Gold Minifig Disassembled

Not that I’m recommending this, but David Pickett aka fallentomato disassembled the Chrome Gold Minifig Keychain that he got with a $75 or more purchase (like that’s hard ) at a LEGO store.

Personally I’ve never tried this. When asked how he did it David said:

I use pliers to grip the loop closest to the pin and held on to the fig with a dishtowel. It took me about 10 minutes to get it out. Slow constant pressure is the key. I may have just gotten lucky though, it seemed pretty loose to start with, the head could turn when I took it out of the package.

Again, I don’t recommend or suggest this to anyone! So don’t complain to me if you damage your figure by trying to do this. I just thought it was interesting to see (vicariously) what happens when you take one apart.

Minifigs Light it Up

Andy_0306uk on Flickr has posted a several pictures of the new LEGO licensed Minifigure flashlights (or torches if you are in the UK).

The one pictured above will be available this September for £15.99. No word on if these will be available worldwide, or more importantly (in my case) in the States.

This one will be £5.49 and also available in September. I’m guessing that you push his torso to light him up.

There are six products in all ranging in price and size. The lantern is the most expensive and the mini torch (flashlight) is the cheapest. They are going to be available online at Play.com in England. They are kind of kooky and cute. If the cross the pond and are available here I just might have to check them out.

LEGO Ambassadors Cycle 7 Announced

I pulled this directly off Brothers Brick, so thanks guys to making this public.

The next cycle of LEGO Ambassadors has been announced, which includes 45 representatives spanning 27 nationalities and 50 different groups, which is quite impressive in its diversity and a testimonial to the worldwide interest in the hobby.

Sebastion Arts – De Bouwsteen – The Netherlands
Sue Ann Barber – MUGs – Australia
Patrick Begin – QueLUG – Canada
Heiner Berg – MBFR – Germany
Norbert Black – ParLUGment – Canada
Pitsanu Boonyarit – Thai Brick Club – Thailand
Andrew Bulthaupt – BZPower – USA
Pijarn Charoensri – T-LUG – Thailand
Marco Chiappa – ItLUG – Italy
Ben Coifman – Railbricks, ILTCO & COLTC – USA
Fernando Correia – PLUG – Portugal
Yvonne Doyle – Brickish Association – the United Kingdom
Ben Ellermann – Classic-Castle.com, GtwLUG, ForbiddenCove.com – USA
Adrian Florea – RoLUG – Romania
David Furphy – CALG – Australia
Lluis Gibert – HispaLUG – Spain
Tim Gould – Brothers-Brick.com – Australia
Matija Grguric – Klub Kockice – Croatia
Philip Heinrich – Bricksinmotion.com – USA
Tom Jacobs – Classic-Pirates.com – Belgium
Tsang Yiu Keung – HKLUG – Hong Kong
Sung-Wan Kim – BrickInside – South Korea
Christian Krutzfeldt – 1000Steine – Germany
Tuomas Kukkamaa – Palikkatakomo – Finland
John Langrish – VicLUG – Canada
Igor Makarov – DoubleBrick & Phantoms – Russia
Lino Martins – LUGNUTS & SeaLUG – USA
Matija Puzar – Brikkelauget – Norway
Don Reitz – FBTB.net – USA
Wagner Cavalli – LUG Brasil – Brazil
Harald Roossien – LowLUG – The Netherlands
Dan Rubin – Classic-Space.com – USA
Kazuyoshi Saito – AFOL Japan – Japan
Svend Erik Saksun – Byggepladen – Denmark
Verena Schaden – LCOe – Austria
James Shields – Brick.IE – Ireland
Josephine Shih – TWLUG – Taiwan
Mikael Sjostedt – Eurobricks & SweLUG – Sweden
Pedro Silva – Comunidade 0937 – Portugal
Ludo Soete – BeLUG – Belgium
Stacy Sterling – MOCpages & TwinLUG – USA
Saso Tomat – Slobricks – Slovenia
Jenn Wagner – BrickLink – Canada
Marcin Witkiewicz – LugPol – Poland
Cagri Yuz – TurkLUG – Turkey

I’m just glad to see there are some girls this time. Not that I’m a feminist or anything, but LEGO needs to hear the female perspective and listen to it. Its been way too long of LEGO not really marketing to girls the right way.

Congrats to my friend Lino Martins, he totally deserves it! I’m sure the others do to, I just don’t know them personally.

Alice in LEGOLAND

I’ve been a little out of the loop this weekend (I was at the Anime Expo in LA), so I didn’t get a chance to post about this till now. Tyler aka Legohaulic”s Alice in LEGOLAND has a whole slew of creative techniques that I can’t really pick just one to focus on.

You can see more pictures on his Brickshelf Gallery

I have to say, it’s kind of creepy, but in a good way.

Stained Glass (redux)

I’m not really in to overly religious images, but I just couldn’t not comment on this one. Bruceywan has done and exceptional job creating this stained glass window cleverly using 1×1 cheese slopes — only one of my all time favorite pieces ever!!!!!!

I love this mosaic for its simple image and for the feeling it seems to evoke. Great job Bruce!

Happy Independance Day!

Happy 4th of July everyone! Celebrate, fire up the grill and remember why this is such a great nation! I thought I’d show off my American Flag Keychain model. It’s simple, but that’s on purpose.

On the other hand, this Patriotic LEGO Balloon at the Mall of America is a very complicated model. Creating lines and stars on a round surface is truly a design challenge.

LEGO Dice (Deconstructed)

I found this over at Brickbuildr and just had to pass this along. Looks like someone got their hands on one of the new dice from the LEGO board games and then ripped off all the rubber casing. The title in German says “a new SNOT piece.”

I don’t know what exactly I’d do with it (the multitude of possibilities are already running through my brain) but I’m pretty sure I just might have to try this when I get my own LEGO board game set. Since I’m sure that I’ll get more than one of the different board games, I’ll just plan from the start to rip off the casing on one (or more) of mine.

LEGO “Multi Game Pack” 9 board games in 1

If you can’t wait for the LEGO board games coming out next year (at least in the states) you can pick up one of these — the “Multi Game Pack.”

I didn’t catch the price on this, I just happened to see it at LEGOLAND when I was there for the Master Model Builder Search and snapped a couple of pictures. On the box it clearly says 9 games in 1 (in fact if you look real close you can read the different games), and from the opened sample, you kind of get the idea of what it looks like inside.

My guess is that its in the range of $10-20. I’d only get this as a parts pack, but if you’re bored and into board games, than this is the way to go.

Like Fathers Like Sons

Since Father’s day just passed us, I thought this was a pretty appropriate MOC for the day (somehow I totally missed mentioning it on my blog). David Pickett aka fallentomato has created this scene combining both Technic figures and Minifigures together. He did a really good job of matching the figures and I love the micro cars and castle on the floor.

My only problem with this scene is it brings up my constant gripe about LEGO being geared for boys. There has never been a Technic girl figure and I have always wondered why. I’m sure I would have paid more attention to Technic sets as a child if there had been a female figure to play with. And I’m sorry, but Belville and Scala just doesn’t cut it with me. They never have. The only thing good about them is all the accessories that were produced because of them.

Okay, gripe over. Good job David!

Lino has “Dung” it again!

The Battle Bugs battlefield has just gotten a little nastier with the inclusion of these deadly Dung Beetles! Modeled after real dung beetles, the spheres they roll around are not poop…but rather a highly powerful explosive. (T)hese little buggers are designed to scurry underneath larger bug mechs, where they are most vulnerable, and blow them to smithereens. Should they themselves get destroyed in the process, these unmanned robotic drones make the perfect suicide bombers. Upon demolition, a radio signal is sent to the mysterious unseen “Battle Queen” and more Dung Beetles are deployed. For every one that is destroyed, there are 10,000 more lurking in waiting to take its place! Fighting them at a distance is effective, but by the time they are within sight it is already too late.

Lino is unquestionably the master of LEGO automotive models, now with his LEGO Battle Bugs he is showing us all that he can basically build whatever he wants. The more I see of this new fad, the more I like it and the more I want to build my own Battle Bug to join the swarm. I can’t wait for BrickCon in October to see all the creations in person.