In Ley Ward‘s world, Clancy ain’t no lilly-livered pacifist. He wears a black hat and ain’t afeared of nobody.
Monthly Archives: June 2008
LEGO Ambassadors announced for 2008-2009 [News]
LEGO Community Team member Steve Witt has just announced the LEGO Ambassadors for the 2008-2009 cycle.
Read the full announcement here (and note the bolded names):
We’re excited to announce the new group of LEGO Ambassadors who will be representing the AFOL Community to the LEGO Group. We had nearly 100 nominations and the choices were hard. We settled on the following forty participants for this year’s cycle. Please congratulate the following new LEGO Ambassadors.
John Langrish, Canada – VicLUG
Milcan Bikics, Hungary – MALUG
Didier Enjary, France – Railbricks, FreeLUG
Patrick Begin, Canada – QueLUG
Verena Schaden, Austria – LGOe
Svend Erik Saksun, Denmark – Byggepladen
David Eaton, USA – NELUG
Mike Crowley, USA – FBTB, NELUG
Tsang Yiu Keung, China – HKLUG
Stephan Sander, Germany – 1000steine
Lluis Gibert, Spain – HispaLUG
Tim Gould, Australia – Ldraw, LUGNET, The Brothers Brick
Matjaz Selic, Slovenia – Kocke Klub
Marcin Danielak, Poland – LUGPol, e-Klocki.com, KMFL
Paul Wolters, the Netherlands – De Bouwsteen
Tony Sava, USA – Classic-Castle, TexLUG
Peer Kreuger, the Netherlands – LowLUG
Dan Rubin, USA – Classic-Space
Jean-Marc Nimal, Belgium – BeLUG
Doug Eaton, USA – ParLUGment
Fradel Gonzales, USA – MechaHub
Jordan Schwarz, USA – TN Valley LTC
Danila Martyakhin, Russia – DoubleBrick.ru
Magnus Lauglo, USA – WAMALUG
Roy Cook, USA – TWINLUG
Steve Barile, USA – GPLR, ILTCO, BrickFest
Aaron Andrews, Australia – Classic-Castle, The Builders Lounge, MOCPages, Flickr
Nannan Zhang, USA – BrickLink, The Builders Lounge, MOCpages, The Brothers Brick
Sue Ann Barber, Australia – Melbourne LUG (MUG)
Ildefonso Zanette, Brazil – LUG Brazil
Tania Baixinho, Portugal – Comunidade 0937
Alistair Disley, UK – the Brickish Association
Fernando Correia, Portugal – PLUG
Matija Puzar, Norway – Brikkelauget
Mickael Sjöstedt, Sweden – Eurobricks
Marco Chiappa, Italy – ItLUG
Andrew Becraft, USA – The Brothers Brick, Flickr, Classic-Castle
Adrian Florea, Romania – FBTB
Keith Goldman, USA – MOCPages
Andrew Bulthaupt, USA – BZPower
Congratulations to all of the new and returning LEGO Ambassadors!
A classic dilemma
Master craftsman Jojo illustrates a fairly classic dilemma for LEGO builders: form over function or function over form. The differences are, for the most part, subtle but the ‘form over function’ design is definitely a little prettier.
Hiccup in LEGO Ambassadors selection process [News]
Those of you who submitted your nominees to LEGO for the upcoming cycle of the LEGO Ambassadors program may have received the following e-mail in the last 24 hours:
Dear e-mailer, we have a current active Ambassador cycle 08/09 so you sent a mail outside the nominations time frame.
Please be aware that we are not accepting any nominations now and that nobody is reading the sent e-mail.
Do not panic! LEGO was moving our e-mail messages between folders and accidentally triggered this auto-response. If you submitted your nominations on time, rest assured they were received and you don’t need to worry.
Incidentally, LEGO received more than 100 nominations from 52 communities in 22 countries, so the selection process has been a pretty big task. However, the new LEGO Ambassadors should be announced this week.
Adrian Florea slugs some muddy boots
Adrian Florea is at it again — building mecha and blowin’ minds.
Behold the Muddy Boot Slugger Mech:
The mech itself is great, to be sure, but the road under it is worth noting. That arrow is rather ingenious.
Elven Gondola by Dan Sibley
Inspired by the possibility of elves in upcoming LEGO Castle sets, Dan Sibley envisions an elf punting the tranquil waters of his native lands:
That’s a lovely swan.
Jordan journeys to the center of the Earth
Jordan “Sir Nadroj” Schwartz is sending several intrepid minifigs on a voyage of discovery through the crust, mantle, and what lies beneath.
Check out their vehicle, the Mole:
More in the Flickr photoset.
Enormous LEGO Technic F-14 Tomcat by Jeroen Ottens
Jeroen Ottens‘ brother Maarten sends word of Jeroen’s massive F-14 Tomcat, built entirely from LEGO Technic elements:
Although this plane isn’t new, it’s new to Flickr, and noteworthy because it helped get Jeroen a job as a LEGO Technic set designer. Indeed, the open framework and functionality are reminiscent of official sets, though the scale is off the charts.
(And besides, one brother suggesting another brother’s creation for The Brothers Brick is sure to win our hearts.)
LEGO Agents 8634 Turbo Car Chase [Review]
Eurobricks member Deinonychus has a comprehensive review of 8634 Turbo Car Chase that we’ve not yet featured here. Like the other sets in the theme, there’s tons of new and interesting pieces. The car is especially notable because it’s covered in metallic silver pieces, making it one “slick little honey of a LEGO car.”
LEGO is communication: other
Welcome to the almost final post in the series where we’re looking at LEGO models from a communicational point of view. Start at the introduction and read all of the other posts. It’s fun stuff.
This is going to sound crude to most of you. It’s true though. If you’ve followed this series from the beginning you know that even if you do it consciously or not, your MOCs function like I say they do. They are messages directed towards an audience, designed and presented in a way that either strengthen or weaken the intended impact. That’s all there is to it.
If you always structure your building like I imply you should in this series, you achieve three things:
- Good MOCs
- Boredom
- In the words of Keith Goldman: Boilerplate
“So wait a minute. You tell us to think about things a certain way, and now you’re saying we shouldn’t do that? What gives?”
I said that I was going to teach you how to build great models. And that’s what I’ve done. I’ve put into words and structured up what you probably already sensed, but maybe couldn’t specify. But now that you got this basic knowledge, it’s easier to think about your building and evolve it further.
And that’s what’s really going to make you a better builder.
This is the last “true” part of this series of posts, since the next one will just be a summary of the discussions we’ve had. This post is short, but important. It’s essentially a big disclaimer.
Remember that reasoning on aspects like this series of posts does will get you on your way. But like good things in general you can’t exactly pinpoint what it is that make good LEGO models good. I personally believe it’s magic.
Magic is hard to create, but once you do – man. The feeling is indescribable, just like the results. Magic doesn’t happen when you stick to the conventional middle ground. You have to venture beyond for that, go where others haven’t, try the things others wouldn’t dare to. It increases your odds of failure, but also your odds of success.
LEGO is a creative medium. Structure your thoughts, but be creative.
And that’s the end of this short but important post.
Jungle cave racing
In response to the animals cave racing contest, SlyOwl creates a scene of cave racing in the jungle where animals take part in the precarious game.
Micro space creations from Dan Jassim
Long time space hero Dan Jassim has taken a break from retirement to present a batch of microscale space creations. Here are highlights of four of them, induding the Blacktron Destroyer, Space Skulls Battlecruiser, Exploriens Starship, and Unknown Bad Guy Assault Ship.
See them all in the post on Classic-Space.