LUGpol Lego Exhibilition in Warsaw starts July 10

Ever wonder why creations with the LUGpol logo are so awesome? If you are in Warsaw on July 10 and 11, you can stop by the Museum Of Technology (Muzeum Techniki) to see the best LUGPol creations in person and mingle with their members. The exhibit lasts until the end of September and features creations from varied themes and includes large city, castle, and Star Wars dioramas and much more.

Space Adventures

• ISBN13: 9780545082198
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Product Description
After discovering crystals in a nearby canyon, two miners set off to collect the ore. But aliens want the crystals too! Now the race is on to see who recovers the crystals first. … More >>

Space Adventures

Storybook

What I enjoy most about this is the European look to it. The horizontal lines cutting across the facade makes for a simple, but realistic structure. The arched windows also make for a very appealing look. Good work, Profound Whatever!

Burberry

A terrific building by Flickr member Jared Chan features another clothing outlet in his long line of clothing outlets. As always, his details are top notch and offer that “solid” look so well known with the Cafe Corner line of sets from LEGO. Keep up the great buildings!

Rogue Castle

There’s something about the controlled chaos in Kevin Fedde’s Rogue Castle that just grabs my attention. Good guys, bad guys, unsuspecting sailors, and fantastic work on the architecture of the castle itself. It all just works for me.

Sorting LEGO – how do you actually get it done?

Having a consistent system for sorting and storing your LEGO collection makes your pieces much more accessible while building. Most LEGO builders eventually figure out a system that works for them. In fact, it’s something we discuss at length among ourselves, both at conventions and on the web. Most people seem to sort by element rather than by color, for example.

What I don’t hear a lot of talk about is actually how to go about sorting one’s LEGO — other than sustained frustration about its necessity. At what point do you know you need to sort? When do you sort? How long do you spend sorting at one sitting? Where do you do it — in a dedicated LEGO space, sitting on the couch, at the dining room table? Do you have anybody to help you?

As I mentioned earlier this week, I’m going through a major sorting phase, largely because my collection had outgrown the system I’d been using, and any creation not based entirely on a pre-sorted Bricklink order became painfully time-consuming.

Well, I started by taking apart the LEGO sets (and any models I don’t want to keep) that I’d built but never disassembled over the past three or four years, and dumped it all in bins. Next, my wife and visiting mother-in-law kindly volunteered to pre-sort what I’d taken apart into bricks (“Aren’t they all bricks?”), plates (“flat bits”), slopes (“slopey bits”), and “everything else.” (World Cup soccer and Seattle Mariners baseball have been good background entertainment for all of us.) When we had enough of each of these, I then “sub-sorted” into finer categories, like regular, inverted, and curved slopes.

The two major lessons I’ve learned so far from my ongoing sorting are that every extra pair of hands helps, and that the pre-sort/sub-sort approach gets pretty much everything but the “fiddly bits” where they belong fairly quickly. It’s also clear that you can never have enough clear storage bins…

So, dear readers, how have you overcome that mountain of unsorted LEGO?

It’s all a matter of perspective

Perspective can be the difference between a decent photo of a good creation, and something fantastic. Take the photo below by Mike Yoder, for example. He’s taken a photo of his diorama from a perspective that makes it feel truly immersive. There are a few elements in the close foreground to frame the rest of what we can see, which is action in the near ground as well as some interesting detail in the distance.

This makes me want to build a diorama to take photos of some of my space ships in. It’s a real encouragement to step it up.

If I were in miniland, I’d live in a Victorian house by Rae

Rae McCormick’s (SoftaRae) newest Victorian house not only features a beautifully textured sand blue exterior, it has a cozy interior as well. For all of its details, it’s no wonder why this creation won the Best Large Building award at Brickworld.

Dive Shop

Rarely is orange seen in MOCs of any type, but MOCpages builder Brian Lyles put it to good use. The simple storefront makes way for a good interior. Not overdone on the details, this building is a great display of architecture.

Corroded Angel

Just so you know, we don’t feature action figures on the blog. What you’re looking at is another brilliant Lego creation by Brian Kescenovitz (mondayn00dle). The wings are made from Technic links, which seem to have more uses than being stuck to the bottom of a tank.

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