Here is a little trophy I made for my Ursus Verses MOC contest! A kind of MOC itself- but not really. I mixed and matched two things, changing the colours on both to make southing new. Sometimes that's all it takes to make a MOC! 

Anyway, today is the deadline but it's a soft deadline since the judging will be Saturday down at the Brickyard. Come on down! Bring your MOC! Or send me pics of your mocs. Use the hashtag #theursusverses on Instagram. All the grams. You might win a prize!

Also. duding my extended blogging break, another book I'm featured in arrived- LOLCraft! It's big! I got some copies to sell locally, but you can get it on Amazon too. I sell it cheaper though- only twenty bucks Canadian! But I don't ship so, just hit me up if you're local. To Edmonton!

Have fun!

Wonky TIEs are what got me to where I am today. Broke but with so much Lego. Lol. I built this Scuba TIE fighter by TJ's Lego Room  last week. I love it, the perfect mixture of cool and funny that I love in Lego designs. Kind of reminds me of those weird Batman action figures from the 90s with all the scuba gear. Like why? But also, cool! The TIE Convor by ScruffyBrickHerder was the design that got me into this whole Rebrickable/Bricklink aspect of the hobby. I've loved Lego for years but just kept to the official sets. Occasionally I would get it in my head to build stuff out of spare parts which was fine when I had the parts, but when I didn't I just shrugged and moved on with my life. But with BrickLink (and now my friend's second-hand store The Edmonton Brickyard) you can get any parts you're missing. Now entire universes open up to you!

But let's talk a little about reinventing the wheel. There are tons of TIE fighter variants on Rebrickable. Lego has produced a bench of versions. The eyeball cockpit is kind of the common denominator for most of them. Does that mean TJ or Scruffy or you have to design their own cockpit to MOC up a new TIE? Not at all (though I think sometimes they do, either improving or tweaking previous versions). It would be perfectly acceptable to take the eyeball from 75211 and build whatever wings you want or add a shark fin or whatever. (Please add a shark fin to a TIE fighter!)

I say this because I want my MOC contest to be accessible to everyone, not just people who can design a thousand-piece model with motors and hidden gears, you know? So, for example, I saw this awesome little bear at the Brickyard, and a few minutes googling tells me it is from this set, 31052. You don't even have to own the set, you can just look at the instructions for free and build one with parts you have. And that would be totally fine if you were making a diorama, say, based on a Homie Bear poem from The Ursus Verses. Homie and the Witch, or The F.A.F.A.F. which stands for The First Annual Forest Animal Forum, which is fun to say out loud. That's what I mean by you don't have to reinvent the wheel. You can say "This is my diorama of Homie Bear and the Wizard Bear from Homie and the Witch, and I used the bear from that Creator set". Perfectly acceptable! 

On the other hand, though, if you wanted to depict the ancient abomination from Again, the Abomination, it would be unacceptable to make this amazing MOC and say you designed it. Right? Makes sense, I think. OF course, any questions, just ask. Or advice, help, whatever. The important thing is to have fun! Hopefully disaster won't befall you like it did to this Scuba TIE that was tragically shot down just doing a routine patrol:

 Let's talk about prizes! These are the prizes so far:

Modest sets. I like the Creator 3 in 1 sets as prizes as they aren't tied to an IP- much as you know I love Star Wars Lego it feels not quite right to offer licensed sets as a prize for my own writing. I'm an independent author and not affiliated with any of those mega-conglomerations. Anyways, I'd love to get even bigger sets and have these as second or third prizes. But I just need to make sure I don't get carried away, you know? So spread the word! The more people that get on board the more prizes I will be able to get! Cheers!

Jawas of Doom!

 

I could've sworn the caption on this issue read "Jawas of Doom" but I guess not. Maybe I got mixed up with another issue? Anyways. All I know is I need more Jawa minifigures since I only have two! From the little battle pack that came out some years ago now, 75198. I didn't get the big UCS sandcrawler though I was sorely tempted at the time. I was able to make these two little builds from pretty much spare bricks- and a healthy dose of Edmonton Brickyard bulk finds. So cool! Love these little microfighters and customs speeders!

The little microfighter in the foreground is a modification of a Star Wars Celebration Exclusive set that I didn't even know about, but I found this MOC on Rebrickable and it was easy enough to build without spending hundreds of dollars on eBay or whatever. And the super cool speeder with treads in the background is by Mr Tarproman. The stand, too, actually. Brilliant stuff! 

 

Here is a photo montage that looks like it was made with a  1997-era photoshop competitor that has gone the way of AltaVista. And I'm ok with that! I'm all about 1997, which is when Crimson Empire came out. I loved those covers! Not enough to buy the series, apparently. I don't clearly recall why I didn't just buy them when I saw them on spinner racks- maybe I flipped through them and didn't care too much for the 90s era story-telling. I have a memory, which I don't totally trust as accurate, of being on my Cross-Canada hitch-hiking trip and seeing one of the issues in a gas station, and if that's the case, I definitely would have left it there as there was no way to transport a comic in my backpack without hopelessly crumpling it. 

Anyways. Not too many people remember ole Kir Kanos nowadays. And that's ok. I've always loved the Royal Guards and their various iterations- the Shadow Guards from The Force Unleashed were especially cool, and might have looked to the Kir Kanos/Carnor Jax stories for inspiration. I was at my local used Lego store (aka the best store ever, but actually known as The Edmonton Brickyard) and they have a table there where you can build a minifigure. One section for helmet/hair/head, one for torso, one for legs, and one for accessories. So I pretty much kit bashed together this Kir Kanos form there. I made his little pike staff or whatever with parts from home. Wish I knew where his legs came from- Ninjago maybe? Not an exact match but a good enough rendition. 

I also made a Lambda-class shuttle for him! Because why not, right? I love my Tydirium, especially now that I have a stand that shows off its full glory, so I thought I would build a whole nother one with Royal Red colours. And, mission accomplished in that I was totally able to replicate a set 75094 out of spare parts I had on hand, the bulk bins at the Brickyard, and not a terrible amount of specific BrickLink orders. It's maybe a bit more candy caney than I had envisioned but I still think it looks pretty cool. They make great bookends!

 

"Hey Marshal, this town ain't big enough for the both of us!"

"You're absolutely right Gar Saxon. Mandalopolis is waaaay too crowded. Let's build another level!"

"Good idea! You're the best! I heart you!!"

Filoni and Favreau, I am absolutely available to join your writers room, I can make up dialogue like that all day long!

So, I got the Mandalorian Starfighter (set 75316, not to be confused with The Mandalorian's N1 Starfighter, totally different things) primarily for the sweet minifigs. Got it sealed in box but secondhand for half price so I couldn't pass up that deal. Built the ship and it's fine, has cool moving wings and all that, but it doesn't sit in the depths of my heart they way TIE fighters and X-Wings and Imperial Shuttles do. 

So I thought I would dismantle it and use all the plates to build a second level, a boring square one since that's all I know how to do, but when I took the wings off and put them side by side I noticed how they look a lot like a Mandalorian helmet. I mean, obviously, right? So then I thought I would just tie them together (with bricks, not string), do a quick technic stand and voila. The overcrowding problem in Mandalopolis is solved! 

I also was able to put the various pieces of the Armorer's Mandalorian Forge (75319) just underneath for a sort of cave effect. Sweet! Put a micro fighter and some Minifigs on top and Boba's your uncle!

"Good job, Marshal! But where are we going to put the N1 now?"

"Oh sh..."

 

Two things turn twenty in this year of 2022- Attack of the Clones, and this blog. Neither has aged very well, it can be admitted, but both are still around, so. Though this blog very nearly died in the Attack of the Social Media. There's a years-long gap in posts a while back. But I'm striking back! Revenge of the ... you get the point.

Most Star Wars fans will agree that the best thing to come from Attack of the Clones is the meme of Anakin and Padme where she's like, "You did the <insert whatever> in the <normal> way, right?", but the second best thing is the Republic Gunship which I have just learned is actually called the LAAT- low altitude assault transport. But no one ever calls it that, same as the AT-AT.

Lego just released the Ultimate Collector's Edition of the Gunship, and it is gorgeous. Stunning. You can imagine the price- heck you don't have to imagine, I will tell you- it costs $400 US, and even more in Canadian dollars. Even the less ultimate editions, retired now, are expensive and hard to find. But of course, Rebrickable has your back. 

There are tons of designs on there, but I found this one on Instagram and loved the size- midi-scale which is a touch smaller than mini figure scale, but the designer, Ron McPhatty, made it just big enough to accommodate some Clones. A fantastic build, full of little details and great work-arounds. Those doors slide open! There's a hidden little speeder incorporated into the hold! 

This was the second big build we did- Pallas was involved in this one right from the start. It took us a while, a lot of the dark red parts are hard to find even on BrickLink stores, so we also made use of the newly opened Edmonton Brickyard bulk bins, but we eventually found the pieces we needed and the time to build it. Of course we used some alternate bricks here and there but overall it looks great.

 

Microcosms have always fascinated me. Little worlds. I think our own universe, the cosmos, is probably just a microcosm of some other more bigger universe, as in the first Men In Black movie, that little necklace that the dog had. Was it a dog? That movie came out 25 years ago so I don't remember it very well. I know it was 25 years ago though because that is also when I was hitch-hiking across Canada having the time of my life, exploring the microcosm of Canada. Which isn't very micro.

What is micro are Microfighters! Love these little guys, I think they fit the Lego esthetic so well with the design of the minifigures which, after all, were always meant to be cute. The little Y-Wing shown above, the yellow one, came in a book about Lego Star Wars, and I always loved the design. So I built another one out of spare parts. I was going to make it red to be like the Resistance Y-Wing micro fighter (75263) but turns out I don't have that much red parts. I have a ton of grey though! So I built a Mandalorian version. Even stole the nacelles off of the Razor Crest microfighter (75321) which, honestly, kind of missed the mark of that cuteness that I like so much. They plugged right in! Since Din Djarin already has a bunch of ships, and fragments of ships (lol) I thought would give this one to a random Mandalorian mini figure. Pretty cool.

In other news, The Librarian Kickstarter was wildly successful and is going to come to an end next week. Thanks for your support! Completely by coincidence, another anthology featuring one of my stories will launch on Kickstarter next week. One of these days I should do my own Kickstarter since I already am getting kicked so much! Seriously, I would like to Kickstart The Ursus Verses Volume 2. One day. This upcoming anthology is from The Dragon's Roost Press and is called LOLcraft. An anthology of humorous  Cthulhuesque stories. Mine is really fun, I can't lie. It's about the cosmos. Well, cosmic horror! There's kind of a microcosm in it! Several, really. Sort of. Honestly, you just have to read it. Microcosmic horror? Hmmm....

 

I sometimes think space and time are unified in the same way matter and energy are, and that there is a finite supply of both. So as the universe expands- space gets bigger- time gets smaller. Or less of it. There's probably a formula for that but in a less cosmic sense, all I know is I have very finite space to display my Lego collection, and not nearly enough time to build more Lego.

Thus I have developed a somewhat unexpected passion for stands. The Convor is a bit of a space hog for the size of the model. Lots of surface area. It was made to soar, dammit! So I went back to Rebrickable and found this stand, by Fantasts. I was able to build a decently similar thing with parts I had on hand. The nice thing is you don't need to be exact, just need some good greebling. A combination stand and little minifigure diorama! Love it!

 

Years ago I read a book called Accelerando, by Charles Stross. Mind still reeling from it lol. There was a lot in there, but one of the things I often think about was how, in that universe, any raw material like asteroids or, say, the Moon, was a terrible waste until it was converted into processing power. I'm ok with the Moon just being the Moon but my gigantic horde of loose Lego bricks definitely seems like unrealized potential.

Luckily I have discovered Rebrickable! The best way to convert loose Lego into Awesome.

Spoiler- I also discovered BrickLink stores, the best way to acquire even more Lego so that my pile doesn't really actually seem to shrink at all...

So there's this guy that I follow on InstaGram, ScruffyBrickHerder, who is an accomplished Lego builder, and he makes what he calls 'Uglies'- mashups of Star Wars ships. They're pretty cool, the design language of Star Wars being very amenable to this sort of thing. When he posted this TIE ugly, I fell in love. So pretty! He calls it the TIE Convor, after a bird creature seen in Clone Wars, Rebels and so forth. Simultaneously cute and cool. Right up my alley- I had to build one for myself! And he was thoughtful and kind enough to post free instructions on Rebrickable. In my innocence I just started building, from step 1. Oh sweet summer child. I know better now. But this was as far as I got with the parts I had on hand before getting stuck:

Which, not a bad start, but I didn't want to just discard it as I had so often in the past doing similar things. That's where BrickLink came in. Turns out there's a guy just across the freeway from me, so I bought the parts I needed and was back in action. The best part, though, was that my daughter Pallas asked me what I was up to, and I showed her and pretty soon she was right in there, digging for parts and just being a great Lego building partner. In fact, it's become a thing for us now. More on that later! Here's another view of the finished model for now. I stole the cockpit window from Yoda's Starfighter (75168) and I feel bad but he wasn't using it so. Cheers!

I missed Star Wars day but honestly, every day is Star Wars Day over here at the Woods. I did start building a V-19 Torrent micro fighter, which was super easy to build once I found all the parts. Microfighters are tons of fun, love the chibiesque aspect. I have a bunch that I bought, but also some that I cobbled together out of spare parts, hence the whackadoodle colours on some of these. The instructions for all Lego sets are available on their website, so as long as you have the parts (and for bigger sets you almost never do!) you can build them. And the V-19 as seen here was never put out by Lego so I found a great YouTube channel and followed his instructions.

The V-19 Torrent is one of my fave Star Wars ships. Introduced in Genndy Tartakovsky’s 2D Clone Wars micro series which is now available on dsnypl+s. It also showed up in the 3D Clone Wars show, but has never made a live action appearance as far as I know- could be an Easter egg in one of the new movies idk. I have a 3.5" scale Hasbro version as well, not Lego. Lego did make a non-microfighter of this ship but I don't have it. And they made a sort of microfigher but not in this style, so. I need some Clone Pilot minifigs!