Going Back To The Future a final time with Lego

So, there ended up being a few pieces missing.

And the phone number on the box seemed to be just for show, as it was unobtainable.

I had to resort to Ebay for each missing piece but found that the task of searching was made much easier once I'd worked out the words to use 😐. 

Thankfully there seems to be quite a market for the odd Lego piece which leads me to believe that I'm not alone in this.

Happy with the end result though, it looks nice in my cabinet.

Going Back To The Future once again with Lego

 Well, I was progressing pretty well...

It's starting to look like the DeLorean from the films.

And then what I had dreaded, happened.

A piece was missing.

Luckily it's a pretty common piece, but I've long since passed on all my old Lego.

Ebay will save me, I thought.

And it did.

I just need to wait now.

And 'Yes, I searched all of the other bags in case it had been put in the wrong one'.

With this in mind I ordered 4 just in case it's needed later as well.

Now I just need to wait for the mail.

Going Back To The Future again with Lego

I'm progressing nicely with the build.

I'm amazed by how intricate it all is and as I put little round pieces into square pieces and then into other sometime same sized square pieces I can't but keep thinking about how on Earth someone created this design. It's mind boggling. Yes, they'll have CAD software to help, I'm sure, but blimey.

Thankfully the build is broken into sections in the booklet and each of these sections has its own bag of Lego pieces. 

So, all the pieces needed for section 3 are in Bag 3.

I did notice that there are always a few 'extras left when each section has been finished.

Initially I feared that this meant I'd not put something in at the right time, and was reminded of working with my Dad back in the 20th Century as he fixed our car (back when cars were almost completely mechanical, with not a computer in sight). We'd always end up with a washer left on the curb when he'd thought he'd put everything back together again.

The other worry about the extra pieces is that if they can add some by mistake, could they also not leave some out.

I had a momentary scare when it came to Section 4. Some of the pieces weren't in the bag. Checking the box I was released to find that or some reason there were two bags for Section 4. Disaster averted. Phew.

Going Back To The Future with Lego

So, the Christmas before last Christmas I got a Lego present from a couple of people who know me too well.

It's the DeLorean from Back To The Future.

It's 1872 pieces.

It's going to test me, for sure.

I've waited until now as I've finally got the dining room ready with some nice cabinets and this will look great in one of them.

Great Scott.

Wish me luck.

Strange Times Book 2.

Well it's finally happened.
I've finished Book 2 of Strange Times.
Andy Bloor helped make give it the same feel as Book 1 and I'm really happy with how it came out.

I'll just have to see if anyone remembers it now :o)
Oh, and as is traditional, here's the adapted Lego figure to accompany the book.

Not as scary as the last one... I think.

WesterNoir #6 in Lego.

This one has been a real challenge.
As Gary and I come up with the characters in our story I sometimes dread the time when I'll probably have to make a Lego version of them. Such was the case with Lillian and Gillian the co-joined twins in issue 6 of WesterNoir.
I had to make them in such a way as not to scare the children (and an earlier version looked like something from The Thing) who love looking at the Lego characters at Conventions.
Hopefully what I ended up with is OK, I guess we'll find out.
Lillian and Gillian are very strong and very central characters, the daughters of an even more central character... I'll say no more for now.

DemonCon 9.

It's the start of a new year of Comic Cons.
We now have an ongoing series on its 5th issue and another just starting out.
We've listened to the advice of our friends, both competitors, customers and our printer (Stuart Gould) and have decided to heed their advice and change the look of our table.
We've decided to move away from having a table full of all sorts of comics to having one that focuses on displaying the ongoing series, and whatever we might have that's new.
This meant putting all of the old books into a box on the table, making them harder for potential customers to spot when passing the stall.
DemonCon 9, being our first Con of the year, was where we tried it all out.
We had some new WesterNoir Standees.
We took my little Accent UK modified Lego figures.
We had Gary's great sketches.
We had to try it.

Gary awaits the first customer.

It was a long drive down, and we met Graham owner of the Grinning Demon comic shop and DemonCon event organizer as we were setting up. He was worried that the event wouldn't have as many customers as last year, there had been a problem with printing the fliers in time, and he wanted to apologize up front. We were pretty relaxed about it though, we were here and we were going to enjoy ourselves.
We were happy with how much less cluttered the table looked, and in fact I'm not sure we could have fitted everything on if we set it up as we had in the past.
The standees were great...

...giving a nice third dimension to the table. We will certainly be getting more of them made for future Cons.
The whole WesterNoir side of the table was a pleasure to look at. It's amazing having 5 issues of a title on sale, and interest in them was pretty constant throughout the day. A good number of customers bought all 6 titles (they picked up Tales of WesterNoir as well), and it was great to have customers from last year pick up the latest issues with a contented smile on their faces.
It did seem a little quieter than last year, but the customers that we did have more than made up for it and by the end of the day we'd increased our sales by 10%.

WesterNoir 5 ... can't wait for Issue 6 now :o)

The box of back issues also seemed to work, with a good number of customer looking through it and some pulling out and buying our older stock.
So, all in all I think the new layout is pretty successful. We'll no doubt play with it over time and modify it here and there, but on the whole it'll stay pretty much as is.
My little modified Lego Figures were also a success and drew a lot of people to the stall. The kids had great fun matching the figures to the comics, and also demonstrating their knowledge by telling me which bits of which figures I'd used in their construction. I also got a top tip from a father who was often trying to find that illusive final figure without spending a fortune and amassing hundreds of doubles.
A great day. A great little Con.
We'll be back next year for certain.

Tales Of WesterNoir - Baylocke in Lego.

 So it's the turn of Aloysius Baylocke to be immortalised in Lego.

I love the way the figure came together... his face has the perfect expression.
If you've not read any of the comics yet then you can find the links to a few reviews on this blog.
As we approach 2015, Gary is finishing art on Issue 5 and we have a couple of artists working away on two short stories for Tales Of WesterNoir 2... and Issue 6 will complete next year's WesterNoir issues. We'll be trying to keep the same output going each year.

First Mini Review of Stephenson's Robot and Lego Kingdom.

I took a copy of Stephenson's Robot to my local comic store, Millennium Comics in Northwich, and Dan (the owner) has posted some nice words about the comic on his Millennium Comics Facebook Page ... scroll down to the 27th November... as well as an order for 10 copies. Not sure about the Hellboy crossover though...

And, keeping with tradition, here's Stephenson's Robot, Kingdom himself, in Lego.

...and in case you can't access Dan's Facebook Page, here's what he thought...

''I just read 'Stephenson's Robot' #1 from AccentUK, it's the first of seven issues and I can't wait to read more! 😀 Written by Dave West and Jon Ayre the story introduces a colourful cast of characters, including asylum escapee Jimmy the wolf boy, the carnival master Mr Cruikshanks (with psychic powers and a sinister plan), the Jigsaw Girl (a nice spin on Ray Bradburys The Illustrated Man) and Kingdom - the steampunkish robot himself.
Featuring gorgeous art and colour from Indio! and Marleen Starksfield Lowe.. I'm looking forward to stocking this so I can recommend it to my customers, I know they will enjoy it as much as I did. Bring on the Hellboy crossover!''

The WesterNoir Book 4 Lego figure.

As is traditional, here's the modified Lego figure to accompany WesterNoir Book 4. This one is of Greta Anderson as it's a significant issue for her.

I took delivery of the boxes of WesterNoir Book 4 on Saturday, so we've now got plenty in stock for this years Cons. Speaking of which, our next Con will be the MCM event in Birmingham on the 22nd and 23rd of March. It'll be here before we know it.

WesterNoir Number 3 in Lego.

I've been meaning to post this up here for a while now. Continuing the theme of Accent UK books in Lego, here's one of the Mermaids for Issue 3 of WesterNoir.

I've just got back from a fabulous MCM event in Glasgow and will put a report up on accentukcomics.blogspot sometime this week.

Lego WesterNoir 2 and some reviews.

As is tradiotional now, here's the Lego figure to accompany the latest Accent UK book.Also this week we've had two great reviews of the book appearing on the web. First we had downthetubescomics.blogspot.co.uk and then www.brokenfrontier.com.
Both are great reviews which really helps motivate us to complete Issue 3, which is progressing very nicely indeed thanks mostly to the effort Gary is putting into it. You can see page samples and more over on Gary's blog.
And ... if you're in Dundee this weekend then pop over to the Accent UK table at the Dundee Comics Expo and say 'Hello', you can have a look at WesterNoir first hand while you're there, as well the rest of our books. You'll find more details over on Colin's blog.

Josiah Black and Invisible Man... in Lego.

A while back, and you can find them somewhere on this blog, I started reflecting our comic book titles in the form of Lego Men.
I'm not sure if I've posted this one up before but here's Josiah Black, central character in the WesterNoir comics that I'm working on with Gary Crutchley.

The other recent release from myself is Missing: Have You Seen The Invisible Man? illustrated by Joe Campbell. It would be wrong to miss him out of the Lego line-up and so here he is as well...

Hope you all had a great Xmas and are looking forward to what 2013 brings.

and lastly ... for now ... Lego Robot Shorts...

This one was an award figurine for one of the other figures ... can't remember which one but it looked like a short Robot to me...

Wolfmen 2 ... a la Lego

This Lego figurine exists in the same time frame as the first one and isn't just the first one being tweeked a bit for this photo ...

... if you look closely you can see he's wearing a different shirt :o)

Next up ... PREDATORS over on the Accent UK blog.

Bobby Doyle from Whatever Happened To The World's Fastest Man?

.. in Lego.

.. looking happy, so it must be before all the trouble started.

Next up will be The Man Of Glass over on the Accent UK blog.

Lego does Samuel Close.

This is the figure that my daughter gave me that would start me off trying to get a Lego figure for all of our books.

Samuel Close's hair was part of a Mad Scientist figure and the conversion took the slightest of modifications.

Next up ... Bobby Doyle from Whatever Happened To The World's Fastest Man?

The Wolfmen ... in Lego

I've been playing with these little Lego figures ... over on the Accent UK blog I put up the image of the first one ZOMBIES, and here's the first of the Wolfmen books in Lego ...

.. next up.. ROBOTS over on Accent UK blog.