The dark side of the brick

On the same theme as my earlier post, this evening I took apart the Venator-class Republic Attack Cruiser ( 8039 ), mainly because it was taking up quite a bit of shelf space.  I actually quite like this set and I like it more than the similarly sized ISDs.   What's to like: It looks pretty good (not as good as Anio's version but that's UCS scale) Lots of play features (I particularly like the bomb bay) An unusually good Palpatine figure (the big eyes from this period actually work on this minifig) Some good rare bricks It's pretty robust and I like the way that the front section hinges up  

Having created shelf space with the deconstruction of the Slave Is, I've spent much of the last week sorting bricks and rejigging my storage.  I'm in fact almost at the point where I have enough shelf space to contemplate building sets in anger again - I must have 10 sets still to build as I've barely started on the 2022 releases and still have several left over from last year. To help create space, I'm going to take apart my remaining mid-sized star destroyers.  I've written about the two UCS sets here when I took those down. I thought I'd already posted about 6211 and 75055 and didn't write about them when I deconstructed them a few weeks back.  In an oversight, I didn't even taken any photos!  To be fair, while both are pretty good playsets, I don't love either.  Not really sure why but I just found them bland.  And 6211, while looking ok for its time, feels really flimsy.  So, on to today's deconstruction: the First Order Star Destroyer ( ...

I've been trying to clear some shelves on one side of the cupboard of Lego because I need the space for my wedge plates, which are currently in a whole range of places.  Yesterday I took apart the Saturn V rocket ( 21309 ) which had been sat at the back of said shelf for some years (probably nearly 5 at a guess) as I think it's the set that has been made up for the longest.  In front of that was my collection of Slave I sets. By my reckoning, excluding the UCS edition, there are 4 "large" versions and 3 smaller ones.  The oldest is 7144 from way back in 2000.  Dating from the days of limited brick pallettes (both types cand colours), this one rocks a green and brown vibe.  It's actually a pretty similar size to the latest version ( 75312 ) which is now renamed "Boba Fett's Starship" presumably in an attempt to be politically correct and the version that came with Betrayal at Cloud City ( 75222 ).  And the old 2000 edition only has a tiny 166 bricks!...

Last weekend saw me deconstruct 75192 but this week seems to have gone by without much Legoing.  That's perhaps not quite true as I bought most of the parts for two MOCs which I'll finish off and build at some point in the next couple of weeks. However, tonight's challenge is to deconstruct the three largest non-UCS TIE fighters:  9492 from 2012 with 413 parts 75101 (First Order Special Forces TIE) from 2015 with 530 parts 75211 (Imperial TIE fighter) from 2018 with 519 parts All of these look and feel quite similar, mainly due to the fact that they all share the same basic wing design.  As such, they're all exactly the same height and depth.  That said, they are all very slightly different widths, with each slightly wider than the previous iteration. They all come with excellent detail packed in to a relatively small number of bricks and interestingly the 2018 set returns to the old printed 4x4 hatch dish that hadn't featured for years.  Equally, all have ex...

Rebrickable tells me that I have 376,313 parts.  Today, that is.  I've not loaded in the 2022 sets that I've got sitting waiting for some shelf space to be created before I build them.  And of course I'm not going to stop buying for now at least. So, how to store all of this plastic?   Obviously, over half is still built up (my spreadsheet tells me that I'm 38% through the grand deconstruction effort) but I want to be able to find parts again in the future.  I've always gone for the ziplock plastic bags to store parts in and fortunately years of bricklink purchases have given me quite a stock of these.  Generally speaking, I now split down by part type AND colour, except where I only own a few of a combination.  That's nearly 13,000 part/colour combinations, apparently. So, how to store these?  My original solution was a combination of Really Useful boxes and some strong cardboard boxes from Ikea.  However, they were quite expensive....

Many years ago, I did an engineering undergraduate degree and my closest contemporary through all the different options was Matt.  We share a love of science fiction and, as adults, a rediscovered passion for Lego.  He claims that he's trying to educate his daughters but I doubt that they share his passion for the biggest and most complex technic sets.  I pretend no such excuses and freely admit that this is my own mid-life crisis aversion tactic. A while back, Matt whatsapped me a photo of the lime green Lambo Sian ( 42115 ) and told me that it was by far the better build when compared to the Chiron.  I'm somewhat behind the times on these sets - I typically wait until I can get a deal which is at least 35% off but eventually, I got the Sian back before Christmas.  It was my plan to make it over the Christmas vacation but in the end we did much less travelling than expected and once I was home, I settled into deconstruction.  A long weekend away in late Ja...

It's been over a month since I last posted on the blog that no-one reads!  I need to message the blogger.com admins and work out why I'm not getting found on google searches (I've allowed robo mappers!).   Anyway, most of what I've done has been relatively boring deconstruction of sets I've already talked about, though I'll go back through a couple of builds and sets I've not talked about in a bit.  Today, though, I pulled all of the Jedi starfighters off the shelf to deconstruct.  By this I mean the Delta-7 Aethersprite -class light interceptor and not the Eta-2 Actis-class light interceptor that Lego generally terms "Jedi interceptor".  Except when that one is called a "starfighter"...  It's confusing!!! Anyway, Lego have released 9 of the starfighters to date, by my reckoning and, having put them all side by side, I come to the conclusion that they are, as a package, things of beauty! There is a great range of colours and decor an...

Back in the day, Lego TIE fighters were blue.  I've never understood this design choice from Lego as I don't believe that they ever featured much blue in them in the films!  Still, it doesn't look too bad and they now form a distinct subgenre in the Lego Star Wars universe.  Anyway, I reckon there were a total of 8 unique sets, though some of these appeared multiple times in different sets.  Here's my list: 7150 : TIE flighter (with Y-wing) from way back in 1999.  This is actually a Darth Vader (or Advanced) TIE and did indeed come with Darth himself.  Very simple.  Later reappeared in 7152 and 7262. 7146 : TIE fighter from 2001.  This one came with a TIE pilot and a standard stormtrooper but usefully a stan to precariously balance it on 4479 : TIE bomber from 2003.  This one really harks back after 7150.    10131 : TIE fighter collection (2004).  This introduced a new version of the Darth Vader TIE and a slightly remodelled ve...

New sets released today - and on order.  But in the meantime, I've taken delivery of a load more plastic boxes to store all my deconstructed parts in and am continuing with the grand deconstruct: after 6 months though, I'm still only 31% of the way through the collection!  Hmm Yesterday, I started on my box of cube dudes and Brickheadz.  The cube dudes are clearly a forerunner of the brick head, sharing quite a few design features.  The dudes are, however, based on a 3x3 plan and are pretty fragile whereas the the 'headz are 4x4, plus generally two plates worth of detailing around the head.  And are much much more sturdy. At the time of writing, there are I think 18 Brickheadz out there with a 19th (Ahsoka Tano) to be released soon: 41485: Finn 41486: Captain Phasma 41489: Rey and Kylo Ren (also released as singles) 41498: Boba Fett and Han Solo in carbonite (I own a mint version of this set and it's one of the very few I will never build to retain its value) 41...

The V-wing remains one of the most mysterious of the Star Wars craft for me.  It apparently turns up in the Revenge of the Sith but I struggle to remember it in that film.  That said, compared to the original trilogy which I must have seen at least 30 times each, I've probably only watched this one 3 or 4 times and not with any attention for some years. The internet tells me that it's actually an "Alpha 3 Nimbus V-wing starfighter" made by Kuat.  No hyperdrive and an unpressurised cockpit but highly manouverable.   Lego has made three versions over the years: way back in 2006 came set 6205 with just 118 parts.  I do not think that this is Lego's finest hour: like some of the early Sith Infiltrators, the front section feels very flat.  The radiator wings also don't rotate which is a nice feature on the later versions. The fact that you only get a droid head also feels cheap to me.   Next up in 2011 was set 7915 , with 139 parts.  A sligh...