The saga continues as Jamie Spencer releases his terror-filled fury of minifigures day by day.
I’ve highlighted a few of my favorites from the last week that I particularly enjoyed; though, choosing one or two is exceedingly difficult. But the Mimes of Moria made me laugh; great timing, considering I just watched all three (extended edition!) films while recovering from surgery.
See what else has been creeping about this last week:
October 15
October 12
October 11
October 10
Part of the joy of the advent calendars is the surprise of not know what comes next. Jamie‘s calendar continues to do just that. I particularly like today’s play off Dorian Gray. I expect the Bonemeal Hag to appear in her own Grimm fairytale.
Click for October 1-4!
I’d apologize for the amount of pictures in this post, but I’m not going to. I’m afraid that Jamie might just create a figure to come after me in my sleep. I’m compelled to post all that are available.
And let’s face it: these are AWESOME.
Jamie has started his annual Halloween advent, and the results are frighteningly spectacular, as expected. I do hope you continue to watch for his daily installments. They’ll get you in the proper Halloween mood.
Brian Williams (BMW_Indy) is definitely not a LEGO purist and likes to do things his own way. With results like this I can see why. Whenever I see something new by Brian I always find myself questioning my own rules.
I’ve never seen The Wild Wild West TV show that inspired this creation, but I have to admit I’m tempted now. The idea of a lab on track is pretty cool.
This was an entry for the Spaghetti Western contest on Eurobricks and you can vote for your favourite train here.
Adam Grabowski goes for a drive with an icon in this Mini. We will forgive him for painting one piece, since it turned out so well. Now he needs to build Teddy.
BrickWarriors is a new company, specializing in custom weapons and accessories designed for use with LEGO minifigures. They recently sent me a complimentary review package of their initial offering.
The quality of the pieces is on par with the other well-known custom companies. While the plastic doesn’t feel exactly like LEGO, it is very close and the pieces are sturdy. None of them feel flimsy or brittle. At the time of this writing, there are only four colors: Black, Red, Brown, and Dark Pearl Gray. The color matching for the black and red pieces were identical to the official LEGO pieces to which I compared them. The brown pieces were very close to official pieces and the dark pearl gray was just barely lighter in color than the pieces I checked it against.
The fit and compatibility was good. None of the items appeared to stress the hands of the minifigs. The weapons have multiple grips points in the places you would expect the real guns to have them. The hats, helmets and armor all fit well. They were not loose or too tight.
There was one item with some fit issues. Before sending me the items, the designer informed me that the horn attachment points on the Minotaur head had issues. Brickwarriors uses the official LEGO horns for the Minotaur and apparently LEGO made the horns slightly larger than the standard bar connection. The Minotaur holes are sized for the standard bar, therefore the horns stress the hole a bit. I checked this out and the official horns fit very tightly (I had some trouble getting them out) but other bar pieces fit just fine. BrickWarriors informed me that they are currently working on their own horns, which will be sized correctly. Also the neck hole on the Minotaur is tighter than on official Lego heads, but it does come off easily.
The company has made an effort to maintain the look of official LEGO pieces. Mostly this works for them pretty well. One place that I don’t think it works very well is in regards to the solid trigger guards on the guns. The company told me that they chose this design because they thought that it maintained the look they were trying to achieve.
The price of the items is reasonable, with US$1.00 being the price for most of the weapons and smaller accessories. The larger guns are priced at US$1.25. The armor, other bodywear, and helmets are US$1.50. The most expensive item is the Minotaur head at US$2.50.
The weapons and accessories cover quite a range of genres, from Sci-fi and Fantasy to Historical and Modern items. As a dyed-in-the-wool Castle fan, I’m partial to the Fantasy Items, but Space, modern warfare and apoc fans will enjoy the modern and futuristic armor and weapons.
Overall, I thought this was very good first run of items and hope to see more from this company in the future. They have a number of unique items that help them stand out and will fit nicely into any collection of custom minifig accessories. If you wish to see more, you can view all the pictures of the items in my BrickWarriors Review Pictures Set.
Those who’ve been around the LEGO community for a while may know I’ve been planning a LEGO version of the Ghost in the Shell tank (from the movie) for quite some time. In fact I posted my first CAD version 5 years ago after starting it nine months before that.
I won’t say it’s finished now (because I doubt I’ll ever consider it finished) but, after nearly six years from starting it, I think it’s ready to share in the brick. It’s close to fully articulated although the middle legs don’t move left/right (to improve strength). The torso is on a ball joint as is the head for maximal poseability.
Jared Burks (Kaminoan) used EL wires to light up a Tron lightcycle designed by Ewok in Disguise. The minifigure uses custom decals designed by the master customizer himself.
LEGO seem to have some sort of viral marketing thing going on called I am George. Alex Schranz (Orion Pax) decided that George looked a little flat and made George 3D. A very clever reinterpretation.
As readers will have noticed in our LEGO News feed last week, custom minifig accessory vendor BrickForge has just released a new batch of items, including a new “Shock Trooper” armor. We ordered a couple batches, and I managed to find enough sunshine in the Seattle “summer” to take a few pictures.
The armor comes in a sort of steel color that’s rather lovely, along with black that has a similar metallic sheen. Neither color really matches typical colors available for minifig legs and torsos, but they combine reasonably well with neutral colors like bley and black. BrickForge also offers two printed variants, with an eagle on the gray and a flaming skull on the black. I’ll be interested to see how other customizers use these helmets and armor, but I focused on their inevitable use as ODSTs from Halo. Armor for a squad of six will run you a bit over $20.
One of the few areas in which BrickForge and BrickArms overlap is in items inspired (a safe assumption, I think) by the Halo universe, so minifig customizers have a bit more choice in this area. I like to mix and match custom parts from everybody, and I have to admit that I personally prefer the BrickArms versions of these sci-fi weapons (including the previously reviewed BrickArms minigun). I think the combination of the BrickForge armor and BrickArms weapons is undeniably awesome — “better together,” as I always say.
I cracked myself up by putting one of the troopers on a BrickForge scooter, which my wife dubbed the UNSC “Shrew”. I was amused enough that I would like to share this little masterpiece with the world. You’re welcome.
As fun as a couple squads of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers might be, I had the most fun putting together the Avengers — inspired by the blue helmet with an A and the big American shield that begged themselves to be equipped on a classic Captain America. Wolverine (with BrickForge “Savage Mask”) and Thor (BrickForge hammer) quickly followed, supplemented by a HAZEL-helmeted Iron Man, official Spider-Man, and my old Hulk.
The ODSTs and Avengers were distracting enough that I didn’t get a chance to do much with the test tubes, bottles, martini glasses, and other new glassware BrickForge has just released. Briefly, they complement official LEGO items nicely, and I’m highly entertained by the idea of minifigs squaring off against each other in tiny bar fights with broken bottles.
BrickArms released new weapons including the M1919 Machine Gun, HAC (Heavy Assault Carbine), ARC (Advanced Recon Carbine), and M3 Grease Gun to equip your military minifigs.
