bit of yellow on it against a yellow backdrop is a disaster.

When I started building this little thing, I intended it to be a comically tiny scout tank, like this. As I worked on it, though, it became clear that this would be too small that it would be too absurd even for this theme. I changed the tank to a remote tank, and that seems to work OK, even if it is a cop-out.

We were lucky enough to get help from our families while building this behemoth; our wives laid down copious amounts of brick. We also got lots of help from friends during setup – thanks to Adrian Drake, Carter Baldwin, Nick’s brother, Stunt Drivin’ Steve Witt, and others.

If the questions we were asked at BrickFair are any indication, you readers are no doubt wondering what the story is behind this dio. While we have a basic story in mind, 3LUG policy is to leave much of the story up to the imagination of the viewer. An alien ship has crash-landed in a park in Neo-Tokyo. Military and Police units are starting to respond, as members of the public react in various ways. Is the military more interested in the craft, or in the civilians who saw it? Why did the alien ship crash? Was it a pilot error? Shot down? No wings or landing gear? You decide.

Check out both my photos and Nick’s photos. I have more overall shots, and Nick has some nice angles and details.

I built this to accompany the Iron Mountain Legion Tank, that I posted recently. Like the tank, this is destined for a diorama I’m working on with a friend, for BrickFair. Unlike the tank, this is motorized. In fact, I ran the motor for most of these photos, to try for a bit of motion blur, which I think worked out well in some shots.

A reminder, don’t forget to come check us out at BrickFair! We should have some awesome displays!

The Iron Mountain Legion is intended to be the remnants or descendants of an elite military unit that was sealed away in a bunker (Iron Mountain) during the war. They emerge to wreak havoc from time to time.

Goofy back-story aside, this is my first completed attempt at building a tank. It turned out rather, oddly, if you ask me. It seems almost cartoony. While that wasn’t what I set out to do, I think it’s interesting. It also successfully includes four-wheel steering, which I’m happy about.

I’m definitely looking for feedback on this one, so let me know what you think.

With that in mind, I’ve added a few more colorful creations to my fleet of zombie-hunting vehicles.

The big red vehicle is an apocafied version of my S&S/TATRA Wildland Ultra XT fire engine, while the light blue car should be familiar to fans of a certain boy wizard.

The requisite back story for the blue car:

A trio of intrepid survivors convert an old Ford Anglia into a zombie defense platform — complete with Browning M2 .50 Caliber machine gun and M134 Minigun requisitioned from an abandoned Army base. The flamethrower is apparently homemade.

Of course, these particular survivors have a few extra tricks up their sleeves. Other survivors say that the color of the fire from their flame thrower "just ain’t right." They can also be heard to exclaim "Incendio Cranium!" as they charge into a horde of zombies.

Like the green and white camper, the Ford Anglia is an example of an apocafied official set, one of the categories you can win prizes in during Zombie Apocafest 2009 this October at BrickCon.

UPDATE: I had so much fun with the little pink Vespa leading the charge that I had to build her a gang of zombie-hunting comrades.

The girls are riding scooters from BrickForge designed by Arealight, with custom weapons from BrickArms (including several new prototypes).

I’ve realized that for me, and I expect for others as well, LEGO is more than just a hobby. It’s a distraction from the stresses of everyday life, a release. There’s something therapeutic about diving in to a bin of plastic bricks and creating something that is heartening, regardless of what may be going on in other aspects of life. I’m hoping that some of our readers share the same experience with LEGO as something more than a toy, and that they may want to share as well.

I’m actually posting a LEGO creation, while I’m at it. This is small cargo shuttle, that I’ve been building over the last five weeks or so. This ship is intended to be the space equivalent of a box truck, like this. I imagine this particular ship as having a lot of light-years under its belt, used for longer journeys than originally intended, so there’s a hammock in the cargo bay. As I explained above, I had a lot of time to think about this creation, even if I didn’t have much time to build or blog. I also imagined the that it might not always have been docked in the nicest of space neighborhoods, so I built after I took some photos, I covered it in graffiti.