Walmart Iron Patriot Exclusive

So, have you seen Iron Man 3 yet? I just got a chance to catch it last night and it was just as fun as one and two.

One thing I was disappointed with **warning: slight spoiler** was that of the three Iron Man 3 LEGO sets, only the Malibu Mansion has anything to do with the movie. I realize that the sets are often designed while the movie is still in production, and perhaps there is a small chance that the other two sets may have been left on the Editing room floor, but considering the continuity of the movie, I really doubt that.

On that note, LEGO Marvel Super Heros the video game is coming out at the end of the year. And for this one Walmart, not Gamestop, has the exclusive figure — Iron Patriot.
Via FBTB

Its a pretty sweet fig, although I still think that the helmets look a little on the big side.

Iron Patriot is available with the preorder of the game on PS3, XBox, or WiiU — all for just a hair under $50 each. Sadly it doesn’t look like it works for Nintendo DS or 3DS.

The weird thing is that it says that the game will be available for shipment on Dec. 31st, everywhere else it says Oct. 31, which makes more sense. So we’ll see what the actual date is.

If Iron Man 3 were in LEGO…

This is what the posters would look like

You’re welcome

This Fett means Business

Kevin Ryhal has created a Midi-Mood Scale Boba Fett that is fully pose-able.

Pretty darned awesome!

The Ultimate Showdown

Okay Yaramanoglu has created the ultimate show down between Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars. I’m not exactly sure who is on who’s side, or even who is winning, but I don’t think it really matters.

Ever since Disney annouced that they were buying LucasFilms the inevitable desire for all the characters to prove who’s the favorite would occur.

Put even more confusion J.J. Abrams is set to direct the newest Star Wars moive.
Picture Via FBTB

Now if we could only get LEGO to make Star Trek…

One can dream right?

LEGO Marvel Super Heroes Video Game!!!

Some said a collaboration between Marvel and TT Games could never happen. Apparently, nobody told the studio behind the popular series of Lego games. After all, Warner Bros. is the parent company of both TT Games and DC Comics, which made many people assume that a Marvel Lego game was off the table. As our cover story shows, those people were wrong.

Via: Gameinformer.com

Not much news is available yet, but just the name LEGO Marvel Super Heroes Video Game conjures excitement! How can it be anything but cool? Especially after watching this video

LEGO Lord of the Rings Video Game was a pleasant surprise for me and I really enjoyed it. Of course to be honest I’ve enjoyed pretty much every Travler’s Tales LEGO game out there. But the Lord of the Rings story just isn’t my cup of tea. Marvel on the other hand — well lets just say I went and saw Avengers three times in theaters and leave it at that.

The one thing I’m hoping, and they probably have fixed this if LEGO Lord of the Rings is any indication, is that the Marvel game will be about more than one character. I loved LEGO Batman 2 but its one failure was that you only got to be Superman at the very end of the story portion of the game. Once you got into Free Play, it was much cooler. I mean who doesn’t want to fly around the city looking for citizens to save?

Lord of the Rings was very different, and had to be, since it was the Fellowship of nine characters traveling around together for the most part. So you got to use all the different characters with all their different abilities much more frequently, even if it that can also get a tad old after awhile. I have to admit, I still haven’t finished the game. A week is about my limit on playing a game constantly. I don’t know of any of the games that I’ve fully finished except maybe the old LEGO Star Wars video games, but that was many years ago when I didn’t have quite so much going on in my life.

LEGO Marvel Super Heroes Video Game won’t be out till the fall, so we have a while to wait. LEGO City Undercover exclusively for the Wii U game console is set to come out March 1st and although it looks like fun, I don’t have a Wii U and don’t have plans to get one any time soon.

Even if we do have a bit of a wait I’m looking forward to being Iron Man, Spiderman, and Wolverine when it finally does come out. And of course as soon as I know more info I’ll let you know.

Be Brave

I made this about a week ago, but didn’t think to post it on Flickr till last night after I posted it as my Facebook picture. I was surprised to see such a huge response, both on Facebook and Flickr. Brothers Brick even posted it this morning.

What’s really getting a lot of people’s attention are the curls and the bow. Pixar’s Merida is known for her wild frizzy hair and I wanted to capture it as close as I could in a 4 inch figure.

I have to admit though, this technique isn’t new — at least in Miniland building — this has been a technique for creating curly hair for as long as I can remember at the LEGOLAND parks and I have used variations of it many times on several of my Superhero figures like Wonder Woman and for my Wedding Cake Topper Brides.

And of course what is Merida without her bow? I thought about using the new elf long bow from the Hobbit sets, but I realized it would still be too short. So I did the next best thing, I made one out of pearl cotton thread and a bit of copper flex tubing. The quiver might be a tad too short, but it was just to perfect not to use verses trying to design my own.

If you would like your own Miniland Merida either as a figurine or a Christmas ornament, I have them for sale on my Folded Fancy Creations Etsy Shop.

Wreck it Ralph Mosaic

Ever since I saw the first promo posters for Wreck it Ralph I figured it would be simple to turn it into a LEGO mosaic. So it was bound to happen sooner or later, I’m just bummed I hadn’t done it first.

Of course there’s more than just the Wreck it Ralph in this LEGO Store Showcase display by Notenoughbricks. Pac Man, Scrooge McDuck,Mega Man and Mario also make an appearance. As well as the kind of random Mets logo (I only say random because it doesn’t seem to fit the theme).

8-bit characters are practically made for LEGO mosaics and this is a great example of them.

Oh, and if you haven’t seen Wreck it Ralph, I highly recommend it. No LEGO references, just a great movie that brings back all those great retro video games and fun for even non-gamers.

Finding Nemo

Blake Baer has created an awesome and accurate replica of the inside of the fish tank (sans tank) from Finding Nemo. All the characters are there, and even the volcano and little diver.

The model has a very organic feel to it and the loose 1×1 round plates are a great effect as the rocks on the fish tank bottom.

The Black Pearl

I try my best to visit Target, TRU, and even Costco’s Lego aisles as much as I can, which can be difficult as I also make myself all too known at the Lego stores. Just Saturday I ran into friends at the Lego store in Costa Mesa because I needed a sandwich for lunch… Anywho…

Costco has the new Pirates of the Caribbean Black Pearl for only $80 ($90 on Costco.com). I try to call my friends Paul and Mariann the second I see a good deal, but now that Mariann asked me to post stuff on here, I thought you would all like to know as well! There are deals at Lego for free shipping and double points and free Lego goodies but if you have other Lego to buy during these incentives, the Costco deal is pretty nice.

So thats my 2 cents for now…

Tiff

Comic Con 2011 Recap

I do apologize for the lack of posts, I’ve been in a post-Comic Con coma the last few days and I haven’t really had the motivation to do much of anything including writing my blog. It seems that going from working 2 months flat out and getting no sleep on a commission piece — and yes, I will be posting about it soon — and then going to Comic Con for 5 days and getting no sleep tends to totally exhaust me for some reason, who knew?

So, back to the matter at hand, Comic Con 2011. This year was one of the best I’ve had in a long time. I don’t know why, maybe it was the panels I got to see, or the movies I got to watch. I’ve been going for at least 19 years, so Comic Con is not the overwhelming monster it seems to be to first or even second time attendees.

For me, as it has been for quite a number of years, Comic Con is very LEGO-centric. Mainly because I help out with the LEGO booth. Oh I go to the panels and watch the movies too, but Comic Con is part fun and part work for me, much like the LEGO Conventions.

This year, as I’m sure all of you know introduced the new LEGO DC and Marvel licenses that will be out next year.

I have to admit, I’m not to big a fan of the big Hero Factory like figures, but then I don’t really care that much for Bionicle or Hero Factory either. Now don’t get me wrong, I see uses for the pieces, and I know why little (and big) boys like the figs, its just not my thing.

I also enjoyed finally seeing the Captain Jack Sparrow model in person. After seeing it online earlier this year it was nice to see the real thing.

I was especially happy that they had fixed the hand holding the compass, as that was the only part of the model that bothered me when I saw the initial pictures.

The play area this year consisted of a mountain of 2×4 yellow bricks. It was a fun and interesting thing to watch. Because there was only one type of brick, it was more of a challenge to create models, but it also kept little ones from fighting over the bricks.
And no, I didn’t make the Star Wars sign.

I even had a bit of fun with the bricks.

You can see LEGO Events Coordinator Mark Fontanella literally shoveled up all the bricks at the end.

Now, I did not buy the LEGO exclusive this year, you can go check out FBTB’s review on that.

I couldn’t justify the extra cost (it was $50), just for special packaging and a poster when the set is coming out in October. Especially when I knew I’ll be opening my Advent Calendar to do my Annual Advent Callendar Review.

I did however manage to get my hands on the exclusive LEGO Batman and Greenlantern figs. And no, just because I was working the booth didn’t automatically mean that I got one. I had to stand in line like everyone else.

In fact, I managed to get quite a lot of LEGO swag this year.

Some of it, like the exclusive minifigs wasn’t all that easy to get. Warner Brothers had a special lanyard you had to get stamped at 3 different booths and then take it to their booth to get the swag bag. But it was worth it, the bag consisted of a LEGO Harry Potter Years 5-7 Video Game shirt (the white one in the picture), a Voldemort Minifig, a Batman Arkham City Water Bottle (not LEGO), a magnet and a bandanna (also not LEGO).

The big LEGO Harry Potter bag I got when I picked up my attendee badge. The LEGO booth was giving away LEGO Star Wars minifig posters, Heroica comic books, and Ninjago bracelets. Hallmark booth was giving away a LEGO Darth Vader poster. DK was giving away a LEGO Star Wars pin, LEGO Harry Potter lanyards, and a LEGO Star Wars poster. And Cartoon Network came by the LEGO booth on Saturday and handed out Ninjago pins.

I also managed (it helps to have many friends at LEGO ) to get into the special sneak preview of LEGO Star Wars: Padawan Menace that was shown in the Reading Theater of the Gaslamp District of San Diego. It was shown the day before it aired on Cartoon Network. All of us who attended got a LEGO Star Wars Padawan Menace poster, a small minifig (it’s the one that comes with the DVD when it comes out in September), and a LEGOLAND California luggage tag.

I even got to meet the director David Scott, seen here with Minifig Darth Vader.

Outside of the convention they had a Conan O’Brien fan art museum. One of the pieces was a “Flaming C” created by Nathan Sawaya.

I also went to the LEGO Star Wars panel on Friday. The biggest news that came out of that was that they are finally making a Queen Amidala minifigure in her red dress!

They are also re-releasing the Tie Fighter with a new design and new minifigures. My favorite is the new R4 droid. I can see that head part coming in very handy if they decide to make it in other colors down the line.

The tie fighter will be out in January 2012 and the Queen Amidala fig (no news on what set she’ll be in) in the summer 2012 line.

As for the cool non-LEGO Comic Con stuff I did. I got to see a preview of Captain America with actor Chris Evans introducing the movie.

I watched the Torchwood Miracle Day episode 3 with the entire cast merely feet from me and I met and talked with Timothy Zahn, author of many books that I enjoy reading.

And I think that is about it.

Check out my Flickr photostream for all my pictures.