Le petite tren

Really good sculpting, really cute model.

Plough the fields

And he's at it again. More misterzumbi madness. I give this a big old "Fucking excellent".

Tim

Money or the gun

OWNED BY THE GIMP!

iBricks mk II

Well it would appear the "safe and friendly" chaps at iBricks are at it again... this time kicking people who have in no way violated their rules (nor in my case even visited in about a while). Jeff Stembel and myself have now been banned. In Jeff's case I'd guess it was for the grave crime of 'debate' but in my case I have done absolutely nothing wrong (and barely posted at all). 'Guilt' by association I guess...

I would strongly recommend that no-one join iBricks for any purpose other than mockery. I have however added it to the list here so you can check it out for yourself. And I thought CSF Mk I (too many mods version) was bad but it appears it was at the far better end of the spectrum.

As far as running a "safe and friendly" community goes I have to award iBricks a big old FAIL STAR


For running a forum to cater to bigots I give them a big old fashioned WIN.

Tim

How postmodern...

An antique shop made from LEGO displaying LEGO antiques.

Mommy's #1 Builder

So I woke up, got a cup of coffee, and checked the recent galleries on brickshelf (as I usually do) and stumbled upon these beauties.

Firstly, here is (yet another) awesome Pelican!! I can never get enough halo mocs, srsly.

And here is Demon Slayer's awesome F (for failure?)-22. It's sooo awesome!!1 I can even count the dust particles!!

Srsly, how do people get so good? I'm jealous. All I build are crappy trains. Who builds trains, honestly?? Anyways, I'm off to get some more paste at Wally World and enjoy more of Demon Slayer's MOCs.

And not a stereotype in sight

This layout from Utrech in The Netherlands is one of the best I've ever seen. The craftsmanship of everything I saw in it is exemplary. From the buildings I can recognise it seems that a group of my favourite Dutch builders have combined efforts on this and I sure hope they do it again.

While the buildings are of the highest calibre what really stands out for me is the attention to detail of the smaller MOCs. Some of the less obvious highlights include the wheelie bins, costuming, a car seat wagon, and the weathering on this barn.

There is a lack of good generic cars (although it's better than most) on the layout but that's like finding a pimple on a supermodel.

R.I.P Unit186

So it would seem our favorite CSF and FBTB kiddie has left us, I can’t help but feel this is some kind of act for attention, but I think this might actually be the real thing this time.

My first impressions of Dale was of course “Annoying CSF kiddie” but after awhile I did get to know him a bit, and I did in fact feel bad for him. Because most of us have gone through the same things he has, which is probably why me and Tim deleted most of his notes on Tim’s Classic space remake of LL924 using CS standards of “Good building techniques” when he was making himself look bad by actually taking the notes/comments I made seriously. And after that I felt I should inform him of how we work… and that would be that we’re not being serious 90% of the time on #mecha and Flickr.

I did notice that he’s just starving for attention, and I don’t blame him, and he does deserve it at times for his works. Because quite frankly, I felt he was like some of the other great teen builders out there. using his own ideas and techniques to build things. And that I appreciated. Although sometimes I was annoyed with his antics and way about approaching things, it was good knowing you Dale and rest in peace un till you return once again! :-)

EDIT: Disregard that, he's come back and is annoying as ever...

Lonesy

More gimps for the slaughter

Since he whinged and moaned I've invited Matt Hamann to be another co-gimp. His thinly veiled hints were nauseating.

iBrick's Hidden Agenda

“Safe, Friendly, LEGO Community”

I posted in the iBricks forum topic over at Classic-castle with my first views of the forum. I didn’t have to spend much time on iBricks to know it was run by 12 year olds that murfle/ban with their faith and not with the rules.

I joined the ranks of iBricks to hopefully help a friend out in his discussion, but was to late (Waiting for my account to activate) and regretted signing up, after that I made a few threads and just sat back and watched as the English language was raped across the forum.

When I saw Chuck had started an Evolution topic, the display of bad comments and answers from the kiddie Christian squad showed me that that I could defend the Evolution theory without thinking to hard. let me give you two Questions for example:

“And, cars need "food"(gasoline), and they "dispose of waste"(exhaust), but are they animals?”

“Could anything on this earth besides either a human being or a computer be able to invent something as simple as a lightbulb?”

Those are exact quotes that were copied and pasted here. But by reading that I’m sure you can see how laughable these answers really are.

After reading the Evolution thread for a day and my eyes drying out to the point of crying blood, I finally made a thread explaining just how badly I felt of iBricks and how poorly they have displayed themselves to the rest of the AFOL community. Mind you, I wouldn’t have any of these problems or concerns with this community if it stated at first that it was geared towards Christian Builders. I’m part of a Christian forum, and I want to yell at some of the stupid and bigoted comments, but I know it’s a faith based website, which I now refuse to read because of all the conceited comments I can read in two minutes on there.

30 minutes after replying to my thread Conductorjoe banned me for have an avatar that contained "Sexual innuendo" and deleted my thread entitled "God Forbid"

“Safe, Friendly, LEGO Community”

P.S: Here's a few last tid-bits you'd like. :-)

Lonesy

Curse you and your ever-flowing Nazi PABs!

I want to cry and commit suicide. It's so amazingly well done, and so beautifully detailed. I must need glasses because I look at the red roofs and windows and see dark-red, which adds such an amazing texture to the tudor houses. Alas it's probably something to do with the lighting. But I can dream...



It seems Brickshelf user jehkay has really developed his own mecha style; I like the fact that he uses basic bricks that any kiddie would have from buying SW sets and transforms it into such amazing and inspiring mecha. Although I think he needs some work on his APC skillz. :-)





I think this is by far the best minifig scaled Batmobile. Just look at all the neat features and details!






Winner for most unique design using the classic space theme. Hopefully we won't see any "zOMG more greebs and tile dem studs kthxbye" comments from the CSF community.





Lonesy

Music and Alcohol

So it would seem that Izzo is shitting out Dragon scenes every other day. He's already on his fourth one and is still raping my dignity as an AFOL. My favorite so far would have to be his 3rd Dragon scene. I should also note that since the Classic-castle community has been gauging at Izzo's Dragon scenes, he has decided to join CC. I do hope his PM box isn't overflowed with requests for "inktruckchons"

On another note, while skimming through Brickshelf searching for "Sail boats" I came across a nice little treat by Brickshelf user RickB. Sadly most of his pictures are shit and there are so few shots of the things I really want to see more of.

P.S: I wanted to name this place "GIMP" but alas, Tim thinks the kiddies aren't smart enough to relate it to the Quentin Tarantino movie "Pulp Fiction" and instead to that program for editing photo thingies.

Lonesy (Giving you the un-murfled MOC news since March of 2007)

Co-Gimp

I've let Carlos lover and Gimp master Lonesy in to post rants and maybe even provide us with links.

Tim

Chasing cars

To add one more to my retrospectives here's some great car builders.

Spencer Rezkalla makes some lovely six-wide cars. I sometimes feel he doesn't put quite enough care into his wheels but the cars themselves are lovely

The infamous Misterzumbi makes the best cars around. His stuff is all legal but he does obscene things to stack his chrome.

Pierre Normandin makes beautiful four-wide (and wider) cars. They have loads of character without needing horrible masses of snot to get it.

Render fetish

A list of links to people who do extraordinary things with renders. It will grow.

Koyan, Thomas Burger, Andreas Weissenburg.

I'm in love (or hate)

...with this diorama by Izzo

Izzo is one of my favourite mecha builders but occassionally he turns to other themes, usually to great effect. I just love this diorama. The positioning of the minifigs is brilliant and you really feel you are in their world. The dragon is simply cool.

Having a look around at other blogs I can asssure you this one isn't unpimped but it's my blog so I'll pimp if I want to.

Trains trains trains

If there's one area which gets ignored (or not terribly well reported) in the world of LEGO blogs it's trains. Since it helps to have a decent idea of what makes a train special I'm not entirely surprised. The bias of this blog will definitely be towards six-wide trains (if you don't know, don't ask) but I'll post eight-wides if they really tickle my fancy.

Anyway, here's a few builders I'd like to pimp. There's plenty of famous builders whose names are well known but I think these guys are unsung heroes.

Ben Coifmann (aka Zephyr1934) does some very tricky things with 6-wide. I like how his trains don't use showy SNOT but are chock full of the subtle kind. It gives me a good case of second glances.

Jason Railton is a fantastic builder whose models are always crammed full of detail and trickery. He also manages a sideline in adding moving parts which is just cool.

Sekiyama does some very weird stuff but it always has a certain appeal. His building style is bold and oversized but he makes it work.

Why and how often

OK. So I created somewhere for me to highlight models that are unlikely to be highlighted anywhere else (and some that I just love). I don't really care who reads it but at the least it will provide me with a way to track down stuff I like. I imagine I'll update this hardly ever.

PS. Image stolen from Soren