Tuesday 11 March 2014

"I only work in black. And sometimes, very, very dark gray."


For those of you that know us or are regular readers, you may have wondered how the Lego movie had gone by without a mention. It was obviously going to be a huge thing at gifts from the pirates, a full length Lego movie featuring batman, a new series of minifigures, kits and video games, all the things we love. Well it obviously didn't slip our attention. The movie was amazing and me and both of the boys loved it and although I was going to write about it when we saw it a couple of weeks back it seems the movie was all the motivation the boys needed for some new custom builds. After coming out of the cinema we headed to Smyths. I had parked the car outside and walked down to the cinema as I knew the boys would be in a Lego frenzy itching to buy minifigures. One of the characters we ended up with was Wyldstyle and it gave Seth the idea of building Wyldstyle a house. Work began the minute we walked through the door and Lego building has taken up an hour here and there over the last two weeks ever since.


Seth knew exactly what he wanted and was quite clear about the end result he had invisioned. He wanted to keep the colours of the minifigure in the building so we stuck to black, pink, purple and blue which looked great. He also wanted saloon style doors because of the Wild West theme in part of the film and a robot butler (just because he wanted one).


The building apparently needed a garden with trees I guess to give the exterior a softer look...


Something that always makes me chuckle about Seth's Lego builds is that whatever he is building it always seems to come with some sort of holding cell. I'm sure a child psychologist would have a field day and come up with some explanation for that. But I think it's just because he knows already in this life that there's a huge need to lock up bad guys. We do always add into the build some sort of escape route though like this swinging slide out roof.


It's not all guns, getaway vehicles and action. Sometimes the heroes need to be able to pop their feet up with coffee and the daily paper, you can't be fighting crime and master building all the time.


But when it is that time you need to be fully aware what's going on which is why on most of our larger builds Seth includes some sort of CCTV command centre.


As the bulk of the bricks were black there wasn't much light being let in for playing so when Seth decided that the second floor needed to be a dance floor we built a see through floor that could fully slide out making it easier to play in the lower levels. The reason Seth wanted a dance floor is because in the movie people keep day 'wyldstyle' sounds like a DJ name.


We've been collecting the recent series of minifigures  (as we do with every series) so they inevitably appeared on the build too. I love it when a new series comes out and in the first few weeks of release I can be found feeling up bags in our local toy shops. Minifigures are educational too. If it wasn't for Lego Seth and Opeie wouldn't be asking who both Shakespeare and Abraham Lincoln were. So it's nice for them to be learning these things early. I'm quite sure they will both have had enough of Shakespeare by the time they reach their teenage years.


It didn't take us long to complete Wyldstyle's house and Seth and Opeie have been playing with it every day since.


And then all that was left to do was make use of the dance floor on the roof.

Seth being Seth though wanted to get stuck in to a second build. It's only fair that the star of the movie gets his own place too. I wanted to wait till the build was complete but Seth came up with the idea of photographing it mid build with all the Independent contractors present and working hard.


Seth even made a digger carrying bricks for the photos which I thought was an amazing touch. I really love the way he gets into the building. He reminds me so much of myself. Emmett's house is coming along nicely. It looks like a work site exactly how Seth wanted and is shaping up to be a great build with hidden trap doors, fun touches...

...and of course a holding cell for the less desirable characters from the movie.


Our Lego movie themed creating hasn't just stopped at buildings. Wyldstyle needed a way of getting around so we designed her a fun motorcycle with rocket launchers


And Mrs M made us all proud by getting involved too, building a garage for Wyldstyle's wheels, the boys love it when mommy plays and I love it when she gets involved too. Lego is a great for spending quality time as a family.


I'm sure there will be a post soon with the finished build and possibly a new one started. Seth has big ideas of building a whole town so it will be interesting to see how that all pans out.



4 comments:

Unknown said...

Love this, what an epic build. Love the mix of pink in with the black bricks too, very cool. Can't wait for ours to get in to proper lego once M doesn't put every piece in her mouth!!!

GiftsFromThePirates said...

we were so lucky with Opeie, hes never been the sort to put things in his mouth. Well as soon as they are both into it, Lego party at our house??? x

Em @ snowingindoors said...

Annie and I are loving Wyldstyle's house with all the little extras I've come to expect from a classic Seth build! I sent ages feeling up minifig packets in Sainsbury last week and walked away with 2 William Shakespeares - I am officially rubbish at finding the ones I'm after!

Rebecca Beesley said...

fantastic - love the detail and all his ideas - including the holding cells. x