Lighting Legos

I have had a tough time getting good shots of my Lego creations. My cousin helped me get the hang of setting the custom white balance on my wife's Canon Rebel DSLR. They could have made it a bit simpler IMO.

 I also had to get some new lights. I wanted to spend as little as I could (that's my Lego $) so i picked up these two lights at Ikea for 3.99. plus 7$ for the bulbs. They are very adjustable seem to be good for this purpose so far. I am just using tissue to diffuse my lights.

The grey paper I picked up at Michael's. It comes out a bit splotchy in the photos so I might replace it at some point. At least for now I can take a decent pic.

My First Lego Mech

Spent a lot of time building this one. Making all of the joints so the can be posed and aren't all square to each other is quite complicated. I have a lot more respect for the Lego mech builders out there. Styling wise I could do better next time but the one thing I nailed is the working cockpit. It opens and closes easily on a hinge and fits a minifig snugly but without difficulty even with a helmet and backpack.

 More of my creations in my Flicker photostream.

Master Builder: ]Color[

This guy does some really amazing stuff with minifig sized robots. Really cool work.

 

]color['s Flicker Feed.

Master Builder: erth&fiya

Super creative use of pieces and a very unique look to all of his builds. Also takes the time to make really nice custom figs for many of his builds which I really like.

Check out erth&fiya's Flicker Photostream.

First Lego Helmet Casting.

Finally got the kinks worked out of my helmet casting. My first mold was too complicated and trapped air to much. Only after I spent a week working on that mold did I bother to look on the net for a tutorial and found this amazingly helpful one on the Minifig Customization Network.

I just followed that how to and used materials I was familiar with. For the mold i used Smooth On Dragon Skin Q though if I was to buy the material again I would have picked Oomoo 25. For casting I used Smooth Cast 300. I had a bit of trouble with a few early batches not setting up right when casting but I think I had some residue in my recycled mochi cups that I was mixing in stopping the compound from setting properly.

So now that I can make helmet dupes my next step is to model my own and cast them. I cant wait :)

Lego Christmas 2011

This Christmas was a Lego explosion. I still have not put together all of the sets we got. I am really wanting to break them down and use the parts but I need to do reviews for them first.

Oh and I also set up a big temporary shelf for all of them in the down downstairs.

Lego Speeder Bike Contest Entries

First let me say again I still have lighting problems. I got a little help from my cousin in setting a custom white balance on my wife's DSLR but I still cant get it just right. In the end it really hurt my entree into the competition I think. Here is my entree followed by a few of my favs.

 Head over tho the entries thread to see the full contest.

More Minifigs From Z

Z has been hard at work on the minifig front. Everyday he trys out new combinations then picks his favorite and sleeps with it in his hands. Here are a few of my favorites.

All of his work can bee seen in his section of my Flicker account.