Category: Animals

The Great Wave off Kanagawa

April 23, 2023

The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai is probably the most famous Japanese work of art:

It was a woodblock print first made in 1831. About 8000 copies were eventually printed, of which about 100 remain. The remaining copies are shockingly valuable now (one recently sold for almost 3 million), but their (relative) abundance means you can see an original in many galleries around the world. We’ve seen one in Japan, and another at The Met in NYC.

And here’s a LEGO kit I bought last week! It’s the second in their LEGO art series, which seeks to reproduce famous works of art in LEGO form (the first was The Starry Night by Van Gogh).

The set has over 1800 pieces, but a few hundred are small flat circles to make up the sky and clouds! You build it in six plates which then go together to form the full image. Here’s a shot before the 3D surface elements are added:

The ‘wave effects’ cleverly use white flower and bird pieces, and it makes a clever illusion of a frothing wave, especially from a distance:

Here’s a comparison between the original print and this set, showing Fuji and some of the fishermen:

About half of the finished piece is the frame (which is optional). All told it took me about five hours to finish, and while a very easy set, was enormously satisfying and relaxing to build. It looks beautiful complete:

It’s designed to be hung on a wall, which I intend to do, but it’s somewhat large and quite heavy so I need to think carefully as to where I’ll place it. I like this even more than I expected I would. I wonder what art sets LEGO will make in the future?

Dinosaur Models!

March 25, 2023

I recently bought and assembled three dinosaur model kits. Collectively they cost me under $40, which is less than a (single) typical model kit that I usually buy.

The first was this Triceratops which seems to be part of a new line they’re calling Plannosaurus. It’s a beginners kit that allows you to build a skeleton or normal version of the beast.

The instructions are in colour and contain lots of information about the dinosaurs presented in a cute style. The kit is easy to make (you assemble the skeleton first, then if you want you put the skin on) and I finished in about half an hour.

I’m assuming this is aimed at kids, so I think that while it’s well-engineered (you barely need nippers or sand paper), I found I had to use glue to get certain pieces of the skin to stay on. Also the stickers were fiddly to attach, and I think kids would get frustrated with them quickly. But it looked great once I finished.

I also got this Tyrannosaurus kit, from the same line as the Triceratops. It’s extremely similar, only as you can see it has more parts since the assembly (and parts) is slightly different depending on whether you build the normal or ‘feathered’ version.

Here’s proof that model kits can be educational! There’s lots of this sort of thing in the instructions 🙂

I chose the ‘non-feathered’ mode since I didn’t want to put the stickers on. I think he looks even better than the Triceratops, and considering the low price I’m very impressed with the quality.

Lastly, I also made this curio: yet another Triceratops skeleton kit (also from Bandai) but made from a new non-plastic material called Limex. This is an environmentally friendly alternative made from calcium, and they’ve only used it for an extremely small amount of recent kits. This kit was extremely inexpensive at only $7!

It’s a trivial skeleton to assemble – it took me maybe 5 minutes – and the material is extremely white and seems very slightly translucent which is why it appears to glow in the photos. I think it’s well suited to a skeleton kit like this one, but I’m not sure Bandai will be switching their Gundams to Limex any time soon.

While these are all fairly simple kits, I think they were great value and for their intended audience of kids I think they’d be a big success. All three of these will go to work and be displayed on a cabinet in my office next to the other dinosaur skeleton kit I made a year or so back (and a shark kit I bought in Japan). Maybe if I get the other two Dino-related kits I’ll make and bring them to work too 🙂

Hanging With The Natives

June 9, 2022

I wanted to see a macropod, so it was off to Blackbutt I walked!

The last few times I visited, legions of mosquitos descended on me and drained me to within millilitres of death! Today however, the skies were free of the evil blighters. Even better, the car park was almost empty as well and I felt like I had the place to myself.

I ran into this phasianidae preening himself between some trees. He became interested in me when I started snapping shots but I think it’s because he mistook my phone for a snack! I ran away when he got too close 🙂

I saw these pelodryadidae’s hanging in a tank in the nocturnal house. There was a bunch of them chilling together, and they didn’t care a whit for my attention. They were quite large, and to be honest a little creepy in the dark!

The two phascolarctidae were sleeping as they do, forming almost perfect furry balls on their tree perches. I watched them for a while, looking for signs of life, but saw nothing. They may have been fake, for all I could tell!

The vombatidae on the other hand was most definitely alive! He was scurrying around looking for sweet potatoes (I saw the keeper hide one behind a plant) and seemed quite happy in the cool air. I took this photo from above and he looks smaller than he was, which was about a metre long!

But what about the macropods? The sole reason (not really) I visited Blackbutt! Did I see any?

The answer is that yes I did, quite a few in fact, although always from a distance. I also saw two having a funny slap-fight, which I found very cute and amusing.

Afterwards I continued walking to the mall for lunch, and then back home. It was a leisurely five hour walk, and a nice way to relax after the madness of the city.

Robot Claw