Photo-A-Day #1243

This weekend I picked up my box of LEGO from the Cape. Inside I found all sorts of pieces. When I got home I added the 30 minimen to the mix.

Tonight I wasn’t doing well for photograph ideas so I dumped out the contents onto the living room table and began building a few things.

I found three precursors to the miniman in my collection. Just check out how far this guy has gone in 30 years.

I think I will work on something for the miniman contest from Gizmodo. In the end I made a few vehicles including a “hot rod” and an airplane.

Three more days till vacation. I can’t wait. Three more demos to do and then two weeks of fun in the sun.

I looked for the Praying Mantis from yesterday and today I found 6 of them, all huge and all over the yard. I also found another molted shell of a Praying Mantis. Yesterday I said it was a dead one but it wasn’t it was a molted shell and it comes off in one whole piece. What remains is so delicate. I will try and photograph one tomorrow.

Photo-A-Day #1235

Today a box arrived for me, inside were 30 LEGO minifigures. Well, parts for 30 minifigures. I put them together and made 30 figures. I set them all up in a group and shot today’s Photo-A-Day. The container also held a special edition T-Shirt, some 3D glasses and a DVD. On the DVD there was a movie. It was a short movie titled Go Miniman Go! and it had a minifigure running all over LEGO world. After I watched that I took the whole tin of figures and laid them on the scanner to get this image.

Why today, why does it matter? August 25, 2008 marks the 30th anniversary of the LEGO minifigure! This little guy (and girl too) has been a part of imaginations of kids (both big and small) all over the world. I remember my first LEGO set. I don’t think there was a minifig in the set though (I will check this weekend at the Cape because that is where the remains of the set resides). My set could make a Trailer Truck and various other things. Now there are thousands of different minifigures, each with their own unique faces and hair. Minifigures did not have hair when I was a kid, they did have hats though, I remember that.

I got my first LEGO set when I was 5 years old for Christmas. I remember running right to the basement to play it bypassing all my other gifts. I got a talking to because I did that though. So, after everyone went home I got to play with my LEGO set. I read through all the instructions and made each of the things that someone could make with the set by following the instructions. Even as a kid I read the instructions.

As I got older I had some other LEGO sets and then a few years ago I started buying the LEGO Star Wars sets. I did this mostly because each set had special minifigures that looked like the characters from the Star Wars movies and I though that this would be the perfect way to introduce LEGO to my kids as well as to introduce the Star Wars movies. We could build the sets together and watch the movies. Then we could act out scenes from the movies with the figures and playsets. I look forward to the day when Eva is old enough to play with the LEGO sets that I have.

If you are a fan of LEGO you have to go and check out the celebration site for the LEGO minifigure. The site is called GoMininanGo.com and on it you will find a fun 3D movie (The one from the DVD I received), some images to download and tons of other things. There is the interactive timeline that shows the development and evolution of the minifigure from the sweet simple smiling face to every other expression imaginable. There is an iGoogle Theme, links to games, blog posts, vintage commercials and also the best part of the celebration, a contest. Yes, a contest sponsored in part with Gizmodo.

The contest is exactly something I would enjoy doing with a few friends. It is to make a movie that is 20-30 in length minimum. I’m not sure the maximum amount of time but if you are doing stop motion that might be tough to make it too long. The entire set of rules can be found on the Gizmodo site. The prizes for this contest are pretty amazing too including two vintage sets that are brand new in the package. First and second place winners get their pick of those. 3rd place gets a set designed by LEGO creator, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen. I don’t know about you but third place seems really special in my eyes. I’d love to have a special set like that. And don’t think that there are only three prizes, nope, some of the runner’s up will be getting stuff as well. If you are looking for some additional motivation to make a LEGO movie, check out these fun ones of Eddie Izzard bits using LEGO minifigures.