My wife and I just re-watched Back to the Future part 1 the other day and I came to the conclusion that while being potrayed as getting his commupents, Biff is actually the Big Winner of Back to the Future part 1:
Sure other characters made out pretty good in the end of part 1 as well, but Biff was supposed to be the “loser” but it seems to me, he ended up pretty good.
Let me know what you think in the comments. Take care.
I am a big fan and addicted collector of Lego minifigures. At one point I would display them on straight flat bleachers and considered wall frames, but always wanted the figs to be in some for of environment. Eventually my displays took for the form of 16×16 little facades and I haven’t looked back since.
These displays are then all packed into multiple shelves of a white book case. Here is of the best shelves complete with a Disney Castle, mini Hogwarts, a Haunted House, and my two newest builds: the Zoo and Farm Stand.
It was the costume figures that had thrown me for a while. Since I set up themed areas like desert islands, Medieval Castles, Arkham Asylum, and Snowy Mountain (not pictured), I had the costume characters just sitting on a plate without a theme. It finally dawned on me to split the costume characters into two main categories: Animals and Food. I built the Zoo for the Animals, and only just recently finished the Farm Stand for the Food.
ZOO: I am particularly happy with my little zoo. It fits on a expanded 16×17 display plate because I couldn’t cram it on to 16×16. The bottom floor has old world style Zoo builds with animals in stalls. The little 1×4 latticed fence pieces in the front tuck under the columns so only 1×3 of them are visible. The backdrop is a textured woody wall with plants and vines.
The top floor is set up as multi exhibit. With a petting zoo farm animal area, a small jungle savanna section in the middle, Ice in the back left, and water in front right. This is getting a bit crowded as Lego continues to include usually one costumed animal every 1 to 2 Collectible Minifig Series.
FOOD: For the food based costumes, I am aiming for a farmers market area that has multiple vendors all crammed together. On the bottom is a fruit and veg stand, Hotdog stand, and a flower. The top floor is balcony dining with one tenant: a pizza stand. My prediction is that there will be more food based minifigs, like icecream possibly. At that point, I’ll consider adding another little stand to the top area (like a sweats shop to serve icecream and cake).
Some folks may notice that there is a non-lego figure in the mix here. The Carrot Guy is indeed not a genuine Lego, but this fake Lego was made with such unusual quality I included him in my display.
I can’t wait to see what figures come out next and I’ll adjust my displays accordingly so that they can all have a little home.
Let me know what you think in comments and Thanks for Stopping by!
Famed Lego MOC builder hachiroku24 has produced a terrific Lego version of “the Child” from Mandalorian, otherwise known as Baby Yoda. The build is essentially the floating egg, baby Yoda’s head, and a cloth to nustle around the head to look like swaddling and disguise the fact that there is no body.
I watched his video and built my own. This is a collage of my copy. The little 2×2 disks around ears were dark tan but I painted them sand green. They simply aren’t available from Lego in that color
You can see that the build is super cute and obviously uses lots of on the side building techniques. The best part is that the groove on the bottom of the 1×1 cheese wedge piece perfectly resembles a little mouth with a small lower lip. The fact that the center segment of the face is actually mounted on a hinge and then flpped into place is quite impressive. There was at least on place when building this that I decided to make my own revision, and that was purly for increasing the structural integrity.
Link to Bricklink Digital version with Instructions
Check out hachiroku24’s build video:
Here is my video Overview / Review of the Baby Yoda MOC. Note, I did make a few changes to the design, but just small ones.
Overall, this little Hachiroku24 MOC is quite impressive and looks great in my little Star Wars display!
Lego Ideas has been around for several years now, and it appears they are ramping up as more reviews are approving multiple User Proposals and products are being released faster. Folks that make it to 10k supporters with their Lego Idea get their idea reviewed, and the wait for an answer can feel like it is taking ages.
I was curious about the review cycles and the delay till the winner is announced and the delay till the product is released, I tabled roughly 5 years of Lego Ideas data and produced the following graphs and observations.
First off, Lego Ideas has been consistent with when review period’s cut of.
The precise dates do tend to adjust but are announced ahead of time.
When are Lego Ideas Announcements?
As you can see, the announcements over the past years have quite a bit of variability. Group 1 typically is announced around the start of October the same year. Group 2 tends to be announced from late January to late February the next year. Group 3 is mostly announced at the end of May, also the next year.
How long does it take to go from announcement to product release?
You will quickly see a trend here. From 2016 to 2017, Lego Ideas dramatical reduced the time to go from announcement to product release from roughly 300 days down to about 150. Bravo! I’m guessing that means that internally, they get started earlier than the announcement, so there is a chance that if your idea is picked for production, you already know before the announcement and stay quiet due to an NDA. That may mean that not knowing up to the announcement date is a bad sign, but that is mostly conjecture and a theory.
Hopefully this data will be interesting to some and a relief to those who have projects in Review and are unsure how long their waits are going to be.
Good luck out there!
Data source: I grabbed the dates of their blog announcement posts and grabbed release dates from online Lego DBs and Wikis.
This is the little Aquarium that could as the Clockwork Aquarium has achieved the support of 10 thousand Lego Ideas Fans which means it goes to the Lego Review board. This next step in the process will take months as Lego decides if this has potential as a marketable product. I’ll keep you posted on the status of the review and if the project is selected.
Once again, I’d like to thank all of those who supported this project. For those of you interested in instructions, I’m working on them now and will post them to Bricklink Gallery when I’m ready and after asking the Lego Ideas team if that’s okay.
Well the big day is finally here. I’ve been waiting quite a while for Lego to announce their version of my Cosmic Rocket Ride. In the process of working with Lego on this little project, they asked me to make a little overview and comparison video. So lets start with the comparison of my submitted fan design to the official final Lego design:
They edited it down and used it for a little Facebook post which has been well received with predominately nice comments.
The little rocket ride is already showing up on Ebay and being listed for $75 to $99 even though its just a 154 piece set.
A Bit of the Behind the Scenes:
Lego hosted a small contest on their ideas site called “Moments in Space.” One of the stipulations was that your entry could require no Lego parts in colors that have not already been made. What I learned during the process, was that they actually wanted to make the final design using only parts that were currently in their inventory (so no customs whatsoever). That tidbit right there was the prevailing reason the design’s colors were altered in so many places. I think the simplicity of my designs color scheme was possibly a benefit in it winning that contest with those particular set of rules…that and it did end up getting the most fan votes, but they had indicated at the start that they had the liberty to choose from the top 5 or so fan voted entries.
After I submitted my entry, I did make a few tweaks, particularly to the gizmo inside that makes it move. Lego made further modifications to that design. One key update they made resulted in the motion being slightly larger but also a bit asymmetrical. Lego made one of the technic pins a friction pin so that the ride could be left frozen in a “pose”. This was a good idea, it makes the motion smoother, but harder to perform. They made the design a little longer too, as you can see they added stairs, a step, and elongated the rocket by 2 studs.
The biggest concession was the handle for the crank. By the time Lego requested extra photos of my design, I had changed my crank handle from a gear to a really nice arm with rotating handle. Its smooth and a gives a nice crank. The final version was reduced to a twisty stick. It works, it has grip, but its not quite the buttery smooth crank I had. Their version does seem to be primed and ready for motorization if someone wanted.
Evolution of my design: My design went through a few stages including an initial prototype, the submitted version, and some further tweaking:
Make your own: If you weren’t lucky enough to get a free one from Lego during the promotion, here are my directions to make your own. This is my version with updated movement, but my original body and base design. If you make one, let me know in comments and share some pics! Best of Luck!
Link to the Bricklink Stud.io page which will show you part lists, the rendered version, and instructions.
Well, its a little piece of wonderful to have my little rocket ride turned into an official Lego set. It is such a high honour and I’m very pleased. I hope the little rocket ride is well received and am thrilled to have been involved!
Adventure Baby Squad is an elite team of babies that are ready to charge into the world and help at a moment’s notice! They are fully equipped with big hearts, small rides, and an expanding headquarters. With their tiny pocket-sized rides, the fun doesn’t have to stay at home – bring one with you on away missions, in the car, or out on the town.
See the Adventure Baby Squad in action in their epic rescue mission!
The Adventure Baby Squad is a proposed Lego set entered into the Lego Ideas Contest. You can support the idea and see more pictures over at the Ideas Entry!
Meet the Squad
Known only by the colors they wear the team is comprised of:
The Vehicles and Robot
The babies all drive their own different craft which give them command of the land, sea, sky, and space! In certain tricky situations, the vehicles can be linked together to form a robot with a multitude of configurations. With multiple options for the head, arms, and the option for a jet pack, wings, or both, the robot can be tailored to your liking.
Headquarters
The headquarters build is a bit more complex than it may seem. The front sections slide out to reveal the lido deck -a hidden pool that connects underground to a local river system and used for the submarine dock. The plank in the back center can then slide out over the pool to create a platform for the robot to be displayed, maintained, or modified by the squad.
Other features include:
Included
This proposed Lego set would include everything you need to go on adventures of your own:
Help this Idea become a full on Lego Set by free supporting it at Lego Ideas!
The winning set from the Ideas Contest “Moments in Space” is said to be getting turned into a promotional free with purchase set with details of it’s release and promotion still not revealed. The set has recently turned up however, in Croatia in this one snap shot.
The box art doesn’t have all the usual words and numbers on the left but it seems the set number will be 40335 and it will have the Ideas tag but may or may not have an official ideas set number.
The original submission looked like this:
So there have been some small updates:
The official one is:
Well since this was my submission, I am rather excited and surprised to see it start to trickle out into the public eye. I can only hope that it is well received by the world’s Lego fans.
This comically tiny EPIC battle between the mighty Kraken and an unfortunate vessel comes to life by turning the crank. This and several other alternate themes are meant to serve as inspiration for what a Lego fan could do with the Lego Ideas’s proposed set: Clockwork Aquarium. Please free support/vote for this idea at: https://ideas.lego.com/projects/fa8f5… If it gets to 10K supporters/voters, Lego may turn it into a real Lego Set and then you too will be able to Release the Kraken!!
This variation features:
I hope you like this theme and please do support the Clockework Aquarium!
Check out the original video here:
Lego has been making R2D2 in minifig form along with his cousin’s for years now. And to this day they still don’t make a version where the Droid’s head can pivot. Since this is a classic feature of R2D2, and in part lend’s the the astromech’s emotive quality, I really wanted the Lego Minifigure to be able to turn its head. This is the second method I’ve come up with, and like the first, requires modifying Lego parts. So no, its not “legal” build, but you’ll never get the minifigure’s head to spin if you don’t think outside the box.
Essentially, I replaced the top 4 studs of the R2 body with just 1 central Stud. It works great. In this video, you’ll see my dremel wielding Methodology at work.
