Once upon a time Matt and I were a little bit bored, so we went to the mall to find the very best thing there. Turns out that the best thing was a Lego Lord of the Rings Shelob kit. We went to Village Inn to build it while eating pie, and thus began a grand (and somewhat expensive) tradition!
In the tradition that we have of collecting things, pie and Legos became one of our favorite mid-week past times. Eventually, we'll have miniature plastic versions of pretty much every scene from the Lord of the Rings movies.
Perhaps our favorite set was the Tower of Orthanc, which I got Matt for his birthday and which took us a good six months to build. This monstrous beauty is nearly three feet tall. And that's an ent with an eagle down to the right. Hooooom hrrooooooooom.
Well, naturally Matt couldn't keep his creativity under wraps. Pre-made sets with instructions are fun, but sometimes you just need to break out of the mold! Matt got this fancy computer program to plan his creations, and then found an incredibly complicated website to buy the necessary bricks for $0.02 or so apiece. The results were delightful. I posted about the self portrait he made of us in my last update, but here are some other awesome things he built.
This deer head was modeled after something he saw online.
As was this tiny Starship Enterprise (double-nerding for the win). Please ignore the cat hair.
These bounty hunters were built in the Cubedude style, as seen in the Beautiful Lego art book I got him for Solstice.
And since he's Matt, he clearly had to make a Godzilla. The smoke in this model is built using ice cream cone pieces, which is pretty awesome, if you ask me.
All this time I was basically sitting on the sidelines, wishing I had the creativity to create my own designs, but just not quite confident enough to do so. And then lying in bed one morning, it occurred to me that I could build a penguin.
The penguin was quickly followed by a swan.
And a Stellar's jay in a tree. Matt made a cardinal to keep him company.
The only problem now was lack of pieces. This one is obviously identifiable as a flamingo, but with the right pieces, it could have been so much better! (This one was scrapped. They can't all go on the bookshelf.)
So then you go to Target and peruse the Lego aisle for kits. I sort of wonder what we look like, standing there in the toy section, examining all the Lego kits to see what peices are used where. "Look! This one has three yellow tooth pieces!" "Yeah, and this one has black and yellow clips for beaks and feet!" Who cares what the finished product is; it's all about the pieces now!
The results aren't too terrible, if I say so myself.
Both the vulture above and the peacock below had their preliminary phase where I was rather satisfied with them and they sat on a shelf for a week or two, and then an update phase that took them to that next level of finished. Like adding a pea hen to entice this cocksure fellow!
These nesting sandhill cranes are unquestionably unfinished. I ran out of good beak pieces, and I'm definitely not satisfied with that leg. Plus, I didn't have any white 1x1 round plates for eggs. Guess it's time for another purchase order...
Of course, creating good products takes a good research and development team. I'd say that we at the Byrde House have one of the best. You can see that it's a team effort.
While I was building birds this morning, Matt was practicing with piece shapes, trying to figure out new ways to make beaks and wings and necks. This robot goose will probably be disassembled by tonight, but that doesn't mean it didn't serve an excellent purpose.
Sometimes experimenting with pieces leads to fantastic new creations. Matt's extra-planetary rover is a result of playing with joints, and repurposing pieces to be used in new ways. I particularly like his use of a pickaxe as radar antenna. He also had bike handlebars as bumpers (front and back), and that little satellite dish is being held up with a pistol. I used roof bits to make a red planet for it to explore. (There's life in there somewhere!)
I've saved my favorite for last. I had a robin in my head for a while but didn't have the pieces to put it together. Last night we built a kit for an alpine hut with a mountain and cabin. We'd planned to piece it out, but wanted to build it as intended first. Plus, we needed something to do while we drank beer at Old Chicago. I knew it had the robin pieces just waiting for me, but I didn't expect the inspiration for a bird bath.
I'll just go ahead and admit it. I'm really damn proud of this one.
So there you have it. Liz and Matt play with Legos. It's been a fantastic little creative outlet, and I'm quite certain there will be more where these came from! Like a crow. I still haven't found the right pieces for a crow. Except, maybe that one... and... Ok just a minute, I'll be right back.
No comments:
Post a Comment