lego

TartanLUG Engagement Officer

I’ve been pretty quiet here recently, but I have good news to share:

I’ve been elected as the Engagement Officer for TartanLUG, the Scottish Lego User Group! I take over the role previously held by Stewart Lamb Cromar, who of course left me incredibly big shoes to fill.

I’ve been a part of the LUG for a few years now, and it’s had a huge positive effect on me as a builder- it’s been inspirational meeting so many other creative, passionate, AFOLs. I’ve written about that joy, and many of the events I attended, previously.

As Engagement Officer, i’ll be looking to do likewise for others, highlighting some of the excellent shows and builds that the LUG produces, as well as sharing news in and outwith the group. It’s all very exciting- you can help me out by following some of the TartanLUG social media channels to help me out!

I’ve never had a minifig sigfig- enjoy my new hastily constructed avatar until something better appears!

Oban Winter Bricks 2022

Last month I attended Oban Winter Bricks for the first time, a dedicated Lego Event in the West of Scotland, and hosted by, once again, Tartan LUG.

After Brickmania in Peterhead and the Aberdeen Scale Model Show previously this year, this was the biggest Lego show i’ve attended and displayed in yet, with bigger displays, more builders, and seemingly endless waves of eager fans coming in through the doors. I displayed my reoccuring 2022 Castle MOC again -that I’ve yet to actually showcase here!- and a brand new Lego Pirates display; a big oceanscape complete with desert island, shipwreck, and mermaids.

I’ll post more of my own displays here eventually, but in the meantime, here’s some excellent builds and displays from other builders at the show. As always, plenty of inspiration to be found!

Aberdeen Scale Model Show 2022

Summer has been and gone, and the Aberdeen Scale Model Show took place in August, earlier this year. I attended with a band of fellow TartanLUG builders, and meant to write a post about it, but I feel far too much time has now passed.

That said, it would be entirely remiss of me not to post this one photo.

Lego animals from my display invading the carefully built flowerbeds of another builder’s MOC, definitely NOT making ice cream

Tartan LUG Members Day August 2022

Following my attendance at Brickmania 2022 earlier this summer, this weekend I attended a Members Day for my Lego Users Group in Perth, Scotland. I had previously missed one in November last year due to a weather storm, and one earlier this year due to Covid. Third time’s the charm!

The day was more of a catch-up and meeting rather than a full show and display of MOCs, but I and plenty of others still brought lots to share. Alongside built MOCs there were a number of vintage and rare sets that i’d never seen in person before, and this was surprisingly rewarding. A raffle was also hosted, along with a quiz, food, and numerous fans were there looking to sell or swap pieces. I met lots of great people, and left full of inspiration, ideas, and again, even more bought Lego than what I’ll ever really need. Once again, the whole day was just incredibly validating to know that other people got just as excited about Lego!

I have one more event scheduled for this summer, and then i’m off to Oban in November. Next year -between weddings, birthdays, and life- i’ll looking to attend and buld plenty more.

Brickmania 2022

After several years of being an AFOL followed by, oh yeah, a global pandemic, last month I finally got to attend and display at my first Lego show!

Brickmania 2022 was organised and hosted by my dear TartanLUG, and was a great weekend of Lego builds, shops, and fans situated in the Buchan Braes hotel just outside of Peterhead, Scotland. This was an incredibly cathartic two days for me- after building and sharing Lego creations alone for years uploading them online, it was great displaying for real fans, and definitely provided some validation to a hobby that I hold so dear to my heart. THIS IS A THING THAT OTHER PEOPLE DO AS WELL!

Very emotional, honestly. I’ve got lots more words -and potentially video- to share, but for now, some photo highlights from the weekend. I’ve left off my own MOCs- what I displayed will be revealed later. I’ll be looking to attend next year -as well as all the other Lego shows inbetween!- but what I saw that weekend was really inspiring. I’ll be going back even better!

Further Lego 6075 Wolfpack Tower Remakes

This year i’ve already remade Lego 6075 Wolfpack Tower in a big way, it’s one of my favourite childhood sets! Afterwards, I tried a few further variations of the set, one, as a minifigure habitat, and two as a microscale effort. Both are huge trends in AFOL building, so I thought i’d apply the base set again to both of them.

The former is as part of a Lego contest, the latter is just for fun. An excellent builder on instagram had already beat me to a microscale version- I added a small wartable scene to mine to punch up the effort.

Next year, I promise I wont be building any Lego Wolfpack MOCs…!

MOC: 6075 Wolfpack Tower Remake

With my previous Lego project being so Forestmen heavy, the next thing I wanted to do was make similar big forts and dioramas for many of the other Lego Castle factions. Next up, was the Wolfpack.

The Wolfpack faction subtheme of Lego Castle released in 1992, a perfect year for a VERY six year old me, admittedly, but regrettably a theme with only the three sets. These minifigs were pretty kickass while I was younger, and while, sure, the Wolfpack are on the surface very much a reskin of the Forestmen faction before them, I like to think they’re probably the more crass and less charming rivals of their tree-swinging Robin Hood-esque counterparts. With so few sets released and no big appearances I feel they’ve been somewhat sidelined as a faction, but worse, not really given their own identity.

For my MOC I wanted to remedy that a little. I wanted to build a crumbly ruined inaccessable base away from prying eyes, on an island in the middle of a swampy marsh. The forests belong to the Forestmen, the Wolfpack, I guessed, would take whatever they could get. The end result is something that accidentally became a remake of 6075 Wolfpack Tower. This was lots of fun to do, but also good practice for me in a lot of ways.! First, i’ve never tried tiled water, but I think all the trans light blue tiles here look superb. Secondly, i’ve not really dabbled in angled building like this before either, but I think it actually came out alright! As a third deviation, the island is elevated on a DUPLO footprint to build height- this was a bit tricker than I had anticipated. Overall it’s a bit different from it’s source material set, but hopefully it still looks recognisable enough too.


The Lion King’s chief enforcer, Ser Galien, The Warden, has been tasked with ‘cleansing’ the kingdom. His current quest finds him at a long forgotten derelict tall black tower, on a small island in a swamp. The band of hoodlums he finds there call themselves The Wolfpack…

All Lego Forestmen Minifig Colours (so far)

With the reveal of the Lego Collectable Minifigs Series 22 late last year came also the exciting debut of a new Forestman cap, this time in blue! As readers and friends know, I am a big fan of the Lego Forestmen minifigs. These sets and minifigs originally came out in 1987 when I was too young to even comprehend Lego, but seeing them floods me with nostalgia.

I got the majority of the new Series 22 minifigs pretty early after release, and posted the below image of the now matching four Forestmen on my social media channels. The response was great, but from there were a number of questions about piece availability and rarity. This post is for additional links and piece history, in case anyone out there needs some definitive, comprehensive answers!

  • The BROWN and GREEN caps (775) are the original minifig caps, debuting back in the Forestmen subtheme in 1987 onwards. The brown caps appeared in ten sets total, while the green was in thirteen. Despite their age, I feel these are pretty common. It should be noted this is both the “classic” brown and green colours; these have, I believe, since been phased out and updated by Lego as a company.

  • The LIGHT BLUISH GREY (88489) cap is fairly recent, and incredibly rare, only appearing in a Lego City set from 2020 of all places; 60271 Main Square. Here it was used as part of a statue rather than a hat for a minifig. This is a reissue of the original headpiece, and I have a few of these.

  • The BLUE cap (88489), the newest colour, was released this year -2022- and is the headgear of one of the 71032 Series 22 minifigs, the troubador or bard. For me, he was the most desirable minifig of the series, and again, i’ve already amassed a few spares.

  • Not Pictured in the photo above is the DARK GREEN (88489) cap. This only appeared in two sets to two minifigs: the Lederhosen Guy in the 8833 Collectable Minifigures Series 8 line-up in 2012, and DC’s Green Arrow from the Justice League Anniversary Party set in 2018. Nowhere else since. I don’t have a Dark Green torso i’m happy enough with to match the hat to, so this has been omitted from the photo.

  • Something I haven’t seen but suspect exists is a RED cap. This is incredibly desirable to me as a piece -Red Archers, cool as fuck- but there’s a precedent for it as well: The Lego Group prototype many of their moulds in Red first before any other colour. These pieces are usually incredibly rare and never appear in sets but still nonetheless exist. I would love to have confirmation if this exists, and more importantly, how to acquire one. Google “Lego Red Prototypes” for more examples.

Torso-wise, things get a little bit trickier.

  • The GREEN torso (973p46c01) is the classic Forestman minifig. This debuted in 1987 and came in 10 sets total, the most recent being 6024 Bandit Ambush and 6079 Dark Forest Fortress, in 1996. These sets were limited release; I don’t believe they were released in the UK though I may be mistaken. Other torsos were also available for the Forestmen in these sets with red, blue, or black additional print details and frills, but none as simple as this.

  • The LIGHT GREY torso (973p46c02), appeared initially in the 6010 Supply Wagon set in 1984, before appearing in another five, it’s last appearance in 6060 Knight’s Challenge in 1989. I think this is interesting in that it is the first of the torsos: the green Forestman torso is a variation of it. It should be noted that the torso only ever came with blue arms n the sets above- i’ve cheated with the image above somewhat, these are Light Grey arms supplemented and swapped from the rest of my collection. I’ve added Dark Bluish Grey hands too- I think they look cool for the “Silver Archer”.

  • The BLUE torso (973p46c02, again) is exclusive to the Majisto -or Merlin- minifig, the first canon Lego wizard. This torso appeared in 7 sets, all within the Dragon Knights subtheme in 1993 and 1994 respectively. The potential to build a Blue Forestman has been there since then, with the blue cap this year finally completing the minifig.

  • The BROWN torso (973pb0093c01) is a bit of a cheat. It doesn’t match quite as well as the three above but still counts as an official Forestman torso- this only appeared in two sets 6079 Dark Forest Fortress and 6046 Hemlock Stronghold as part of the Dark Forest subtheme, in 1996. Again, these were limited release. This isn’t as 1:1 a fit with the other torsos above but i’m happy to count it as one all the same.

The legs for all the minifigures above are VERY common. Most of the plumes (4502a) in the caps are too, though when I uploaded the above image to Reddit a commenter informed me of the black plume availability. This only appeared in one set, belonging to one minifig, and appears in 6066 Camouflaged Outpost. I acquired this set last year. This piece goes for a starting price of £10.26, upwards to £37.45. I had no idea!

Hopefully this post helps anyone googling or asking about piece availability. I’ll update if anything new releases, but 35 years on, I’m incredibly excited to now have four different colours of Lego Forestmen. Lets see more!

MOC: Widmore in Fall

Earlier this year, I built a Lego Castle, with the plan of displaying it at Lego shows. That never happened, but I kept it built nonetheless, just in case. Last month, and with my Lego User Group’s meet-up scheduled for the end of November, I gave it a Fall/Autumnal refresh. Storm Arwen coincided that very same weekend, and with snow showers, sheet lightning, and plenty of fallen trees on the road during that drive down, the event was rescheduled, with display, again, postponed. Nonethless, the MOC got a new lick of paint, and it’s all set once again for showing online!

Structurally it’s the exact same model as before. The landscaping is a little bit different -hundreds of leaf pieces!- and there’s a little bit of time progression and new character detail, but other than that it’s a seasonal reskin. I’m already planning the Winter version, which will, I expect, look a *lot* different.

“Widmore in Fall. As Autumn lands in the great forests, the despicable Lion Knight stronghold lies empty of prisoners. With their comrades free, the Forestmen now strike for greater riches.”

A small lighthouse in a big sea

For the most recent TartanLUG Zoom build challenge, the brief was to build something using 20 Lego parts or less. I was sadly unable to attent the Zoom Meeting on the night, but the end-result of building on and off for the week prior was the microscale lighthouse below. As an AFOL i’ve spent most of my Lego life amassing more pieces to build bigger and better things, so having to be thrifty with piececount was definitely not something I was used to!

I struggled quite a bit with this challenge- I didn’t like my entry initially but I’m reasonably happy with how it turned out. With some experimentation, nineteen pieces were used in total, but I would love to add more and make something even bigger with more detail. Conceptually, I think the photos do a lot of heavy lifting. After I entered (and won!?) the contest, fellow builder Stewart Lamb Cromar created this excellent animated gif of the model, and this definitely sells the build further.

smalllighthouse.gif

The build challenge was fun, and definitely something I’m interested in pursuing again. I might continue in a microscale format or try something else. I just need to tidy the desk and organise the collection a bit more first!