A couple of pieces still to be added, as soon as the postie brings me my Bricklink orders, but to all intents and purposes, The Bugbeast– the container ship at the centre of my display for Bricktober 2021– is finished.
It’s the beginning of the term three school holidays. Lego reviews will follow. In the meantime, however, a short interlude:
I’ve been a lover of Bricktober since its inception, and one of the hardest things about moving to Karratha has been my inability to exhibit there.
In the wake of Blake’s one-year anniversary, though, I decided it was time I focused my life forward– no more wallowing on what the past has cost me (well, some wallowing — nobody gets over losing their son that quickly — but targeted wallowing. Specific wallowing.) while my own inaction costs me everything else. It’s time to face forward, and work on what I would achieve if I had thirty years in front of me and the only thing holding me back was me. Which is, kind of, actually the case.
One of those things was Bricktober. If it couldn’t come to me, then I was going to work out how to go back to it. Which meant planning to build something and take it to Perth. October 2021 is a year away. I could do that.
At which point my pal Stephen, who heads the organisation that runs Bricktober, popped up to tell me that, because of Covid, the whole thing was online this year, and if I could get something built in time — even something as small as a 20×20 stud diorama — I could have it included.
Oh, and it would have to be completed in a week.
Turns out, that was just the motivation I needed. So here’s a sneak peek at the first MOC I’ve completed in a ridiculously long time, and the first salvo of regaining my creativity. Bricktober will feature hi-res images, with some video and assorted goodies, but for now, here’s a quick squizz at The Hunting Lodge.
Luscious and I are taking a week to hit Melbourne up during January, which will include a chance for me to get my head in to Brickvention, Melbs’ fucknormous Lego display/convention/paloozarama while we’re there.
As a way of sneaking into the AFOL day that happens before the public display, I’ve volunteered to add a spaceport to a community-build Micropolis city. If you’re not familiar with Micropolis, the title should give you a bit of a hint– everything is built to a teensy-tiny scale, on standard 16×16 ‘modules’: four modules together equals a standard 32×32 baseplate. You can learn more here.
With Luscious flying out to attend a weekend of Weight Watcher’s coach hobnobbing and general frivolity over the weekend, I surrendered control of the TV to the Brattersbabes and spent Friday night, and the early parts of Saturday morning, having a crack at my first ever micropolis build.
End result: I might be a little hooked.
What do you think?
And what of my build? What of 6 months work, and all those pieces? Well, the thing about Lego is, as much fun as it is to put together……
The kids might get to sit around at parties playing Lego, but some of us are grown ups and have grown up duties to attend to.
The world is in danger. The skies are filled with enemies. If this was the 19th century, HG Wells and Richard Burton would kick some serious arse, using only the medium of tiny little germs and a great big rock and roll orchestra.
A teensy-tiny little MOC I absent-mindedly piggled together last night while watching The Deadly Assassin. 7 pieces each, which is my mini-est mini so far.
I think they’re kind of cute. They’re also symptomatic of the problems associated with keeping 6000 pieces of LEGO in one big tub but not wanting to sort it all out into separate boxes because you don’t want to a) stifle the kids’ creativity and b) sort the bloody things back into separate boxes when the kids invariably mix them up.
If you don’t want to make a massive clatter shifting plates large pieces around because you’re trying to watch your show, this is the sort of thing you end up with.
But I do think they’re kind of cute.
One of the things I’ve wanted to do since I started getting back into Lego was to post a MOC– short for ‘My Own Creation– a common practice amongst the Legorati, who create all sorts of wonderful, amazing edifices and then post photos and/or plans of the construction process so that others can build the same creation. (Such as these guys and these and this and this and…. well, you get the idea) Only two things have stopped me doing so before this:
1. I’m a bit crap, and
2. Compared to guys like this, anything I might do would simply show me up for the utter noob with two left Leggoey feet that I really am. I’m also completely incapable of making up instruction sheets that look like they may have been drawn by a Lego artist with a couple of spare hours to kill before The Big Bang Theory starts. If only I’d paid more attention in Lego class…
Still, nothing ventured, nothing failed. So here’s a little ice-skimmer style vehicle I’ve whipped up and am moderately chuffed over, in wonkyphoto-a-rama! I’ve listed the relevant pieces, and their Bricklink piece number, under each pic, and in the case of rarer items, also listed the set from which I scabbed them.
Are you sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin.
An easy start: one 2×8 white plate (3034) and two 2×8 white plates with door rail (30586), taken from my City of Atlantis set (7985-1)
Step two: Add the rails to the plate, and flip. Attach two light-bluish gray 1×12 bars with plate ends and round 1×1 plate ends (42445, taken from the Lunar Limo set- 5984-1) to a white 2×4 plate (3020), and attach to one end of the structure.
Step three: Turn the right way up, and attach one 2×16 white plate with angled side extensions (62743), taken from the Ice Dragon Attack set (2260-1)
Step four: two more 2×8 white plate with door rails.
Step five: Invert again, and buttress the overhanging plates with a 2×6 white plate (3795)
Step six: Top side up again, and filling in the single line atop the front spar with, from left to right– one 1×1 red tile with groove (3070b); one 1×2 white tile with groove (3069b). In this instance I didn’t have a plain white one to hand so just shoved the first one I found in. It all gets covered, anyway; one 1×2 modified tile with stud (3794); and one 1×2 white plate with handles (3839), or as they’ve always been known to me, front guns.)
Step seven: Another 2×16 white plate with angled side extensions (62743) goes on top, and the back end is finished with two 4×1 18 white slopes (60477) and a 2×2 white brick (3003)
Step eight: And finished with, from left to right: a 2x1x2/3 red slope 18 with 4 slots (61409) from the Seabed Strider (7977-1); a 1×4 white tile (2431); a 2×2 white tile with red warning triangle pattern (3068bp06); and at the top of the rear bricks a 1×2 red modified tile with grill (2412) and two more of the red slope with 4 slots.
And she is done.
All comments and small coin donations welcome! and if any experienced Lego builders want to contact me with any advice, please feel free.
