Lego

[DanJW]

I named this topic to cover all lego, but what I really wanted to bring your attention to was this:

Lego mother-loving-Lord-of-the-Rings

I recommend watching the designers videos for each set, some really thoughtful stuff gone into the details.

And yes there is a game on the way.

Now this:

[Salacious Snake]

I haven't paid attention to Lego since I was a child, and I was never really into it even back then. Thanks to the assholes at Tested.com constantly talking about Lego in their podcasts, I've suddenly unleashed my inner manchild and now I have an enormous Sopwith Camel to assemble.

I don't have any idea where the fuck I'm going to put this thing when I'm finished. My apartment is relatively spartan at the moment, so it's going to look ridiculous.

That Gollum figure looks terrifying.

[Gwardinen]

I have a friend who's very excited for the opportunity to play the Lego Lord of the Rings video game with his fiancée. I don't know if he's as into the physical stuff.

I definitely used to enjoy Lego when I had the Lego MindStorms kit, which basically allowed you to use a basic visual programming language to save a simple program to a big Lego controller brick. That brick could then be connected to various sensor, motor, light, and so on other bricks to execute its program. When I was in school I built a Lego robot with it that would drive around an area, detecting the edges of things and making noises and using lights to communicate its movements without falling off/driving straight into anything. It was the only time I can remember bringing something into school for a presentation that I actually gave a crap about.

Also, somewhat related, I've been playing Lego Batman 2 and I am amazed by how much I am actually enjoying it!

[TheLastBaron]

I was all about Legos growing up. I have a GIGANTIC tub somewhere in my attic that's completely filled with Legos. If I ever find it, dear lord I don't even want to think about it.

[Jaraknarn]

You gotta pass that on to the next generation man, that's what I did , and now the collections twice as big. My first Lego's were hand-me-downs and I built up quite a repository over my childhood. Its the thing that stands out most from my memories of that time, me and my best friend literally played with it for hours on end, night after night, on crazy massive projects. Mixing in scalectics and desks and furniture.

Did anyone ever play Lego : Rock Raiders?

It was like the best game, I still play it now, its an absolute masterclass in non-violent strategy gaming. I'd love another version of it.

[Roderick]

About five years ago I came out of my 'dark age' (the period where you stop playing with Lego as a kid) and rediscovered the amazing hobby that is building with plastic bricks. I've been an avid collector ever since, spending insane amounts of money and building an enormous collection of especially the higher end sets (modular buildings, Tower Bridge, Emerald Night train, that sort of thing). I am what they call an AFOL: Adult Fan of Lego.

I'm not particularly excited by the Lord of the Rings Lego, to be honest. The sets are a little dull (Helm's Deep is a pretty uninteresting castle wall) and like all licensed sets it will come at a premium price. These sets are usually only interesting for the minifigs. The problem I have with Lord of the Rings, as well as with Pirates of the Caribbean, is that they replace the standard Castle and Pirates sets, which were tons more interesting, playable and imaginitive. I absolutely loved the revival of the classic Pirates line (in fact, that was what booted me into the hobby again as I wanted to collect every set), and was subsequently dismayed when it got canned after only one year to make place for the incredibly overpriced and mediocre PotC line.

The licensed themes have done Lego a world of good, Star Wars pretty much singlehandedly saving the company. But I'd be very sad if all they did was use licenses to replace their own themes, which ultimately have much more value than yet another toy based on Lord of the Rings.

[Nachimir]

I have an ambivalent relationship with Lego. It is the best toy, and actually pretty good for trying out ideas and prototypes of some things, but also, it's clutter. I have a tub of it in some drawers, and a Maersk train on top. I also have about 30 of these due to an error of judgment…

I quite like the new Monster Hunter sets, but probably won't get any of them.

This guy and his son made up an XCOM type tabletop game using Lego, and some other people made a game with some beautiful little Lego mechs.

My first Lego's were hand-me-downs and I built up quite a repository over my childhood.

That's one of the most amazing and geekiest things about Lego: They mold bricks to tolerances of a fiftieth of a millimetre, so that brick you have from 20 years back will still fit with a brand new one now*. I've done a bit of injection molding, and manufacturing to that standard is difficult. None of the clone products have anywhere near that kind of tolerance, and big walls of their bricks tend to force themselves apart as a result.

* An exception is the acetate bricks they made in the 1960's, which warped. The only sets from back then that remain are ones that were never disassembled.

[MrHoatzin]

When we went to Serbia last, I brought back all my Legos. I haven't thouched them yet, but it is good to know they're here. The most important part of my collection (and the reason I lugged it across the world) is the plotter Technic set which comes with a ton of gears and two motors. I've been meaning to make automata and some mechanical paintings/sculptures and have had a hard time visualizing the most eficient way of doing them, so Lego. I may have to make some custom gears but by and large that set delivers. This for example:

Before I set out to grab my old bricks I looked at what the current Technic offering is like and it seems the focus has completely left the mechanical—there are all of these sensors and motors and programming and robotic stuff, but they really don't make them with as many gears as they used to.

[elmuerte]

I'm not really fond of the licensed LEGO sets. But I understand that they need to do it commercially because they have a shit load of competition by Video games.

I also don't like the weird special bricks which are pretty much a whole constructions. It's a bit lazy and also limits its use.

I played a lot with LEGO as a kid, and I didn't stop at making just the thing in the instructions.

[Scrobbs]

A couple of christmasses ago, my (then) g/f, parents and friends clubbed together to get me the giant Millenium Falcon. It was ace. Took about 70 hours in all to build I estimated - was deconstructed to move house. Still in its box until we have room.

That biplane looks pretty mint too! Nice colours on it.

While in Japan, we chanced upon Nanoblocks. Lego, but tiny wee. I chose a [img=http://www.mynanoblock.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/redGreenMacaw.png]Macaw[/img] from the mini-series, and very nice he is too! They do all sorts of cool sets, from Easter Island Statues, to the Eiffel tower, to satellites and battleships.

[Scipio]

Lego Frodo is freaking the fuck out.

[DanJW]

This guy and his son made up an XCOM type tabletop game using Lego, and some other people made a game with some beautiful little Lego mechs.

That's cool, I've been thinking off-hand for a while how Lego would make the perfect D&D set, being much more versatile and cheaper than licensed miniatures and maps. And this LotR range just expands the options (although maybe not; as Rodi said they may end a lot of the own-brand medieveal gear. Plus there's Harry Potter stuff I guess. And I didn't even know about PotC). They've even kind-of gone there themselves with the little board-games, complete with 3-D character sheets/GUIs.

Lego really does have so many possibilities. I agree, it's pretty much the perfect toy. When I get a new flat I may just retrieve my own childhood Lego-chest out of my parent's loft.

My girlfriend and I occasionally buy each other one of the collectible minifig packs. So awesome!

[Gwardinen]

Did anyone ever play Lego : Rock Raiders?

It was like the best game, I still play it now, its an absolute masterclass in non-violent strategy gaming. I'd love another version of it.

Yes! Holy shit, I had this game and loved it, briefly. My computer couldn't really run it and then I lost it and since then I've thought it probably wouldn't hold up too well anymore. But it was a great concept.

[Roderick]

Here at home me and my mom are sorting out all of our old Lego, washing the bricks and putting the individual sets back together. It's an awesome nostalgia trip and is making me go to ebay to look for second hand sets from my childhood. Ice Planet 2002! 2002, the actual future in which we're visiting unknown ice planets.

It's not certain yet that Lord of the Rings will indefinitely push away the regular Castle theme: after all there were still Space themes after Star Wars. My main point is that the sets themselves are overpriced, less playable and less imaginitive. In last year's incredible Castle wave we got this amazing set:

I bought two of those.

[SiN]

I loved Lego when I was younger! I want to get back into it, but I keep procrastinating. :/

I never really liked the sets though. Or rather, I did until I got one. I begged my parents like crazy for the "BIG PIRATE SHIP PLEASE PLEASE PLEAAAASE!!!!" and they eventually got me ... the small pirate ship. Which was good enough for me.

But I put the thing together in no time (the base of the ship was just two massive pieces that was held together by smaller bricks) and ... that was it. I repurposed some of the parts, but mostly went back to my older Legos. My Dad, being the genius he is, then decided to do The Right Thing: he got me a pretty large bucket of assorted Legos. And really, that's what I loved most about Lego. Building random stuff out of random bricks. Some of it had a point, but a lot of it was random structures (MODERN ART IF YOU WILL!!).

I want to buy Legos now, not to collect sets, but to go back to the important job of Building Random Shit.

[Nachimir]

as Rodi said they may end a lot of the own-brand medieveal gear.

They'll always be on ebay, and Brick Link.

My girlfriend and I occasionally buy each other one of the collectible minifig packs. So awesome!

I had to stop buying them. They're like crack, and a very clever thing for Lego to make. You might never spend £50 on a lego set, but after a year or so of these, the same amount has trickled out of your wallet a bit at a time and you have a pile of minifigs.

The company almost went bust on the big parts elmuerte mentions disliking; they were a real trend in design for them in the early 2000s, and were often specific to a set or two, meaning they had to shift a lot of each to get their production costs back (making a mold for a new piece costs around a quarter of a million euros). With minifigs, it lets them test stuff out and make new bits, while selling small cheap stuff to people who don't necessarily want big sets around. A bunch of things in the monster hunters stuff seem to be aggregated from the previous six lines of minifigs.

I know some pretty big AFOLs and am basically coming to terms with being one myself whilst trying to not own a lot of Lego. It started with Flickr: This is still probably the best Lego model I've ever seen, but there are many more:

http://www.flickr.co...ten/2503187439/

http://www.flickr.co...rac/3372893079/

http://www.flickr.co...oan/6091926846/

http://www.flickr.co...rac/6225387177/

http://www.flickr.co...o0o/4733339313/

http://www.flickr.co...lic/6299491958/

http://www.flickr.co...anz/6621053469/

http://www.flickr.co...olf/5287973519/

http://www.flickr.co...log/5164896606/

[castorp]

Lego's great. We had a blanket full of all kinds of Lego. Boy, my old Lego blanket, that's a big part of my childhood. I would build mostly random stuff, but from time to time I wanted to get one of the many sets together, and then the searching started - searching for the right brick in all the blanket-mess, that is very much my Lego-childhood.

Later I got some Lego Technic and loved it as well, but I never mixed those sets, because the were so big and had so many parts, it would have been hard to separate them again and probably because I was more grown up and stupid.

That was, äh, is my favourite Technic-set:

Hope the image-linking worked and you can see the beautiful crane.

The builds in those pictures Nachimir, they are made without glue or anything, no? Some of them look impossible. All of them look very great.

[TheLastBaron]

Did anyone ever play Lego : Rock Raiders?

It was like the best game, I still play it now, its an absolute masterclass in non-violent strategy gaming. I'd love another version of it.

Yes.

[Scrobbs]

http://www.buildwithchrome.com/static/map

[Nachimir]

The builds in those pictures Nachimir, they are made without glue or anything, no? Some of them look impossible. All of them look very great.

Yes, I think they're all done without glue; that's very much frowned upon by AFOLs. A lot of these techniques:

http://www.brickshel...advbuilding.pdf

Some of the weirder/non-grid looking ones are also based on Lego technic skeletons. The pegs and holes let you construct arbitrary angles to then build normal Lego structures from.

(Edit) Here's one of dasnewten's ships:

http://www.flickr.co.../in/photostream

Here's how it's built.

A lot of spaceship builders do a "swoosh test". The most elaborate designs are more prone to falling to bits. Lego's own, less elaborate looking ships are designed to withstand the strain of being whirled around on the end of a child's arm

To say I spend hardly any time messing about with Lego, I sure do know a lot about it ¬¬

[Roderick]

If you want a daily dose of the best Lego models but don't want to visit dozens of different Flickr pages, your best bet is to visit The Brothers Brick: http://www.brothers-brick.com/

Different from a lot of people here, apparently, I really like building sets. Though I plan to make my own designs once I have my own house and am able to fulfil a long-time dream of having a spacious Lego room, I enjoy constructing sets to instruction. I tend to pick my sets in order of beauty, building difficulty and part list. Of course, most official Lego sets, even the ones geared towards AFOLs, don't feature terribly advanced building techniques. There is one set from Star Wars, though, that was really cool and challenging and probably the most difficult set I've ever seen from Lego:

Count Dooku's Solar Sailor, it featured pretty cool SNOT techniques and every angle was smooth. It saddens me Lego doesn't feature more tricky builds like this. I'd love to see them do something like a 'master builder' line where they just go all out.

[empika]

Don't forget the Cuusoo site, tons of amazing stuff on there

http://lego.cuusoo.com/

This defender blows my mind! http://lego.cuusoo.c...deas/view/16894 the guy has also done a mini which is incredible too.

Lego is pretty much the best thing. I spent about 7 hours last weekend designing a case for my newly arrived raspberry pi computer (www.raspberrypi.org) using the lego digital designer, it is my best effort at the endor bunker. ordered all the parts off of lego pick a brick and brick link, just wiating for the pick a brick order to come through now pic attached.

[Scrobbs]

Oh wow!

[Nachimir]

That version of the Pyro's dream world looks an awful lot like Proteus.

[Salacious Snake]

I finished the plane.