Arrival at Fornax K7

The good folks at the ABS Builder Challenge have wasted no time cleaning the arena floor from the Season 1 Finale and getting Season 2 all set up. Mark Erickson (Mark of Falworth) is one of the four contestants in Season 2's inaugural round, and he's setting a tough precedent: a lovely, whimsical alien-planet-landing scene that seems straight out of the Pikmin games. 

The minifigures have apparently landed in a human-scaled world, where flowers are tree-sized and pebbles are boulder-sized (but only to the little plastic dudes). The seed part is in fact the red bucket element, put to use very nicely in those flowers. And the whimsically positioned stems, leaves, and tufts of grass? It all looks terrific, as does the spaceship itself, with a Classic Space design and that nice bulbous moon-lander shape. 

A sight to sea

Several months ago I built a coral reef for the ABS Builder Challenge, and it's still my most-faved Flickr photo to this day. I was intrigued by the opportunities presented by the vast array of corals and other denizens of the reef environment; combined with the opportunity for some Nice Part Use, it seemed like a perfect build. Unfortunately I was never quite happy with the way I incorporated the seed part. 

Now Drazard has built his own reef model for an ABS competition, this time for the Season 1 Finale (which I also competed in). And I've gotta say I think I like it better than my own...

The seed part (dark red elbow brick) features quite nicely, used for both the dark red coral and the shiny treasure chest, but that's not nearly all. The array of different pieces and colors here is spectacular! There's not a coral I don't like - each one features smart part usage and impeccable color combinations. The rockwork and stacked seaweed is a great frame for the photo. Feel free to compare to my own reef model and report back in the comments - and be sure to check out the rest of the fantastic builds from the Season 1 Finale of ABS!

Tasty burger

As the ABS Season 1 Finale races to a close, jsnyder002 is still churning out MOCs, compressing them into patties, and dousing them with ketchup. Everything about this meaty build is top-notch, right down to the excellent shaping of the melted cheese and splotches of ketchup. I especially love the window shutters used as lettuce: 

Café au lait

Confession: I'm much more of a tea person than a coffee person. Coffee tends to make me shaky, but there's not much more soothing that some chamomile tea or a chai latte. But hey, if Brother Steven wants to be a coffee drinker, that's up to him. I just don't know how I'd feel about my morning cuppa being made of plastic. 

This was built for the ABS Season 1 Finale (which I'm a proud part of!) using the dark red elbow brick as the seed part. 

The Kingdom of ABS

As ABS Round 1.6 rages on (and I keep struggling to come up with more uses for the seed part), we seem to be heading off in the Castle direction - usually not my preferred genre, but when the builds are as cool as my competitor Mark of Siloam's new microscale MOC, I really can't complain! 

The seed part was used six times: four times in the castle, one in the windmill, and one in the cathedral (the builder's favorite). I really like the rockwork and the SNOT techniques in the castle walls and the cathedral. Really nice work, and some more tough competition for me in this round! 

Stay tuned for more ABS coverage, including some personal insights into the contest...

ABS Round 1.6 now in progress...featuring The Brick Bucket Editor Tate Whitesell!

The ABS Builder Challenge is back! This time, the four competitors are...

• Roy of Florenheim 
• ConRoy
• Mark of Siloam
• ...and yours truly, Tate Whitesell!

I'm a little bit of an "outsider," as my three competitors are primarily castle builders, while I focus more on sci-fi...but I'm sure there will be plenty of excellent MOCs of all genres in this contest!

I'm incredibly excited to participate in ABS and I'm grateful to the contest's organizers for including me. I will be posting some updates from this round right here on The Brick Bucket, so stay tuned for some insights into my building and the contest in general. 

Now I'm off to go figure out this seed part... may the best builder win!

You can follow this round of the ABS Builder Challenge here: https://www.flickr.com/groups/abs-builder-challenge/discuss/72157674968251745/

Modern bedroom

I've been putting off blogging it for a while but the truth is this ABS Builder Challenge entry from Faron* deserves to be featured! 

The seed part, the lime green telephone, does find its way in there a lot but there are plenty of other things to like, my favorite detail being those "bamboo" shades. Plus I just like the bright, nature-inspired color scheme. 

"We're making today a perfect day for yooooou!"

The latest round of ABS (maybe the best one yet) just wrapped up, and I realized I missed this fantastic model of Elsa from Frozen Fever when contestant Cody Purviance posted it a couple weeks ago. The lime green telephone seed part is used nicely, but that's not all - check out the bananas and ice cream cones that have been used as well! 

Back to business

The latest round of the ABS Builder Challenge is going by fast, with many on Flickr calling it the best round yet. One of my favorite uses of the seed part (lime green telephone) so far is in this little build from Michael the juggler: 

Stay tuned - there's likely to be more ABS coverage here in the next few days!

Buff builders working on their ABS

The ABS building challenge was started just a couple months ago and is now in the second round. My favorite builds so far in this round come from jsnyder002, who's found ways to use the seed part (ice cream cone) in a coral reef, beaver dam, and Pinocchio: 

Follow the round here to find out who wins and to see some great MOCs from four up-and-coming builders. I myself have applied to the contest to see if I can enter a future round - guess I'd better go polish my MOCing skills... 

(So many abbreviations in these tags!)