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Tuesday, September 25, 2012

LDD 4.3.5

I have been way out of the loop lately on all things LEGO. I'm really hoping that sometime in the near future, I will suddenly have more time to mess around some more in LDD, but that time has not arrived yet. I'm due for a Florida vacation next week, so maybe after then.
However, I did recently fire up LDD just because I haven't in a while and was excited to see that they have a new update, version 4.3.5. Sweet! The major change as far as I can tell is that they have reorganized the brick palette, as seen on the left. Most of the standars are unchanged, such as bricks and plates, but some of the huge, unwieldy categories have been broken up into more categories. In the previous version, everything that had to do with minifigs would be put in one category. So if you just wanted a torso or set of legs, you'd have to scroll threw a bunch of wigs and hats to get to them. Now it appears there are categories for heads, minifig body parts, wigs, hats, tools, animals, and other sub categories having to do with vehicles. This should make it much easier to get to the part that you want with a couple of clicks and less scrolling.
Other than that, it's not obvious what has been changed, but supposedly some other user interface improvements, connectibility enhancements, and a few other under the hood mechanics have been improved. The brick palette alone is worth the update, in my opinion. Enjoy creating!

Monday, September 17, 2012

Lego Treasure Cave

It's probably becoming pretty obvious that I tend to be drawn to the Lego creations that try to make a natural looking scene using the precision of Lego bricks. In that vein, here's a great piece by Mark Erickson, entitled A Treasure Cave. Obviously, it's a pirates themed Lego creation involving a group of pirates landing a small boat on a beach to hide their treasure in a cave set in a rocky hillside. The palm trees, vegetation, bits of flotsam washed up on the beach, and occasional parrot hanging out on the top of the rocky cliff gives the whole piece a great tropical Caribbean vibe. The total lack of any defined lines (other than what's inherent in individual Lego bricks) makes the whole piece look very natural.

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