twee affect

They didn't even ask for an interview!

2012-01-27T08:30:00.004Z

Contrary to our express directions, people continued to build LEGO in our absence. The nerve of you all! Rather than attempt a recap of the last 6 months, we think it safe to assume that nothing at all interesting was built, save for the rare jewels Matty and Erik have been finding. Let's just scroll through flickr and see if there is anything of note. ... ... ...

What in the hell? There are a bunch of floating rocks! Who do these people think they are? What the what? There's a whole contest? And it's being judged by people that are objectively bad at building? And there was some sort of old-timey publication (on paper) having to do with steampunk?

But phew, dear readers, our supremacy has not been suppressed. The floating rock entries are almost all uniformly terrible. Some are true head-scratchers. Better luck next time, kiddies! (BURPs can be truly dangerous in the wrong hands.)

Anyway if there is one bright spot, it's this micro-scale ditty by Titolian:

The bookish homesteader is apparently a belt & suspenders & overalls fellow, utilizing the trifecta of ~magical~ rocks, lighter-than-air balloons, and enormous propellors to ensure he never has to touch the tainted earth again. Bravo.

P.S. This train is adorable.

LEGO Isn't Sexist, You Are

2012-01-24T06:44:00.002Z

On a recent flight, your erstwhile intrepid author picked up the December 19th Bloomberg magazine, cover story LEGO's Billion Dollar Girl. Alas, the wider world apparently did not read the article, judging by the responses on LEGO forums & blogs, and the "mainstream" medias.

If they had, perhaps they wouldn't be making petitions and boycotts and other overly dramatic gestures. (Overly dramatic: I'd expect such from the girls and gay boys the products are marketed to, not responsible adults.)

Let's look at an interview with one petition's co-sponsor, ~~unemployed person~~ freelance writer Bailey Shoemaker Richards (would that we all had such suitably artsy three-part names)

Well, I think part of the problem with Lego's marketing is that it's very market research based. I mean, they've looked at what is going to sell to girls, so when you market pink princesses and beauty to girls from the time they're infants, by the time they're in Lego's target market for this line, which is about five and up, they're going to associate pink, pretty, you know, this very specific gender role with what they think they're supposed to be playing with. It's all they've been marketed their entire lives, so of course, that's what Lego's marketing research is going to find.

Eloquently put, Bailey Shoemaker Richards! "Their marketing is very market-based."

LEGO did extensive market research (source: bloomberg article) in creating the line, which resulted in a product that is "girly." Apparently, LEGO was supposed to, upon determining what sells, design something more "progressive" and glare at girls until they realize the errors of their pink-loving ways. "You just like that because you are brainwashed! You—7 year old—stop liking what you do, and like this other thing because I have an ax to grind! I have opinions and don't have children of my own to force them upon!"

The problem that we have with that is that it doesn't really mesh with Lego's core values in their mission statement about wanting to create innovative products that help kids develop creativity. I mean, this fails that on all counts.

LEGO is a product that can develop creative ability in children. Before, girls weren't playing with LEGO at all. This product will attract more girls. This could mean more girls develop creatively. This is a failure on all counts. Oh.

Other Minor Rants:
1. Don't let 4 year olds watch TV! If your argument is that girls only like pink because of marketing, don't expose them to marketing. Hell, don't even discuss gender.
2. Young girls and boys aren't the same, and it's foolish to demand identical toys. There is a mountain of research demonstrating the differences between the way girls learn and develop and the way boys learn and develop. It stands to reason that different toys would appeal to one gender more than another. Whether this translates to Blue Truck/Pink Flower is beyond our purview, but the drive for hyper-equality is fundamentally misguided.

GENERAL PURPOSE SPECIAL DUTY

2012-01-24T03:15:00.003Z

Swoofty is one of the best train builders in the community. Look at his new my own creations.

Set Review: LEGO's CITY: CARS' : 4434 "Dump Mater"

2012-01-22T05:21:00.008Z

Presenting to you an informative review of #4434 Dump Mater. I went shopping recently and picked up 4434, one of several in the great lineup of Lego City vehicle kits in the $20 range. Perhaps a second trip to the toy aisles is in order.

I cringe at the "Modular Build, Easy Start" phrase Lego has been stamping on the back of its boxes. The bad taste in my mouth has been subdued upon realizing that this does not pertain to "juniorization", but rather the simple numbering of baggies to designate which pieces belong to which assemblies.

Hahah, forget that. I'm a romantic.

That means I like making things more difficult than they should be. Yeah, make a big mess. Also, bonus points for carpet building!

As it turns out, this MOC of Lego's is actually quite far from "juniorized". There is hardly a prefabricated piece in all of the 222 pieces, unless you want to count the 2 x 6 x 2 windshield or the 4 x 6 x 2/3 sloped panel thingy or the fenders.

In fact the entire truck bed is assembled using these panels, no prefab, this is not rock raiders!

I wish I had SNOT bricks marketed to me when I was younger. Lego's CITY: CARS has come a long way from all that terrrrible shit I had to grow up with.

Here is the assembled Dump Mater. It is a very nice vehicle kit. You can purchase it with the confidence knowing that the colors are indeed what you perceive them to be; that is orange there, not light orange, nor dark orange, nor burnt orange, nor earth orange, nor dark nougat. Just orange.

If there is something I miss from my juvenile days, it is the inspirational images on the back of the box. I understand those have been put down as a result of complaints from parents along the lines of, "my child is too unimaginative to backwards engineer this teasing imagery, even though that is kind of the point of purchasing this construction toy". The learning is in the elements, folks.

Regardless, even without taunting, inspirational box art, I am furnished with the ability to just imagine and see beyond the Dump Mater, beyond the MOC.

I see... a Mechwarrior!

I AM OPIUM'S PRIME

Such are the highs and lows of perusing Brickshelf

2012-01-14T16:13:00.013Z

Upon my first viewing of the box art of Lego's latest recreation of the Star Wars X-Wing, I saw little I would be interested in purchasing or assembling. However, after seeing the model assembled and photographed without gratuitous editing, I have changed my mind. It is a much sleeker model than the 2004/06 version. Despite questionable color blocking it is very well detailed. Mike's is still superior, but that is beside the point.

More evidence of higher production standards is SNOT 180. There are a number of AFOLs who could not pull this off! However, this raises the question: If such building techniques can appear in a set belonging to a Lego toyline aimed primarily to boys, can they not also be incorporated into playsets marketed to the female population? Is just it that girls simply incapable of such engineering? Does the stable include manure? (though to be fair 3065 exhibits an admirable level-of-detail.) Surely this cannot be the message, or so we can hope!

or phosphites--whichever it is

2012-01-13T19:54:00.006Z

I believe the term is "separate but equal". Yes, we are touching on this subject again because our opinion matters, especially to the Lego corporation, and if we talk about it enough we might change its mind.

Surely you have read elsewhere, dear reader, that what the Lego corporation is doing is not necessarily "bad" because ~~evil pieces of shit~~ marketing has shown that girls do indeed prefer pink, purple, and being reminded of their future role in the domestic sphere. Do remember that this is true only in "western" cultures and those "influenced" by them and that, just like any religion, should "western" cultures be wiped out, none of them would reemerge as they once were. Growing up, little girls (or anyone) don't know what they like. They "like" pink because society tells them that they like pink. The Lego corporation might not explicitly tell little girls how to behave or what to like, but by producing sets like these, the Lego corporation helps to perpetuate these harmful gender roles.

anything except you and me

2012-01-07T23:26:00.005Z

Tired of reading words? Here's a spaceship to look at. Bros-brix founder Andrew Becraft graces us with this micro-space tanker. It is a relief to see well done, believable greebles.

So I take phosphates

2012-01-04T21:52:00.007Z

Recently the parts of the AHOL community has been at odds with itself over the new "Friends" theme. Some (correctly) feel that certain aspects of the line perpetuate prescribed, damaging images to young girls while others (incorrectly) think that they are just overreacting. Fan made pictures like the above really reinforce the former's argument. We have chosen to remove its author, about whom we could say a great number of not so nice things, from our contacts and hope that you chose to as well.

The sets are indeed a bountiful supply of new colors and parts never released in other colors, but why could Lego not introduce them in other lines? Most Star Wars sets are nothing but shades of grey with a few tiles or slopes thrown in for highlights; police and fire sets are just white, red, and blue ad infinitum. The insides of most larger Star Wars sets are various primary colors, why not sprinkle in brighter, different colors so that, when the child takes apart the set, he or she has more options? No city's public vehicle liveries are the same and who is to say that Lego can not make up its own? Lego need not prescribe colors to certain lines because of what "marketing" says. Lego is a system; it should try to make its sets as versatile as possible so that, regardless of the child's sex, he or she will want to play with Lego bricks.

places like this with people like these

2012-01-03T07:26:00.002Z

Much like families coming together at Thanksgiving, it is easy to put down people who make resolutions for the new year simply because it is a new year but, once one ages and everyone around him starts to die, it becomes more and more difficult to get out of bed; the meanings that we attribute to arbitrary days make it easier for us to do things. The previous year at Twee Affect was quite a year! We brought you live coverage from Brickcon 2011, some blaggers stopped blagging, others started to blag only to stop shortly afterward, and we, ourselves, kept the blag, barely, alive. We hope that you, dear readers, enjoyed reading our musings as much as we enjoyed writing them and that you will continue to do so in the coming year.

What are your resolutions, dear readers? Is it to play with your legos more? To exercise more? To convince the legos corporation that your ideas matter? Post your resolutions in the valued opinions section of this poast.

MOC the Rainbow

2011-12-28T21:25:00.007Z

I was having a conversation with Matty about camouflage in Lego. The conclusion was reached, that for the most part, camouflage is something best not attempted. I had discovered this firsthand when building my Tiger II, which Matty featured a few blag poasts back. A couple of Lego models have stood out to me as successful in application of camouflage, the most recent of which:

Suitable for winter combat, I see. Seasonal, I like it.

But all too often My Own Creators settle for the easy ~~pallets~~ ~~palates~~ palettes , the available, the been-done. Grey grey grey grey, and more grey. Each model has its merits (certainly better models than others), but you can only look upon variations of the same killing machine for so long before demanding something with more spunk, more flavour. Slapping some mechwarrior legs on it can alleviate the boredom for a time, but what the Lego's Military sphere needs is color. The following machines of war display both aesthetic funsies as well as color:

Both Hopeso009 and Lord Dane also demonstrate terrific camera/photoshop ability. Wow!

And by color I do not mean tan (or as I say, beige, as I never hesitate to pronounce a soft 'G') because all that is is expensive.

ARE YOU LISTENING

2011-12-24T07:57:00.002Z

The days now grow longer and we here at twee affect wish you a very merry Christmas! Did y'all get any legos? Poast a valued opinion if you got any legos.

Friction, Baby

2011-12-22T02:02:00.004Z

It is my opinion that flickr user Karwik is very well-versed in the putting together of lego's blocks.

Far too able for stickers, he has created the unique "V" pattern by putting lego's blocks together in ways that they were meant to, provided you are O.K. with cutting flex. Even the upside down 1 x 1 slopes are attached, not merely held in with gravity. Also, a steampunk:

Is that crate green? Or is it light green? This question would have to be answered by Matty.

weight

2011-12-18T05:40:00.002Z

Our own Erik built this WWII era tank. It is a good my own creation. We especially like the complex angles that he achieved above the tracks. Be sure to also check out his new train.

Language Credits

2011-12-17T04:23:00.009Z

why are you only taking Spanish 1 now why

Upon web-digging I found My Own Creator, Pablo Gonzalez, hails from Ourense, Spain. The city has a nickname, "Terra da Chispa" or "Land of the Spark", for its knife and edged tool sharpeners. He has My Own Created a steam-powered version of the peddled contraption an "afiladore" would have used to sharpen cutting edges:

It is evident that this MOC adheres to the brown-and-pearl-gold doctrine, with brown standing in for wood and pearl gold standing in for the melted-down fillings of captured baby polar bears. Contrary to popular belief, in real life these were not ideal materials from which to build functional machinery. However, Gonzalaz is commended for his incorporation of real steam engine components, such as the flywheel and the governor, that other "steampunk" Lego MOCs are built without. As a person who has been around functioning steam-powered equipment in real life, these elements are quite appreciable.

UR MEME SO FAT

2011-12-11T17:39:00.009Z

that's pronounced, "mee-mehz". vol I.

it's pronounced, "memes" -Jacob

PAVLOV'S DOGS HAVE HOLES IN THEIR CHEEKS

2011-12-09T22:01:00.008Z

In the past few years several AHOLs have become designers for Lego: Pierre Normandin, Mark Stafford, and Adrian Florea, just to name a few. These AHOLs remain active in the online community, and are able to learn what the community wants. We have seen direct efforts from them to include certain parts in certain colors and even pay tribute to deceased fans. While this certain privilege that we now enjoy is excellent, it is not good enough.

Just look at this microscale X-Wing that appears in the new advent calender. It is absolutely horrible. The slope on the nose is completely wrong. How can they expect us fans to buy this garbage? Having AHOLs working for us at Lego might as well account for nothing with this trash that they try to sell us. Sets, especially Star Wars, are becoming more and more expensive for poor designs. Does Lego really expect us to buy these building toy sets just for the parts that they contain? We here at twee affect demand answers.

smoke pourin out of a boxcar door

2011-12-08T07:16:00.006Z

It is no secret that we have an irrational bias toward ~~liberal media~~ six wide trains, but that does not mean that we will ignore blaggable seven wide content when it comes our way. This european style boxcar by brickshelf user langemat caught our attention. It has that perfect balance between detail, texture, and clean lines that we strive for in our own models. langemat has even provided us with a cad file, so check out some other angles in ldview and/or build your own!

Who is this? What's your operating number?

2011-12-05T20:04:00.009Z

huh who is this guy i thought he was some sort of underage astronaut or something i dont know

Erik's rule of the day is: when in doubt re-build it five or six times. Such dedication is shown by flickr user Aurore Ampersand Aube, aka W9GFO. As a fellow builder I can begin to imagine the thoughts that must have passed through his mind, such as "would it look better if I were to rotate this cheese slope 90 degrees" or "what if I used a 2x3 wedge plate here instead of a 2x4 wedge plate?" Such attention to detail is a true mark of ~~obsessiveness~~ passion on the part of the My Own Creator. His passion is evident in the quality My Own Creations that Ampersand Aube has posted for viewing on his flickriver.

Upon further observation it appears half-pins have been used to secure a few elements on the belly, a slightly taboo solution. However this can be overlooked thanks to the otherwise steadfastness to traditionalist doctrine. Notice the lack of rubber bands, clip connections, and other grey-area impurities.

That's right kids, Legos® blocks brought to you by studs since 1949.

Even mighty Legos® to has attempted to rebuild some of its own My Own Creations, as evident in the multitudes of different fire trucks and police cars that have been available. In an effort to keep with the times as well as appease joe fanboy, Legos® has gone to re-design the iconic Star Wars©®™ spaceships over the years. Don Solo of The Brothers Bothan reviews the Millennium Falcon III, click the image to read:

Mind the gaps kid, or else you'll find yourself floating home.

wheeee

weaksauce

2011-12-05T19:29:00.003Z

One must sacrifice many details when building small, motorized my own creations.

a day changes everything

2011-11-28T20:04:00.002Z

Technology improves more and more every day. Things that were once science fiction, are now gadgets that will end up in a for profit thrift store in ten years, priced at far more than they are even worth in scrap. One such example is flickr user bellis6's 1:1 replica of a diesel engine powered dart launcher. Just like in the real thing, the exhaust doubles as a clip. Be sure not to wear synthetic fibers, your pocket might melt!

Advocating cannibalism

2011-11-24T03:34:00.003Z

German AHOL nolnet shows us that he has been keeping up with current events. The world will probably forget about this disgusting example of police brutality in a week, but it is worth enjoying his clever vignette for now.

DON'T LOOK BACK, PRESS ON

2011-11-22T05:34:00.004Z

Flickr user Stephen Pakbaz built this American 4-4-0 class locomotive. The sculpting of the boiler is especially nice and it is just chock full of details, but we feel like something is missing.

Der Stiefel

2011-11-16T21:38:00.005Z

We can not remember the last time that we blagged a boat, so here is a good one that caught our attention. Be sure to look at the rest of the my own creations in de-marco's Brickshelf; they are worth your time.

Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung

2011-11-10T01:57:00.002Z

German AHOL Ben Benke has slowly been uploading pictures of his layout. It is full of details too numerous to list and point out here, so have a look through the entire gallery.

she vomits down my rental tux

2011-11-07T01:10:00.002Z

Fickr user .Tromas built this Vick's vapor rub space ship that also happens to be from the MaK universe. We really like it. We have worked with dark green in the past so we know how hard it can be to produce a decent looking model in that color. Applause!

Marching to the sea

2011-10-30T23:05:00.004Z

Erik, aka "Lemonboy" built this tank. It is a good my own creation that does not dwarf minifigs and buildings. It is not nearly as cute as other tank that he has built, but we like it nonetheless.

LEGO LOCOSHUTTLE P-11

2011-10-27T04:12:00.001+01:00

LEGO LOCOSHUTTLE P-11

This Legos train car my own creation seems to be blaggable content

2011-10-25T19:13:00.004+01:00

helos uploaded this picture eight months ago, but that will not stop us from making terrible puns because we like the seams of the well built door so much and felt strongly compelled to share it with you, dear readers. You are welcome.

If my raygun fails...

2011-10-23T17:04:00.001+01:00

...I can still bludgeon it to death with my crystal bat.

matty is a complete narcissist

2011-10-20T17:11:00.002+01:00

When there is no blaggable content, you just have to make some yourself.

re: cycling

2011-10-17T05:42:00.005+01:00

The images in media are powerful. In the form of advertisements they can convince us that diseases exist and that taking some poison can cure us of the symptoms. They also tell us how we should look, dress, and act based on constructed roles, all without explicitly saying so. Some corporations use this power to undermine the public good, others do not. Fortunately for us AHOLs, the Lego Group does the latter.

Lego recognizes that its toys influence the children who play with them. In the past Lego took a stance against its toys being violent. While this has certainly changed, Lego continues to influence its market with sets that promote environmental conscientiousness. Indeed, recycling trucks are, save for their colors and the logos on the sides, nothing new. However, with modern media, the messages sent through these sets can reach a broader audience and have a greater impact on society. More people can be exposed nigh instantaneously to the messages which Lego sends through its products.

We here at twee affect applaud the Lego group for not only creating high quality toys, but also high quality toys with high quality messages.

blagging legos

2011-10-17T00:47:00.002+01:00

Blagging Legos is a taxing endeavor. When there are no good my own creations to blag, one can easily become tired of making fun of the bad ones, especially those which the cafe corner inspired, albeit made predominately from whatever (brightly colored) brick was available in the builder's pick-a-brick. Fortunately for us, the above building is not at all like that. My own creations like it refresh the wearied blagger's soul. The texture from the technic connectors is not only inventive but great looking too. The cone piece is cleverly lined up with the rest of the roof, which admittedly could have been entirely dark red so that the builder could use a dark red cone, but we still really like the building nonetheless.

Castle? On my twee affect? It's more likely than you think.

2011-10-15T02:59:00.002+01:00

Here is an inspireing my own creation to look at. Do you see what we did there? Do you see it??? We made a pun on "spire" and "inspire"!!!

a ray of sunshine on a grey morning

2011-10-03T08:20:00.005+01:00

As twee affect's thorough investigative journalism has already informed you, a LEGO Building Elements Fan-Organized Convention has just become finished with taking place. I was there.

I found myself the only twee contributor (insofar as I do contribute to this blog) in attendance, and thus did not expect to have the pleasure of seeing any of my cohort's my own creations. However, you may or may not be aware that sometimes, a builder who cannot make it to a convention will mail his model to a friend that will display it in his absence. So, dear readers, you can imagine how lovely a surprise it was to see one of Matt's trains.

Good job, Matt, and thanks to whoever displayed it for him!

What year is it?

2011-10-03T04:04:00.004+01:00

A train show happened in Indiana. Indiana Lego Users Group (the group that thought it was a good idea to use primary red as cobble stones) members Brian Darrow and Jake Runnals show us that they are misogynistic assholes who continue to exhibit the same stack of grey legos seven years later.

a legos convention is happening

2011-09-30T22:42:00.002+01:00

it is happening in seattle

busy busy busy

2011-09-26T19:33:00.003+01:00

Autumn is here, dear readers! Things that happen in Autumn are happening; AHOLs everywhere (the US) are gearing up for some legos convention in Seattle. Our lack of poasts would rightly make you think that we too are among those AHOLs who are gearing up for a legos convention in Seattle, or perhaps even going back to school. Well, you would be wrong to think that!!! The truth is that there has not been any interesting content in what seems like decades and we can only make fun of my own creations so much until it becomes boring for you, dear readers, and for us. Anyway, look at this Mesoamerican pyramid that some European AHOL brought to some convention in Denmark. It's bad.

working title

2011-09-06T20:59:00.002+01:00

When it comes to being prolific, Karf Oohlu has a leg up on the competition.

Calling it quits

2011-09-06T04:40:00.001+01:00

I give up.

It must be a sign

2011-08-21T23:06:00.005+01:00

Recently we may or may not have rebuilt all our gondolas to be almost 7 studs wide (6.8 to be precise) because, more and more, we are starting to affect 7 wide trains. Sometimes we find ourselves admitting how nice it is to have that little bit of overhang on either side of the truck and the ability to sit lower on the trucks easily. Whenever we think these things, we remind ourselves of the inevitable outcry from the community should we start building 7 wide (hypocrisy etc). That, and the cost of converting our 20+ freight cars and 10+ locomotives.

Brickshelf user mickeymike's Class 66 is another 7 wide locomotive which makes us question our dogma. It is certainly not as highly detailed as scruffulous', but the "cleanliness" of the build makes up for this. "Cleanliness" something which we aspire for and appreciate seeing in other models. We really like how he uses road signs to matach the angle of the roof of the prototype. The roof would be more aesthetically pleasing if he had used double cheese slopes instead of regular cheese slopes, but the cost of the former probably outweighed aesthetics in his mind. The grilles on the roof are particularly interesting. We can only wonder how he accomplished such a feat. Our first guess would be rubber bands. One can see that he uses impure solutions for grabirons (gasp!), so perhaps the grilles too are impure. Oh, the humanity!

Brother Zeus

2011-08-19T17:57:00.004+01:00

Do you remember MOCpages? Neither do we. Reader Dave Kaleta reminded us of its existence when he asked us to plug some competition on MOCpages. He calls it the "MocOlympics". Apparently it is a "mega-competition". One of MOCpages' members made a trailer featuring highlights from last year. Below is a still from the image (click it to see the video).

Note how the scaled up 1x3 brick unrealistically has hollow studs. This is unacceptable. If this were an entry and twee were judging this competition, we would him him over the head with our strigils, turn his ship into a rock, and hide his city under a mountain.

A triumphant return to our birthplace

2011-08-16T04:54:00.002+01:00

Spook is home from college and, fortunately for us, decided to put some legos together.

The canals of our city

2011-08-07T19:11:00.005+01:00

The Italian Lego Users Group "ItLUG" raises the bar for cafe corner styled buildings to accompany all of their stock sets. Good job, team!

YIFF IN HELL

2011-08-06T00:26:00.003+01:00

DO YOU KNOW WHAT TODAY IS, DEAR READERS? IT'S FP40PH FRIDAY!!! FUCK YEAH!!!!!!!!!

Summer Babe

2011-07-24T06:20:00.002+01:00

Look at this fucking Venus de Milo!

No, it's not the saddest thing to know.

2011-07-22T04:24:00.003+01:00

So, as revealed online and at the San Diego Comic Convention, Lego will release a line of actions figures that are based on characters from Marvel and DC comics and similar in appearance to its current Hero Factory line. Naturally, AHOLs are already complaining about these sets. We here at twee affect wish Lego the best of luck in selling these sets. While we may never buy them ourselves, we recognize that some lines which we do not necessarily like sell better than others which we prefer and the profits from the better selling lines help to ease the cost of producing the poorer selling lines.

Qu’est-ce qu’optimisme?

2011-07-21T00:44:00.001+01:00

Apparently Brickshelf user "Sparkytron" has a future which is so bright that he has to wear shades.

Spokey Dokey

2011-07-10T04:48:00.004+01:00

Whoa bros check out this legit-ass painted desert style rock tower! If this was minecarft we would build our base on it! Have we seen this kinda thing before? That isn't this pre-stamped out baseplate? This srsly looks grate, but would probs look better with more dark orange and that nougat color, and much less dark tan, so clearly this guy needs to take out a second mortgage to fund a bigger cracklink habit. And the lil vertical stripes on the arch are driving me nuts. There is a wagon wheel, does that make this steampunk?

Oh p.s. there is another half of it.

We're gonna save the world tonight.

2011-07-10T04:38:00.004+01:00

THIS, dear readers, is how you should use cheese slopes. The only thing we could think of to improve it would be if it was the mosaicked wall of a room, cheese slopes just resting in place with gravity connections, or perhaps held together by a huge sticker on the back!

Contender

2011-07-08T04:05:00.002+01:00

Whenever we have lego hobby burnout, there is inevitably that one fantastic moc that pops up to remind us just what a great hobby this is. Thank you Magic Tuba Pixie, we needed that.

Hey, how long can you put up with these questions?

2011-07-03T07:58:00.005+01:00

Let's get personal, dear readers. Every now and then we find ourselves feeling sincere and not entirely hate-filled. When this happens we feel extremely inspired and often have some kind of revelation. This happens almost always right before we fall asleep and, because of our exhaustion, we cannot be bothered to act on this "good" feeling. Just like tying ribbons around one's fingers in more archaic times, we send ourselves an obscured little email in order to remind ourselves what it was that we felt so that we can remember it in the morning. Unfortunately, when that morning comes, we cannot be bothered to act and indeed feel even less bothered than when the original inspiration graced us. This cycle continues until we forgot what inspired us and our desire to build becomes lower than a cyclist's libido.

It is now July. What we now vaguely remember from Brickcon no longer feels like it just happened. What was it that inspired us there? We took plenty of pictures of what we thought were good MOCs (again, sometimes we do not hate everything and can genuinely like something) but none of our pictures stand out to us anymore. Was it the memory of how impressive they were in real life that inspired us? Does the impression change that drastically like the personality of an AHOL at a Lego convention? Where does inspiration come from? Is it a frozen treat like creativity? What inspires you and how do you find new inspiration, dear readers?

chewk it out

2011-07-02T06:36:00.007+01:00

Deceit is always a useful tactic in war. Many times in war one's enemy will not attack medical vehicles. What if one's enemy were so cruel as to deliberately attack vehicles carrying wounded soldiers? It is a sick world to think of, but flickr user Slicersuit provides us with an example of just that. His somewhat recently built ambulance is disguised as an APC to confuse the aforementioned inhumane enemies who would otherwise attack the ambulance because it carries soldiers whose legs have been blown off. Fortunately for this soldier, his legs were recovered and can probably be reattached once his comrades find his hips.

This poast is important

2011-06-25T05:53:00.001+01:00

If we were you, dear readers, we might glaze over some of our more wordy poasts too. We implore you to let this be the exception because we have serious things to talk about. Often we criticize other builders for not actually attaching pieces in their Lego MOCs. Sometimes we even care so much as to create a flickr group dedicated to showcasing MOCs that meet our expectations of how people should play with their toys.

One of our newest readers Dave Kaleta just poasted this picture of a microscale building. It appears to be a power plant, but that does not matter. If you look closely, you will notice the radioactive symbol made out of cheese slopes and other irrelevant parts. Normally we, to say the least, abhor this way of building, since nearly no one bothers to actually attach the Lego parts together.

Now, before you point out that the cheese slopes actually aren't attached to anything (we too would be chomping at the bit to prove matty wrong), note the trans-clear panel in the front. This keeps the parts from falling out when they are anywhere but lying down (your Lego MOC should be able to stay together no matter which direction it faces). This is a real technique called "trapping".

In conclusion, put trans-clear panels or some other trans-clear parts in front of and behind your cheese slope mosaics even if it compromises the aesthetics so that matty is happy with your MOC.

Error #9

2011-06-21T18:49:00.007+01:00

Dear readers, as brickvention 2011 drew to a close, we took heed of Adam Reed Tucker's sage PA announcement, and got the fuck out. As we execute our diaspora to the four corners of the map, wind wakers tuned so the wind may be always at our back, we take a moment to recall the highlights of the convention, like memories whisping through time.

Adam Reed Tucker, LEGO™ employee, creator of the LEGO™ Architecture series,

a mature and responsible member of the legos community

The Convention provided many a laugh, several thrills, oh and there were some pretty cool legos there too. We weren't exactly sure what was up with that raffling system, but who are we to question our illustrious and mature convention organizers? Hopefully next year the convention hall will organized more by theme, and there will be a stronger showing of mint condition Cafe Corners.

*The Commander* shows off his brickforge loot, by far the most important part of con. Our personal favorites were

the Brickarms Willies jeep set in the top right corner, and his custom engraved Brickworld brick in the bottom

Many a great builder has hammered us with inspiration, practically building our MOCs (mocks) for us, with cries of 'Why don't you build like me dammit!'

Co-blagger matty's awesome train yard, voted most under-appreciated legos train MOC 2011, and your author

trying, and failing to synthesize how in the hell he uses the SNOT technique

Well until next time, may your roads be gentle and the wind be at your back. All ships rendezvous at the next legos convention!

Your author and blog-mentor Jonesy thundering through Nebraska, dragon's flame alight,

middle fingers raised to motel rates and gas prices alike

Brickcon is over

2011-06-21T05:08:00.002+01:00

I guess we will just have to deal with it. Stay tuned for a special poast-con wrap up from special military correspondent Scooty.

Where I'm going I don't need roads so I'll leave my spaceships here.

2011-06-20T04:30:00.001+01:00

There were several other legos at Brickworld that weren't MISB town sets, and we planned to tell you all about them but god is that boring. Instead check out this floating rock.

Jacob took this photo.

It was built by a person named Ian, which we only know by looking at the moc-card, despite speaking to him (at him?). Lukas and Kevoh went up to him and started to talk about how much we like floating rocks, and he stood there silently, peering at our nametags, looking in our eyes, and smirking. It was a bit awkward, but then throughout the rest of con whenever we crossed paths he always met eyes with Kevoh and smirked. What a mystery! If you are out there Ian, say hello. Or maybe you are actually mute, in which case we recommend carrying around a little card explaining the situation.

But Kevoh managed to take this one!

Anyway it's a boss rock.

We held fast and we made it through fine

2011-06-19T20:54:00.007+01:00

Today, on this most auspicious of days, the final day where we must forge a blazing path through the ignorant public's categorizing and cubby-holing of our MOC's (pronounced "MOC's") at Brickcon 2011, We bring you the most special of special events: A Lukas Set Review™

Faker!

2011-06-19T19:59:00.000+01:00

Thank the gods! Whatever would we do if it wasn't certified authentic??

Nick Dean Has Crabs

2011-06-19T03:25:00.002+01:00

One of my favourite things about going to an In Real Life LEGO Convention is seeing an assortment of techniques and ideas to which I would not normally have been exposed.

Many people make the assumption that crenellations should be tall enough to completely obscure the soldiers behind them, but those people fail to realize that such fortifications make it very difficult for the defenders to gaze grimly across the field of perfectly kept grass to see the even ranks of enemy combatants walking with determination toward the castle gate.

A considerate action this builder has taken is to provide an example of his source material so that the viewer may verify the accuracy of his reproduction. Have at it, dear readers.

I invite you to provide a reasonable explanation for why there is the smoldering wreck of a crashed ship inside a perfectly intact geodesic dome. None exists, sorry.

They see me rollin,

They hatin,

Patrollin,

They trying to catch me riding dirty

We were aboot to die!

2011-06-19T03:16:00.001+01:00

While the primary purpose of Brickworld is to display town sets, some attendees have chosen to build things that don't come in boxes with instructions. We met one of these folks and his name is Dave Kaleta. We totes have a LEGO crush on him.

Expert photography by Jacob

He built Rivendell which is a thing we always wanted to built once we saw it in that movie. He's done a pretty good job of capturing all the elven filigree and flowers.

man Jacob can click that "take photo" button well

He also built a brickarms which has light up action of two different sorts. Ace and Gary!

But dear readers, gather close, and hold on to your socks lest they be blown the fuck off. Dearest Davey had not even heard of twee affect until Matty and Kevoh got there to learn him good. Hopefully Camp Twee's glossy name badges have helped get the word out, but we think a more direct approach is required: business cards. Even 12 year olds have them!

His models do not deserve this level of PR

A Mecha Proposal

2011-06-17T23:37:00.001+01:00

I really like good mecha. I think they are an interesting concept, and builders' various aesthetic and functional decisions can lead to some cool models.

The builder has here created a lovely example of the impossibly small-footed variety, lending it a delicate balance. This is an aesthetic choice. A functional choice, one that many people make, is to include room in the vehicle to accommodate a minifigure. This makes sense because tanks, horizontal or vertical, need pilots.

However, I would suggest members of the LEGO building community have fixated too heavily on this technical goal, and lost sight of such other practical ideals such as "the cockpit does not give the driver scoliosis" and "the cockpit does not leave the driver vulnerable to knife wounds".

IN BEFORE BRO BRICKS

2011-06-17T23:07:00.000+01:00

STAR DESTROYER EXCELSIOR

how long did it take you to build that?

2011-06-17T20:07:00.002+01:00

WOW are there a lot of cool mocs at Brickworld this year! Good thing our airships were shoved in the annex to make room for all these cool mocs!

Radical guys. Radical.

Brickcon Update!

2011-06-17T19:29:00.003+01:00

Well, dear readers! You caught us at that whiplash-y time between the pressure cooker of spring semester finals and deadlines and the fleeting drudgery of summer semester, and we admit that we were enjoying being in a stressless, expectation-free zone, holed up for three weeks rewatching old favorites on dvd like teevee's Daria and Wonderfalls. And then we had to build our part of the collab display for con, so we were too busy doing tedious landscaping and drinking copious amounts of gin to remember to blog anything. Sorry guys! But here is our display:

We'll keep you posted on Brickcon as it progresses.

A Thousand Paper Cranes

2011-06-17T06:21:00.028+01:00

Brickworld is happening!!! Here are some pictures, of MOC's (pronounced "MOC's") to look at, that we liked. Besides your special train correspondent's witty commentary, we have a special treat for you, dear readers! Straight off his flight from that country that just lost the Stanley Cup (sports!!!), we have ~~Lukas~~ Jacob Sysak.

The first creation that we present you is not quite done, since we took this picture during set up, but we still liked it nonetheless. It is the builder's vision of a scene from the popular science fiction novel Dune. Look for more pictures later when we make the rounds when everyone is done setting up!

Up next is a helmet which is part of a life size suit of armor based off of the popular video game Gears Of War. We are not familiar with this video game, but ~~Lukas~~ Jacob tells us that the armor belongs to the main character "Halo". We might have to try out this game after Brickworld!

Now look at some detail shots of tweeaffect fan, supposed "Nickleback of Lego", Kyle Vriez's. The composition of his "MOC's" is overall very nice, but we shall ignore that minor point and focus only on the minute details which utterly make his "MOC" a complete failure. Note how he used technic half pins for SNOT 180 and did not attach all the cheese slopes in his brick-built numbers. For shame!

Here is a close up of one of the collaborative war displays. We really liked the red ghillie suit on the soldier wearing the dark grey uniform. We think that this is some fantasy display in which the world's fauna is red instead of green.

This is the water of the container dock of a member of PENNLUG's display. He built the water so that, when viewed from above, one can see the double helix of DNA. Nice!

Shadow Viking built his vision of Asgard, the Norse capital of the gods. It is holier than his tshirt!

Fellow Ohioan and tweefan Achmed Gugick built these two buildings in his iconic microscale style. One is a fictional Greek Orthodox church and the other what he thinks Minas Tirith should have looked like.

Some guy built this fortress of solitude from the popular comic "Superman". Apparently he brought it to Brickworld last year, but we weren't here. If you are reading this guy, we forget your name and want to credit you!!!

Last, and certainly not least, we shall leave you with this microscale building from the popular video game Bioshock. Stay tuned foar moar poasts from brickworld from Tweeaffect! Good luck and good night, y'all!!!!!!!!!

ARE THOSE BRICKARMS PROTOTYPES?

2011-06-16T06:56:00.000+01:00

Intrepid reporters Kevoh and Matty are on the scene at Brickworld 2011 outside Chicago, Illinois. Tonight featured a keynote by some LEGOLAND dude talking about LEGOLAND Florida, which is gonna be pretty bitching, so long as you are 2-12 years old.

But the real star of the night was Q&A with Jim Foulds, the dulcet-toned Community Representative guy who is not quite Steve Witt (where'd he go anyway? We asked, and all they said was "Steve Witt is no longer with The LEGO Group") We didn't take notes but we have pretty ace memory so here are the important.

Q: Is LEGO Universe going to focus on adults?
A: No, Christ!

Q: Why does the Maersk train have buffers?
A: [guy yelling from audience] because LEGO hates you! [you=matty]

Q: You know... you know when colors... they used to be different? They-they, were browner? Is that coming back? Because sometimes your old parts don't match?
A: No. [twee answer: Christ who let the kids ask questions?]

Then there was a period of absolutely inane questions (9 volt trains? Monorail? Remember when gears were yellow? When is M-Tron coming back? Are they going to go back to wooden cars?)

Then we were hungry and left to get pizza. Kevoh resisted because he was sure that kid was gonna ask a whopper soon enough. With us are twee interns NickDean and Lukas. They've been very knowledgeable; directing us to pizza, flipping windshield wipers on, speaking German, &c.

JOIN US TOMORROW! WE'LL BE HERE ALL WEEKEND, GETTING THE INSIDE SCOOP!

What comes before anything? What have we always said is the most important thing?

2011-06-15T02:17:00.000+01:00

This is the story of a model model home and the one builder who could put it all together.

On the next twee affect, the gang goes to Brickworld.

OH SHI-

2011-06-09T00:05:00.001+01:00

MULTI-TRACK DRIFTING!!

Closeout Sale, Y'all!

2011-05-26T04:34:00.005+01:00

Before I try to sell you things, I would like to thank everyone who has bought Legos from my Bricklink store or have straight up given me your money. I really do appreciate your tremendous generosity. Without you, Brickworld would not be possible for me.

Now let us take this time to announce the Brickworld closeout sale*! Only seven things are left in our inventory, and time is running out! In order to expedite the selling process, we have put everything on sale and have lifted the minimum order. We are also offering free pick-up at Brickworld if you should like (say so in the comments section of the order so that we know to bring it with us). Click the image below to go straight to our Bricklink store! Finally, we are still accepting ~~handouts~~ donations if you wish you contribute to our cause but find our inventory unappealing.

*Brickworld closeout sale is not affiliated with BrickworldTM

Like a daydream, or a fever

2011-05-21T22:28:00.003+01:00

Welp, the world ends in 30 minutes for us here in EST, so here's a Lego moc to look at. Reinstein revisits this classic train set and hides all the power functions equipment in the hood well. While the locomotive is not that detailed, the clean lines are just as appealing as the ridiculous SNOT that we tend to put our own locomotives.

How do I bashed kit???

2011-05-07T01:32:00.004+01:00

This poast was excruciating to write. First we wanted to write something snarky and link you examples of shitty cafe corner style buildings to prove some point that we shouldn't even need to make. Our point being that Lego sets exist as supplies of parts to design our own models, not as models to collect dust on our shelves and desks. But we gave up and decided to just write this poast.

Anyway, our sister blag poasted pix of some new set and, surprise!, someone doesn't like it. If you are reading this poast, Lego, please don't listen to us; we are just a bunch of AHOLs.

Yippee-ki-yay

2011-05-01T07:43:00.003+01:00

We won't waste our or your time with words, dear readers, so he are some legos to look at.

That's a Professional Secret, Buddy!

2011-04-24T04:07:00.003+01:00

This, you guys!

Is exactly this! Nuff said.

Thoth and Hermes

2011-04-18T22:36:00.006+01:00

Evas, dear readers! These are the vaguely monstrous biomechanical mechas from the popular legendary mecha animu "Neon Genesis Evangelion", which was about tweenage emos who pilot mechas to save the world from unknowable alien invaders, or something. We only managed to watch half of it! Does anyone wanna let us know how it ends? Anyway we had a lil convo with knick where he was in the planning stages of a blended wing aircraft, and it made us think of these two recent Eva mocs:

knick: this plane's going to be a bit bigger than I thought...
jonesy: uh oh
jonesy: dont make it too big to finish
jonesy: and dont make it too small that the snot required is impossible
jonesy: like aristotle, shoot for the golden mean!

One Eva is a little on the small side, and is short on the sort of impossibly organic detail that the Evas are famous for, and famously made toy makers grouse at the difficulty of producing them in collectible figure form. And the other Eva is maybe too large to ever finish. What we really need here is some sort of middle ground, stylized and achievable given the Evas' impossible lankiness and the limited parts selection of knight bus dark purple: in short, an ideal moc given the constraints of the situation. Does that mean tkh or Moko's moc is wrong, per se? Not at all.

The economic equivalent of the golden mean is called "equilibrium"; finding one great equilibrium of a whole socioeconomic system is a quixotic Holy Grail sort of journey, but finding it for a product or industry is pretty simple. Tkh's moc probably shows his equilibrium: what he can do with the skill and spare time and purchasing power available to him at the moment, and Moko's moc shows his.

We really want Moko to finish his impossible dream project though; and we actually know a pretty good way to do the joint technology! There was this rare wizzardly grimoire we happened to collect a few years back by legendary mecha builder Klaupacius. His 3 foot tall gundams were pretty much a wonder of the ancient legos world, and he sold instructions on a cd years ago. But his website is defunct and he has become a bit of a lego recluse in recent years, so it would be pretty impossible to ask Klau if we could share his instructions. And given our very limited grasp of Japanese it would be pretty impossible to tell Moko we have the answer to his engineering problem. (For the record, most of the joints are based on technic turntables and worm gears.) We're getting a bit of a Cassandra complex about it!

It would be great if there was a nice big centralized repository for lego technique knowledge for everyone to dig through and discuss. Gambort curates a flickr group called Lego Techniques, d-higdon curates one called lego math and patterns, but the user-submitted model can't really cover the techniques not on flickr satisfyingly. Remember when Brickshelf was going to shut down and there was that great scramble among lego builders to save as many favorite brickshelf folders as they could? It was like our Destruction of the Library of Alexandria! But there are all sorts of sticky issues of permissions in the way of launching a great central library, and putting in the effort and webspace and publicizing it across all the farflung subcommunities would be a monumental task. It's more than one mere lego nerd and his scarce resources can handle.

So we will stick to criticism, not because we are a pack of sour-faced bitches who love nothing better than to cackle at perceived failures, on the contrary--we know all too well the kind of paralysis perfectionism can bring. Instead, we criticize mocs because essentially we really want the builder to get better at building. So keep building your tiny moc-a-day or your impossible dream projects everyone, because we here at Twee Affect are rooting for you.

Paint that shit gold

2011-04-16T23:29:00.003+01:00

Pearl gold is one of those colors. No actual bricks appear in sets, but there is still quite a selection of greeble-like parts. Despite this, many builders try to incorporate pearl gold parts into their legos MOCs. Most attempts end poorly. Brickshelf user fvin goes against the grain with his most recent creation, a replica of the Thai Grand Palace, specificallly the Chakri Mahaprasad Hall. We especially like the texture that this piece creates on the spires.

Act Like You've Never Seen Double Before

2011-04-11T03:57:00.007+01:00

When our Kevoh posted his first mocs in months the other day, what a feeling of surprize we felt! He produced a spaceship, and a modernist one to boot! Now don't take this the wrong way, dear readers: we here at Twee Affect don't blog each other's mocs as a matter of course, only a comment on his photos happened to spark a substantive design conversation between two of us blaggers, and we thought we would share a rare glimpse into this, our secret freemasonry of blaggitude!

The comment on the above photo was as follows:

HppyWeasel: Nice subtle texturing on the black surfaces, dude. I'm a big fan of paneling.

kevoh: ok what is this, 2 people have commented complimenting on the "texture" of the black parts of the spaceship
jonesy: haha
kevoh: what do they mean??
jonesy: i think they mean the seams between individual parts?
kevoh: but that's not a thing!
jonesy: it is to SEBarile, the trainguy
kevoh: but there isn't texture... I mean ideally it's a uniform surface?
kevoh: or I suppose in some orderly panel system
jonesy: but your lighting basically showed off the seams
jonesy: where's miss mattie, he needs to do a poast on this
kevoh: so my lighting is too good
jonesy: lul yes
jonesy: and lego people are coming up with increasingly irrational things to appreciate in mocs
jonesy: "npu" when it isn't
kevoh: I mean this is something I paid zero attention to, the texture/pattern created by the parts?
jonesy: yes haha
jonesy: it just happened to be pleasing to his eye?
kevoh: I like looking at it and appreciating all the zany snot that I know is going on, but other people can't see that
jonesy: like mattie and his plate fraction offsets
kevoh: it can actually be super hard to make uniform surfaces like that
jonesy: yes, but the mocs that result are super boring
kevoh: when you have yellow stripes places and it can't go into the 2-wide core
jonesy: it is like working with rare colors with very small parts palettes
kevoh: no one appreciates it unless they realize that those are the only parts in that color
jonesy: except you are just beating yourself up for no reason
jonesy: you are just making it too difficult and expensive!
kevoh: heh
jonesy: because every project will require multiples of rare parts that need to be cracklinked!
kevoh: yeah I've used every yellow 1x1 technic brick I have
kevoh: granted I only have like 4
kevoh: but it has to be rationed 2 per moc!
jonesy: heh
kevoh: and it's very tempting to use them, because it's a great way to connect a stripe to the rest
jonesy: oh yes that was the first idea i had on that problem
jonesy: still trying to figure out which places are ok to pick your spaceship up from
jonesy: it has to be like two places on the whole ship
kevoh: hah no it's sturdy I mean it rests by itself, the front doesn't droop
jonesy: but don't pick it up on the missile launchers or the cockpit or the drone niche
jonesy: or any of the edges
kevoh: you do have to hold the drone in place it'll slide out
jonesy: did you consider a magnet
jonesy: because that sounds like a satisfying way to connect it
kevoh: that would be nice
jonesy: don't tell me you don't have any lego magnets
kevoh: I was hoping that there would just be enough friction, minor inconsistencies in part size would make it a tiny bit snug
kevoh: but it slides in and out
jonesy: don't tell me you didnt get any m-tron or ice planet sets!!!
kevoh: I have magnets!
jonesy: yes yeah friction connections are hard to predict
kevoh: ok so I've just picked it up from corners, like just holding one corner
kevoh: the 2 front corners are not advisable
jonesy: oh look at you
kevoh: others seem ok
kevoh: I should have made the connection between the 2 halves better
kevoh: it's 4 technic tubes, 2x2 plates stuck in each end
jonesy: scotty was saying why didn't you make the two squares overlap eachother
jonesy: like two chain links kind of
kevoh: I didn't want to?
jonesy: k
kevoh: just, not the design I was going for I guess
jonesy: otherwise they should both rotate in opposite directions
jonesy: and look real wizzardly and bizarre
kevoh: constantly spinning hah
jonesy: just, an unthinkably bizarre design that reflects the impossible system of faster-than-light propulsion required
jonesy: according to mystic principles of physics as yet undiscovered, by science
kevoh: but ah hah look at this! real design decision discussion! recognizing that the 2 halves could interlink, and wondering how that would be better or worse or different...
jonesy: yes! we should just post this up on twee!
kevoh: well that's rather circle jerk-y isn't it?
jonesy: so is the rest of our blog?
kevoh: "in conclusion, our mocs are amazing in ways that only we know, and if anyone else tried they would fail"
jonesy: "our opinions are constantly correct and amazing and we shall never compromise to please other people"
kevoh: high fives all around!
jonesy: heroes

Lower the Gas Prices, Howard Johnson

2011-04-08T03:41:00.003+01:00

Ah, spring! The blossoms bloom, the flags flutter, the sun shines, adrenaline junkie birds start zipping in front of oncoming cars, and our sinuses clamp up for the next six months! What a perfect time of year for this moc by {YVD}: the scene, the colors, the lighting all say spring! Let's take these ladies' example and drink G&T's on the back porch.

Rick came, Rickshaw, Rick conquered

2011-04-05T04:39:00.003+01:00

Blagging laygoes is hard work, y'all. Finding creations that are blag-worthy and that you, dear readers, will also appreciate is such a chore! We here at tweeaffect are constantly pressured to find content to write wittily about. Coming up with clever titles is almost all of the work!!! One can only reference songs by obscured bands and viral videos before it becomes boring.

Fortunately for all of us, we have mijasper to add content to the internets. We could blag him every time he updates his This and That folder, but that would become tiresome and the affect would wear off. His most recent creation is a rickshaw, which is depicted in several comical vignettes. He cleverly uses the new crowbar piece as the handles. We really like the curves from the cleverly inverted mudguards. It is nice to see parts that are so complimentary.

Besides looking pretty and using clever techniques, this creation speaks to us, the curators of this laygoes blag, dear readers. The rickshaw cart to us is this blag. We pull it hither and thither, looking for something to blag about. It is hard work to carry our passengers to their desired destinations and we are often distracted by red cocks.

There are dozens of us.

2011-04-01T07:17:00.002+01:00

Dude guys check out Bro Bricks! We have sort of bagged on them in the past, but their new hire "Donut" is the best!

He isn't cowed by Big LEGO into not posting leaked info, and is giving away some of the loot they acquire. Aces!

Finally, a blogger more interested in the fan community than buddying up with the man. Kudos, donut.

In MOC news, LG Orlando made a nice little Apple Store.

It is fascinating as a piece of architecture because it manages to work in a sort of middle ground between Apple-aesthetic super-modern and the more historical nature of a city street-wall. There is a word in a European language (English? Danish?) which your author desperately wants to recall, that speaks in a negative way of the condition where the ground floor facade of an old building is torn down to be replaced with one of modern glass, to accommodate a new commercial activity. The word was used by a professor on a tour of a city street in west Denmark, perhaps in Aalborg or Kolding.

Nevertheless this very act is one committed by Apple's architects in numerous cities across America (the world?). Even in a sprawling outdoor mall near our hometown, an Apple store appears to be carved out of an older gentler building, when in fact both were built simultaneously, recently. And yet here in this MOC, old and new exist together and not at all. Curious indeed!

Side note: The ipod/phone inside the store reminds us that now that screens are so ubiquitous, we may be seeing them in mocs soon. Like that cybercity display, but with an iPad slipped into a LEGO-casing of a building.

Reading is what? FUNDAMENTAL

2011-03-23T04:09:00.007Z

Classical literature? Steampunk steamboats? You'd think that we here at Twee Affect would be all over this moc by PigletCiamak, but there is something about it that doesn't quite sit well with us. Specifically, the faceless Africans in the islander masks. What's this book about, anyway?

Wikipedia says:

In a post-colonial reading, the Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, author of Things Fall Apart, famously criticized Heart of Darkness in his 1975 lecture An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", saying the novella de-humanized Africans, denied them language and culture and reduced them to a metaphorical extension of the dark and dangerous jungle into which the Europeans venture.

Wow, that's pretty racist. In the essay Achebe starkly deems it "a story in which the very humanity of black people is called in question", and quotes the most hateful bits of Conrad:

"The earth seemed unearthly. We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there -- there you could look at a thing monstrous and free. It was unearthly and the men were .... No they were not inhuman. Well, you know that was the worst of it -- this suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped and spun and made horrid faces, but what thrilled you, was just the thought of their humanity -- like yours -- the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly. Yes, it was ugly enough, but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it which you -- you so remote from the night of first ages -- could comprehend."

Wow, there is no redeeming value in this book, at all. Nobody should make a lego moc based on it. But surely, you say, since he doesn't speak English well he doesn't realize how hateful this book is? Surely he is just a harmless castle builder from Poland? Lets look through his photostream:

Title: "973_Emancypantka" tags: 1. Lego 2. Minifigs 3. Feminist. Oh, you say, it is just a harmless joke about chicks! They are all uptight Katherine Heigl figures in the Judd Apatow movie of our lives! Guy code! Right?

Welp, that's 1. a blowup doll and 2. pinup girls. Maybe not great when it comes to women. But that's gotta be it right?

A gay wizard modeled after the purple teletubby (complete with purse). Original! And a voodoo priestess in a witch costume, complete with witchy chin hair. Pretty classy making fun of other people's religions.

The title on this one is 'a moment of happiness'. He even makes fun of lepers? How... Old Testament. So to recap: Africans as faceless savages, women as objects, gay wizards with purses, and evil voodoo witch ladies. Call this a leap, dear readers, but we think we might be dealing with a real asshole.

So! we're gonna go ahead and read a bitch, ohkooy?

Piglet: your avatar is a clown, you think you're a funny guy? The only thing that makes me laugh is your hardsuits.

Is that your website with the banner ad covering up half the page? You may as well cover the other half too, it'd look better.

Look at your pirate ship. What are those sails made out of, Charmin Ultra Strong?

What now Piglet! C'mon girl, bring it!

Two hundred and one

2011-03-20T23:10:00.003Z

Welp, dear readers, our 200th poast came and went. We had planned to do something special for y'all, but who are we to finish (or even start) things that we intend to do? To make it up to y'all, we present y'all with this Legos MOC. It is Jessie from Team Rocket from the popular animu series and trading card and Gameboys game, "Pokemon".

Is this of any consolation? Does this MOC make y'all feel better? MEOWTH, THAT'S RIGHT IT DOES!!!

Spotlight: Brickarmz!

2011-03-17T03:34:00.003Z

We here at Twee Affect pretty much unabashedly blog based on personal tastes, unlike the august chroniclers of the legos community over at our sister blog The Brothers Brick (not to be confused with our brother blog The Sisters Brick), so sometimes parts of the community are left uncovered, journalistically. And the recent controversy about Brickmania got us thinking, "Hey we haven't really covered the brickarmz kiddies yet", so in the interests of journalizing, lets have a look at the brickarmz part of the community!

The basic unit of brickarmz, (the starfighter, if you will) is the fig. The point of the fig is to make the coolest coolguy possible. You want to give him a cool uniform and cool stickers and battle damage. The coolness of your cool guy seems to be determined by various esoteric rules, like which pew pew shooter videogame everyone is playing at the moment.

Don't forget to give your guy a cool gun! These are available on the aftermarket, obviously.

The importance of a cool gun is pretty important, so make sure you have a good selection of guns.

You can use mixed media in your guy's uniform, like in this cool ghillie suit using yarn.

Another important thing to consider, is muscle torsos. These are preferable to even decal uniforms, because they are more Rambo-ey and macho.

Muscle torsos are appropriate even in an arctic environment.

Ok, pretty much use as many muscle torsos as you can get your hands on. If your lil scene does not look like a 90's gay circuit party, you are doing it wrong. All this scene needs is a flag dancer!

Welp, there it is dear readers! Brickarmz! We'll keep an eye on the situation, as it progresses!

IDKWIB

2011-03-11T03:58:00.002Z

Brickshelf user "suu" just posted this ferris wheel. He obscenely used 9v curved track to make the wheel. Why he did not use the new all plastic track is beyond us! Anyway, he also poasted this video on his youtubes, showing it in motion and how it works. It is definitely worth watching until the end. Just the great sound track is well worth!

The Black Tower

2011-03-06T00:30:00.002Z

Torgugick takes a turn for the mystical, dear readers! Though he usually confines himself to readily recognizable world landmarks, here he renders a version of the Tower of Babel, and says he got the plans from a (fictitious?) archaeological journal, but we bet this is just a cover story for the secret way he secretly obtained this secret knowledge. How could he have come across these forbidden geometries? Was it by perusing forgotten Gnostic texts in dusty Vatican archives? Did he summit mountains inaccessible and summon up spirits of the air and the sea and the stars? Does he read BLDGBLOG? Whatever the method, we hope it didn't involve blood sacrifice.

Fluid Dynamics

2011-03-05T06:12:00.004Z

Newcomer Tanukis Revenge has been building some pretty cool stuff lately. The two-toned sculpted wave is orders of magnitude better than primary blue snot water, and reminds us of this round plate sculpted shrubbery by another builder.

The rocket fire is a nice paintery take on something rarely rendered in legos. The fighter doesnt even seem to be the primary focus of the moc! We usually just leave our transparent colors in a lego bucket to collect dust, but this guy is making us rethink their usefulness. We only wish he'd get a camera that isn't attached to his cellphone! (Never mind we have a crappy digicam from 2002 that isn't even as good.)

The process of reducing the flesh and guts of the mouse to a powder, according to well-known principles of magic.

2011-03-04T18:46:00.005Z

zerpflücken - german, literally "to pick to pieces."

That old rhyme "Three Blind Mice" has been translated by SlyOwl into a rather clever photo blending an actual kitchen counter with a LEGO model. The matching up of LEGO to tile at the corner is especially well done. The mice have just the right mix of realism and the cartoon, and the difference between the two is excellent (who among us wouldn't build one good mouse and be tempted to simply replicate it for the next?). There's even an innovative apple core.

BUT LOOK AGAIN, dear readers. What's with the braille? Your author didn't even realize that's what it was supposed to be, above the mouse hole, until reading the comments. It is so out of scale for humans, let alone mice. And it should be beside the "door," not above, if anywhere at all. The mouse hole is questionable too. How did the mice get to countertop level? How did they chew through the tile? Where is the sitting mouse's cane? And that apple is way out of scale, unless its a crab apple, in which case, if you are keeping crab apples on countertops, don't be surprised if some mice show up!

You may protest, "but how can you apply such rigorous demands of realism to a model that is framed on the conceit that blind mice wear sunglasses and use canes?" to which we answer, "In a world where a blind mouse has a cane, a wall with one hole doesn't have braille above it!" We tried to make that into one of those "man with one eye is king" phrases but it didn't quite work out.

There were flints and stones, old silvery-grey timbers, and rose-red brick that glowed very cheerfully in the gloom.

2011-03-04T04:13:00.004Z

As if your dear author doesn't get enough thinking and talking about architecture in his pursuit to be a Master of it, let's talk about some LEGO architecture!

Nathaniel Brill has built one of those anonymous-urban buildings which all team up to create a downtown. But we're not here to talk about urban theory, dear reader. No, tonight's lecture is on Detail! In architecture parlance, details are all about connections, the condition when two differing materials meet. Details relates to LEGO on a whole number of levels (this is a hobby that is entirely about connecting pieces); tonight we discuss how Real World Detail (RD) translates to LEGO Detail (LD)

Nathaniel does a good job here, grabbing the right amount of RD to bring down to minifig scale. If you look at the super-high-rez source/reference pic, you'll see varying windows, some with decorative keystones, some with stone surrounds. He brings the keystones along, mixed with the entablatures to make a sort of LD pronounced keystone-thing. Those inwardly angled stone surrounds would be impossible to render without grossly oversizing the building. Also of note, the wrought-iron rails on the balconies are rather humorously bloated and squashed (just like a minifig!).

Well you've probably learned little-to-nothing, so let's cut to the Animaniacs-style Moral of the Story: when you are working on a LEGO model of a building/car/train/castle/spaceship, pay attention to how things are constructed in real life. This is the key difference between a MOC with walls of bricks and a MOC with brick walls.

Special note to spacers: greebles are not (necessarily) details. The way greebles are all-to-often used, they are more like ornamentation, a curse word as far as Modernity is concerned (pronounced Moe-dare-nitty for maximum pretension). As spaceships are generally Modern-ish in aesthetic (a debatable statement, perhaps worth a future posting!), this is decidedly out of place. It is the author's un-humble opinion that we could do with more details, less greebles.

Trendspotting: Pre-ColumbianPunk

2011-02-28T04:42:00.003Z

When we first saw these Toltec cubedude guys we didnt think much of it, but little did we know that we were witnessing the birth, of a trend.

Pre-ColumbianPunk! We predict this one is really gonna make it big!

FUTURETOWN: Town of the Future

2011-02-23T03:26:00.002Z

Point your impetuous faces at this beauty, dear readers! We knew there was a reason we still looked at brickshelf, and this is it. The Future! The most important thing you need to know in the future, is neon. Everything is made of it! Our Matty thinks it "is like a field of hard candy", and Scotty says it "looks like jello". Can they agree on anything! Incidentally they are both wrong because it looks like Mountain Dew, in solid form. Dew-sicles?

The second thing you need to know, is symmetry. Because the future is a labyrinth, and without knowledge of the principles of symmetry you will never find your way to your job interview which is your ticket to "making it", and this will go on your permanent record and you will never find another job and will die a retail wage slave in desperate poverty.

Anyway we like the lack of a backdrop here, it really gives us an insight into the builder. So many cups! It is like that lil girl in that movie Signs, except there is legos in them and not water! What kind of mysterious disorder must be gripping his/her brain! We suspect it is a deficiency in the brain area that has to do with budgeting, for storage units.

But what a fantastic undiscovered country the future looks like it will be! We here at Twee Affect will see you there, when human organs are grown in mason jars and sold in vending machines and Justin Bieber is on the oldies station! Unless one of us doesn't make it to the finish line, of the future!

What it is is bionicle

2011-02-14T06:55:00.007Z

When we saw this MOC in the recent folders on brickshelf, we first assumed that some majhost user (yes, dear readers, people actually use that site) had accidentally uploaded pix of some plastic model onto the wrong site. Upon further inspection we realized that the MOC was actually made out of ~~barnacle~~ Bionicle and ~~Bionicle~~ Hero Factory elements. We do genuinely "like" it, if you are beginning to think this is yet another "ironic" post.

It is a nice departure from the cliched, bidpedal anthropoids that one commonly associates with Bionicle. The contrasting green eyes on the orange head is also nice. It's too bad that the back of the front legs and tail are not covered. Oh well, they can't all be zingers (we could not go an entire poast without making reference some obscured music reference, because we are "new-age hipsters"). Do I get bonus points for a self reference, jonesy?

The Rag and Bone Man

2011-02-13T19:32:00.002Z

We ran across this moc by The Architect just now, and it was so cool we just had to blog it immediately. This lil guy trundles across the wastelands buying and selling bits of things to whoever's buying and selling. The great thing about this moc is how many useless parts it makes use of: the printed sails, the vampire coffin, the ribbed hoses. The beast driving the cart is made of parts from a bionicle set we would never have imagined buying, but now we wanna make our own. What an interesting parallel: just as a rag and bone man knows that useless bits of junk are worth something to the right people, even useless parts have a place in the right moc.

You Are My Army

2011-02-10T18:39:00.005Z

Look what we got in the mailbag, dear readers!

From: Lego Junkie
Subject: Tweefectable.

DEFEND YOUR TITLE OF SISTER OF THE BRICK FELLOW TWEES!
www.flickr.com/photos/legojunkie/5431995846/

FOR YOU ARE BEING USURPED!
TONIGHT WE DINE IN THE TWEEFECTORY!

A challenge! So we clicked, and found out that this new blog is called "The Sisters Brick" with a taunting url of "tbbissexist.blogspot.com"! How must our sister blog The Brothers Brick feel! Doesn't ~Tac~ know that TBB has a token ladyblogger? If our dear readers will allow us to revive our dusty old Sense and Sensibility analogy, this is just like when Elinor (TBB) was accosted by the pernicious friendship of Lucy Steele (TSB), who waves her secret engagement to Elinor's first love Edward in Elinor's face! Oh! We are so affected by this, we shall quite run around in a damp garden after sunset and catch cold! Or something.

But this is of course not a novel, and this new fledgling blog doesn't enjoy TBB's banner ad revenue which TBB uses to buy its best buddies plane tickets to lego cons. And we are keenly aware that, like baby turtles, not every new blog with a smart mouth and a chip on its shoulder will last the first year, so we wish The Sisters Brick the best of luck! Additionally, JordanTN is rebooting his on-again-off-again Brick Flotilla blog as a tumblr called On The Rhodes Again, so we wish him luck also! We have definitely been there, girl!

Now for those of our dear readers who don't "give a shit" about legos blog inside baseball (most of you), let's blog a MOC!

McZargald has been building this Homeworld-y spaceship for 8 months or so, and it is still a WIP but it looks good so we're just gonna blog it already. It's got nice chunky shapes, cool broadside turrets, and an airlock with nice curved corners. It could use another blue stripe mebbe, and perhaps some small wedge action on the too-flat topside, but it is a pretty exemplary moc so far. What's holding it up, minifig interiors? Oh McZargald, don't waste a bunch of time on that! Who's gonna see it!

If our dear readers have any hot tips for us they're welcome to send us a flickrmail here, but "please blog my moc" requests means we won't blog your moc. Happy corresponding!

*Update (in Robert Stack voice, a la Unsolved Mysteries): The Sisters Brick moved here.

Your Cool Bangs

2011-02-09T02:37:00.004Z

The Way We Build Now: smiling, mysteriously, at some secret joy inside us. We have been following this one forum thread Matty started to advertise his maersk train post, and due to our constant need for approval, only read the parts about us. And a horrible chill ran up our spine when we read this!

"I got bored of the bloggers' constant need to be edgy and cool and rebellious and all that new-age hipster bullshit that they do so love." -.Jake

What a shocking rebuke! Surely our dear readers don't all think that of us? And also what do you suppose a "new-age hipster" is, someone who wears a caftan with skinny jeans? We can only think of one bro who would fit this description: Natalie Portman's ex-boyfriend Devendra Banhart. Clearly, we are this guy.

We received a much more accurate criticism lately in a fortune cookie fortune, which read "Don't be so critical and overly concerned about details". Haha, wow! Did they just nail it or what! Anyways lets prove .Jake right and be music snobs:

Here is a pretty good mosaic by au_riverhorse of manufactured pop music product Taylor Swifts! Because the way to "make it" in the music industry is to be blonde haired and blue eyed and to sing incredibly generic dreck about heterosexual high school romance! And then have your agent call the agents of eligible hollywood bachelors and set up fake dates for the paparazzi to catch on camera to get your name in the tabloids to help your career! We are sure Taylor Swift the person is perfectly nice, but we find Taylor Swift the music industry product to be unbearable. Anyways, the mosaic is pretty good.

Takeshi Itoh built a new moc! It is a Royal Library, full of magickal tomes and wizzardly grimoires! How did he know that this is exactly the thing we like best! The two tall bookcases seem to have some sort of medieval clockpunk winch system to raise and lower the shelves, which he probably explains on his website ("Sorry! This page is japanese only") but not knowing is agreeably mysterious nonetheless! We wish the book spines werent in such big color blocks, and that the windows weren't smoke colored, but this is still a pretty great moc. Bonus game: spot the transblue dolphin!

Shameless? I think not! (only because desperate is a more fitting word)

2011-02-06T20:51:00.005Z

We here at twee affect are proud to present our dear readers with the opportunity of a life time. As y'all are well aware, Brickworld 2011 is fast approaching (our writers are already beginning to realize that they should pick up the pace on their projects). As of now, our special train correspondent, Miss Matty, cannot afford the trip. But you, dear readers, can change that. If you have ever wanted to hang out with him in person at a Legos convention, or wanted to tell him that he is not funny (or even relatively amusing), that he tries way too hard, and that he is a complete asshole, now is your chance.

Matt has set up a bricklink store to sell spare parts and minifigs to raise funds to attend Brickworld 2011. All of your purchases will help him fund his trip to Brickworld. If you add the special code "tweefecta" to your order he will include a signed, hand-written note expressing his sincere gratitude. If you see nothing in his store that you like, but still wish to help, Matt is accepting paypal ~~hand-outs~~ donations. Contact him through flickr for details. So, if by some supernatural force you are still with us, ~~BUY BUY BUY~~ here is a link to Matt's store.

Film at Eleven

2011-01-30T07:18:00.006Z

In the horrid wake of the deletion of our most beloved flickr group (LEGO 16+), we here at twee affect bring you something to lighten the somber mood: pictures of trains! That is right, readers, picture of none other than the Maersk train! Lego has since removed the image of the new Maersk set from their cache, but we found these pics on brickshelf just now and wish to share them with you, our dear readers. Here they are, in their not quite medium blue glory! Enjoy!!!

Above is a picture of just the loco (loco is short for locomotive). Below you can see some pictures of the container cars (there is no jargon name for them that we are aware of).

"My $25 per year only pays for a few seconds of their legal team's time."

2011-01-30T01:12:00.005Z

Welp! Looks like Kevoh brought the wrath of the lawyers down upon cool-kid swearing clubhouse Lego 16+, on Flickr. Way to go guy! We here at twee affect thought we had an unwritten rule that we dont talk about preliminary set pics, because thats all that TLG's legal team seems to care about. We will allow that it could have been a dozen other issues, since that was the group where people went to shoot their mouths off ill-advisedly, but with our outsize sense of our own importance/googleability we have to assume it's Kevoh's fault. Now this group is ruined, forever, and will not be immediately replaced by another group with a similar name and goals, and we will never speak of it, again.

So! After the destruction of this temple to the community, are people still building legos? Answer: yes.

Flickr user Ronan Dragonov (this might not be his real name) built this cool retro future building lately, in a tastefully muted color scheme with interesting curvy bits. This happens to be exactly what we always thought moonbase should look like: uniform color pallete of neutrals with one bold color per module and a semi-standardized architectural style, to maximize cohesiveness. Because if you're going to make a collaborative display it should be based on collectivist principles instead of individualistic ones, otherwise just make your own standalone mocs guys. Have we said this before? Probably. Anyways moonbase is our favorite subject to armchair quarterback about, since we never made an example moc to showcase our ideas, since we never had the parts for it. Haha hows that for irony! We made it so exclusive, in our minds, that even we were excluded! Like anyone who isnt a millionaire being an Ayn Rand Objectivist! Or an anti-government-spending Teabagger who got rich on farm subsidies like Michele Bachmann! Anyways the point is, any collaborative project quickly becomes a political exercise.

Phong Chang built this ridiculous/awesome Ronin Warriorsy guy in pointy 80's animu armor. Give him an electric guitar, he looks like he is windmilling a sick power chord! BLANNNGGG!!! (This is a guitar noise.)

We were pretty impressed with this sculpture of a secksy naked ladie by Amazing Brick Creations, but when we showed our fellow blaggers they were all "yawn this was just spit out by a computer" and we were all "really, guys? You must be the sort of people who do long division by hand!" Matty thought the boobs were too big and not pancakey enough. Anyway, we are not like art majors or anything, but we bet "red" symbolizes "secksieness"!

RJBROWN is a visionary

2011-01-26T02:58:00.004Z

Brickhshelf user RJBROWN recently uploaded this steampunk tractor. It is probably his vision of an alternate history "proto-John Deere" tractor, or something. Each detail seems like it could represent something in real life. We at tweeaffect applaud him for so believingly envisioning this MOC in a genre plagued with such poor taste.

How do you preserve what's already lost?

2011-01-22T23:55:00.005Z

Radical! A picture of Series 5 Minifigs has been leaked, and we should speculate wildly! Join us as we examine each and every pixel!

[Well this is where we would put the image but what about lawyers maybe? So shh don't tell anyone, but a guy linked to it here.]

OK so we have a boxer and a dinosaur man and a clown and a dwarf and a snake lady(?) and a soldier guy and SHERLOCK F'IN HOLMES and a cave woman and a Beefeater. Is nine the normal amount? We don't know.

The only seems to be one total loss fig, that stupid dwarf. Everyone else has a new part or two. Finally, we have a comically awful hair piece to put on lady figs! Pie for everyone! That caveman has a date now! A bowler hat! A brown rifle! SHERLOCK HOLMES. What is this thing with people dressed as creatures though? The gorilla and now dinosaur man? Is this a thing that they do a lot in Billund?

Parting words: That clown face: Justin Bieber.

And the Strangest Things Seem Suddenly Routine

2011-01-16T00:20:00.002Z

We're back, dear readers! Like Harry Potter, we've lately been forced out of our childhood home, camped out under highway overpasses and in other scenic empty places in rural Britain, and spent Christmas with the Weasleys. Jay kay we've just been playing Minecraft. It's what Lego Universe should have been!

So more importantly, what has the legos community been up to lately? Mostly making lil robots with penisguns it seems. Oh but speaking of Harry Potter:

Joel.Baker has made this cool version of Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, in eyeburning purple and dark orange! And natch the giant mannequin sign thing moves just like in the movie. Why didn't they put this building in the new Diagon Alley set! It's the best one, and for $150 we should really get more rare colors and wizardly parts out of the deal, guys. Like the first Diagon Alley! That was the greatest damn set. Like a Belville, but worth the price!

Filip Johannes Felberg has been building cool lil pokemons lately:

They're all done in a simple style, but what's impressive is it looks like he's gonna build all of them. He's done 96 so far! Only uh, 250ish to go? Let's ask our pokemon nerd lil brother.

Andybear posted this excellent Japanese temple on New Years, and the lil figs are having a traditional new years celebration, which we are familiar with, from the animu cartoons. New years episodes are almost as standard as hot springs episodes! You write down a new years wish on a lil wooden plank, ring the bell, and have awkward conversations with people you've been avoiding all year. Tradition!

But what really surprised us lately is that our old frienemy, Pain Parade, has ditched the brown and started making pretty good dieselpunk mocs lately! They're almost fully colorblocked! We are shitting bricks! Good job bro.

Well that was a lot of blagging! Are we caught up yet? Answer: no.

One Pic Wonders

2010-12-22T22:26:00.003Z

We have a soft-spot for "One Pic" creations, those designed as set-pieces for a specific photo, rather than as, say, a model.

Ludgonious has been on a winning streak of such creations. His latest, "Wind-Gen Corporation HQ" features a very neat lighting effect, transforming this rather dull scene (though with some nicely crafted snotted displays) into something special. As well, his Stasis Pods is a nice combo of repetition of forms with an odd camera angle.

"Raider" Kevin Gramlich's little train scene is nice too. The yellowish tint to the lighting is probably just from the bulbs he used, but let's imagine it's the golden hour.