BricksABillion

Want to improve your building skills and your photography skills? Do a 365!

Here is Day 5 from a Dan of action‘s second 365.

This one is titled “Darth Solitude.”

The point of doing a “365″ is to take one picture a day every day for a year and post it somewhere public like a blog of a Flickr photostream. Taking and posting your pics every day help you establish some accountability for your project, and also help you build a bit of a following with your friends and fans.

You don’t have to start on January 1, but it should be for a full year. You pick your theme (I’m pushing LEGO themes here, obviously).

One key thing is not to make your theme too limiting, or you can dry up on ideas pretty quick. (Or run out of time — e.g. a brand new LEGO-built castle a day is probably a little too much) But it also shouldn’t be “sky’s the limit” — so that you’re actually disciplining yourself to learn and improve your techniques.

Dan’s basic theme was “A LEGO a Day” and he’s also been posting these pictures on his LEGO a Day blog. Dan was one of my big inspirations for moving forward with my webcomic The Brick Side.

I like good Mechs and I like good LEGO humor. So this MOC by mondayn00dle really hits a good chord.

The color scheme of the MOC is cohesive, the postures of the Mech and the doomed are great, and the angle of the photo is perfect.

via The Brothers Brick

Sean Kenney is the guy I almost met at BrickWorld in 2009. Instead I had to settle for having my picture taken with Nathan Sawaya (read my recent interview with Nathan). Okay, not a great loss, but I’ve still got to catch up with Sean sooner or later. Sean is the other LEGO certified professional living in New York City. He’s also the guy who runs MOCpages — an online community for LEGO builders to share their creations, and is the author of Cool Cars and Trucks.

Cool Robots is Sean’s second LEGO building book in this series. It’s due to hit bookshelves in September, and I plan to snatch one up pretty quick. Well, two really. 1 for me, and 1 for my boys to fight over.

Sometimes you want to build great big scenes that blow the neighbors away. But don’t forget to take time to build the small things. Karf Oohlu does a lot of small stuff packed with twists and humor. Check out his latest creation, “The Wizzal Upon his Abominable Chair.”

Building small is also related to another aspect of LEGO building called “Tablescraps.” Tablescraps are those little things you build when you’ve got a few pieces left over, or you’re trying out something new that you might try to work into a MOC later. There’s a group for LEGO Tablescraps on Flickr. continue reading…

“Dumpster”, originally uploaded by Brickapolis™.

Ya know, sometimes you need a dumpster. I’m not sure if I’ve seen too many of these in MOCs, but maybe we need to start seeing more. There’s got to be a lot of humor ready to go into a LEGO scene with a dumpster. Anyone?