Fantastic Lego Creations

It's an otter!

2014-08-30T08:52:00.003-07:00

One was by The Creator, and one by little sister, at the ago of two!

Guess which?

They're both otters

Birthday time again already ?!! - and we're still liking the kits

2013-08-04T06:35:00.001-07:00

The Creator was most particular about this model - rarity counts apparently.

Just after being built - I like the dramatic lighting of the Sunday morning light on the sofa.

Now that is a tank...

2013-07-16T14:53:00.001-07:00

I've been perusing a little of Tv Tropes, (warning, may have annoying ads) and stumbled across some rules like "There is no kill like Overkill".

Yes, flames shoot out of the back

The creator proffered this recently. You can't see the missile racks and the extra missiles on the side of the hatch, but trust me nothing was left to chance.
This after quite some time of pedestrian carriages that seemed more suited to cramming on passengers in the most alarming ways - see remote working will be the future. Meanwhile I noticed some of his older friends had acquired a mild edifice complex and joined the LEGO arms race to make the most awesome .... thing.
With amazing results to be honest.

And perhaps we're entering that new phase now.

Again with the TV Tropes, there are a few McGuffins and some Phlebotinum attached to the back story of these things. And yes, they *all* have a back story...

context matters

2013-07-16T14:41:00.001-07:00

The Creator's little sister is almost 5 years younger, but through a process of LEGO osmosis and exposure to the Creator's friends (mainly boys), is starting to branch out on her own.

Here's a recent oeuvre. It has wheels, BTW.

"It's a tank: the guns are at the front."

Some might say she is travelling a well worn furrow, but I'm amused to observe the differences.
She has voiced concern at a very young age about succumbing to the "tyranny of pink", but then, she quite likes the Lego Friends and the more (ahem) "structured" environment that brand seems to supply.

Then again, there's the above. Go figure.

p.s. one thing that is apparently a familial constant as you can see from the quote is how I have show surprise as I am described the painfully obvious details. Not sure how to take that.

The LEGO "technological plateau"

2013-06-22T12:05:00.001-07:00

So, the small one proudly announced her creation.

"It's a tank"

Influence of the big brother and his friends there I suspect...

The Tank

Things being as they are: she proposed "we could make a movie".
I don't think she's seen the pilot or knows the effort involved, though that goes down every year...

I've been remiss on the old posting front recently, but I'm now prompted to muse that there seems to be steps in the progression of using the LEGO.
For the older one, they are used with mini-figures as props in "the LEGO battles", and in many ways the shape and sophistication has not changed so much.
Other considerations have come into play:

plainly, just making bigger and bigger armies is an end in itself
is it rare?
does it have any "exciting pieces"?
how much does it cost?

Maybe more on the "exciting pieces" later - I'm sure there is a whole department in LEGO devoted to stickiness...

The upshot is, she's catching up quick...

Shh - it's a secret!

2012-12-02T12:03:00.000-08:00

The creator's sister is now well entrenched in "the Lego life", and this oeuvre is apparently -
"A spaceship, but it's disguised as a car - see? [indicates the wheels]"
Did she just re-invent Decepticons?

I just didn't ask about the chaining of the head to the deck.

I love the [suspension of disbelief/trance logic] exhibited.
To be honest, I would have guessed spaceship first reflexively, and then perhaps commented on the wheels.

As an aside, generalising on the special items produced by Creator and Creator's Sister- it's interesting how the low hanging fruit is just skipped - I have no records of
LEGO bicycles
LEGO horse drawn carts
LEGO reasonably priced family oriented cars

It's mainly spaceships and flying carpets and "water back speeders".
And a Disco - maybe more on that later.

And again, more 'droids

2012-02-05T15:35:00.000-08:00

These new fellers are brand new, and frankly they creep me out.

The LEGO construction seems to follow a couple of strands: copying existing models with increasing fidelity and "the original works". The latter we're seeing more of. They may have been inspired by some of the baddies in the now-defunct Lego Universe.

2012-02-05T15:19:00.000-08:00

There's a distinct Edwardian meme floating around; obviously LEGO themselves could be part of it through what figurines they produce. However witness the recent Doctor Who stylings and Sherlock Holmes reboots among others.

This dude looks pretty serious, and I'm told he's a General!

Something different for a change

2011-11-14T14:45:00.001-08:00

There is admittedly a strong theme of the highly marketed memes in here.

But Lego is so much more than that; here's some ideas that were sparked when the "class cuddly"* came to us for the day.
You can make many things with Lego: cake and animals too. The odd looking lump in item #2 is the contribution from the Creator's sister. You may have to squint.

Mr Otter gets a Lego birthday cake.

And here are several Lego Otters

The Influence of 'Potter makes itself felt

2011-10-27T14:06:00.000-07:00

Before the happy day when some gen-yoo-ine actual Harry Potter Lego arrived, there was nevertheless a pressing need to express some Dementor related scenarios. So, something got done.

This is put together from some Star Wars lego, with You-Know-Who* getting the "Battle Damage Darth Vader" head.

I particularly like the re-purposing of the Ewok flying machine stand ...

Scene of great ersatz drama.

*Voldemort

2011-10-27T13:57:00.000-07:00

Occasionally, out of the maelstrom of smaller items, cobbled together to fit the whim or the theme of the current drama, a bit more time is spent to get a more detailed creation together.

Maybe later I'll pull something together on the key place that the "special pieces" play in the whole enterprise. Nothing though that the marketing bods hadn't already considered, I'm sure...

Quite a complicated number: yes, there is a co-pilot in there.
And I don't know why there's a small racing car on the back.

Troopers, Troopers, Troopers

2011-10-27T13:48:00.000-07:00

Arguably the array of Troopers in the Star Wars universe is "pre-bewildered" to borrow from Major Quimby.

They come in the varieties: Storm, Shadow, Clone (Early/Late variants), Snow, Senate, Rocket, Heavy and the list goes on.

Nevertheless, the opportunities are rarely overlooked by the Creator to make the bewildering array even more so.

It's a cop: a StormTrooper cop with an "enhanced" gun.

Handy for getting at those "hard to reach" rebels.

Actually, I'm not sure what purpose the re-breather is serving...

Never caught out by attacks from above.

May have been inspired by the "Bounty Hunter Rockets" red brick.

A Buzz Trooper.


A Skeleton StormTrooper and "Darth Skeleton"

... And yet more 'Droids

2011-10-16T11:49:00.000-07:00

Some more strange 'Droids: the flow has only slowed, not stopped.

This one was an ad-hoc creation today: pound for pound, it has quite a high outlandishness rating.

This poor fellow needed quite a lot of help standing up...

And another victim of the rampant Gun inflation; I fear a similar fate as the Sabre toothed tiger awaits.

Though in the event of enemies needing shooting and spearing with a little help this fellow is your man.

I just can't do this!

Are we going to stay static or go Multimedia?

2011-09-29T09:47:00.000-07:00

hmmm. tough call :P

Not sure about this one, either

2011-09-29T09:37:00.000-07:00

Seriously what is this meant to be? I think all parties have forgotten.
I should suffix this by pointing out that although Lego is a great medium for abstract patterns, the Creator is not one to lean in that direction - everything is a Proper Noun, no messing about.

Any ideas?

'Droids, 'Droids, 'Droids

2011-09-29T09:34:00.000-07:00

The 'Droids seemed to be most apt for creating some mini-figurine "Island of Dr. Moreau" - those parts do go together in quite a few different ways...
Here are a few.

The battle 'Droids quite often develop Shiva-like attributes...

I think this is essentially a very complicated light sabre.
Health and safety violations abound, such needing to hold them by the blade.

This guy is either getting awesome 'phone reception,
or can hear a pin drop from orbit.

Not to be out-done, this was the nadir of the arms race.

Relatively tame

Tuns out this idea didn't have legs.

An attempt at even greater fidelity to the films.

You can do just about anything for the heads of these things.

For a while, there was a strong emphasis on greater size for everything,
leading some very serious limb / gun inflation.

Ships, Ships and more Ships

2011-09-29T09:11:00.000-07:00

Another one of the memes that has come and gone was the "small ships" idea.

One of the many "Water Back Speeders"

All bases covered

This is either a Ship or a 'Droid

Some of these look frankly quite uncomfortable

Not to mention the overcrowding...

The panorama of pride

2011-09-29T09:10:00.000-07:00

One day, the creator decided to build all his kits.

One of many dioramas

2011-09-29T09:09:00.000-07:00

For future generations, and the "hard of cultural reference" - it's the Death Star, with Tie fighters and I think some Star Destroyers.

I did help a little with the Death Star, I must confess.

meme parade

2011-09-27T13:36:00.000-07:00

One trend I discern is various memes around categories like say, ships, and droids.

They start appearing - I swear the lightbulb that goes on above the Creator's head is visible, and he vanishes upstairs, to be followed shortly by the sound of Lego being sifted.

Remote working will be the future

2011-05-08T15:32:00.000-07:00

There are quite a few like these, but this one is the epitome.

Pushing the available figurines and seating space to the limits results in this.

It has been determined that in the future public transport will be crowded.

There was a flurry of ideas like this at one point, which seems to have died down. There were ships and speeders of various sizes with largely one or two passengers/ pilots. This one is an extreme example.

Something of a departure

2011-05-08T15:22:00.000-07:00

As time passes, and the master plan unfolds, I think we'll see some themes emerge. I may need to start catering for that with tags based on date/obessession, or some convolution thereof.

In anticipation of that, here is something that I came across and actually had me scratching my head for a bit.
I'd obviously gone to some trouble to capture this one in its glory: note the kitchen paper "studio backdrop" (classy!) and a pretty decent focus for a macro shot.
All very "un-me".
Plus, I just could not place this thing.

Then the sun came out.

It's a Dalek. All the distinctive features are there.

The "bumps" - very important. The eye stalk, the "plunger" (yes, everyone calls it that) and the gun.

It's one of the more minimalist works, which seem to grab the Creator's fancy and get thrown together on a whim quite quickly.

Das Boot - serious competition for the Creator

2011-04-09T10:26:00.000-07:00

Das Boot

This is my boat!

Ok, I'm now pushing it by extending to "same parent company", but she was rather proud of it.

It's strikingly nuanced, and I couldn't resist the pun!

Sometimes, tiny things just appear...

2011-04-06T15:20:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, tiny things just appear....

Like these I found on the windowsill.

What exactly are these?

Very fragile; obviously a lot of effort went into them. The designs are a bit of a departure for the Creator.
They're gone now: sometimes it's like that.

First Sighting

2011-04-03T05:34:00.000-07:00

Here is what I believe is the very first creation from the Creator's little sister.

At her age, it's a bit of a habit of neurotic middle class parents to monitor them too much. And they can be good at "commanding attention" (euphemism alert).

So, when I heard the cry of "Yay, I did it!" and saw what she'd been diligently putting together, I couldn't resist taking a snap.

First Creation

Now, I'd heard it said LEGO was targeted at the dexterity and available manual force of a 3-year old, so to see the mini Creator snap these together was a bit of an eye-opener.

I think also, that if you squint and look from the right angle, there's a certain aesthetic flair betraying itself.
Or is that fatherly pride :P