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The LEGO Treehouse

Monday, July 20th, 2020

I got this for my birthday (Thanks J & J!) and about a month ago started to build it:

It’s a massive kit, with 3000+ pieces and a 428 page manual with 894 assembly steps.

I like to build these things slowly, a few hours at a time, and this kit was well suited to that. The first part I finished was the trunk:

Note the little touches like the swing and birdhouse. The engineering that went into the LEGO pieces wrapping around the trunk with the studs facing out is very clever, and the whole thing is rock-solid strong to support the weight of the rest of the structure.

Next came the three ‘houses’:

These were the most fun to build due to the incredible detail inside. Here’s closeups of one of the bedrooms and the bathroom:

Next came the (detachable) roofs and some detail at ground level:

It’s a little obscured in the photo but the winding staircase from the ground up to the treehouse level is extraordinary. See also the ‘suspended’ walkway that wraps around the trunk connecting two of the houses.

Here’s a detail of the table at ground level:

The final step was to add the canopy:

The leaves are made of recycled plants; a preview of LEGO of the future perhaps (since they want to move away from plastic). The set comes with summer and fall leaf colours, and can be changed with the seasons:

This is an amazing kit. The engineering is first-class, it’s great fun to build and it looks incredible on display. This is the sort of kit that would have kept Bernard and I busy for months as kids, and I dare say there’s a lot of younglings enjoying the hell out of this today!

If you like LEGO and have some cash needing to be spent, you can’t go wrong with this one 🙂

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Cannon Bull

Saturday, June 13th, 2020

I bought the above in Japan in January. I vacillated on the purchase since luggage space was tight but I decided in the end to make it fit.

It’s a ZOID! But not a plastic model version; this is a toy version. You still assemble it, but it’s much easier and the pieces aren’t on runners. I’ve done one like this before, but they still make and sell new ones and this one seemed to be a new release.

Assembly was trivial, but I was surprised to see (since I apparently didn’t bother looking closely at the packaging) that it has a battery powered motor in it! I selected this kit for its appearance though, and think it looks quite nifty.

That’s the finished product. According to the ZOIDs wiki this is a medium sized ‘buffalo type’ weapons platform that has a mass of 50.4 tonnes and carries a 9-barreled missile pod for long range attacks!

And there he is attacking! He moves at a good clip and the barrels of his missile launchers click as they ‘fire’.

A fun little toy. Next time I’m in Japan I’ll be picking myself up another one of these I reckon…

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Death Stinger

Saturday, February 29th, 2020

With my birthday fast approaching I figured it was time to catch up on old birthday gifts… like this guy:

That’s a silly-big model kit of a robot scorpion ZOID! Do I know anything about ZOIDs? Not really, but they look cool and this is one of the coolest. I got this kit for my birthday 2 (?) years ago and dedicated myself to completing it before this birthday. So I did!

The box is massive. Here’s what was inside:

So many runners! So many pieces! And yet the instruction manual wasn’t the biggest I’d seen in a kit, mostly since there’s a lot of repetition.

Assembly wasn’t particularly difficult, but took me 4 weekends working maybe 5 hours at a time. As I reach my dotage I find that my developing arthiritis tends to make these tasks a little trickier, and Kotobukiya kits are harder than Bandai ones because they don’t shy away from very small pieces and complex connections.

Luckily I had assistance to help with the complex bits:

I’ll spare you the interim photos and get right to the finished piece:

It’s impressive isn’t it? It’s also quite massive; easily the biggest kit I’ve assembled. I’d say it’s about 10 inches from front to back (with the tail folded up) and wider than my outstretched palm. There’s an insane amount of articulation: not only do all the limbs and guns move but you can even open lots of the flaps and vents (probably to emulate cooling systems) which can make it even bigger than it is here. Here’s the scorpion head when you open up the head armour:

It was a lot of fun to build and looks great in our glass cabinet. I wouldn’t recommend this kit though since it’s a) way too expensive and b) not ideal for a beginner. If you like the look of ZOIDs start with a smaller kit, or even better a toy version since those are much less pricey.

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Lunar Module

Sunday, November 24th, 2019

As soon as I saw the above in the LEGO store window I had to have it.

It was built in three stages; the lunar surface first:

Of course I had ‘help’ 🙂

The descent stage was next, and was a lot of fun to build including a lot of ‘metallic’ parts.

It also contains lots of little details, including a tiny model laser reflector, which I often use in examples during one of my lectures!

The finished Lunar Module:

It’s a fantastic kit, and one of the most fun LEGO builds I’ve ever done. I give this my highest LEGO score 🙂

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Beading

Sunday, November 10th, 2019

Over four years ago I made a masterpiece using Perler Beads. It was a day of the highest highs and lowest lows but from the ordeal emerged what it still one of my favourite possessions.

And yet despite using 3364 beads that day it was only a tiny fraction of the beads we had bought! Perler Beads, purchased in bulk, are cheap and I had tens of thousands remaining! And in time – now and then over the intervening years – I have used them for what they are most often used for: making physical models of game sprites!

The process is somewhat laborious to be honest, but it’s a fun diversion every year or so and the results usually look ok. Ironing them to melt the beads together is still the irritating part, since it’s difficult to get them regularly melted. Color matching can be iffy too, at least for me since I just use what I have.

The above was made using very tiny beads and the finished invader is only about 2 cm wide. As you can see I melted him thoroughly so you can’t even see the holes in the beads any more. I think he looks good!

For most of these I superglue magnets on the back and they live on our metal doors. The lower left frog was an original creation made by JK (and also uses tiny beads) and the squirrel – which is quite large – was originally made for my mum but due to fragility I haven’t brought it to Australia for fear of it breaking!

That’s a black mage from Final Fantasy. He took longer than I expected and almost fell to pieces during ironing. My heart skipped a few beats!

For a couple of years now I’ve entertained the thought of doing another large scale project, albeit not as big as The Masterpiece. But then I recall that 7-hour nightmare and reconsider 🙂

But who knows… maybe one day I’ll get to it…

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