Names: Dirk Hoffman and Greg Tanzarian
Occupation: Vice cops (circa 1976).
Interests: Kickin’ a__ and takin’ names. Fast cars. Loose change. Slow walks on the beach. Hard drinks. Soft hands. Blowin’ s___ up.
Typical day: Wake up at noon. Bust an international heroin-smuggling ring. Pay off an informant with confiscated drug money. Interrogate a couple of hippies. Cruise around in the Chevelle. Bust a local kitten-smuggling ring. Hit the discotheque.
Names and Ranks: S/Sgt. Bob Berg, Engineer; Sgt. James McCooey, Gunner; Capt. Tom Coomer, Pilot; Lt. Tim Stout, Navigator/Bombardier; and Lt. Eddy Coursier, Co-Pilot.
Interests: Defending freedom and getting back on the ground.
History: Served together in Italy with the US Army Air Forces in 1944-45. Multiple citations. Disappeared somewhere over Switzerland on their 35th mission. Reappeared over Wangerberg, Liechtenstein exactly 60 years later.
Names: Reginald Fortescue, Miles Cavendish-Dehavilland, Nigel Pugthorne, and Clive Smith-Smythe-Smith
Occupations: Member of Parliament, Sargeant Major, Viscount, and president of a national bank.
Interests: Uncharted Asia (which they pronounce Ayyyzeea), darkest Africa (with a rolled R), and the wild tepuis of Venezuela. Oh, and cashews, lots and lots of cashews. They have them in large bowls at the club-house in Nigel’s backyard. Mmmm…cashews….
With minifigs based on Greek and Norse deities out of the way, I hopped across the Atlantic and started working on Aztec gods and goddesses:
Left to right: Tlaloc, Quetzalcoatl, Xipe-Totec, Mayahuel, Mictlantecuhtli, and Huitzilopochtli
Check out the full gallery in my Mythological Minifigs photoset on Flickr.
As a professed purist (though I’m sometimes tempted to make just one little tweak), I’m always excited when The LEGO Company announces a new batch of minifigs. I’ve withheld judgement on the new Batman line, but more detailed images are beginning to trickle out of the minifigs and the sets. Brickshelf user KimT seems to be the primary source for these pictures lately.
Posted a while ago, here’s a scan from the magazine Toyfare:
(Check out rendered versions of some of these figs as well.)
I’m not nearly as impressed with Batman himself as I am with some of the other minifigs. Perhaps I’ve begun to think of minifigs from a reusability perspective. At any rate, I think Alfred and Penguin’s tuxedo and the Joker’s purple suit are fantastic, and Croc is certainly interesting. Politically speaking, I’m a bleeding-heart liberal pacifist, so I’m conflicted about the new weapons (Tommy gun and modern-looking pistol). That said, they are kind of cool…
Finally, every LEGO theme needs its fan-site, and the Batman theme is no different. I’ve added BatBrick.com to the list of community sites in the navigation area on the right.
I have no idea what Hub City is, but Octopunk has created a fascinating cast of characters to populate the metropolis. Here are a few of my favorites:
Speaking of photography, new (I think) Brickshelf user Ertu has posted some interesting pictures inspired by the Adventurers theme:
Bruce has posted again that Izzo has posted another batch of Japanese proverb vignettes in his gallery.
Here we go…
Japanese: Strategem 36: If all else fails, run away.
English: He that fights and runs away lives to see another day.
Japanese/English: Dead men tell no tales.
Japanese: When one god deserts you, another one picks you up.
English: One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
Japanese/English: Good and quickly seldom meet.
(It’s a fast-food noodle stand. Not exactly gourmet cooking.)
Japanese: Providing is preventing.
English: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
(In other words, always be prepared. Thus the Swiss Army robot.)
Japanese: A bird taking flight does not pollute the place it left.
English: It is an ill bird that fouls its own nest.
Japanese: Even dust piled up will make a mountain.
English: Many a little makes a mickle.
Japanese: The moon and a soft-shell turtle.
English: As different as night and day.
Japanese/English: The nail which sticks out gets hammered down.
Japanese/English: A near neighbour is better than a far-dwelling kinsman.
As before, check out Izzo’s if you want to see Flash versions that include the original Japanese text.
With my Final Fantasy VII characters done, the next logical step was to move on to Final Fantasy VIII. (Classic-Castle and FBTB user boses’ post of his gunblade also spurred me on.) Without further ado, here’s my Squall Leonhart minifig with brick-built gunblade:
My gunblade is by no means perfect, but I like its smallness. The perfect gunblade would attach the sabre blade directly to the end of the pistol, but that would require cutting and glue.
My favorite anime director by far is Hayao Miyazaki. Although my favorite movie is Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind (「風の谷のナウシカ」), I’ve always enjoyed Laputa: Castle in the Sky (「天空の城ラピュタ」). With my increasing collection of US-released Miyazaki DVDs, I thought I’d try my hand at some minifigs.
From left to right, Muska, Uncle Pom, Pazu, Sheeta, and a couple of air pirates.
Watch this blog for more Miyazaki minifigs soon!
Before we moved into our house back in November, I posted about how I was excited that our new house has a full daylight basement, with a rec room my wife jokingly labeled “the LEGO room.”
With all the painting, rewiring, and appliance installation we’ve been doing, unpacking stuff we don’t really need has taken a bit of a back seat. Taking a break from being a “weekend warrior” today, I tried making some Aztec god minifigs (following up on my Greek and Norse deities; stay tuned). I went downstairs to get the green snake from 4766 Graveyard Duel, and I saw that a bunch of boxes stacked against the far wall were wet near the floor. We’ve spent a good chunk of Sunday unpacking boxes we hadn’t looked in in years. I hadn’t seen my wife’s wedding dress in nine and a half years (fortunately it was wrapped in plastic inside the wet box). A box of photos with all the prints and negatives from her childhood through high school was one of the more damaged boxes.
Stupid 26 consecutive days of rain! Doesn’t matter that it didn’t rain today and the streak is broken, since there aren’t any more breaks in the rain for the foreseeable future.
Well, the good news is that most of the boxes on the bottom were the sturdiest boxes that had containers of LEGO inside. And LEGO, as most people know, is water-proof. We (mostly) dodged a bullet, but now we have to deal with lovely problems like mold. Fun!
