lego: the lego batman movie - the scuttler

I've had The Scuttler from The Lego Batman Movie sitting on top of my linen cupboard since about March 2017.

It wasn't that I didn't want to put it together, it's just that it looked like it was going to be a massive set, and I really didn't have the room for it.

But then this week happened... and honestly, I needed something else to occupy my mind.

So I got it down and wiped the dust off the top edge of it.

Like with many Lego sets and many other things for children, the whole thing could probably have fit comfortably into a box about half the six. Two thirds the size certainly.

And I do love a Lego set with many numbered bags, seven large bags, and most of them also contained at least one additional bag for the very small parts. As well as a magazine-sized set of instructions.

I mostly did some casual knolling... less rigorous than I've done in the past. It was more what I'd call functional knolling rather than aesthetic knolling. I've often wondered why they don't just put all of the minifigures in the first bag, especially on a set with so many, but for once only dealt with them as the bags came up.

This first bag also comes with Lego Batman (because of course) and Dick Grayson in his sparkly powder blue tuxedo jacket. If memory serves, it may have been better to put Dick in his Robin duds. But I know Lego likes to do the whole "exclusive to this set" thing, and I think this was the only casual Dick outside of the minifigure series.

The first bag was what I assume was the cockpit of the Scuttler (surprise, turns out it was actually the cargo hold). I do love a set with some good Technic connectors (all those blue and grey pieces), and the angle plates for some good old SNOT (Studs Not On Top) building.

The jetpack is kind of ridiculous, Batman doesn't stand up in it very well, his cape gets in the way and it's very grey rather than being black or very dark grey. There also isn't anything that tells you that it will fit pretty comfortably into the cargo hold. It might have been nicer if there was a way to properly secure it there, but at least it looks good once it's in.

The second bag finishes off the cargo hold, adds in the slightly temperamental net launcher (as in the net flies out if you so much as tap the cannon, and it's not secure if you angle to cannon much beyond the horizontal).

However this bag also contains the Poison Ivy and Commissioner Gordon in his dress uniform minis. And while I'm not a huge fan of Ivy's thornmobile (or the fact that in large sets like this they usually throw in a very small and often not well thought out or secure secondary vehicle... this at least feels thematically appropriate), she does have a gorgeous minifig otherwise.

The third bag held the last of the minifigs, The Joker with his very long tailcoat and Barbara Gordon in her bullet proof vest. Also, one of the "biceps" of the vehicle.

I've said before that I really, really love the design of the Joker in the Lego Batman Movie Universe, so much so that I have at least five different versions of him (Brickheadz, Lowrider minifig, Vacation minifig, this version and my minifig torch). I do love finally having one with the ridiculous tailcoat. I also really like the design of the hairpiece for Barbara, as well as the vest. The fact there's no design on the "t-shirt" under it isn't a huge issue, but they could easily have thrown another GCPD logo on there.

Part of the "but why" I came across while building this is the fact that you build the bicep at the front, then the fourth bag contains the two back legs... before you build the other bicep, which makes the whole thing sit all wonky-like, which just irritates me.

I can't say that I was especially impressed with the stickers in this set. Putting them on clear plastic was a good idea in theory and some of them look great, however they don't go on totally clearly, and honestly, for most of them black backgrounds would have just been better.

At last, bag five, and we get to add the other "bicep", as well as possibly one of the coolest Lego elements I've come across in a while, those black tubes. I don't think they're the same as the ones in the R2D2 set, these feel like they'll stay where they're placed better.

I also love the phone handsets as lights. And those "hydraulic tubes" on the outside.

A little difficult to take a good photo of bag 6's parts in situ, but here we have the front legs. Or at least the first half of them. Weirdly, given how quickly they came together, and how strange they look out of context, I like how these ended up looking.

I also managed to put the legs in place without firing the little stud cannons all over the place. I can guarantee I won't remember that later and I will lose studs. But the model does come with a lot of extras for that very reason.

The final bag held the "claws" in front, the decorative moulding on both forearms and the massive extentions at the top.

Also the very bat-like head. Which, when it was finished, was about the point that I suddenly realised which way around the thing pointed.

Overall, I really like it... it was super weird in the movie and it's super weird as a model. It's placing all of it's weight on those two grey cheese wedges on the back feet and one corner of those "claws" at the front. And if you extend the arms all the way out, it very much feels like it could fall apart with the least amount of provocation (and yes, I could pose it with flattened claws and feet, but that doesn't feel as bat-like).

I do love that pulling the arms and legs in gives it this werebat/ape/mech vibe. Because I do love me a Lego mech.

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lego: the lego batman movie - the joker notorious lowrider

The Joker's Notorious Lowrider set from The Lego Batman Movie has been sitting on the floor by my bookcase and vaguely mocking me since the middle of March (ie my birthday)... I've intended to put it together a couple of times, but ran out of day.

Turns out that yesterday may not have been the smartest option, as the weather turned dark and dreary and I ended up with some less than stellar photos (annoyingly, if I'd done it today it would have been much better).

It's was a fun build though, and the finished piece is pretty cool looking.

The set contains three bags of parts, with a minifigure per bag, a two volume instruction book and a small set of stickers. And there's a LOT of Joker purple in this set, unsurprisingly (which oddly enough also ends up being the same purple as Batgirl, they match each other fairly well to be honest).

Speaking of the minifigures... The Joker in his short sleeves and Harley in her rollergirl outfit are part of why I love this set so much. I will say that Harley's hair could drive me to distraction because of the ease with which it seems to be dislodged from her head. And the fact that the Joker's flag gun doesn't make a lot of sense since a) it's a megaphone, not a gun and b) they decided that the sticker should be orientated so the text isn't horizontal when it's in the correct position. I almost changed it, but decided against it at the last second... kind of wish I had changed it now as it looks a little stupid.

Also, there's nowhere to put the gun when Joker is in the car, and Harley won't sit in the passenger seat with her rollerskates on. It's the little things, I know, but they do make a difference.

The first bag is the understructure of the Lowrider, along with Batgirl. the majority of this part of the build is tones of grey with some Technic pieces under the vehicle that will hold the wheels and allow the car to "bounce" (more on that later).

It ended up being a little longer than I was expecting... or thinner... but the little details like the zebra print seat covers are a nice touch.

The second bag contains SO! MUCH! PURPLE! And also the Joker minifig.

I'll be honest, this section was the most fun, especially the front and back bumpers and the front grill section... but just the way that pieces are used in a slightly unusual way (ie the bumpers and grills are both SNOT (studs not on top) constructions).

There were also a few places that made no sense until the next bag... mostly the boot of the car.

Also, I think this is the worst shot of the bunch... mostly from the colour perspective.

The final bag was mostly finishing details, along with Ms Quinn.

I do like the golden chicken as the hood ornament detail, the very pimped out wheels (although that's twice now where I've had to turn the wheels from what looks like it should be the finished side). Also, as I mentioned before, the zebra seat covers are just perfect. As is the big clown horn and that fifth wheel on the lid of the trunk.

This is the second LBM set that had rubber bands to create the suspension of the vehicle. In this case it's designed in such a way that you can push down on any of the four corners of the car to activate that suspension independently. My only problem with that is that I don't know if the car is supposed to sit in the raised or lowered position as the default. I think it's supposed to be raised, as the smallest touch of the car makes it spring back to that position, but it's a little odd.

The rear of both the Lowrider and Harley's jacket.

Not seen on the Lowrider is the opening trunk with the two missile launchers controlled by what I though originally were speakers under the back window... what, there's a radio back there, and a bunch of single stud round tiles... and then as you can just see over the back of Joker's seat, the little blue button that launches the missiles.

I also love that everything on Harley alternates, and before I'd even looked at the instructions, I knew that the skates had to go on the opposing colour legs (also why I put her red baseball bat into her black clad arm).

Once again, a final beauty shot... and I do love Harley on the hood of the car in this... I kind of did it by accident, but just loved the way it looked.

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lego: the lego batman movie - killer croc tail-gator

My farewell present from work was The Lego Batman Movie Killer Croc Tail-Gator set... not really surprising when I had Lego minifigures on my desk the whole time I was there... it was a very welcome surprise though. It's also not a set I necessarily would have (or had) bought for myself... but I do love it, and the fact that people knew me well enough to choose it for me makes it even more special.

I was always planning on putting together one of the Lego Batman Movie sets today, although I'd originally planned on the Joker's Lowrider... but it seemed more appropriate to put this one together to be honest.

It was a fun build, and I put on the 1989 Batman movie for some colour and sound while I was building, which was nice.

The set itself came in four bags... five if you include the extra bag that Killer Croc's body came in, along with a set of stickers and two instruction books.

As always, I would have preferred printed tiles to stickers, especially on several of the decorative tiles, but I get why they didn't go that way on some of the other pieces.

The first bag contained the rest of Killer Croc, Batman and his little jetski... so I started with Croc. I haven't had one of these maxifigs before, but I do really like the design of Croc... especially the head and neck... and those ridiculously long fingers.

Batman's jetski is a little... m'eh. I know that they have to include the hero in all of these sets and it's either a big hero vehicle and a little villain vehicle or the other way around (The Scuttler has a slightly ridiculous Poison Ivy... plant thing, for example).

I do like the colouring though, and the placement of the new little flick fire guns on the side is nice... but it doesn't actually stand flat on it's own. It has a tendency to fall to the side which is annoying, and I had to add a couple of the leftover round bricks to the bottom to keep it level in the photos.

The two other villain minifigures are Zebra Man and Tarantula (because of course they are)... and I will admit that I fell hopelessly in love with Zebra Man pretty much as I unwrapped the present. I couldn't even tell you why, he just seems very cool, and a minifigure I just want to tuck in my pocket and carry around.

Reading up on the two of them, it seems that Tarantula has a history with Nightwing (ie Dick Grayson, the original Robin), and he's become a favourite character of mine in recent years.

The second bag contains the base of the Tail-Gator truck as well as the two minifigures, and it's an interesting build... the two bricks at the back allow for parts of the truck to come off as part of an offensive/defensive mechanism, and there's a fair amount of Technic bricks used throughout.

The third bag is smaller than the other two, and just concentrates on the cab of the truck. Given that this is a beat up old truck, the colours purposefully don't match, with red being dominant, with a number of brown elements (possibly rust) and with a blue wheel arch and a white hood.

The larger pieces all have some kind of sticker denoting either decay or else damage from Croc's massive claws.

The final bag is fairly large and finishes off the model. I really like the massive tyres... having not really dealt with wheels all that much in my building, these are impressive, and are placed on the model "the wrong way around", which adds to the monster truck vibe.

The greeblies and decorations around the truck are really fun, from the skull hood ornament to the crates and the lights and signs. I also love that the idea is that this truck has been hastily modified so that Croc can drive it himself from the back... both the gear level (with the fantastic 8 ball knob) and the steering wheel are accessible from the back, even if it doesn't look like Croc's arms could really reach the steering wheel.

The truck also has some limited suspension care of both the Technic bricks and a set of yellow rubber bands. I always worry that those rubber bands will decay at some point, messing up the model (Emmet's Construct-o-Mech from The Lego Movie has them on one of the hands, but they're okay so far).

All in all, it was a fun build, and while I don't really know where the hell Killer Croc and his Tail-Gator are going to find a permanent home (there may have to be some reorganising and culling of other tchotchkes), it's a nice reminder of my former workplace.

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lego: architecture - sydney

I've quite enjoyed seeing the various "skyline" sets from Lego Architecture... I'm not completely sure which one they started with, but I remember seeing Venice and thinking "I've climbed across all of those things in Assassin's Creed". And London, with the big London Eye is gorgeous... but as soon as I saw they'd announced the Sydney set, I had to get it...

It's not the first Architecture set with a Sydney theme I've put together... all the way back in 2012 I got the Sydney Opera House set from the actual Sydney Opera House.

So on Sunday afternoon I got to work putting it together...

First came the unpacking. Once again, there's the big thick instruction book that seems to be a hallmark of the Architecture sets, half of which had information about Sydney, the other half was the building instructions. Then there were four bags of pieces, from the quite big down to the very tiny.

I spend a good long while knolling out the piece.. unsurprisingly there's a lot of black, a lot of dark blue and a lot of both tan and white pieces, including the little pyramid pieces that make up the opera house which I hadn't seen before.

My favourite pieces, or rather my favourite colour in this set has to be the transparent blue pieces up in the middle top of the knolling image... they're just so bright and really great looking.

We start with the base of the model... first the black base with the printed Sydney tile, then the grey jumper tiles... and the much paler blue of Sydney Harbour... along with the white sailboats.

I kind of which they'd put a lighter colour under the water tiles since they're transparent. Either just plain old blue or some other colour that matches the transparent tiles.

The tiny touches of green around the base of the bridge is also quite interesting.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge... It's an interesting construction technique, especially the way the interlocking pieces are combined. And it's perhaps a little more "generic bridge" looking, although once the columns go in, it looks fairly accurate.

Next up comes Deutsche Bank Place... or the Ski Jump Building as I think somebody told me it was colloquial called (I could be wrong). I actually had a lot of fun building this, mostly because it's not overly complicated and repeats, but the end result looks pretty damn spiffy.

I think maybe they could have left the top layer of blue and white off, but it is accurate to the three stepped in sections of the real building.

For a part of the build that doesn't really have a ton of parts, the Sydney Tower is probably the most dead on and the most interesting to build. The transparent blue bricks I liked so much combine with the dark blue bricks to make the bottom section and then the rest of rocket engines and satellite dishes.

I do like that the top of the tower is just a bunch of stacked satellite dishes... and it works really well.

And last but not least, the Sydney Opera House.

To be honest, it felt very familiar after the previous Architecture set, but this was like the micro version of that, which in itself felt very stylised. It's much the same mechanics though, all the sails are held in place with hinge bricks.

It does look pretty damn fancy once it's finished though, and I couldn't resist some "beauty shots" on some blue card.

I will say that it's a taller set than I was expecting, due mostly to the Sydney Tower, but then that is very Sydney.

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