Viridescent Viper

Matthew Oh (mpoh98), normally more of a Castle builder, joined in on NoVVember and built this sleek starfighter with a cool color scheme:

Motorized turkey wishes you a happy Thanksgiving

This Mindstorms NXT-controlled turkey, built by MySnailEatsPizza, can "skate, avoid obstacles, gobble, flap its wings, and move its head." I want one.

Happy Thanksgiving from Brickology!

Luxury yacht

This one's been on Flickr for a few months but I just found it this morning and thought is was good enough to warrant a post here. "Motor Yacht Mohican" by JBIronWorks:

More images on Flickr.

Studdington Station

Eurobricks member snaillad built a nice Victorian-influenced countryside train station:

Rear view:

More images on Eurobricks here. 

2014 Creations for Charity 24-hour live stream begins November 28th!

Creations for Charity is planning a 24-hour live stream event on November 28th, 2014. Here's what coordinator Nannan Zhang had to say:


You are invited to join the Creations for Charity 2014 24-hour live stream hosted by Joshua Hanlon and Matthew Kay from Beyond the Brick. From 5pm EST 11/28 through 5pm 11/29, tune in for a full day fun and building with Lego fans from the online community on Google Hangout. The link will be live on the day of the stream.

Of course, we will be raising money together for this year’s Creations for Charity through a pledge system. For each hour spent on the stream, anyone can pledge to donate a certain amount to the fundraiser. The LEGO Group has pledged to donate a set for every man-hour on air!

To join in on the fun, please sign up on creationsforcharity.org. You can join and leave the stream at your convenience. Feel free to re-post this image and tag some friends and invite them to join you!

You can sign up to join the stream here. For more information on Creations for Charity, click here.

Gobble gobble

Thanksgiving is nearly upon us and it's about time we saw some relevant MOCs. Tyler Sky (Bricksky) has served up a deliciously plump turkey brimming with colorful pieces and some holiday charm. 

The watchtower

In this MOC by Becheman, not only are both the tower and the landscaping very well done, they also blend together quite nicely. My favorite thing about this creation is how there are at least three different "levels" to the ground; it adds height and perspective that a "flat" base wouldn't. 

My only complaint is that there aren't more images of this creation- I imagine there are plenty of details that can only be observed from close-up or from other angles! 

The spear being launched through the warrior's body on the tower roof is a nice gory touch. 

Wildcat

This vehicle by Cole Blaq lives up to its moniker of "Ozelot"- it may not be big, but it's feisty. Oh, and the building techniques used here are totally awesome. 

The olive green and black color scheme gives this thing a simply badass military look, and I love the rugged roll-cage bars and armor that cover the vehicle. There are also some really nice angles on this, like the mudguards and that olive 2x4 plate on the side. Fantastic work!

Nice curves

One of the things I love about modern architecture is that it tends to embrace sleek, sweeping forms that other styles don't have. Unfortunately, that same property makes modern buildings rather difficult to build with LEGO. But lisqr has found a solution: use railroad track elements to guide the curve of the building. 

Not sure what that pirate flag is doing there though...

Via TBB.

Don't pick Rainbow Road...

Mario Kart would make a great official LEGO theme. The crazy characters, vehicles, and courses would all translate well into official sets. But MOCs are the next best thing, and these ones by 6kyubi6 admittedly are way cooler than any set LEGO could reasonably make:

I really like the shaping on Luigi's kart and Yoshi's bike. 

UPDATE (11/21/14): Here's the full collaboration with 74louloute and fujiia (thanks to The Brothers Brick for leading me to this):

Winter

Landscaping is not easy to do in LEGO. The contours of the land... rocks, water, snow, and soil... plants and animals... building these things with sharp-angled plastic bricks is tricky, to say the least. I really appreciate when a builder pulls off an outstanding landscape scene. 

Brick Productions has done just that with this beautifully bleak and minimalist MOC. There are no minifigures or human structures of any kind- just the beauty of nature. This would look great on a shelf.

Excisor

From prolific and popular builder pasakaru76 comes one of the year's most unusual Vic Vipers yet, called "Excisor":

So much of this model is unique, from the swirly pink wings and fin to the slanted cockpit. Fabulous design!

Mini viper

billyburg, known for his greebly Classic Space-inspired models, has produced this miniature marvel for Novvember:

UPDATE- Wait, that's not all! billyburg also recently built this equally small and equally awesome space construction duo:

A shady deal

I'm a fan of Middle Eastern-style architecture, and vitroleum's latest MOC captures that style perfectly. 

I like the texture of the walls, some of which is achieved using hinge plates. The Uruk-Hai scimitars on the door also look quite nice.

Image from The Brothers Brick.

EDIT (2/13/15)- taking another look at this after mentioning it in another post, I just noticed the tan legs used in the window on the left side of the building. Nice touch! 

Supernova

For the last few days I've been tooling around at my building table trying to make something for NoVVember...then this morning I gave up in disgust and went back to building a battle wagon for my Space Knights. For the most part I'm just not a good starfighter builder. 

Not so for Brickthing, who has been featured here on Brickology an absurd amount of times recently. Why? One look at his "TX Supernova" Vic Viper model should tell you all you need to know:

Return to the Crocodile Cage

Flickr user Dubbadgrim has built this awesome scene inspired by the classic Pirates set 6246 Crocodile Cage. 

And, see that bone sticking up out of the ground on the left there? Click here to find out what it does. (It's pretty cool. I'm still trying to figure out how it works!)

The Diver

Those old diving suits may not have been as well-designed as the ones we have today, but they have a certain amount of charm and antiquity to them that modern suits lack. They're symbols of the old days of exploration, when brave souls descended into the dark seas to conquer the unknown and further the knowledge of humankind. 

This MOC by Pate-keetongu seamlessly blends System and BIONICLE to create a great character with this antique diving suit design. See more photos on the builder's blog, Cyclopic Bricks. 

Executron from The LEGO Movie looks like Tumblr's "anonymous" symbol

He totally does, right? 

Falworth Castle

Today marks Mark of Falworth's fourth year in the online LEGO community! In addition to updating his sigfig for the first time in years, Mark has revisited this old MOC to improve and expand upon the original. The result is awesome.

The waterfall and castle walls have some great texture, and I love the palm tree on the far right side of the build. Nice build, a great improvement on the original. Here's to another four years!

Plenty more images of this creation can be found in Mark of Falworth's photostream. Go check them out- there are a lot of other angles to this that you can't see from the photo above.

Why are Collectible Minifigures so overpriced now? [Editorial]

Back when they were introduced in May 2010, LEGO's Collectible Minifigures were clearly something special. 16 different characters in mystery packs, so you wouldn't know who you'd get- but you knew you would get something good. It was undoubtedly a quite profitable idea for LEGO, but it also gave us fans something new and exciting, whether you wanted the parts or just another nice minifigure for your collection. 

And for a few years, everything was going well. 11 series of minifigures were produced- a total of 176 different characters. Parts from the line were beginning to find their way into mainstream sets, but the minifigures kept getting better and better. 

Then, in May 2014- four years after the original Minifigures series- The Simpsons series was released. This was an interesting move on LEGO's part, and some thought it was a bad one. Previously, LEGO had made a series based on The LEGO Movie, but The Simpsons series was the first truly licensed theme, based on another company's property. Due to the licensing costs, this series of minifigures cost $3.99 each instead of the usual $2.99. This was slightly aggravating, but in this case understandable. 

BUT THEN...

LEGO announced that Series 12 (which was just released a month ago) would also have minifigures priced at $3.99 each, just like The Simpsons series. The difference here was that these minifigures weren't licensed. There wasn't really any good reason for LEGO to keep the price a dollar above the previous amount. 

Four dollars is not a lot of money, I know. But the minifigures have not suddenly started containing more pieces. They are still tiny little toys, no more than 10 parts each (usually more like 5 or 6). Four dollars for six parts is waaaayyyyy higher than would reasonably be expected in any other LEGO theme. It comes out as about 67 cents per piece, compared to the average of 10 or 11 cents per piece. 

I really think The LEGO Group should consider taking the price of Collectible Minifigures back down to three dollars (or even two dollars, the price back in 2010) for the next series and any (non-licensed) ones after that. The current price increase has taken a considerable amount away from the joy of purchasing, opening, and trading your minifigures. 

And anyway- at its heart, LEGO isn't entirely about making scads of money. It's about having fun. Collectible minifigures used to be fun. If LEGO brings the price down to a more reasonable amount, they can be fun again. 

Mind games

Nick V., aka Brickthing, has another awesome creation in what's looking like a series of BIONICLE creations using parts from the new wave of sets. This one's called "Tarakia - Master of Mind" and apparently possesses psychic powers and a "sharp mind and even sharper bite", according to Nick's information from Flickr. Have a look: