BrickCon is almost here

There is less than a month till BrickCon is upon us and even less if you want to register as a full attendee. The cut-off date is September 18th if you want all the benefits — goody bag, chance for door prizes, presentations, games, etc. For all you get, its well worth the $55 USD price.

But if you’re not as much of an AFOL (Adult Fan of LEGO), there’s always the Public Days on Saturday and Sunday. Of course if you weren’t a fan of LEGO you wouldn’t be reading my blog. 😀

There is a policy change this year, anyone under the age of 14 is no longer allowed as a full attendee

“BrickCon is a convention for Adult Lego Hobbyists. Its focus is on building friendships and community through the sharing of time, ideas, building techniques and unique creations.”

You can read full details on BrickCon.com.

And don’t forget the epic struggle between Pigs versus Cows! Who will win in the battle across all themes?

I will be there of course, both as a presenter and as a vendor. I’ll have a bunch of my jewelry, keychains, and stickers for sale and Guy Himber will be on hand with Pig and Cow heads if you want to stock up and make your own bovine or swine army.

And of course I’ll be posting about BrickCon for those of you who can’t go. I know, I know. I still haven’t covered BrickFair or Bricks by the Bay. I’ll get around to it one of these days. 😉

Happy 1,001 Posts!

Wow, so its taken me 5 years, but I’ve finally reached 1001 posts! This would have been my 1000th post, but then Tim had to make that awesome orchid, so it pushed this back a day.

My blog has had its ups and downs and I wanted to thank everyone that has been following me. So, I’m doing my first — but definitely not the only — giveaway.

The lucky winner will get all that you see pictured, and I’ll probably throw in a couple of my Folded Fancy keychains as well.

There will be three ways to enter:
1)Comment on this post
2)Like my page and then Like, Share, and Comment on my link about this post on my Model Building Secrets Facebook Page
3)Follow me on Twitter @MariannAsanuma and reply to my tweet about this post with the #giveaway

Yes, you can enter once all three ways. I will leave the giveaway open till midnight June 6th (pacific standard time). This will be international, so as long as I can mail this to you, I will. 😉

And since my Facebook page is also very near its 1000th Like, I will add a second giveaway to the mix should I reach 1000 likes or more before the deadline.

So let’s start this, and good luck! 🙂

Tardis and K-9

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m prepping for my two upcoming conventions — one a Comic Con, one a LEGO Con.

One of my goals for each new convention that I go to is to have new products to sell. And because the first convention is a Comic Con, I wanted more iconic Pop Culture products. So I created these two new models for Doctor Who fans.

Now for the LEGO purists out there — yes, both of these are cheated. I can see you wincing from here, but frankly I don’t care. How do you think new LEGO parts are made? You have to “break” the mold as it were.

And the main reason I’ve “cheated” is because it was the best way to make the models the desired size of about an inch and to look as close to the original at that size.

Oh, and for those of you that don’t know what cheating means it is when you cut or alter your bricks or just glue parts on where they other wise could not connect.

For both of these models I’ve done both.

And if you’re wondering most of my online and in person customers don’t care either. 😉

I think they are simply adorable (even if I do say so my self 😀 ) and if you are interested in either model you can find them at my Folded Fancy Creations Etsy Shop.

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.

Folded Fancy Sale

I don’t often plug my Etsy shop Folded Fancy Creations here on my blog. But I am having a sale this weekend in time for Chrismas shopping. Just use coupon code THANKS2012 for 10% off your order. Coupon valid Nov 24 – 26th. Click the picture to go to my Etsy shop. 🙂

Miniland Class of 2012

As it is Graduation season I whipped up some Class of 2012 Miniland scale Graduates

Although I’m not in school any more, this is a sort of graduation year for me. My business Model Building Secrets is 5 years old this year. I’ve always heard that if a business can last 5 years than it has a good chance of lasting in the long run. And starting my business in 2007 — right before the economic crash — while not necessarily the best time to start a business, was the right choice for me. 😉

Its been a long, bumpy road these past five years with its ups and downs. This year has also seen me becoming much busier than in previous years. Its a good / bad thing to be more successful. Good because my business is growing, bad because I have been working over a year straight with very little downtime and I don’t see it stopping any time soon. I’m very grateful for all the amazing things I’ve gotten to do and all the fun things I’ll be doing the rest of this year.

And of course, if you would like your very own LEGO Graduate, you can find them for purchase on my Etsy shop.

Micro Golden Gate Bridge

Now for the micro scale brilliance I had yesterday:

Its only got 7 parts, 9 if you count the water. 🙂 Its probably the smallest build-able Golden Gate Bridge out there.

And as I’m busy making all the keychains and jewelry I couldn’t just stop there. So I made these

Naturally they will be available on my Folded Fancy Etsy shop and I will also have them on sale at Bricks by the Bay. 🙂

Bricks by the Bay Preparations

Goodness gracious this month seems to have a lot in it! I’m busily making lots of my LEGO keychains and jewelry for my vendor table at Bricks by the Bay. This year I thought I’d display my keychains and pins differently by having display racks. Now of course they can’t be regular display racks, they have to be LEGO display racks! 😉

The frame mainly consists of black brick, technic bricks, and minifig jousting sticks.

Today I built lots of American flags, trains, penguins, Pac Man ghosts, hearts, skulls, and cats as keychains. It seems like a mixed bunch of models, but of course people have lots of different tastes. 🙂

If you are interested in purchasing any of my LEGO models and can’t make it to Bricks by the Bay you can check them out at my Folded Fancy Creations Etsy shop.

I still have lots more to do before I’m fully ready for this upcoming LEGO Convention and at the same time I’ll be going up to Costa Mesa this coming weekend for the Grand Opening of the new LEGO Store at South Coast Plaza. I look forward to helping out with the 8 foot tall Yoda build and hanging out with my fellow LEGO friends. And naturally I will do my best for all of you who can’t make it out to the Yoda build so that you can share in the fun. 😀

LEGO Pac Man

I thought I’d go on a bit of a retro blast from the past, so I created these earrings for my Etsy shop.

But then I thought, you can’t have Pac Man without his eternal, ever regenerating enemies the Ghosts so I sat down an thought okay, well how do I best create them?  Obviously the scale would have to be different though.

 

So then I started from scratch and came up with these:

But then of course the earring version of Pac Man was too small and I needed a larger one so I created this:

You can find both the earrings and the keychains on my Folded Fancy Creations Etsy Shop.

Now I’m thinking I need to make the whole gameboard. 😀