poking on BrickShelf...

and spotted this:



and this



This is from Megladon on Brickshelf

This looks cool , but the Republic Cruiser is not going to be cheap!

Holy smoke!! I'm building again!!

Yeah, it's been a while, but I am starting to get back to building...

my latest is the SeaShell, a Sea Monkey hermit crab:




I've been wanting to build a hermit crab for a LONG time - it's a real building challenge - the shell is a major challenge and a crab that fits??

Finding the Stingrays disk part started me thinking, and it took a couple of days of thinking, but I got the above. To be honest, the crab is a little too big really, but the look really worked in a way that I really liked.

I added some weapons on it here:



but it gets a little cluttered. The problem is that there are too many antennas all over it at this point.

With this, I had to come up with a background story - the Sea Monkeys wasnted to develop some beast of burden to move things, and they chose the hermit crab. For something like the recon task, one of these could be placed and it could keep watch for days.

This also has a limited land range, which is good for the Sea Monkeys.

LEGO Digital Designer @.0

Playing with LDD, and it's nicely faster than LDD 1.6!

I can build on it much faster with the speed woked up, and the connections are smarter.

Some other improvements:

The hinge function now shows the rotation direction.
Rotation of the model can now go to the horizon line.
For a Mac, the Mac command functions (cut, paste, undo) work.
The price of a set is internally calculated - you don't go to the website and download the set for pricing.
Building area is pretty much unlimited.
Some new parts.

Some odd things:
No piece counts to your models.
Some parts left the inventory.

I haven't played with the instructions yet.

A quick tip: If you build like me, I go all over the place with  palettes to find pieces. One way to eliminate the constant looking is to find the parts that you use most commonly and put them by your model. Then you can use the clone tool and get as many of that part when you need it without having to hunt.

And a big question: In the view screen, there's a button for animation....what does that do, as it's greyed out so it can't be used?

BBC Budget reprt...in LEGO?

Eurobricks first mentioned this, but there hasn't been an effort on finding this online, so I did a check and found this:

The 2007 Budget in LEGO
Pretty fun way to present a rather dry subject.

Other LEGO related subjects on BBC:

Themed LEGO - Star Wars (dated August 20, 2001)
A review of the Star Wars sets that is complete for that time.

LEGO, Camera, action! (dated October 16th, 2001)
Nottinghamshire school students get involved in a national filmmaking competition  with Movie Maker sets as prizes.

I Love 1960
Seen at Brighton Toy Fair for the first time.

LEGO to cut jobs and shift plants (dated June 20, 2006)
Article on announcement to outsource production.

£20,000 of Lego stolen from lorry (dated November 15, 2005)
Short article on a large robbery.

You can see much more here.

Spring Cleaning

You ever getto a point when you can't find the floor?

I got there about six months ago, so you can imagine how happy I am at now being able to clean after getting things done!

And I get to sort too..

So I am also starting to get the building bug again. About danged time!

And some planning for BrickJournal 8 is happening. Pretty quiet all around, but hat's kinda nice for me now:-)

I'm also archiving the past issue for the website, which is a pretty tedious process.

Am getting some fun info about BrickWorld too....

Ramping up for?

So during my down time, I am thinking about some things that have to be done with BrickJournal.

The biggest priority is setting up a website. I am in the initial stages of planning it, and I wantto have something that takes advantage of the medium that the magazine can't, so there would be multimedia and interactive stuff.

The website will also allow faster release of information, too.

But I do need some ideas, so if you have one, send it to me!

The only things I don't want are forums and discussion areas - I will be  using LUGNET and the  BrickJournal page for that.  I personally want LUGNET to BrickJournal's discussion area.

Resting...

I am now in a recovery mode after Issue 7 - I basically did two back-to-back issues, so I need a little rest.

There's been a lot of positive feedback about the articles we got this issue, so naturally, I'm pretty happy. Some people are also stepping forward to help BrickJournal in layout and reviews, and that is a really nice sign, especially in the layout area. We really need to be strengthened in that department, as that  will allow us to work on other possibilities, such as adding more issues.

There's been many requests for printing, and I am looking at it - the challenges I face are have to do with needing to print a high quantity to make any print run worthwhile. I would like to see the magazine become somethng that will be a part of a media group, and in order to do that the mag needs to earn money. Which ultimately means that many issues need to be sold. As in thousands.

Can thousands be sold? Honestly, I don't know. When BrickJournal goes to print, then downloads will have to change. I don't know how that will affect things. There are many variables, and I need to make my best decision against those, and presently, I don't think I have enough information to make a wise decision. But I am researching.