De-Classic-Space

I recently bought some Arealight Twi’leks and I thought I’d share some quick photos of them!

They are very well moulded, have great colour matching, and the printing is excellent. The waisted torso is an especially cool concept that I wish TLG would do; if you’re going to print breasts and hips you might as well use a different piece! You can find more photos of these lovely ladies on the Arealight Flickr page.

Here you can see inside the torso. It’s much the same as the TLG parts, but with a hip. I’ve given it a few test squeezes and it seems strong.

What appears to be a moulding mark is visible at certain angles. It isn’t overly noticeable normally.

“Two against one? No fair!”

As a bit of trivia, all of the Twi’leks are based off “real” characters.

White: Lyn Me, Max Rebo Band dancer in Return of the Jedi Special Edition.
Blue: Aayla Secura, Jedi Master.
Red: Darth Talon, Sith Apprentice in Star Wars: Legacy comics. (Never read so I don’t know any more.)
Orange: Ayy Vida, General background nobody in Attack of the Clones that someone seems to like a lot. (She’s supposed to be yellow and red.)
Green: Oola, The rancors lunch.

Also I bought some hair and a blank torso .

Looks very standard on the inside. It’s hard to see but there seems to be a “makers mark” on the inside of the inverted stud. A stylised “A” and “L”?

Some of the hair pieces have a relatively obvious mould mark on the top. (You can see it in this photo.) It isn’t a major concern though, and I suspect it’ll improve with handling/fondling.

Even so, I highly recommend Arealight’s work.

In the time before time there was the Whack-A-Fig contest… and here is the long promised sequel! For years Hinckley has been traumatised by memories of this walrus wedgie wiener whack incident…

…and today his revenge will be complete.

Hinckley steals the Blue Bucket and tells Sinner / Siegfried / That Walrus where it is. It’s such an obvious trap, but the buckets lure is irresistible, and he doesn’t know that attached to it is a fridge full of Ice Cube Trays….

Now it’s your turn for revenge; go here for more details!

I was reading story about VASIMR and I was rather surprised by the quotes. In particular Franklin Chang-Diaz, who is credited as creating the VASIMR concept said;

They were mesmerized by the Apollo days and lived in the Apollo era for 40 years, and they just forgot developing something new

I think this statement is rather harsh, not to mention deceptive. Due to their low budget, NASA has been focused on Earth orbit missions ever since the 80s, and thus have been using more traditional booster methods, such as solid rockets and cryogenic rocket engine. There simply hasn’t been the money (or much reason) for research like this as by their own admission VASIMR is simply not suitable for these roles as it is designed for long term thrust in vacuum and its power to weigh ratio is too low.

I’m not really sure what game he’s playing there, but since he is CEO of the Ad Astra Rocket Company and all they do is develop the VASIMR, his motivations are suspect. Annoying several websites have published what reads like a PR release without much editing.

Personally I see this research as interesting and useful, but no where near as useful as a Space Shuttle replacement… something VASIMR will need to progress from an experiment to a practical technology. Research into technology like mass drivers, Scramjets and fusion power makes more sense.

Prior to coming out of the closet I used any excuse I could to build “needed” stuff out of LEGO. A breast pump was one… and fish tank decorations was another. This was back in 2004 and I had got into fish keeping (it’s a long sad story) so…

..while the tank was stabilising I made some decorations. Note for one how lame they are (it was my childhood LEGO, that’s my excuse, and I’m sticking with it!), and secondly how clean they are. Fast forward just three months…

…and you can see that it doesn’t take long for stuff to start growing on it…

…and trust me; it’s a lot of work to get off. I still have some pieces that I can’t get clean.

As a free bonus, he’s another picture of my (now dead) Oscar Cichlid, Bargearse. This guy used to eat food out of my hand; I’d hold it about 5 centimeters (2 inches for Yank types) above the tank and he’d (OK, “he” could have been a she) grab it out of my hand, sometimes my finger as well. He was big too; about 15 centimeters (6 inches)! He especially loved eating smaller fish and like many Oscars he showed interest in the outside world. When I entered the room he got all excited and started expecting food and if I opened my mouth near the tank he would too. Quite remarkable for such a relatively small fish. Most cichlids seem quite smart… and most are trouble makers too!

While on the subject of fish, I did try to combat the algae with…

…bristlenose catfish. They did a good job at keeping the sides clean…

…but they didn’t show much interest in LEGO care. Look to the bottom right; it’s that submarine….Cool fish though, probably my second favorite. For the most part they were quite reclusive fish and I suspect that’s why they were selective cleaners. Sometimes I’d not see them for a week and I’d think they all died.

Here’s how to convert a Rock Monster keyring to just a Rock Monster. Grasp the keyring firmly and pull! You expected more? OK…

The key thing that I wanted to share is he’s not glued. I thought he was from the start so the first thing I did was try to crack the “seal” as I was concerned that I’d break the head if it was fixed from the inside. But this achieved nothing but damaging the poor fellow as I found that the mouth did lift a bit, just enough to show me that he’s moulded different to the regular figs. As you can see in the photo they’ve added an extra tube inside so they can use the normal pin and that’s how they kept the mouth closed.

The hole in the head is without glue as well. So all you need to do is pull/twist it out!

So there you are. A “new” Rock Monster minifig ready for…. dunno. He needs some love eh? Anyone know what colour paint Dark Grey is?

I at last got around to adding the page for The Luvly Laady. Also, Classic-Pirates were kind enough to blog the Luvly Laady too!

Voting is going on now, but being a Sci-Fi MOC in a Pirate Forum I don’t rate my chances too high! (I don’t go too well in contests actually… maybe I should get a new hobby?)

Finishing it will be delayed until I need her. I have at least three MOCs needed for the next two parts…

I received a new order from S@H today and among other things (including the Imperial Flagship) I also got a free Atlantis key ring. It’s good timing too as…

…my old one is looking worse for wear. I’ll have to try and clean up the poor little guy. I’m even considering getting some paint…

This’ll be the last preview as I’ll post it on EB soonish.

Here’s some interior and detail shots.

In this image I was experimenting with long exposures, around 10 seconds in this case. I was trying to make the lights more dominant. I succeeded there, but the rest is a bit grainy as a result. I still like the shot though.

The MOC isn’t finished, but it’s for a contest on Eurobricks so I’m out of time. More soon…