"We're ready to believe you"

So, with my MOCs of ECTO 1 and the Ghostbusters HQ building now completed (you can read about them here and here respectively) it's time to wrap things up with the piece de resistance - the Ghostbusters themselves.

(from it.wikipedia.org)

I had initially intended to make do with generic minifig parts for the guys, but after spending ages fruitlessly scrolling through pages and pages of minifig torsos, legs, heads and hair on Bricklink desperately looking for something suitable I decided to admit defeat and call in the experts. Minifigs.me, owned and run by minifig customization gurus Nick and Caroline, had previously supplied me with custom stickers for my ECTO 1 and Ghostbusters HQ models, and prior to that they made me some excellent custom Watford F.C. minifigs, so they were the obvious choice. They were happy to design me a set of Ghostbusters minifigs from scratch, and a few weeks after I contacted them the minifigures below arrived (click pictures to enarge).

Peter...."He slimed me"

Egon....collects spores, molds and fungus

Winston....."Ray, when someone asks you if you're a God, you say YES !"

Ray....."Symmetrical book stacking, just like the Philadelphia mass turbulence of 1947"

The torso designs, which are stickers, are superb, right down to the individually named overalls and the walkie talkies hanging from their belts. I also love the shoulder patches. Care has obviously been taken to find heads and hair which approximate the appearance of the characters - Peter is suitably sneering and slightly dischevelled, Winston has his little 'tache, Egon is clean-cut, calm and collected, and Ray has obviously seen a ghost.... You can see the guys posing together below in front of their HQ building (click picture to enlarge).

To complement the set of Ghostbusters minifigs I thought it'd be cool if I could come up with a design for Slimer (below), surely the most readily recognisable ghost from the movie. I played around on LDD for a while in order to try and come up with a LEGO version of the gluttonous, mucus-distributing phantasm which would be at least vaguely reminiscent of the real thing.

A Class 5 full-roaming vapor (from cinemascope-blog)

Once I'd arrived at a design which I was reasonably happy with I contacted Minifigs.me and they agreed to have a crack at customising it. I therefore went ahead and sourced the parts, built Slimer, put him in an envelope and sent him to Sheffield, and below you can see what Nick and Caroline sent back (click picture to enlarge). My Slimer consists of just 7 elements - a lime green robot body sandwiched between a 2 x 2 dome top and a boat stud, with phone handsets for arms which are joined to the body by way of Technic half pins. He's then been beautifully brought to life by a couple of Minifig.me custom stickers - I have to say I'm delighted with him !

To finish things off there was one last thing I needed - the Ghostbusters' equipment, and specifically their backpack particle accelerators. I quickly threw together a simple design for the backpacks at the same time as I was experimenting with designs for Slimer (LDD screengrabs below - click to enlarge).

Ever since the release of Series 11 of the Collectible Minifigures I've had the Welder stood on my desk, and I was never in any doubt about which element I'd use for the Ghostbusters' wand, or particle thrower, which fires the charged particle beam. The only downside was that I couldn't find the element ("Minifig, Utensil Welding Gun") in LDD in order to add it to my design above, so until I finally got to assemble the backpacks out of real elements I just had to use my imagination and hope it would turn out OK.

You can see Peter Venkman complete with his particle accelerator backpack and wand in the pictures above (click to enlarge). That welding gun works pretty well I reckon. The main downside of all the kit is that once the backpacks are attached the Ghostbusters need to be mounted on a minifigure stand, or stuck on a baseplate, to stop them toppling over. All four guys plus Slimer can be seen posing below with ECTO 1 (click picture to enlarge).

With everything finished I could finally bring together all the different parts of the build - ECTO 1, the Ghostbusters HQ building, the Ghostbusters minifigs and Slimer - and take the photograph below (click to enlarge). I've obviously taken a few liberties with the design and relative scale of the various components, but all things considered I'm pretty happy with how it turned out in the end.

So that wraps things up, then. I hope you've enjoyed reading this series of Ghostbusters-themed posts, and if you have any comments or feedback about the models then please feel free to share. Anyone interested in getting a set of Ghostbusters minifigs (or indeed any custom minifigs) should drop Nick and Caroline an e-mail at contact@minifigs.me. All that's left is for me to wish all Gimme LEGO readers a Merry Christmas - have a good one, folks - and I'll be back with my annual round up of the best and worst of the year with the 2013 Gimme LEGO awards.

"I ain't afraid of no ghost !"

Night at the Museum

I've had something of a love/hate relationship with LEGO's City theme over the past few years. Many of the sets seem distinctly dumbed down for a younger audience, with an over-reliance on POOP, and I also find the annual procession of Police and Fire sets rather tedious. Even so, every year there seem to be a few City sets which break the mould. Last year's Set 4440 Forest Police Station was a cracker, for instance, impressing me so much that I included it in the Reader's Choice poll for Set of the year. True to form, 2013 is following the same pattern. A bunch more Police sets ? Check. A load more Fire sets, including a new Fire Station ? Check. Too much POOP ? Check.

Also true to form is the presence of some more interesting offerings, however. I'm a big fan of the three City Traffic sets released so far this year, including Set 60016 Tanker Truck (above), and I have to confess that even one of the 2013 Police-related sets caught my eye, so much so that when it briefly appeared at 33% off RRP at UK retailer Boots.com I decided to grab a copy and check it out.

I seem to recall that Set 60008 Museum Break-in caused a few ripples in the fan community when news of its impending release leaked out; my suspicion is that some people saw the word "Museum" and immediately started to fantasise about an ornate, modular-style edifice. Those people should have known better - it is a City set, after all - and as you can see from the front of the unfeasibly wide box above, the reality is rather more mundane, although it's still interesting enough to have caught my attention. The back of the box (below - click to enlarge) is predominantly occupied by a bunch of action shots, mostly featuring various acts of heinous thievery, plus a few of the set's multitude of play features which we'll get to later.

The contents are accessed by cutting a couple of tape seals on one of the end flaps. Inside the box you'll find a cardboard-backed package containing the instruction booklets and sticker sheets, 6 bags of parts, and a dark bley 16 x 16 plate.

There are a total of 4 instruction manuals lurking within the cardboard-backed package. Booklet 1 is forty pages long, but the building guide for the helicopter takes up only 27 of the pages; also present are fully 6 pages of information about the LEGO light brick contained within the set, of which 5 are filled with various warnings in no less than 19 different languages - incredible. There's also a page explaining how to use the new orange Brick Separator and a 4 page inventory of all the parts to be found in the set. Booklets 2 and 3 are more focused on the task in hand, containing little other than the building guides for their respective vehicles.

Booklet 4 (below) has a bigger footprint than the others and unsurprisingly contains more pages given that it covers the construction of the museum. The back cover shows the various elements of the set integrated within a City layout. This layout, commensurate with the make-up of LEGO's City theme, is best described as a Police state, filled as it is with villains being chased by a variety of LEGO Police vehicles, at least one of which is no longer even available at retail.

The set comes with two sticker sheets (below - click to enlarge). None of the vehicles nor indeed the museum are spared the indignity of stickers, but at least they genuinely enhance the appearance of the models to a lesser or greater extent (particularly the museum) and they aren't too challenging to apply reasonably neatly. Unless you're desperately ham-fisted, that is.

You get a total of six minifigures with the set. Four of them are described as LEGO City Undercover Elite Police Officers, and the other two are crooks. The supposed Undercover Police Officers are anything but undercover, being resplendent in Police uniforms; clearly a use of the word "undercover" that I've not previously encountered.... Three of the Police minifigures (below - click to enlarge) have identical torsos front and back and their printed legs are also identical; they differ only in respect of their facial features and headgear. Two of them are wearing aviator caps with trans black visors (the caps presumably approximating for the kind of headgear that riot police wear) while the third sports a baseball-type cap.

The fourth Police Officer is the helicopter pilot. His torso and legs have different prints to those of his three law enforcement colleagues, and he sports a motorcycle-type helmet with a visor. This figure can be found in two other sets, one of which is Set 30222 Police Helicopter which some of you will recently have received for free with a purchase from S@H or a LEGO brand store.

The two crooks have identical torsos and legs. The torso print is excellent both front and back, from the rope wrapped around the torso, to the tool belt on the front and the keys and lock-picking tool (or is it a file ?) on the back. I'm as yet undecided which one of these guys unnerves me the most; is it the crook with the hat, who looks distinctly unsavoury and frankly disagreeable, or is it the guy with the mask who sports the kind of maniacal grin that makes you wonder what he'll get up to next ? The crook with the mask is unique to this set, while his partner has appeared in three sets to date including this one.

Moving on to parts of interest (below), the dark blue 1 x 6 x 5 panel is unique to this set, and there are a number of other dark blue parts of interest here too - the dark blue 1 x 1 x 3 brick with clips is currently only available in this set and one other, the inverted 2 x 2 slope has surprisingly only previously appeared in two sets in this colour, and we also get a few dark blue 2 x 4 tiles. Other interesting inclusions are the dark bley vehicle mudguard, the dark tan 4 x 4 tile modified with studs along one side, and the white 4 x 4 wedge with no top studs, all of which have only appeared in this and one other set to date. The light bley microfig has appeared in a total of 3 sets, as has the trans light blue windscreen with handle and the red brick with 2 studs on one side, while the tan 4 x 4 macaroni, the tan doorframe and the trans black windscreen have only graced 5 sets to date including this one.

Each sub-model is built from its own bag or two of parts "for easy start" as the back of the box puts it, but I chose to just open all the bags at once and dive in. First up is the helicopter (below - click to enlarge). It's pretty basic, truth be told, and from some angles has a distinctly crude, unfinished look to it. The rotors are great example of this - there are only two of them, and because they're mounted on top of a 4-blade propeller, it looks like someone just forgot to add the other two rotors. The rear boom is just a white 2 x 12 plate, which doesn't look great, and helicopter's undercarriage is moulded as one large element rather than being made up of smaller parts, which I'm not a fan of.... On the positive side, there are a number of play features; in addition to the rotating main and tail rotors, LEGO have intergrated a light brick into the design as a searchlight. Also, I think the front canopy works well, elegantly complementing the contours of the underside of the fuselage, and opening to allow the pilot to fit inside.

Next to be built is the Police van (below - click pictures to enlarge). This is I think considerably more aesthetically pleasing than the helicopter, aside from the wheels which look too small for the vehicle. The dark blue colour scheme looks good and works well with the helicopter, and overall it's solid, pleasingly proportioned and nicely designed, even if the back of it does have more lights than a Christmas tree.

Both the roof and rear door can be opened (below) to provide access to the interior of the vehicle. There are unfortunately only two seats for our three Police minifigures, so one of them will have to slum it in the back or just walk home. Assuming the Police can catch the crooks, there's ample space for miscreants in the back, although there's no seating at all. It would have been nice if the van had had at least one pair of opening side doors, but it's a minor criticism of what is overall a decent-looking vehicle.

The final vehicle is the crook's van (below - click pictures to enlarge). The front looks pretty good, and I like the colour scheme and "go faster" decals, but the vehicle is a bit too short and stumpy to be stylish. Similar to the Police van, the back swings open to allow access to the interior, and there's more than enough load space to fit in a goodly anount of swag, if you're that way inclined.

Finally on to the titular museum, which can be seen below (click to enlarge). Despite its disappointingly (although predictably) small size, the designers have nevertheless managed to give it a suitably museum-like appearance, complete with tan columns and bley statuettes on the roof. There are also a number of nice details such as the plantlife growing up one side, the red-carpeted entrance, the banners advertising the exhibition, and the exterior lighting. The roof features a couple of trans blue skylights which open to allow the crooks access to the building.

The interior of the museum is crammed with nice little details as well (below - click to enlarge). The highlight for me is the neat laser security grid protecting the front entrance which is made up of a bunch of trans red light saber blades and can be retracted if desired, plus there are a host of 'treasures' including a cute rendition of Vermeer's "The Girl with the Pearl Earring", a pearl gold crystal and sword, and a blue gem in a protective case.

Look, let's be honest - this set wasn't designed for me, and as such any of my complaints need to be taken with a large pinch of salt. My 5-year old is a far better representation of the target demographic for the City theme, and I have to report that he was absolutely mad for this set, variously declaring that it was "awesome" and "wicked" during the hour that he playtested it for me.

Set 60008 Museum Break-in contains 563 pieces and retails for £49.99 / $69.99 which is I think on the pricey side, although it's undoubtedly a much more attractive proposition at a third off RRP which is what I was fortunate enough to get it for. With three vehicles, six minifigures and a building crammed full of loot and play features this is without doubt an excellent playset, but it's harder to give it such a ringing endorsement from an AFOL perspective on account of the crudeness of a couple of the vehicles and the underwhelming size of the museum.

UK folks can currently pick the set up for £44.99 which is 10% off RRP by clicking here, while our American cousins can get $5 off the RRP by clicking here.

Blown Away

I spent last weekend at the 2012 Great Western LEGO Show (GWLS) at STEAM. It was my third consecutive year attending the event and it's really not getting old for me at all. There's no doubt that the standard of models on display was incredibly high - a quick skim through the 350+ photographs I took there immediately reminded me of that. At least as importantly, however, I probably enjoyed the social aspects more than ever as I've now got to know more of my fellow exhibitors, and some of them have become good friends.

Centerpiece of this year's LEGO display at GWLS was a collossal model of the British Olympic Stadium, complete with over a thousand minifigures, which was built by Ed Diment, Annie Diment, Stuart Crawshaw and Naomi Farr. Many of you will have seen pictures of this masterpiece during the extensive pre-Olympics publicity it got. As the show was wrapping up on Sunday, Ed and co. got to have their photograph taken with an Olympic Torch used in the Olympic torch relay (picture below - click to enlarge) which was a nice touch.

From L-R : Ed, Annie,  Naomi and Stuart

My contribution to the show was modest this year; all I had on display was the red Volkswagen T1 Camper Van that I posted about last week. It was part of a collaborative display coordinated by Robert Clarkson which brought together a total of 14 large-scale camper vans in various colours, including a neat pimped version in yellow and black, plus a number of smaller versions. What was interesting was how everybody seemed to have a different favourite; my picks were Robert's psychedelic multicoloured version and Vaughn Medway's black mobile disco van (pics below - click to enlarge).

Robert Clarkson's Psychedelic Camper Van

Vaughn Medway's Mobile Disco

One of the exhibits closest to my heart was the Gerry Anderson-themed collaborative build coordinated by Gary Davis. This featured creations inspired by such legendary TV series as Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, UFO and Stingray. The centre piece was Gary's magnificent model of Thunderbird 3 which was making its UK debut. Other top creations included Gary's huge Thunderbird 2 complete with elevator cars, Peter Salter's Thunderbird 2 hanger and launch strip complete with power functions, a beautiful Angel Interceptor, once again built by Gary, and a massive model of Stingray's Marineville by Andrew Danielli, complete with a wonderful LED-lit seabed scene. I'm not sure who built the UFO Control Room staffed by custom Homemaker figures below but I loved it ! If anyone knows who the builder is please leave a comment and I'll credit them. (EDIT : The UFO Control Room was built by Eleanor Thorn and Andrew Walker - thanks for the info, Gary !)

Thunderbird 3 by Gary Davis

Angel Interceptor by Gary Davis

FAB 1 by Andrew Walker

UFO Control Room by Eleanor Thorn and Andrew Walker

Marineville by Andrew Danielli

Thunderbird 2 by Gary Davis

As in previous years, Pete Brookdale (cavegod) brought a large selection of his superb Star Wars MOCs down to Swindon from his home in the frozen north. These included old favourites such as his huge AT-AT and Sandcrawler, and also some newer models including his 74-Z Speeder Bike and Rancor, plus the recently released Set 10227 B-wing Starfighter. This time out Pete was joined by first-time exhibitor Sam Pearce who displayed a superb crashed AT-AT - anyone who's seen The Empire Strikes Back will immediately recognise the downed AT-AT from the movie. STEAM veteran James Sutton displayed his model of Yoda with glowing lightsaber and some of his superb large-scale Star Wars figures alongside Pete and Sam's stuff.

74-Z Speeder Bike by cavegod

Sam Pearce's downed AT-AT

Yoda by James Sutton

Rancor by cavegod

Set 10227 B-wing Starfighter

Caroline (Savage_Steel) and Nick, a.k.a. Minifigs.me, had brought a bunch of their custom minifigures along. Having started out by making custom minifigures for their friends, including some superb Watford F. C.  minifigs for me (much obliged !) they branched out into making custom minifigures of the Team GB Olympic and Paralympic medallists which really caught the public's imagination and thrust their creators into the media spotlight. Caroline and Nick showed off a selection of their celebrity figures including our medal-winning Team GB Olympians and Paralympians, various incarnations of Dr. Who, the cast of Red Dwarf, and even a parachuting Royal.... Special mention for Lucy (lost_in_translation) who put together an excellent miniature Strictly Come Dancing set complete with band at late notice to show off some of the Strictly glitterati.

On yer bike...

Not amused....

Sorry, Doctor Who ?

Significantly better than the TV show...

The were a number of train layouts and townscapes on display. Some of my favourites were Eleanor Thorn and Andrew Walker's Alien Invasion diorama (I love the decadent minority partying in the jacuzzi as the city burns, and the cow abduction !) and Chris and Yvonne Mathews' Dutch Townscape, as well as the big collaborative effort between Naomi Farr, Huw Millington, William Howard and Jason Railton. These are the kind of exhibits that you can stare at for ages and keep seeing more and more neat details that you hadn't previously noticed.

Alien Invasion by Eleanor Thorn and Andrew Walker

Alien Invasion by Eleanor Thorn and Andrew Walker

Dutch Townscape by Chris and Yvonne Mathews

Dutch Townscape by Chris and Yvonne Mathews

Train layout built by Naomi, Huw, Jason and William

One of the things that struck me as I wandered the exhibition halls over the weekend was the sheer variety of LEGO creations on display. Alongside the dioramas above, which are classic GWLS fare, were Technic and NXT exhibits. These included an eye-catching series of models by Simon Burfield, who showed his huge moving T1 Robot complete with a pair of fearsome mini guns and also his LEGO-built wheelchair which can shift a full grown adult. The wheelchair had been featured on a ton of blogs and other sites in the run-up to GWLS so it was excellent to see it in the brick, or at least in the liftarm... When I asked him what he'd be building for next year he said he might try and build a car to move people around the exhibition hall; if anyone else had said that I would just have laughed at them, but I wouldn't put anything past burf.... There was also an appearance from the team responsible for Cubestormer II, which holds the world record for fastest completion of a Rubik's Cube. Their machine looks cool even when it's not doing anything, and it's amazing to watch the thing in action.

Burf's Wheelchair

Cubestormer II

Below you can see pictures of a few more creations that particularly caught my eye. I really want to give a special mention to "Twilight of the Gods" by renowned builder Luke Hutchinson (a.k.a. Derfel Cadarn). It's utterly wonderful, spellbinding even; perhaps my favourite model of the whole show. Click on the picture below to enlarge it and take a closer look at the little details. Even the purple moat at the base of the tower, complete with little pink bubbles, just works. I love it ! Incredibly, it appears from Luke's Flickr Stream that he built the whole thing in just a few days. Astonishing.

"Twilight of the Gods" by Luke Hutchinson

Friend's Kitchen by Yvonne Doyle

Tim Fegan's Iron Man

Ralph Savelsberg's Land Rover

Mouse by Tim Goddard

Maersk Container Ship by Tom Groombridge

In addition to those creations above there were others which I would have included if I'd managed to get better photographs....James Sutton's large-scale Superman figure, Robert Clarkson and Maria Sant's Mephistic Manor display, Barney Main's Galleons, Annie Diment's Looney Tunes characters, James Pegrum's Sacking of Camulodnum, Tim Goddard's Triport Spire and Space Police Hangar, Candlestick Hall by Michael Le Count, and Jeremy William's Neo-Classic Space models, for example. And there were others that I didn't even manage to photograph at all despite my 350+ pictures. I've therefore embedded a video below shot by film production company Infinite8 which captures a few of the GWLS 2012 creations that I've missed - click arrow to view.

In summary, I was blown away by the quality of the models on show - the bar seems to rise every year. And it's not just showing off, either - it actually seems to be inspiring people, and not just the AFOLs. I genuinely lost count of the number of parents I spoke with who said that their kids were wide-eyed with wonder at what they were seeing and would be getting their LEGO out and building as soon as they got home. LEGO can't buy this kind of PR and publicity. Attendance figures were extremely healthy, with around eight and a half thousand people visiting over the weekend; I think that might be the most visitors that GWLS has ever had during the ten years it's been going. Certainly the venue was heaving on both days, and the traders seemed pretty much rushed off their feet. So a fantastic weekend, then, and it'll take a lot to keep me away next year. Many thanks to Martin Long and his team for organising a wonderful weekend, and of course to all the exhibitors, traders and visitors.

Before I go, just a quick word about the frequency and timing of posts on this blog. For over a year now I've tried to stick to weekly postings, with new stuff appearing on Wednesdays, and up until the last couple of weeks I've pretty much managed to stick to that. The problem is, as my postings have tended to get longer and more detailed, I've increasingly struggled to meet my weekly self-imposed deadline, particularly when I'm reviewing a larger model which takes a longer to build. I've generally managed it, but this blogging business is supposed to be fun, and rushing to hit deadlines feels a little too much like work for my liking.... I'm therefore going to relieve the pressure a bit and allow myself more flexibility in respect of posting on here; it was either that or force myself to post shorter entries, and where's the fun in that ?! So just a heads-up to those of you who check in on Wednesdays for the latest post that you might need to wait a bit longer in future. Apologies, but I hope it'll still be worth the wait.