FLEGO is Not All Bad

So, so many AFOLs are also LEGO snobs and refuse to build with anything other than LEGO. Of course this is a requirement if you are in a LUG or taking part in any LEGO endorsed events like Brick Fair or Brick Cascade and of the other LEGO events around the globe. No FLEGO (fake LEGO) allowed at those events.

I will never be LEGO recognized media or a LAN ambassador because my screen name which I have had since the days of AOL chat rooms does not seem to meet their requirements. And I, quite frankly, refuse to change my name for them. Mind you if they would accept me as I am and not try to make me something I am not, I would jump on it in a heart beat. If only to show other LAN ambassadors what the FTC requirements are for disclosure.

LEGO is and always will be my number one love. With a very close second being Nano Blocks and LOZ because mini bricks are just super awesome (anyone remember when Mega Bloks had mini bricks). Yes LEGO has mini bricks (Modulex) too but they are fair to expensive for me to buy (I think I own like three bricks).

There are alternatives to LEGO out there and most at a fraction of the cost of LEGO. No these are not knock-offs. The brick is no longer under patent and anyone can make a brick set. LEPIN was/is a perfect example of knock-offs. Stealing both the LEGO intellectual properties and their set designs. If they weren’t stealing from LEGO they were stealing from AFOLs that posted their MOCs on Rebrickable or LEGO Ideas.

These competitors are not doing any of that. They are getting their own licenses and creating their own sets. Most of them with very good quality bricks to boot (okay, not as great as LEGO but better than super cheap bricks).

My favorite FLEGO brands are as follows:

Don’t fear the FLEGO.

Cow Cat Stretching MOC Review

I was sent this MOC for review. The opinions stated below are my own.

This is a quick little build that is a lot of fun. The bricks are good quality ABS and come nicely packaged. The instructions (digital only) are easy enough to follow, although I did have to take the giant image and break it up into a Word document to print it out (I no longer have a tablet, and building from my phone is not really possible for me).

The build starts with the front legs, and I found that they kept falling off or coming apart as I built the rest of the cat. This is not because of the brick quality, more that this portion of the build should have been last.

The set is only 64 parts, so it doesn’t take long before you have a fun kitty to display.

Overall, a good smaller MOC. The only thing besides re-ordering the instructions so as not to start with the front of the cat is the addition of three 1×1 tiles, a black one for the tail tip, and two white ones for the tops of the back feet. The added thickness on the back feet would be a plus, same on the tail. An added bonus would be covering the studs on the back half of the build. Should you want a studless design, you could also swap out a few of the parts on the head, too.

My cat also approves of this MOC. If he had thumbs, I am sure he would give it two thumbs up.

There are a total of five different cow cat MOCs, and I look forward to building the rest.

This set is available at Game Toy Friend along with my review. (this is an affiliate link where I get a small percentage of any sales made through it and you get 30% off using this code: whataslacker30%off )

Huge LUG Display at America on Wheels

SnailLUG, PennLUG, and ColonialLUG have joined forces to create one awesome display at America on Wheel in Allentown, PA. And I am proud to be a member of each of these LUGs.

I have not yet had a chance to get up to see it myself, but several of my builds are in it, specifically my Reading Pagoda that sits atop Mt Penn and my Colonial Theater in Phoenixville, PA.

The exhibit is called the World of Transportation and it is pretty darned awesome, if I must say so myself (and I do, because this is my site).

My sigfig can be spotted hanging out around the Pagoda and I believe there is geocache code in the near vicinity as well.

*Special thanks to KC for sending me pics and for taking my MOCs up to the museum.

Grinch Sets from Brickcraft

The huge brandnames aren’t the only game in town and Brickcraft has brought is some wonderful holiday sets this year. These are officially licensed and made from quality bricks. All at prices you’ll love.

Available at Walmart. Check out my Instagram and TikTok posts for videos and reviews.

LEGO Vidiyo Theme Review

Forgive this review I am trying to recreate it as I had an issue with posting it originally a month ago and am trying to remember all the finer points I made in it back then as the draft did not save. Basically, it boils done to the fact that the sets are way over priced for the amount of pieces you get in them.

LEGO Llama Vidiyo Set

You get only 70-80 some pieces in a $20 dollar set. The sets are comprised of a bunch a specialized parts that are reminiscent of the early 2000s when LEGO was getting crazy with all those special parts for Jack Stone and other themes. Most of these new parts won’t be usable in MOCs and are pretty much just huge Pods (also a points part in the LEGO system).

Clear Cover

When I first saw this piece I really could not see anyone ever using it for anything other than these DJ houses. Surprisingly some AFOLs have been using them as spaceship cockpits.

Other ideas I came up with were microscale bio-domes or green houses. What ideas can you come up with for the clear plastic covers from the Vidiyo sets?

Handle

The handle. This one I was sure no one could find another use for as there are NO in system connections (LEGO missed an opportunity to add studs on these like the did with the Dots bracelets.) I have recently seen a MOC or two that has indeed used these to my surprise.

Box to hold tiles

A little more System connections found. It will hold 16 of the beat bits tiles and a minifigure. But that is pointless because the figure requires its stand (see the bottom images) to play with it in the app. So I guess you could house a bunch of loose tiles in there instead.

Vidiyo Stage

This piece could have been brick built. Why make a new piece when you already have the parts to make this?

Plate rounded corners

Mario brought us a lot of rounded corners. Just some more. This is probably the most useful part in the lot.

Clips and domes

The larger domes are cool and snap right onto the white clips. But what else are we going to use those clips for?

Hinge Panels
Lid with Dots
Icecream Guy

The minifigures are fun as minifigures should be. Their cost is $5 which is what we pay for the CMF figures. They are now in a box so it makes it way to hard to find the ones you want. If I get one more stupid Ice cream dude I am going to scream. Yes, I know these are trading toys, but seriously do you know anyone that actually trades them? I don’t. If you know where I can trade them let me know.

Bunny DJ
Geni DJ
Llama DJ

The only way to get some of these figures and their fun accessories is to buy the overpriced big sets and that sucks.

I bought a few and at this point I am just going to wait until they hit clearance for any more.

Green Army Guys

I got a set of the classic green army men from Brick Mini during Bricks LA and have to say they are pretty darn cool.

They work on a LEGO stud or minifig hand so your sigfig can sit around and play with them.

You get eight standing (all in different poses) and three tank parts (the dude coming up out of the tank and two tank hatches, one opened and one closed).

LEGO VIDIYO Review

I wasn’t going to buy into these, but I kind of liked the figures to some degree. But the sets so far are way overpriced for what you get.

Right now there are four sets and 12 blind box figures. The sets all average around 70 pieces and retail for $20. At close to $.30 a piece that is (as I have said) a bit overpriced.

I guess we are paying for all those unnecessary new part molds. It feels like we have stepped back in time to when LEGO was making specialized parts left and right. The problem with these are they don’t really fit into the system in any way other than as the boxes they are.

Too many specialized parts like these will become a pile of unused parts in my LEGO room.

Seriously though why give us something like this when they could have designed this around the Dots bands?

Less specialized parts have promise but not much. At least they work better inside the system.

As I said, I also picked up some of the figures. They at least come with a few parts plus the tiles for the app.

I only picked up four and got one duplicate. With not being able to feel these I think they may be the downfall of this theme. I don’t want more than one of each figure. I don’t need all the tiles as I have already tired of the app.

Not a fan of the music on the app. Plus you have to have your figs with you to play with it (bad idea if you’re outside as you may wind up losing them). And who wants to have these AR videos of the inside of their house out there for the world to see? Not me.

You can’t share the videos outside the app not even with a screen capture app. Which is great for kid’s safety but takes some of the fun out of it for AFOLs.

Guess I will wait for these to hit clearance before I buy any more. Or buy them on BrickLink.

Awesome Star Trek Next Gen MOCs

Star Trek:TNG s01e04

This dude (Chen Wang) in Hong Kong has been spending most of his time during quarantine making some very cool Star Trek: The Next Generation LEGO MOCs.

His initial plan seemed to have been to one from every episode. He has a long road ahead of him and most likely “real” life will get in the way at some point. But for now enjoy what he has brought to us thus far.

He is using LDD and then rendering the images in RenderMan. He could just use Studio to both build and render but that is neither here nor there.

The majority of the builds cannot be built IRL due to colors for certain part not existing. I hope he gets back to making these but there hasn’t been a new update in the past few months.

I originally found him thanks to TrekMovie.com and just had to share them. I will probably attempt to recreate some of these in actual bricks making the necessary changes to do a real life build.

Sometimes Weird Parts Just Work

I given a small bag of “lego” pieces from a colleague of my sister. It was mostly non-LEGO, but I can still use it for my kids club when/if it starts back up.

In it were a bunch on weird masks that I had to look closely at to make sure they were LEGO. They were. These weird pieces are from the heyday of weird LEGO parts and hail from the NHL hockey sets.

I played around with them and made a totem pole of sorts. Then revamped it a couple of times. Now I think I want the rest of the face masks.

I wound up using the above MOCs in the daily brick limit challenge on Instagram this past January. It was fun and the first challenge that I participated in for each day of the event.

These masks could be fun in other rock builds. Maybe challenge it as a seed part some time.

GoggleWorks Building 6

Digital renders of building six at the GoggleWorks.

I decided to play with the animation renders in Studio.

Reference photos for the project.