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Ace "onions" Kim | September 27th, 2012 | Events, LEGO

New Orleans Build Event This Saturday September 29

10228_005_FRONTDRACULA

Do you live near the New Orleans and are looking for something to do this weekend? Well LEGO has your back. They are hosting an all night building event starting this Saturday September 29th. Come out and you can meet the one and only Master Model Builder Erik Varszegi. All the details are below:

WHAT: Come help LEGO Master Builders construct a 10’ tall vampire made entirely from LEGO bricks at this first ever all night LEGO building event. Build all day and then watch Lord Vampyre – inspired by the leader of this year’s Monster Fighters line – rise by the light of the full moon. Great visual opportunities with LEGO Lord Vampyre set against the backdrop of iconic Jackson Square and St. Louis Cathedral. This spooky celebration is open to the entire family and features something for everyone, including performances from New Orleans Saintsations and community costume contest.

WHEN: Saturday, September 29th to Sunday, September 30th

· Saturday:
o 12:00 PM-5:00 PM: Open brick building for Lord Vampyre model
o 5:00 PM: Lord Vampyre assembly begins
o 6:00 PM: Costume contest (for children up to age 14)
o 9:00 PM & 10:00 PM: Monster-inspired Saintsations dance performances
o 3:00-7:00 PM: LEGO Club Kids Activities

· Sunday:
o 6:00 AM hour: Master Builder, Erik Varszegi, will place final brick

WHERE: Washington Artillery Park Amphitheater
750 Decatur St., between St. Peter and St. Ann Sts.
New Orleans, LA 70116

I’m not sure if that Sunday 6:00am hour is a typo or what. It seems awfully early to place one final brick. Unless they really are going to stay up all night to build Lord Vampyre.

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Ryan "chief" Wood | September 24th, 2012 | Events

FBTB Draft 7: C-C-C-COMBO! Registration Opens Today

Registration opens at 4 pm PST TODAY for FBTB’s 7th online parts draft which will take place on Saturday October 20th at 10 am PST.

Click to see the Bricklink inventory for 7930 Bounty Hunter Assault Gunship and 7978 Angler Attack.

Still to be announced is how the figures will be split up (voice your opinion here) and how we’ll set the draft order.

10 participants will be drafting 20 sets total. The draft fee is $40, which covers the 50% off MSRP cost of the two sets, sales tax and ziplocks. All things being equal, you should receive an average of 589 parts for your money. There will be an additional nominal charge after the draft has been completed which will cover your exact shipping and packaging cost.

To register, post “C-C-C-COMBO!” in this topic at/after 4pm PST. The first nine responders will go into our Potential Participants pool, and everyone after that will go into a Standby List (not a bad place to be, the last few drafts considered!) Payment instructions will be sent out after we get 10 potentials.

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Ryan "chief" Wood | September 11th, 2012 | Events

FBTB Draft 7: C-C-C-COMBO!

Here’s your early “Save the Date” announcement for the next FBTB Draft. Our 7th(!) parts draft will be on Saturday October 20th.

This time we’re not only drafting TWO SETS, but we’re also going green – dark green.

Click here to see the Bricklink inventory for 7930 Bounty Hunter Assault Gunship and 7978 Angler Attack.

10 participants will be drafting 20 sets total (10 each of both sets.) The draft fee is $40, which covers the 50% off cost of the two sets plus tax. There will be an additional nominal charge after the draft has been completed which will cover your exact shipping and packaging cost.

Registration will open on Monday September 24th at 4 pm PST. I’ll post a followup item closer to registration day with the full lineup of draft rules so you know what you’re getting yourself into. A good primer would be to catch up the forum thread from our last draft.

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Ryan "chief" Wood | August 28th, 2012 | Events, LEGO Star Wars

Registration Open for FBTB Draft Six: Swamp Speeder

Just a reminder that registration opened yesterday for our FBTB parts draft of 8091 Republic Swamp Speeder.

You can see the inventory for this set on Bricklink.

If you are a member of the forum who registered anytime before yesterday you are eligible to participate. Find more information on the event here and sign up quickly! There are only 4 spots left as of this posting!

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Ryan "chief" Wood | August 17th, 2012 | Events, LEGO Star Wars

FBTB DRAFT SIX: 8091 Swamp Speeder

The next FBTB Parts Draft will take place on Saturday September 8th!

We’ll be drafting 10 copies of Star Wars 8091 Republic Swamp Speeder for $16, about 50% off MSRP! (shipping charges will be calculated later for each participant.) Our very own Don Solo reviewed it on the site here in 2010, and although it didn’t score very high overall it did have strong marks for parts and minifigs!

You can see the inventory for this set on Bricklink.

The draft will follow the same rules as the last few drafts.

Draft registration will commence on Monday August 27th at 12 pm PST, which you can do in in this dedicated forum topic by simply posting “SWAMPY!” Feel free to post any and all questions or comments in the thread; however, anyone posting “SWAMPY!” before the clock hits 12 pm PST on August 27th will not be allowed to participate. Don’t jump the gun! After checking the list of people who have posted I will confirm everyone’s registration via private message and give everyone PayPal payment instructions, and our draft order will be decided by the order of payment received from participants.

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Ace "onions" Kim | July 11th, 2012 | Events, LEGO

LEGO Announces SDCC 2012 Plans

LEGO

Here’s LEGO’s official press release detailing their presence at SDCC this year. tl;dr? Yeah, me neither.
(more…)

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Ace "onions" Kim | July 11th, 2012 | Events, LEGO

LEGO Events @ Comic Con 2012

Greetings! I’ve compiled all of the LEGO related events that are happening in and around the con. So get your calendars out and plan your days accordingly:

Warner Bros. Presents Extra at Comic Con

Friday

  • Warner Bros. presents Extra! at SDCC. LEGO® The Lord of the Rings: 3D Street Art: From the creative minds at Planet Streetpainting comes a one-of-a-kind, LEGO The Lord of the Rings–inspired 3D street art design that will be created and on display for fans of all ages over the course of three days, July 13–15. Stop by each day and watch the artwork unfold!

    Location: On the lawn between the Hilton Bayfront Hotel and the Convention Center.

  • 11:00-4:00 Nathan Sawaya Live LEGO Build Event and Art Installation: Renowned LEGO brick artist Nathan Sawaya is teaming up with legendary comic book artist Jim Lee at Comic-Con for a super hero-inspired art exhibition as part of Darkness & Light: Art Inspired by Heroes & Villains, Hope & Heroism, a one-of-a-kind art and education tour benefitting DC Entertainment’s We Can Be Heroes giving campaign to raise awareness and funds for the worst hunger crisis in 60 years in the Horn of Africa.

    On Friday, July 13 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Sawaya will be on hand to build a vibrant recreation of Lee’s Batman portrait using standard LEGO bricks. Sawaya is donating his time and the final artwork to benefit We Can Be Heroes. The weeklong Darkness & Light exhibition as well as Sawaya’s live art installation are free to the public and a Comic-Con badge is NOT necessary for admission to the gallery.

    Location: Michael J. Wolf Fine Arts, 363 5th Avenue, San Diego, CA 92101

  • 3:00-4:00 Warner Archive Collection: Shazam!— Join ever-informed, fancentric WAC Podcast hosts George Feltenstein, Matthew Patterson, and DW Ferranti as they give fans a look at the upcoming DVD release of the popular 1970s series Shazam! The series’ own Billy Batson, Michael Gray, will be on hand, and an exclusive, limited-edition Shazam! LEGO figure will be awarded to a lucky number of fans in attendance. WAC panelists will also offer sneak peeks of Gene Roddenberry’s “other” TV series, The Lieutenant, and some highlights of WAC’s wildly entertaining upcoming slate of releases. And don’t be surprised if a few unannounced guests appear with the bold shout of a single word!

    Location: Room 25ABC

  • 3:00-4:00 LEGO Fan Community and What They Build— Jim Foulds (community relations manager for the LEGO Group), Joe Meno (editor of BrickJournal Magazine), Mariann Asanuma (author of modelbuildingsecrets.com), and Steve Decraemer (model builder for LEGOLand California) discuss the LEGO Fan community, what they build, how they build it, and what it takes to become a member of this growing community.

    Location: Room 28E

Saturday

  • 5:00-6:00 BrickJournal— In the past decade, a community has grown around the toy bricks produced by the LEGO Group. With Joe Meno (editor of BrickJournal magazine and contributor to The Cult of LEGO book) as your guide, see how the community has grown and what they have built, with builders Brandon Griffith and Elizabeth Cortes, plus Jim Foulds of the LEGO Community Team and LEGO certified professional builder Nathan Sawaya. Dust off those bricks and join the community of LEGO builders!

    Location: Room 23ABC

Sunday

  • 10:30-11:30 LEGO Ninjago — Get an inside look at one of the hottest boys’ properties of 2012, LEGO Ninjago! Hear from the creators how the hit Cartoon Network TV series is developed. LEGO designers will show how they create LEGO models from the characters and vehicles on the small screen. Join the Q&A session and see an exclusive sneak peek of Ninjago: Season 2!

    There is also a special poster, pictured above, being given away by Papercutz (Booth #2546 / #2548).

    Location: Room 8

Unfortunately there’s no LEGO Star Wars panel this year as far as I can tell. However, there’s a lot more LEGO goodness happening throughout the weekend and we’ll be reporting things as they come up so stay tuned.

There’s TONS of other things to do, obviously, so if none of those fancy your pants, hit up the Comic Con Programming page for more things to do and see.

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Ace "onions" Kim | March 28th, 2012 | Events, LEGO Star Wars

New Additions to Star Wars Miniland at LEGOLAND California and an Update

Sandcrawler 2

The Opee Sea Killer isn’t the only thing that’s new at miniland at LEGOLAND California. And what’s with the name “Opee Sea Killer” anyway? Does it kill the Opee Sea? Or is it an Opee that happens to kill seas? That doesn’t make any sense. That would be like demolishing the house you live in while living in it.

ANYWAYS, like I was saying, the Opee Sea Killer isn’t the only new thing at Star Wars Miniland making it’s debut this weekend. There is also this absolutely gorgeous miniland-scale Sandcrawler designed and built by Master Model Builder Erik Varszegi. The model has over 15,000 elements and weighs over 50 lbs. Rob Hendrix of Lifelites lent his modding expertise to light it up. From Rob:

The Sandcrawler features a custom built lighting controller with 20 warm white colored LEDs, 1 multicolored flashing LED, and 2 Microchip controlled red flashing LEDs. The multicolored LED is in the cabin console and the red flashing LEDs are near the crane bay doors.
Unrelated to the lighting effects, I especially appreciate Erik Varzsegi’s craftsmanship on the back of the Sandcrawler. He takes “nice piece usage” to the next level

More eye candy:

Sandcrawler 1 Sandcrawler 5 Sandcrawler 4 Sandcrawler 3
Sandcrawler 6 Sandcrawler 9 Sandcrawler 8 Sandcrawler 7

There are two more models debuting this weekend. The Ion cannon on the Hoth layout is all new, and “a towering Crystal City building in Christophsis.” There’s no picture of the tower, but the Ion cannon is below.

StarWarz27

And lastly, I sent an email out to everyone who’s volunteered for the weekend. If you’re bringing a model in person and haven’t heard from me any details on how to set up, email me immediately and I’ll get back to you.

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Ace "onions" Kim | March 22nd, 2012 | Events, LEGO Star Wars

Opee Sea Killer Debuts at LEGOLAND CA

Rob Hendrix over at Lifelites LLC had a busy February. He lent his expertise in modifying some of the new models slated to be unveiled at the expanded Star Wars Miniland at LEGOLAND CA on March 29th, one of which is featured in the video above: Opee Sea Killer. From Rob:

Opee sea killer has a custom made lighting controller inside for the fish’s eyes and the connected Gungan sub. There are 4 LEDs in each fish eye and a total of 28 LEDs in the sub. 8 of the lights flash in a rotating pattern for the propulsion engine effect.

Sounds awesome and this is probably one of the few times I’ll ever wish for inclement weather in Socal. I want to be able to see all the lighting effects in this model and the other one he worked on. There are a few other surprises in store for the revamped area of the park. And it’s no coincidence that Star War Days was bumped up from it’s normal summertime time slot to occur during opening weekend. Marketing wins again. But hopefully that won’t stop you from attending. The Fan Gallery is going to be killer. Don, Ryan, and I will be in attendance all weekend so come on out and introduce yourself.

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Ace "onions" Kim | March 15th, 2012 | Events, LEGO Star Wars

Star Wars Days at LEGOLAND CA Update

Star Wars Days 2012

I just slogged through my email and responded to everyone that expressed interest in sending in Podracers for the Episode I Movie Build. If you haven’t received an email from me, please check your spam folder as it may have ended up there. There’s still time to mail in your entry or arrive at the park to set it up yourself. Hit us up through the contact form for more information.

On a side note, I was laid off of my job last week. So if anyone out there is hiring or knows of a job for an HTML/CSS/Javascript/Wordpress front end developer, let me know!

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