GÆLEN MIBECK'S BLOG
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A fun little set I got today. If you’re a LEGO nerd like me, You’ll be exited to know that this set contains part No. 48729 in LIGHT BLUISH-GREY! (Eight of ‘em.) I’ve been waiting for this element in this colour for a while. So long, in fact, that I’ve forgotten what it was I needed it for.
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“All lowercase with a period following every word” is the new “all caps with no punctuation”. How do I know this, you ask? I just do.
But seriously, it’s been forever since I’ve done anything with LEGO (yes, two months is forever). I think I have a right to be artsy and over-the-top as I return to my forgotten hobby.
It’s Master Chief, the iconic spacesuit dude from Halo, that one video game I’ve never played.
I know close to nothing about Halo. I did this mostly to test out some things with editing, presentation and outdoor photography.
On a related note: Ben Caulkins (AKA Benny Brickster) has been building is own life-sized Master Chief armor. This is pretty cool, even to a non-halo fan such as myself. Be sure to check out Ben’s other LEGO stuff on his flickr photostream.
I had forgotten how fun microscale building is. It forces you to look at pieces in a different way. It also (usually) involves more building and troubleshooting, and less digging around looking for pieces.
While my siblings and I were playing in my room the other day (with LEGO, what else?), I chanced to pick up piece 50860. The more I looked at this piece, the more I realized what it looked like. It was almost the exact shape of the Prawn robot-suit’s torsoe in the movie District 9. I quickly set about building this vehicle.
What I thought of District 9
District 9 is a story about two races (Humans and Aliens) that are at odds with each other. The hero is forced to see things from the aliens’ point of view. There are robots in it. District 9 is like what Avatar could have been.
In Avatar, all of the humans are evil corrupt bad guys (with the exeption of a few), and all of the aliens are perfect both morally and phisically. This is totally unrealistic. Sure Avatar is set on another planet with glowing plants and hexapedal animals, but peoples is peoples. Peoples should feel like peoples.
In Avatar, the top badguy man was like “Let’s steal from the Na’vi!”, and all of the mercenary dudes were like “…Okay!”.
In District 9, neither the Prawn nor the Humans are perfect. The Prawn are shown killing humans for their wallets, and the humans are shown opening up fire on the Prawn at the slightest provocation.
This makes more sense and seems closer to real life.
The the objective of the humans in District 9 is to relocate all of these bugs so that they won’t be a menace to society. The humans have a reason for being mean to the Prawn, and the Prawn have a reason to fight back.
In Avatar, I had no idea what half of what they were saying meant.
Another thing that struck me about this move was the visual effects. They were amazing, but very subtle. After a while you forget that one of the main character is a puppet in a computer.
The special effects in Avatar were awesome, but they were at times more convincing than the characters and the story they were supposed to tell.
I also liked how the Prawn technology was similar, and at times compatible with human technology.
District 9 is a film about humans and aliens, but in the end it’s about neither. It’s about people.
Wikus, the main charecter, learns that “just following orders” and “looking out for number one” are what make the world such a messed up place. He gives up what he hoped for most when he returns the kindness shown him by Christofer the Prawn.
All in all, District 9 is a wonderful film, and I highly recommend it. Be aware, however, that there is a great deal of profanity, dismemberment, blood, gore, and exploding body parts.
I don’t want to give anything away, but the story did remind me of this quote by G.K. Chesterton:
“Over-civilization and barbarism are within an inch of each other. And a mark of both is the power of medicine-men.”
You know how a LEGO model can fall apart? Sometimes they fall together.
This was mostly just an excuse to use GIMP ;)
By the way, my scanner died yesterday, and I have been having mouse problems.
I””m having way too much fun with GIMP””s “oil painting” and “softglow” filters :)
My little sister has been dropping hints that she wanted me to build her a robot.
I took the opportunity to play around with some of my favorite colors.
This was made for my Month of Midifigs over on Flickr.
It was so popular, I did a video of me putting it together:
About a month ago I found myself In distressing need of PneumaticT”s.
After poking around on Brick~Link, I discovered that my wonderful light-bley buddies are slightly cheaper when ordered from Poland. Because of this (and also because I”ve always wanted to buy stuff from Poland), I put in an order of 300 T”s (and some other stuff) to BricksPoland.
Now, a month later, my order has finally arrived! All the pieces are in great condition, but this is only the beginning.
In addition to my 300 T”s, 100 upright clips, 50 1×1 tiles, 20 horizontal clips, 20 1×1 clip lights (type two), 20 cheeses, four 1×2 plate with clips, horizontal, three 1×2 tiles, two 2×3 plate with hole”s and one 2x4x2 windscreen, I now have a used bubble-wrap envelope simply plastered with lovely Polish postage:
All in all, it was great ordering from BricksPoland, and I hope to buy from them again in future.
Oh, and the postage was only $4.90! Not bad at all, says I.
I started doing a LEGO stop-motion version of Madness” “Our House” back in June of ”09. Kinda” lost steam– sets and props constructed from LEGO can only stay in tact for so long…
My Video:
Original:
These are some other music videos I”d like to try doing in LEGO:
Maybe some day…
