photography

I spent my weekend trying to recreate this Fabuland sticker from 71837 Ninjago City Workshops! Was it Worth it?

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In which I get distracted by nostalgic content included on a sticker in a Ninjago set I don’t have, do some colouring in, review 3265 Sandy Seagull’s Aeroplane and 3697 Flour Mill and Shop, do some figure matching and ultimately spend the weekend trying to reconstruct that sticker in photographic form. Will I succeed?

I’ve been a bit busy away from LEGO® bricks recently. While I have dodged much of the upcoming March Madness preview season, I also failed to mention that the 71837 Ninjago City Workshops is being released on March 1 2025. Had I mentioned this at the time that it was first announced, I would have also most certainly highlighted the fact that the set includes a Fabuland Reference: One of the panels includes a sticker that highlights several Fabuland Figures, a couple of Fabuland sets with the word ‘Fabuland’ plastered across the middle of the poster in Ninjago script. While I don’t have a review copy of the Ninjago Workshops, I do have quite few Fabuland figures and elements lying around the place; accumulated over the years from various sources. Let’s take a closer look at what’s featured in the sticker and see if we can recreate the view in real life.

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Setting the Scene: Moving from Cardboard Cutout to Polystyrene

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In which a long weekend craft project gets a little out of hand…

Its allegedly early Autumn here in Melbourne. We just had a long weekend. Associated with three days in a row where the temerature was 38ºC /100 F. So I set about a little craft project. I have found my attempts to review the last few LEGO Space have been stymied somewhat by the lack of space. In particular, the Command Rover and Lifting Crane, along with the Space Bace and Launchpad are both substantial sets.

My Current Cardboard Cutout Planetary background

If you have been following The Rambling Brick for a while, you will have clued into the fact that I enjoy using a bit of cardboard cutout scenery for themes such as Town, castle, Space… and even extending more recently to Ninjago and City.

This time, I am ready for something a little larger. So, for the public holiday, I took on a little project…

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31147 Creator 3in1 Retro Camera: Pretty as a Picture?

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Here at the Rambling Brick, photography has given us a lot of joy over the years – from travel, our earliest dabblings in Toy Photography, work with other organisations, and even with the family around the home. My father was definately an influence with regards to this: He has been giving thought to how he takes photographs for a while. I remember him getting a new Pentax SLR prior to a trip to New Zealand back in the 70’s, following on to a chain of EOS… both analog and digital, before settling in recent years on a mirrorless Fuji device. How things have changed over the last 24 years!

And so it was with some seriously nostalgic vibes that I approached this build.

31147 Retro Camera is part of the January 1 2024 Creator 3in1 range, which (for creator 3in1) is unique, as it is the first time in some years that no sets in the wave have been designed at minifigure scale (with the possible exception of 31152 Space Astronaut, which has room for a minifigure to sit down inside its head.) No houses. No Vans. No Shopping Strips or Amusement Ground Rides. Just real world objects (along with a 35th anniversary helicopter carrying truck), all competing for display space on your shelves.

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‘Snap’ Lockdown Virtual Toy Photo Safari – Sunday 29th August 9am-5pm AEST

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The impact of the pandemic continues to affect many people around the world. Here in Australia, the states of Victoria and New South Wales are currently under lockdown/stay at home orders, to minimise spread of the delta variant, while vaccines are rolled out.

This coincides with the weather stating to improve, as spring approaches. I was hoping to catching up with some friends in the near future to go on a Toy Photo Safari. We were looking forward to taking our LEGO Minifigures and other action figures out into the wild, getting our cameras down to their level, and taking a few pictures. The restrictions currently in place for Victoria and New South Wales are likely to put a hold on those plans for the next couple of months.

The limitations of the current situation came up in a chat with some friends in South Australia, who recently cancelled their real world Brickstameet due to a short local lockdown. And so we have decided not to wait, and take the meetup online.

This weekend, The Rambling Brick, and South Australia’s Brickstameet team are looking forward to working together to host ‘Snap!’ a virtual toy photo safari.

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Back to basics with Stuck in Plastic

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Sometimes life just gets in the way. Over the last year, I think I can count the number of times I have headed out to take photographs on one hand. I could make any number of excuses, but in real life I just hadn’t felt like it. Work has been busy. Writing and reviewing has been taken a little more energy than I expected. And I just haven’t felt in the mood.

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Getting the full picture: Upgrading the light box

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In which I supersede my soft light box with a quick trip to the local hardware shop, for less than the cost of medium size LEGO set…This gives me a place to take pictures of Voltron, who has learned some new moves.

Over the last couple of years, I have used a number of techniques to light and photograph LEGO Models and minifiugres here at the Rambling Brick.

I started out using a relatively minimalistic set up, using a phone, a foldable light with baking paper as a diffuser, and a piece of white paper.

Before too long, I started using a small, reliable ‘Soft box’ – with two compact fluorescent tubes, some diffusing fabric and folding up into a convenient carry case. This has been my mainstay of LEGO® photography over the last few years. It is pretty good for most smaller, which have a footprint of less than a square foot.

A Sizeable Challenge

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Short of breaking Voltron down and stacking the individual lions, I was never going to make this set fit in this box, all at once.

Voltron 31211: this set challenged my sensibilities with regard to what I could fit in the light box. In real life, I don’t have the space for a dedicated studio, with large lights. A bit of bench space in my build room is all I have. (you can read my review here)

But it was time to revisit my photographic setup, ideally while maintaining enough budget to pick up one of the new Powered Up trains. Perhaps I will need to look at the passenger train rather than the freight train now. I took my inspiration from my friend @frostbricks, who recently shared images of his kitchen table photo studio on Instagram.

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Bulking Up with Bane’s Bigfig: Bane™ Toxic Truck Attack

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Larger than life characters need larger than life figures. As such, over the last 18 years, the ‘Bigfig’ has been developed to cover situations where a regular minifigure feel a bit… inadequate. Especially useful for Rock Monsters, Snow Monsters and Trolls, they have also been used to represent super sized villains such as Darkseid, Thanos, Gorilla Grodd, Dogshank and Killer Croc, and heroes such as the Hulk and Maui.

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Bane doing his bit for the ramblingbrick marketing department, holding onto a 1×8 brick in the bottom of his hands

Compared with regular mini figures, they have no leg or neck moment, and only in relatively recent years have they had rotating wrists. What they lack in movement, they make up for with an imposing physique.  The degree of sculpted muscular definition varies, as does the amount of printing.

A great hulking(sic) figure, this version of Bane comes from the second wave of The LEGO Batman Movie sets, specifically 70914: Bane Toxic Truck Attack.  I would like to compare the advantages and disadvantages of the moulding of this bigfig in comparison to the smaller figure, with multiple printed muscles.  Fortunately, this set provides us with one of those as well, in the form of the Mutant Gang leader. We will also compare this figure with the only other bigfig currently active in my collection: Maui from Moana. Continue reading →

Series 17 Minifigures: Fireside Review

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Pictures of the latest series (Number 17) of Collectable Minifigures have been circulating the interwebs like crazy in the run up to their official release this week.  My figures arrived on 2nd of May, and I have to admit, I think this is one of the most appealing series yet  There is something for pretty well everyone…

As autumn has taken control of the weather here (in the USA, you may call it fall although I appreciate it is currently spring in the northern hemisphere), temperatures have dropped and evenings may be spent sitting in front of the fireplace with a nice cup of tea/ glass of whine/ beverage of choice.  While I was sitting down in front of the fireplace, this evening, I opened today’s mail. The camera was in easy reach, and I could not justify moving far from my seat to photograph these figures.

IMG_4873.jpgIf you have seen them already, you know who we have. I’m not up to generating a bag feeling guide tonight, and I know there are a few already out there.

 If you have not yet seen reviews of this series, here is a quick summary: Continue reading →

The Second Less than Obvious Mashup Joke of this Week  #4a

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Ever get the feeling you are being watched?

Perhaps we’ll make a week of these…

Get the Picture 2: Getting rid of the Living Room Table

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Do you ever look at your photos of lego models, or minifigs and think “Why doesn’t that look as good as other photos you have seen on photosharing websites or lego blogs?”

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Why haven’t I been blogged by an important Lego image sharing site?
It took me a while to realise the problem was a relatively busy, untidy environment around my model, and big shadows.  Even when I tried to take a picture on a table next to the wall, it still looked a bit dubious. Shadows were a problem.  I had two options: invest in a swish light box, or improvise.  I chose to improvise (on this occasion!) Continue reading →