LEGO Stuff: “Creepy Corridor”

Hey, guys! For today’s post, I wanted to share my most recent LEGO creation with you. I actually built it earlier in the summer — June, I believe — but I’ve only just now dumped my camera’s SD card data onto my computer. So, since I now have access to the pictures I took, I figured I’d post ’em here!

This little doohickey is different from the kind of thing I usually build: castles. Yeah, it’s still castle-themed, but instead of building an entire castle this time, I decided to do a little scene instead — a vignette, I guess you could call it. A sort of cutout, if you will.

. . . I should probably just show you.

Ta-daaaaaaaaaaaaa!

See what I mean? Yeah, I think you do. You’re not stupid, after all. (I think.)

Anyway, while I was building this, I imagined two teenage boys lost in a haunted castle. Things get worse as they’re separated. One of them (as you can see) is cornered by a cloaked skeleton on a bat-winged skeletal horse, and he fights it with a sword he found and the frying pan he brought. The other explores cautiously, searching for his buddy, and comes across a corridor with treasure guarded by another skeleton. Fun stuff. ^_^

Here’s some more views for ya.

I tried to get an authentic castle look by placing some mismatched colors in the wall. As I understand it, real castles were often built in this way in medieval times — not many castles (if any) were made entirely of one stone color.

I really like how a lot of recent LEGO minifigures have reversible heads with a different expression on each side. It allows for some scene-enhancing effects such as the nervous look on this guy’s face. The only thing that would have made this better is if his flashlight actually lit up!

To increase the fun, I added the functionality of a removable roof. And as you can see more clearly here, I tried to get a lot of detail into the corridor itself: spiders, wall decorations, an arched window, etc. It was a fun challenge working in such a small space!

Hope you guys liked seeing this! I enjoyed designing it quite a bit, and I plan on making similar “cutouts” of scenes in the future, whenever I do find more time to sit down with the ol’ LEGO collection.

See you in two weeks!

Back to the Building Blocks

Sooo . . . the Oscars are tonight. That reminded me of The LEGO Movie not getting nominated for Best Animated Feature. And that reminded me of how I’ve recently gotten back into building with my old LEGO collection.

So guess what I decided to write about?

Well, it’s actually less writing and more showing you what I’ve built. And then commenting on it a bit.

Just for a little background, I’ve decided to get back into building LEGO, for a few reasons. First, I just miss it — I used to do it all the time, and spent countless hours designing and creating things, not caring how much time I spent because I didn’t have nearly as many cares as I do now. Also, as I’m pretty busy these days, it’s nice to have an outlet here and there to just relax and remember what it was like to be younger, when you could just spend the day letting your imagination go crazy. And after seeing The LEGO Movie for the first time last year, I officially decided that I wanted to build LEGO again, but I didn’t actually get to it until about a month ago — a year later. That’s me for you.

So, anyway, with the background and context established, let me show you what I’ve built so far! It’s not a lot — I am busy, after all — but it’s definitely a start.

First up:

I call it the . . . um . . . uh . . .

SPACESHIP!!!

Yeah, that works. *nods*

Anyway, I decided to build a spaceship first because I nearly always build something related to castles and the like, so it was fun to experiment outside of my comfort zone. I like how this turned out overall, although next time I’d like to try to make something much bigger!

And then there’s this, also outside my comfort zone:

I wanted to try to build what’s called a mech — a robot usually meant for battle that’s piloted by a person. Now, this didn’t turn out quite the way I wanted, and the design is a little wobbly, but I still think it’s pretty fun. Plus the arms move!

That’s all I’ve got for now. For my next project, I’m hoping to recreate the chess scene from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I’ll probably do another post about that once it’s finished!

Hope you enjoyed this little post. See you next week!

NaNoWriMo: To Plan or Not to Plan

That is indeed the question.

When it comes to NaNoWriMo, there are basically two approaches you can take in planning your novel. They are as follows:

Option #1: Pantsing. Derived from the expression “flying by the seat of your pants,” this approach involves little to no planning whatsoever. Basically, when November comes, you just open a new document and start typing away, making everything up as you go. I’ve never “truly” pantsed a novel — my second novel had the least planning of any of them, but I still basically knew who my characters were, I knew where the plot would (very) generally go, and I had a few ideas for some specific scenes. I would personally not recommend pantsing your first novel, or even your second or third, unless you’re crazily spontaneous when it comes to creativity and have zero worry about producing a bad first draft. (You shouldn’t be worried about producing a bad first draft no matter what your approach is, but still.)

Option #2: Planning. There’s a pretty wide spectrum of planning: everything from just your main character and a general outline all the way up to a detailed roster of all of your characters, a description of what happens in each chapter, a written-out character arc for each character, et cetera. I’d recommend this approach, especially if you’re a newbie, but beware of over-planning. Preparing too much of your novel beforehand can actually hamper your creativity, not to mention productivity, when you actually sit down to write the thing. At the very least, you should know your main character(s) and have a basic idea of the overall plot.

Whichever approach you choose, be sure to have fun doing it! NaNo is less than two weeks away.

Which reminds me… I’d better get planning. Meep. o.o

NaNoWriMo 2014: A New Adventure Awaits!

It’s that time of year again! Writing. Madness. Caffeine, if you’re a coffee drinker. Thousands of participants. Forum conversations. Inspiration. Plot bunnies. Writer’s block. And, most importantly:

50,000 words. 30 days.

I’m talking, of course, about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo, sometimes shortened to just NaNo). It’s an amazing event that has taken place every November since 1999. People all around the world gather together via the Internet to cheer each other on as they each attempt a seemingly impossible goal: to write a 50,000 word draft of a novel in 30 days. That translates to about 1,667 words per day.

“That sounds insane,” you might be thinking. “Is that even possible? Why would anyone even want to attempt it?”

Well, first off, I can assure you that it is possible. I’ve done it every year since 2009, and have won each time. (When you say you “won” NaNo, all you mean is that you reached the goal of 50,000 words. It’s not really a contest — no prizes or anything.) So, yes, it is possible, although quite challenging. In fact, as I understand it, less than half of NaNo participants win each time it happens. Even if you don’t win, though, it’s an absolute blast if you’re into writing, or if you’ve had a story you’ve been wanting to write for a long time.

This NaNoWriMo will be my first time while in school and while having a job, so I know I’m going to be more time-crunched than usual. I’m also a little nervous that I might not be able to win, and I don’t fancy the idea of breaking my streak. Still, though, it’s been so much fun every year that I’d hate to miss out on it, so I think it’s definitely worth the risk!

Curious? Maybe even thinking you’d like to participate this year? Head on over to the NaNoWriMo website and check it out! I’d start with the About, How it Works, and FAQ sections. And if you do decide to sign up, add me as a buddy if you like!

Even if you don’t decide to participate, I hope you’ll pray/cheer for me as I embark on my sixth noveling adventure!

November is just around the corner. *evil chuckle*