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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.

Tags: Brickjournal, Jim Foulds, LEGO Lord of the Rings: The Videogame, Nathan Sawaya, San Diego Comic Con, Shazam!

1 comment

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

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

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:

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.

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.

Tags: legoland california, star wars days

2 comments

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.

Tags: LEGOLAND CA, star wars days

7 comments

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

Star Wars Days at LEGOLAND CA Update

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!

Tags: I need a job, LEGOLAND CA, star wars days

16 comments

Pete "bigospedros" Croxson | March 12th, 2012 | Events, LEGO Star Wars

[UK] Star Wars Miniland Experience @ Legoland Windsor … Preview Day Report

Over the weekend, I was lucky enough to attend the preview event for the brand new Star Wars Miniland Experience at Legoland Windsor, although I was not alone as there were around 50 of us, including people from Brickset, Jedi News and various other online blogs, plus a few competition winners.

We met up in the brand new Legoland Hotel and then made the long walk, gently up hill, towards the main entrance of the park where the new exhibition is housed. The first signs you see of the event are the Star Wars pictures on the building and the half a Millenium Falcon sticking out of the wall.

Unlike the similar exhibits in California and Germany, this is entirely indoors and it consists of 7 areas, covering each Episode and a Clone Wars scene.

With the models built at miniland scale, they are of a significant size and allows for quite a lot of detail in the models. Each one has at least one button to press which then triggers some animation in the scene together with lights and music to match. This ranges from the fair simple in the Clone Wars scene (lights and recoil on the cannons) to the Tatooine scene which sees the Millenium Falcon rise a few feet in the air, replicating the scene at Docking Bay 94. Speaking of the Tatooine scene, there is a neat feature for the kids here, where there’s a tunnel and a perspex bubble in the middle of the scene, so they can feel really part of the action.

Mind you, whether said child can see anything is another matter … and that brings us onto the only real issue I could find with the exhibit … and that’s the lighting. It’s pretty dark in there, apart from the Hoth Scene and whilst that does add to the atmosphere, you do feel as if you are missing out on the details by it being so very dark! It also doesn’t lead to very good photos … which isn’t ideal, especially since this is what people are likely to want to do. These models are too good just to look at.

Speaking of photos, the ones I managed to take can be found in the FBTB Flickr Stream. There are also excellent galleries over at Brickset.

On exiting the event, you enter and entirely Star Wars themed store, which also features several life sized scale models of Darth Vader, C3P0, R2D2 and Chewbacca. No bargains to be hand, at least not when we were there, but this building also houses the “Last Chance Market” (I think it was called) where they’ll feature sets and merchandise on sale. No idea on deals in there as that bit was closed off when we were there.

Despite the issues, the models on display are very good … with excellent detail and the scenes are instantly recognisable. If you have any interest in Star Wars or just miniland scale building at it’s best, then this is an absolute must see!

Tags: Legoland Windsor, Star Wars Miniland

1 comment

Ace "onions" Kim | March 2nd, 2012 | Events, LEGO Star Wars

Star Wars Days Update: Volunteer Shirt, Podracers

Just a quick update on Star Wars Days at LEGOLAND CA (March 31-April 1).

All time slots for volunteers have been filled. Thank you to everyone who replied and confirmed. The picture above is the shirt that the volunteers will be receiving. And before you ask, this shirt IS NOT/WILL NOT be for sale. They are given only to the volunteers to the various clubs participating that day. The back of the shirt will have the name of the clubs involved.

CALLING ALL PODRACERS: FBTB will be giving away cash to one lucky podracer that is displayed throughout the weekend. Fifty big ones (You’ll need paypal to receive the funds). It’s simple: wrap up your podracer extremely carefully, put it in a box and mail it to me. A jury panel consisting of Don, Ryan, and myself will judge which one we like best and notify the winner. After the weekend, I’ll mail all the podracers back to their respective owners and throw in an FBTB t-shirt as a way of saying “thanks”. Interested? Send us a message. All podracers must be received by March 24th to qualify. Interested in dropping off/displaying in person? Send us a message and we’ll work out the details.

Tags: Darth Maul, LEGOLAND CA, star wars days

16 comments

Ryan "chief" Wood | February 10th, 2012 | Events, LEGO Toy Story

FBTB Draft Five: Last Call for Pizza Planet

Registration officially closes at midnight PST tonight for the 5th FBTB Parts Draft. There are only a couple spots left to fill in this forum topic.

Check out the set on Brickset here, or browse the inventory on Bricklink

If at the end of today we only have 8 participants, that’s the number of sets I’ll sort to keep it the split lots even. Anyone who decides to join after the sets are sorted will be added to the end of the list, since everyone else will have already paid and decided the draft order.

Tags: LEGO Toy Story, parts draft

79 comments

Ken "buriedbybricks" Robichaud | February 9th, 2012 | Events, LEGO CUUSOO, News

LEGO World Copenhagen To Unveil Minecraft Micro World

We’re hoping to see a lot of great stuff coming out of Toy Fair this weekend, but it seems like LEGO Minecraft won’t be one of them. For that we’ll have to wait until February 16th when it will be unveiled at LEGO World Copenhagen. If you were lucky enough to get an invite to the event, you can enjoy being one of the first to see the third LEGO CUUSOO model release, 21102 LEGO Minecraft Micro World and feel free to post any pictures you take here!

Tags: LEGO Cuusoo, LEGO Minecraft, LEGO World Copenhagen, Mojang

1 comment

Ace "onions" Kim | February 6th, 2012 | Events, LEGO

Toy Fair Invitations

I just received FBTB’s official Toy Fair invitations which doubles as our badges which triples as a teaser for our exclusive minifigs. The wording makes me believe, however, that our “exclusive” minifigs will later be available to the general public through a normal set since the tag line says, “be the first to receive two 2012 LEGO minifigures!”. No idea if there will be any other premiums but we’ll keep you posted.

Don “Solo” Reitz and I will be attending the collector event this Sunday February 12th. Watch this space and our flickr stream for our full event coverage.

Tags: Exclusive, toy fair

13 comments

Ryan "chief" Wood | February 6th, 2012 | Events, LEGO Toy Story

FBTB Parts Draft Five: Registration

Registration opens today for the 5th FBTB Parts Draft. There will be 9 spots available to draft 9598 Pizza Planet Truck Rescue, one of which could be yours by following the instructions in this forum topic.

Check out the set on Brickset here, or browse the inventory on Bricklink

Tags: LEGO Toy Story, parts draft

79 comments