I was looking for some reviews of the latest Harry Potter set from Lego. It's the new Hogwarts set. Set number 5378, in case you need to know. You can see a video review over at Millionaire Playboy. In the short video they have a time lapse building of the set segment. That was pretty cool, and it's only 4 minutes of your life. Time well wasted. They also have a nice page of fan creations. After looking around some more, I wound up on Lugnet and found two interesting things. Of course, they are interesting to me, and since you're polite, I know you'll sit and pretend to listen. The first thing of interest, again to me, was the end of July shutdown of Brickshelf. They have been a huge repository of Lego fan pictures. Gallery contains 1,887,887 files in 195,893 folders. That's stolen right off of their web page. I won't even link to it, who would care now. Sad for the people who put up all those photos. There were many great builders who posted there. Since it was open to all, you could find some pretty poor builders there, who often lacked photography skills too. I am sure it will be missed and possibly replaced.
The other interesting, but more exciting thing I found, was Lugnets Lego magazine, Brick Journal. It's been around since 2005 and I don't remember hearing about it. I come and go on Lego, just like many of my hobbies, there's always that shiny new thing. "Oh, what's that?" What were we talking about? Oh, yeah, Brick Journal. The magazine comes as a PDF and looks great. Lots of color. That's the nice thing about digital publishing. Easy to make on your pc, and easy to publish and often host for free. There are eight issues out right now, all easily downloadable. They aren't that big, 17-18 mb at the large end. They break them up for slow line users. It's very professional looking. There are tons of photos and lots of building tips. Just from an imagination and creativity POV they score high. They review Official sets and build new creations. There are fa
n profiles and pictures of their work. There was a nice article on women who build. Now that's hot. Hey, I always had a thing for creative chicks. It's just not a good thing. The Brick Journal guys teach you how to modify parts with step by step photo instructions and what tools and liquids to use. A man, or woman, needs to know their liquids. What a great read for the craftily inclined. There's also a blog that seems to have some great stuff. I just started reading it. Great for me, anyway. The rose was created by Joe Meno, who is the editor of the magazine and the writer of the blog. Very nice, huh.
One of the many things that caught my eye, while I was skimming through the hundreds of pages when I should have been in bed, were the people who were working in a small size. I like that, but it's not the sort of thing to get mentioned in the news. The kind of Lego that gets into the news are the big things that people build, like the giant Batman that they built at the Mall of America last month. I went early and they had barely started, so I used my Lego Store coupon, got some free bricks when I bought some, and left. I don't know what it looked like, but I'm guessing it looked like that picture on the left. I couldn't find a capture from the MOA event. Lego was using that model all over the country to promote the Batman Lego line. I got a nice picture from the FAO Schwarz store in NYC.
You can buy a giant Batman from Fao Schwarz for $27,000. Yeah, who needs all that black and gray brick. They don't tell you how many pieces are in the set, but it does weight 500 pounds and costs an additional $2700 for shipping. That seems excessive. I can ship a ton of paper three or four states away for a few hundred dollars. I don't have anywhere to put a 24 by 24 by 78 inch statue out. I like the little one the kid is holding. Keep it small. Easier to transport and store. Or just take it apart and build something else.
