the Farquar - Part 4

Jan

2018

How to build a Lego Rolling BB-8

A while back my friend James “Artbot132” Garrett, and I entered into the Lego Ideas competition with a Rolling BB-8 model that could roll while keeping its head up on top. It quickly reached the needed 10000 Votes to go into Lego Review. Sadly, it was not selected by Lego to become the next production set. During the competition and continuing to this day, I have been getting requests for a tutorial on how to build one. So I finally put the parts list and tutorial together.

A demonstration of the Rolling BB-8: (Just in case you haven’t seen it)

Parts List: You can of course use any color of any of these pieces, but this list reflects the colors that I used for the most part. I had a lot of these parts to start, especially the old ones, but I tend to order used parts off of Bricklink. I have this parts list on Bricklink, but they do not have the “Wishlist” Share function working yet. Once it starts working, I’ll edit this page to include a link to the shared wish list.

(Click to expand this pics)

Video Tutorial: And here is the video that goes through the steps to build our version of the Lego Rolling BB-8! (Actually building starts around 3m10s)

I continue to be thrilled by the interest in this little Lego BB8 project and am sorry it took me this long to Shell out the list and tutorial. If any of you should get a prototype of this working, please send me a pic or comment somewhere.

Enjoy and take care!

Jan

2018

Coin Operated Rocket Ride in Lego

Lego is looking to have the community pitch potential Free with Purchase sets. They are running the contest on their Lego Ideas Site. Unlike the Regular Ideas system that requires 10000 votes in under 2 years, these smaller contests have a limited time to enter and only 10 days of Voting (Feb 9-19, 2018).

I’ve submitted this little retro style Coin Operated Rocket Ride. This is based off of similar looking rides that used to be in front of stores and in malls. These days, there are not as many out an about but they can still be found.

The Model is pretty simple and uses about 115 pieces. You can turn the crank in the back to make the Rocket swing up and down and back and forth. The motion is a little more extreme than the real life rides, but if you want to simulate reality, you can just rock the crank back and forth.

I’ve rigged up the seating area with a normal Minifig Chair, and the Mini-Dolls “Tbar”. This means both Minifigs with short and bending legs can sit in the ride, along with the Lego Friends style Mini-Dolls.

There is a little slot where you can drop in a Lego coin and retrieve them by simply opening the hinged hatch.

Voting is for a limited time and goes from February 9th to 19th of 2018.

Follow this link to go to the Coin Operated Rocket Rides’s contest page.

There are some pretty good ideas already posted and Lego intends to review the top 25 voted submissions. They will pick 1 winner and 10 runners up. After this is all said and done, the only way to get the exclusive set that results from this competition is to wait for them to sprinkle it in as a promotion for making a purchase.

Fingers Crossed!

Lego Launches ‘Moments in Space’ Design Contest, Seeks Small Space Set Ideas

Jan

2018

Lego Microfighters Series 5 Overview

The 5th series of one of my favorite Lego product lines has been out since the start of the year. Its already been long enough for prices to start dropping at Amazon by 20% here and there. These days it only takes a short amount of patience to get most lego sets for about 20% off so it is frequently a worth while wait. And the Microfighters are definitely on my must have list.

This series unlike some previous ones finally includes some actually named characters from the movies. This is notable because many of the microfighters come with a generic pilot, even though their ship is associated to several characters in the movies.

Series 5 also introduces some twin packs where two ships for the twice the price are included…a gimicky side build is included out of seemingly spare parts.

Top of the list is the A wing vs Tie Silencer:

Lots of good stuff happening here:

We finally get an A Wing
Kylo Ren himself is included
Kylo comes with his Light Saber

The ships are reasonable representations although it looks like the “missle” holders on Kylo’s ship are just cluged onto the bottom. We’ve seen that before in previous microfighters. The tilted rear section of the A Wing looks quite ideal.

Series 5 also comes with its first Re-Hash: The Millennium Falcon returns this time with Chewbacca as opposed to Series 1 which came with Han Solo.

Series 5

Series 1

The other changes include switching from flick shooters to stud shooters, the radar dish goes to 1×2 jumper, the printing on the cockpit went from black to gray, the center tilted section has been altered a smidge, and some other little parts are recolored. It is a near clone which in some regards is great because the original Series 1 10$ sells for up to $40 these days. You can buy this new version, change the dish, and have an original trilogy ship.

Continue reading →

Dec

2016

The must have Lego Handheld Arcade

Here is a nifty idea for a rebuildable handheld game pad up on Lego Ideas. It is set up where the basic pad has hand grips and triggers for pinball style gameplay. The set proposes 5 initial game modes and encourages the player to come up with new game ideas from their imagination. The youtube video explains the features best:

The first 5 games already developed are: Skee Ball, Baseball, Space Pinball, Target Practice, and Soccer.

Here is a photo showing two units linked together to make two player options available. And the project proposes that it would come with an exclusive Green/Blue Jester, and introduce a Globe printed in natural Earth colors as apposed to the old map colors featured in previous sets.

The idea is slowly gaining support over on Lego ideas and could certainly use some more. So head over to the ideas site to hit the support button.

What other game modes can you think of for this Handheld Arcade? – Go ahead and post them in the comments.

Nov

2016

What Lego Microfighters do you want to see next?

The Lego Microfighters Star Wars series 1 through 3 are amongst my favorite Lego sets. They are compact (almost pocket friendly), they draw close resemblance to the craft they are emulating, and they are a great way to get a Star Wars craft even if you can’t buy the larger models.

There are so many great Ships already made in the first few Series including the Millenium Falcon, 2 Types of X-Wings, and 2 of the Variants of the Tie Fighter. Plenty of other ships have not yet been represented, even important iconic ships like Slave 1 or the Imperial Shuttle.

What Star Wars ships would you hope will be made in the next series??? (The Survey images feature various Fan creations of Micro Fighter style ships)

Other ships to consider for the future are: Gungan Sub, ETA-2 Jedi Starfighter, B-Wing, Sail Barge, Speeder Bike, Rey’s Speeder, and Vader’s Tie. There are of course hundreds of other ships that have appeared in the 7 current movies, and with Rogue 1 and future “Story” movies coming, I’m sure Lego will want to feature some new movie ships in subsequent microfighter series.

Continue reading →

Aug

2016

Building a Chair for Lego Emperor Palpatine that Doesn’t hurt his Cape

I wanted to display my Lego Emperor Palpatine in a mini throne room setting in his iconic chair. I went to see how Lego designed the chair in their sets but thought it would bend his cape, or require taking him out of his cape. I ended up coming up with a new design that allows the Emperor to wear his cape without remotely damaging it. Shown here in this short video:

As you can see in the video, this design uses a hinged backrest for the chair, so the cape easily sits between the backrest and the chair body without suffering, curling, or folding. The cape sticks out some on the sides but in a much safer manner.

Compare this design to some designs that come in actual Lego Sets:

You can see in at least two Lego sets including the most recent Death Star Final Duel 75093 that the chair requires the cape to be either folded, curled, or bunched in order for the Emperor to sit in it. Continue reading →

Jul

2016

If Lego figs came to Life

Its about time someone figured out how to make a Lego Person come to life. The slick Hollywood effects crew from Tested, namely Frank Ippolito, came up with this amazingly intriguing costume for ComicCon 2016.

Its a very alien look with what resembles a fish out water expression for the minifigure that suddenly become a flesh covered mass. The mask is stated to be 14lbs of silicon, painted, and presumably uncomfortable and balmy for the wearer.

They also put together some flesh looking silicon gloves in the classic “C” clip shape of Lego Minifigures. Having one huge fingernail on each side is a brilliant detail.

The effort was spent on the mask and hands so no triangle shaped body for this go round. Frank takes his costume on tour at ComicCon attempting to elicit some reaction and I think he is equally met with fondness, and creaped out skeptics.

An amazing mask and gloves that this Lego fan would buy up if they ever went into mass production.

Jul

2016

Where does Pokemon Go Candy come from?

With the millions upon millions of repeat and low level Pokemon being “Transferred” to Professor Willow, he must have a mighty nice wildlife refuge to care for them all. And its so nice of him to put them all in the refuge AND give us a custom flavored “Candy.” Either that or he should rename his candy Soylent Pokey.

Jun

2016

Brick Universe – 2016

It is Brick Universe Season and this year they are showing up in Plano Texas (June 11-12), Columbus Ohio (August 20-21), and Tulsa Oklahoma (Sept 10-11). A rather central US focus for 2016. Prior to attending the Expo in Plano this year, I was curious about a handful of things:

What do they offer?
The Expo is composed of a few basic components:
- Displays – these pretty much resemble the showcases you’d find at your county or state fairs where people enter in their creations. These are not all mind boggling and amazing, some are rather disjointed and somewhat entry level, where as others did prove to be quite masterful. There doesn’t seem to be any prizes so this is mostly an oportunity for people to show off their Lego builds.
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Continue reading →

May

2016

Girl on the Train – Farquar and Banana

Farquar is goaded into talking to a girl on the train. Things don’t go in the absolute best direction for him. At least he can earn his ‘good deed daily’ badge.

How to build a Lego Rolling BB-8

Coin Operated Rocket Ride in Lego

Lego Microfighters Series 5 Overview

The must have Lego Handheld Arcade

What Lego Microfighters do you want to see next?

Building a Chair for Lego Emperor Palpatine that Doesn’t hurt his Cape

If Lego figs came to Life

Where does Pokemon Go Candy come from?

Brick Universe – 2016

Girl on the Train – Farquar and Banana

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