Bits and Bricks

The Eurobricks Spaghetti Western competition had 3 categories, and one of them was to build a western train. I had never built a train before, so I figured I would skip that category, but then I was struck with inspiration and thought it would be a good challenge. I was hard pressed on time too, since I had also entered the two other categories. But I was able to finish just in time, with only a half hour to spare! And here is the result. The locomotive is based on a Denver & Rio Grande steam engine, DRG268. The rest is mostly fiction, only loosely based on pictures I could find of trains from that time.

I’m quite pleased with the result, seeing as it’s my first train MOC. But there’s also a lot of things I would have loved to improve, given more time. I would also have liked to motorize it, but I fear it’s to fragile at the moment to be able to run around a track without falling apart 😀

I’m also very happy with the texture on my caboose. It was a last minute idea to use plates to create this effect, and I had to borrow a load of them to have enough (since I didn’t have time to buy more on bricklink).

I wanted to use all my purple train windows from the Harry Potter Knight Bus set, so I made my wagons purple, although that may be an untraditional color from that time. I think they turned out quite alright though. There’s a post and baggage wagon with sliding doors and shelves for mail and suit cases inside, a passenger wagon, and a dining wagon with a small kitchen. Here’s a picture of the dining wagon.

You can see more pictures on flickr, including close ups of the locomotive and pictures of all the wagons, including the interior. I think I may take some additional pictures too, as I was sort of stressed out when I took these in a hurry to get them uploaded in time for the deadline. I’ll see when I can get around to that, as I’m still busy building for a deadline, this time for my trip to Lego Fan Weekend in Skærbæk in a week.

I’ve really been on a roll lately, cramming out creations for the Eurobricks Spaghetti Western competition. First it was Brickfoot tribe village, and then I made this little saloon vignette. It’s supposed to illustrate the fear the villagers have for the gruesome bandit Jessy.

This is also the first creation that I have photographed using my new studio light. In this one, I have not done anything to the color or light balance in gimp, and I think the result is quite good. The bright light really makes a difference, and makes it a lot easier to get good pictures.

I’ve also been working hard to finish a western train in time for the competition, and I made it just in time! Stay tuned for pictures!

I’ve always been fascinated by waterfalls. So was my grandfather, apparently. He was an artist, and painted a lot of waterfalls. I can’t paint, or draw, or any such thing, but I build LEGO! And naturally, I love trying to build waterfalls in LEGO Bulding waterfalls in LEGO is a big challenge for many reasons. A waterfall is something powerful, something moving, and it’s water. How do you represent that in LEGO? I have seen many creative solutions by many excellent builders, but here are some of my takes on it. From my first attempt, to my most recent.

This was my first attempt. It’s actually supposed to portray a frozen waterfall in winter, but the technique could just as well be used for a non-frozen one. This one felt a bit too square and it doesn’t look real, but I think I may be on to something 😉

My next attempt is a more stylistically blue waterfall. Blue is a common color used to represent water, but it undoubtedly becomes more cartoonish, as we all know a waterfall isn’t blue… I think I achieved some good dynamics in this, portraying how the water splits into multiple streams upon hitting rocks that stick out of the mountain side. I’ve seen this technique used by others as well, and it certainly does the job well, if you’re not in need of color realism.

The waterfall in this one (hidden in the back) wasn’t very successful in my opinion. It’s very blocky and doesn’t look natural at all. I wanted realism in color for this one, otherwise I think the previous variant with the blue arches would have worked better here. But I think this technique could be adapted to look better, and I would probably have made it look more natural if I had thought about it while building the mountain, instead of after placing everything else… (in addition, the color of the rest of the water is blue, but it should have been a more muddy-water color, but that’s an other story :P)

In my opinion, this is my best waterfall yet. I think I captured both the dynamic and the color quite well in this one. This technique could possibly have been used to create a better waterfall in the previous case also. I think I’ll be using this technique more, while still looking out for other ideas in the future

Which is your favorite? 😉

I’ve been working on this for some time now, and after getting my last bricklink order with two pieces I needed for the totempole, it’s finally finished! This time I chose to do some post-processing to my pictures in gimp before uploading them, and I feel that it makes a huge difference to the presentation, so I’ll definitely be doing that from now on! But it’s quite amazing what a few auto-features can do to the color balance and lighting. Fixing the background is a lot harder, but well worth it! But enough talk, on to some pictures:

Have a look in my flickr stream for more pictures.

I’ve been on vacation for a couple of weeks now, enjoying the sun and eating loads of ice cream. I’ve also been working on some LEGO projects, planning and designing my collectible minifigs series 5 vignettes on my laptop, stacking something like 1500 1×2 plates for a diorama I’m working on, and this last weekend, building something in a genre I never thought I’d get into: Fabuland.

I guess you could say I was sort of challenged. I commented on a Fabuland MOC, and one thing led to another, and suddenly I “had” to create a home for my two only Fabuland figures: two crocodiles I got in a small pile of old childhood LEGO a friend gave me. The result? A little riverside cottage where the Croc Brothers enjoy the quiet life with some fishing.

See more views in my flickr stream.

The latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie, along with the recent release of Pirates of the Caribbean LEGO has driven me into a bit of a Pirates of the Caribbean craze… I’ve been rewatching the old movies, listening to the movie soundtrack and building the LEGO sets. But LEGO’s puny little fountain of youth spurred me to make my own version, the way I remembered it from the movie. Now, I have only seen the movie once, so it might still be lacking in movie accuracy, but I’m pretty sure it’s better than LEGO’s version 😉

See the rest of the pictures in my flickr stream.