The Series 17 Collectible Minifigure Hot Dog Man came with a drink, hotdog with bun, and a new blue tray to rest the food on. The only problem was the tray was smooth on top and any food or option would easily fall off. Its been a desire of mine since seeing this tray to add 2 studs to it and I finally did it.
The whole process can be seen in the video, but in brief I:
Harvested 2 studs: Sanded, Grinded, and Sanded a 1×2 Plate down till there was nothing left but the protruding part of the studs.
Transplant: Put the freed up studs into a helper plate and glued them to the tray.
The Lego Handheld Arcade was an idea I posted to Lego Ideas quite a bit ago. It got some good support at first but then ultimately fizzled. To this day, I still get requests to show how the flipper mechanism works. So I have finally created a video with a step by step on how to create the Pinball flipper mechanism I originally made for the Lego Handheld Arcade.
A couple quick notes:
I am working to resubmit an upgraded version of the Lego Handheld Arcade to Lego Ideas in the next month.
When you want every Lego set and every Minifigure, you quickly run out of shelf space. The new series of Harry Potter sets which include two substantial Hogwarts castles in both mini and nano fig scales, are both highly desirable and have some great figs. Unfortunately, I personally, just don’t have the space nor the money for these two beauties.
I am on a mission to display my minifigs in various scenic displays of various genres. For Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts, a nice 16×16 Mini Hogwarts was a clear choice. Here you can see my final result which displays 17 Minifigures and 6 animals in the front and 4 minifigs and several accessories in the back.
In the back you can see how I mounted the flying Malfoy with a rather articulate arm which makes a lot of great posing angles possible.
Normally my 16×16 displays are pure facades without much detail in the back, but I made an exception with Hogwarts. I added the floating candles, storage for potions, a culdron, and the sorting hat in the back and placed 4 figs back there essentially in storage. Under the castle is a catacomb area which features the full body wizards chess and flying keys from the Sorcerer’s Stone.
Here is a brief video tour with a bit more commentary:
I sourced a lot of the parts and figures on Bricklink for far less than the main Great Hall set and for significantly less scratch than the 4 combined sets it takes to get all these figs.
Here are some pictures of the castle without the figs:
All in all, I am thrilled with how this 16×16 display came out and look forward to sharing and making more of them.
If you have a Lego Microfighter Millennium Falcon, you can easily add an escape pod in the style seen in the movie Solo with just a few spare parts and without modifying the original set at all! Here is a video demonstration:
Lego has produced quite a few variations of the famous Star Wars Corellian YT-1300f light freighter, the Millennium Falcon. Some have ranged from $4 up to $800! Not too long ago, Lego set 75105 came out with the Force Awakens movie in 2015, and now for 2018, the Kessel Run version has come out. The Key differences are the Kessel Run set is shiny and new, white and blue, and has a strange shuttle/pod that gives its nose a long triangular sleek look. It feels like a “Phantom Menace” type of ship to me. The front shuttle/pod has never been part of the Millennium Falcon lore and was not portrayed even in the Prequel’s easter eggs. Most people, including me, probably don’t relate much to this front appendage as it just doesn’t resemble the Millennium Falcon they grew up with, but I’m starting to come around. Prior to seeing the movie, I’m expecting this to be a swanky custom add on for the freighter, much like how you can buy a tent to attach to the rear of end of some SUVs. So not so much a standard option but more so a deluxe and perhaps after market upgrade.
Either way, that Shuttle/Escape pod seemed interesting to me, but I have no interest in spending 170$ on another Millennium Falcon set. So instead, I set out to build my own pod for the Force Awakens set. I didn’t want to modify the original Lego model at all for this shuttle and succeeded in that goal. The Force Awaken’s Falcon has 2 rows of rails inside its notch which makes for a perfect attachment point for a shuttle.
I did some off-color prototype work and then ordered most of the parts from bricklink for under 16$ with shipping. With my Escape Pod/Shuttle slid in, the set came out looking quite nice!
Animated Gifs:
Here you’ll find a Video tutorial of how I built my Escape Pod and Parts list.
Here is an exciting update for the Clockwork Aquarium Lego Ideas project: a second alternative theme inspired by the Disney/Pixar movie “Finding Nemo”! Since the Clockwork Aquarium is of course, made out of Lego, it can be modified to the extent of the builder’s imagination. The “Finding Nemo” theme is another demonstration of how Lego fans could customize the Clockwork Aquarium to their liking.
This project is on a long journey to reach the Lego review board. Your free support at the Lego Ideas Project page would be greatly appreciated! Lets start with the video which shows the Theme in Action:
Now lets break down the specific elements of this Aquarium theme:
The “Printed” Swimming Fish: It was a hope for this project from the start that if it was picked up by Lego, that the set would include colorful printed fish, even if the set was not Finding Nemo Theme. I have carefully hand painted 3 Lego fish (to the best of my ability) to resemble they type of fish that “Finding Nemo” characters were based on. In other words, the fish are meant to be more like real world fish, as opposed to cartoon fish.
Clown Fish – Nemo and his dad Marlin were both Clown fish
Blue Tang or Surgeon Fish – Dory (She was never in the fish tank in the movie Finding Nemo, but this theme is of course, only inspired by the movie and not meant to recreate it.)
Moorish Idol – Gill (from the fish tank in the dentist office of Finding Nemo)
The Treasure Chest: This moving feature replaces the jumping crab in this theme. The treasure box opens and shuts as it does in the movie fish tank to release bubbles, which are of course closely guarded by the Yellow fish named Bubbles. The treasure box can fully close, but last second before filming, I stuck two gold coins inside it which make it not fully shut. I think I will leave those out from now on.
Spinning Starfish: Representing Peach from the movie, the spinning starfish continues to add another motion to the life-filled aquarium. It is not the exact right color for Peach, but will have to do for now.
Scenic Elements:
Mount Wannahockaloogie – Potrayed in all its glory is the Volcano from the movie aquarium. I would like to mention that when I first started working on this theme, I tried to make the Volcano the centerpiece and have it look like Lava was bubbling up at its top. Even though I have a working version of just that, I was more impressed by the treasure box’s motion that I used it instead. The Volcano is once again a hand painted Lego piece. If this set was picked up, I would hope Lego would print a volcano pattern onto the sloped piece. I did try the similarly sized craggly wedge pieces in trans orange with black printing. It looked perfect, but the studs prevented the fish from swimming by smoothly so I had to use the sloped piece with no studs.
Jacques and Helmet – The shrimp and helmet from the original theme came over as well since they represent Jacques and his dive helmet quite well.
Tiki Mask – The movie aquarium featured tiki mask decorations. This mask comes from the collectible minifigure series 11 Island Warrior. It takes the place of the Easter Island head from the original Clockwork Aquarium theme.
Lots of Plants/Coral – the fish tank in the movie “Finding Nemo” was abundantly populated with lots of coral and plant life. I squeezed in more plants and added more Pinks and purples to create the illusion of dense plant life.
Blue gravel – Some people may notice that I changed the sandy bottom for blue in this theme which is of course to represent the aquarium from the movie. My “gravel” is in normal blue but ideally it would be in more of a teal blue color.
The original version of the Clockwork Aquarium continues to be my primary push for the Lego Idea. This Finding Nemo them, and the previous Spongebob theme are mainly intended to demonstrate some flexibility and the capability for customization. Of course, if Lego picked up the project and decided to package it with two or more themes in the box, then I’d have no objections at all.
Do please follow this Link to Lego Ideas and click the support button for the Clockwork Aquarium. It is on a long Journey to 10000 supporters and could very much use your support!
Turn the crank and the mechanical delight comes to life. The fish swim, the crab jumps, and the starfish spins. This is all packed into a detailed and ornate Aquarium made entirely out of Legos.
This project is hoping to gain 10000 free supporters/votes over on Lego Ideas. If it gets the 10K supporters, Lego will take it to their review board and decide on making it an official Lego set.
The project also has several themes coming with the first being: SpongeBob Squarepants: with Spongebob, Plankton, a Crabby Patty, Pineappled, Chum Bucket, and Moai head!
“Finding Nemo” is the second alternate theme I’ve put together:
Any ideas for improvement? Let me know.
Thanks for taking a peak and particular thanks to any and all supporters!
The winners of the Lego Moments in Space Contest have been announced. The contest was set up so applicants could suggest a future Lego mini set that would be given out as a Free with Purchase promotion in 2019. 1065 entries started out with high hopes. The voting took ten days and reduced the pool of candidates that Lego would review to just the top 25. Lego spent another few days deciding on the grand prize and 11 Runner ups.
The contest always stated that the winner “Might” get made into a Gift with Purchase set, no guarantee. But with today’s announcement, according to the Official Lego Ideas Twitter Feed: “His winning entry, the ‘Cosmic Rocket Ride’, will be adapted into an official Gift with Purchase set!”
I know there are a lot of happy and broken hearts at the end of this contest as more than a thousand people put their hat in the ring. Lets all hope for more contests like this in the near future because there were some terrific advantages to this scaled down Lego Ideas contest!
A fairly relatable straight forward Farquar that was published in the NC State newspaper “Technician” in 2004. My roommates were quite fine in reality and no clockings were ever merited or performed.
Some folks may know about the Lego Ideas mini contest called Moments in Space. My entry is a fun Coin Operated Rocket Ride. A commenter shared a gif of Deadpool Riding in a rocket…so I quickly made this Lego version with my little Rocket Ride prototype.
