February 19, 2009
February 15, 2009
I hate Bionicle…
..There. I said it. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only AFOL who feels the same way.
One of the (few) things that really bugs me about LEGO is the fact that it now has so many custom and bespoke elements. In fact, for the last several years it’s been basically impossible to accurately recreate a new set with your own pieces if you don’t actually own the original set. This is entirely down to the fact that there will be at least one unique element in the new set. Sometimes this may be as insignificant as a minifig, or simply a new colour for a particular element, but it’s still kind of annoying and, I feel, goes against one of the main principles of LEGO.
Often these elements are so specific or ridiculous in shape that they are practically useless for anything other than their originally intended purpose and nowhere is this more evident than with Bionicle.
Despite this it appears that we do actually own rather a large amount of Bionicle sets and pieces so I thought I’d overcome my fear and loathing and see if I could figure out the point of Bionicles. And this freak is the result of my efforts.
I’ve put a few more shots of him on my Brickshelf page too if you’re interested.
I have to say, in conclusion, that actually building with bionicle was pretty much just as rewarding as building with “regular” LEGO (if there even is such a thing these days?). all the elements connect together in multiple ways and all the standard LEGO rules still apply. You can even connect most of the bionicle elements to regular LEGO too, so while I’m still not a convert, I appreciate that they haven’t copped out as much as I originally thought with Bionicle. And hey, the kids like it I guess!
February 5, 2009
Syntax Testing
//
// removeInvalid: takes an input string and returns a valid
// DAG name string (alpha-numerics only)
//
// $mode: 0=strip , 1=replace_
global proc string removeInvalid(string $input, int $mode)
{
string $output = "";
for ($n = 1 ; $n < size($input)+1 ; $n++)
{
string $char = `substring $input $n $n`;
if ($n == 1 && `match "[0-9]" $char` != "")
$output += ("_"+$char);
else if (`match "[a-zA-Z0-9_]" $char` != "")
$output += $char;
else if ($mode)
$output += "_";
}
return $output;
}
February 1, 2009
LEGO Spaceship
Here’s a little thing I made up using the parts from some of the new(ish) Mars Mission Sets plus a couple of other odds and ends that were lying around in the “play bucket”. I know it’s de rigueur to give these kind of things names, like “Tomcat”, “Epiphany-II”, “Collateral Destroyer”, etc, etc.. but meh.. it’s yet another generic fighter-plane style spaceship. enjoy.
LEGO Spaceship
It should probably have a canopy if it’s going into space, or at least travels as fast as it looks like it travels, but I just couldn’t fit one on with the pieces I had to hand… And even if I could have, it probably would have spoiled the shape which I quite liked.
Artwork – Life Drawings
Our Life Drawing class has recommenced so I thought I’d better get rid of the backlog of older drawings that I’ve still to upload. Here’s the last few from previous classes.
and here’s a couple of older monotone pencil sketches:
