"The art of photography is all about directing the attention of the viewer."

Day 91 and 92:

Opeie has really been getting into his LEGO photography for his latest comic idea. He's been in the garden with all sorts of kits and bricks creating scenes for each picture and its been so lovely to watch. As I really wasn't in the mood to write yesterday I decided to use two of his photos for today. I can't wait to see the finished piece, its starting to look really interesting.

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”

Day 90:

Homeschooling (in our usual way) went out the window pretty quickly when all this crazy started. For most of us the days have all just merged into one big oddity, Ive lost all track of days and time and in my foggy head I'm now stuck at 'before Corona (BC)' and During Corona (DC). It's get harder and harder to motivate Opeie in the way I would have BC because he misses his friends so much. So I now just fully focus on what makes him happy. His latest idea for a comic has been keeping us busy in the LEGO department, focusing on set designs and letting our brick creativity flow. This should be a pretty awesome project, stay tuned.

“In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay."

Day 31:

Today Opeie spent the day making a LEGO comic book all about me turning into a zombie. I love that he had the whole thing planned out in his head, he just needed a little help with setting up the scenes and taking the pics. When he's in this kind of creative mood its really moorish and it put some seriously happy vibes on our day of self isolation. More days like this please!

“Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.”

Day 29:

One of the big positives of being holed up at home during these crazy times is having to fill that time with activities to get us through the day. Iv'e found that some of the things that I used to really enjoy doing have come back and I'm fully embracing that. Back in the day I was huge comic fan but (like with many things) I just seemed to stop making time for it. Over the last few days I've started re-reading some of the comics I used to love and I intend on finishing many of the runs that I never got round to completing. To make the whole thing even more fun Opeie is really getting into the world of comics too and has been reading solidly for days. 

We may not be able to be living our 'best lives' at the moment but I think we're doing a great job so far of getting through all this calmly and with smiles on our faces.

"you've got a bug on you"

I love a good challenge and when Opeie told me that he was changing his costume idea for comic con this weekend with 7 days notice, I revelled in the excitement. His friend Cara had decided to go as Hilda from his favourite graphic novels/TV show, so he decided as they were going together that he wanted to be Hilda's friend David. Tuesday morning we headed out combing the charity shops looking for all the bits we needed. While hunting we found some brown womens trousers that I altered, and a top a similar colour. 

I used the left over fabric from the trouser legs to make the patch, The waist strap from an apron hanging on the back of the kitchen door to make the necker and used a magic tape centre for the woggle (it wouldn't stay in position so I glue gunned a lego tyre inside it to stop it sliding). The glue gun was still hot so I glued a bug to a head band (he's always got bugs on him). Cara's brother Fynn gave us some brown socks and then we finished the outfit off with some white plimsoles, job done! and it only cost £7 boom!

We still felt like we needed to accessorise though, so as David is always eating Frazzles I 'made' Opeie eat a packet so that I could stuff it and make something fun to hang from his trousers (Its all about the little details).

'Jestro's dark clouds and gloomy weather'

Since Opeie's last LEGO adventure story when he wrote about Ironman: Detroit Steel Strikes, he has been asking pretty much every day about writing another. Today turned out to be the perfect day for it when we looked out of our window this morning and saw Storm Doris throwing our garden furniture about and pulling our hanging basket bracket out of the wall. Opeie's response 'I'm not planning on going out today dad', love that boy. He was so right though, there was nothing pushing me towards our front door so we got up, finished watching a movie we had started last night and then got stuck into building theLEGO Nexo knights Jestro's Headquarters, and what a kit to be building on this windy wet day.

Watching this beauty come together was so much fun and has definitely been one of the more interesting larger playsets due to the enormous vehicle being able to be separated into smaller vehicles. Plus the baddies from the new Nexo Knights range have really got my LEGO geekiness at its peak. This range has been Perfect for the boys adventure roleplaying. Opeie made it clear that he was taking the lead again on this one and of course, it started with one of us being in trouble...

"Oh, you see this? It's the Time Stone. If you take another step, I'll send you all the way back to the Big Bang."

There are some amazing big LEGO kits out at the moment and honestly, I would happily have every single kit released if I could. Sadly we just don't have the disposable income for that level of Lego obsessiveness so I have to put self-control into action and reign it in.  It seems that everyone I know's children adore those addictive bricks in some way and each one pining after the same huge kits. One thing that always used to frustrate me was the variety of super hero figures that were only available if you purchased the larger kits. I imagine in many households these bigger kits are completely out of reach financially but last year LEGO did something to change that which I thought was really awesome.

I've been saying for a long time that I would love LEGO to make a Marvel minifigure series, filled with all of the obscure characters. At £3 per pack these are accessible to pretty much everyone (and who doesn't love LEGO at pocket money prices). With the release of The Lego Batman movie, there was a step In the right direction with the minifigure series to accompany the movie (and those figures are pretty amazing). Although I can't ever see the same thing happening with Marvel comics characters (unless of course there was a LEGO Spider-man movie), LEGO did something else last year to offer Marvel super hero characters at an affordable price to all of their super-hero brick lovers.

Mighty micros revved their engines and exploded onto the toy store shelves in a blaze of glory and I was instantly hooked. Not only were 6 new figures available, with interestingly fun facial expressions and mini legs but they also had matching vehicles for speeding around the floor. To top it off though, and what really had me excited, was the price. I've spent an obscene amount of money on LEGO over the years but the price of the Mighty micros as I said before has meant that Spider-man, Batman and their friends are available to everyone.

Last year the three Marvel sets were snapped up straight away and it was clear that the vehicles were here to stay (I'm kicking myself now that I didn't pick all of the DC ones up from last year, The Lego Batman movie has turned Opeie into a HUGE DC fan).  You can always tell in our house how much the boys love the kits they have built as sometimes after being built and played with they are taken apart and the parts are used for new custom builds. Other times though the kits stay built and are lovingly displayed in our LEGO room (yes we have entire room devoted to those super bricks), or they get their own box to be stored in until their next outing. The mighty micros got their own box, so when wave 2 was released they were ready for action.

I can't wait to see if there is going to be a third wave of Mighty Micros and there is a list as long as my arm for characters I would love to see included. These awesome little kits are one of my favourite newer releases from LEGO and I'd love to see the range opened up to possible other themes, like Adventure time, teen titans or powerpuff girls from the new LEGO Dimensions kits.

"By the Mystic Moons of Munnopor!"

Us LEGO geeks and Minifigure collectors all around the world have our favourite theme of those amazing bricks and although I adore all LEGO, for me, the theme that really gets me excited is LEGO Marvel Super Heroes. As a child, reading comics was a big thing for me and the Marvel Super Heroes gave me a way to escape into an exciting world where anything is possible. These days I don't seem to have much time to catch up on the comics I love but LEGO are definitely keeping this Super Hero fire burning strong.

When the early Spider-man sets were released it was so exciting, I never thought for a second though that we would get to see Guardians of the galaxy immortalised in LEGO (which was a comic run that I loved) or that there would be a Thanos figure as well as characters like Hyperion and Giant man. LEGO has come a long way over the last few years and for enormous fans of the brick like me, it is a very exciting time for custom building.

The huge rise in Super Hero movies has obviously been the reason for this great new collection of LEGO hitting the shelves and I am constantly keeping my eyes open for anything online that will give me a clue to what may be released next. I'm still hoping for a comic style Baron Zemo figure as he is one of my favourite all time villains from the comics and I would love to see a Thunderbolts team LEGO kit (My favourite run of Marvel comics).

The most recent of LEGO's awesome Marvel Super Heroes kits hitting the shelves is to coincide with the release of tMarvel's new movie Doctor Strange. I knew very little about Doctor Strange as he rarely popped up in the comics I read growing up so I've been reading up on him before going to see the movie. The LEGO kit is different from any of the other kits released due to the attributes of his character. There's no trucks with rocket launchers or futuristic looking planes.  The kit focus' on the inner madness of the Sanctum Sanctorum, Doctor Strange's house that is protected by enchantments and illusions. I love the detail in this kit and it works perfect as a display piece as well as having great playability. Building the kit had us wishing we still had Ironman's Malibu house built.

Everything about this build is really thought out and for a lower to mid price range kit I think you really get a great kit for your money. Doctor Strange, Mordo and the ancient one are great figures and look awesome displayed on the side of our arcade with the rest of our Marvel Super Hero collection. 

Doctor Strange's sanctum Sanctorum is a must have kit and has jumped the list to my second favourite kit of 2016. Nothing is beating that LEGO city fun in the park kit. Up next the web warriors ultimate bridge battle set which We have been eager to build, so watch this space.

LEGO Minecraft - The nether Fortress

As much as I love LEGO in its entirety there are some themes that I struggle to know what to say when reviewing the product. The main one being Minecraft and although the kits are awesome and the minifigures are really interesting, I know literally nothing about the game apart from the main character being called Steve. Luckily though Seth knows his stuff which is handy in these sorts of situations.

I was going to just leave him to do his own thing but as we were playing one afternoon we came up with the plan for me to take a series of pictures of the LEGO Minecraft Nether Fortress and put them in our comic format and for Seth to add in the story of what he thinks is going on, enjoy...

As a custom builder the LEGO Minecraft Nether Fortress drew me in because of the interesting minifigures parts and all the deep red bricks, I can definitely make good use of them if Seth decides to brake it up.

The Nether fortress is one of four LEGO Minecraft kits this year and they are all really interesting. If what I hear in the playground at Seth's school is anything to go by Santa is going to be inundated for requests for Steve and his brick friends.

'The product was provided by LEGO GmbH without any obligation in regards to the content of the review’