A weekend lost in the 'Upside Frown'

Ive never bought anything LEGO that I had seen as just mine, any kits bought over the years have been inevitably broken up and the parts have vanished into our huge amount of mixed LEGO ready for future creative builds. A few weeks back though I decided to treat myself to a kit I had been pining after since I had first seen the pictures online. I picked it up just before my birthday and planned to build it on the day with Opeie. As he obviously hadn't seen Stranger Things I assumed there would be no interest in the Kit, but he would just be happy building it with me, how wrong was I! With the kit being that little bit different with the 'Upside down' aspect in the build, Opeie was hooked as soon as the two pieces where joined and saw that the upper level was flipped.

Opeie asked to get it down from the shelf a few times that week and although he loved the build he knew nothing about the characters so it was a little lost on him. While I was putting it back on the shelf one evening I looked across at the big colourful Unikitty build standing next to it and noticed Unikitty and Master Frown standing next to each other with the contrast of 'bright and positive' and 'gloomy and negative', I'm sure you can image the next thought that went through my head. yup.... Opeie needs an upside down of his own. 

So last weekend we woke up on Saturday morning after a fairly busy week with friends and decided that we were going to do nowt all weekend and slob about the house, the perfect time to start a fun team build I thought. I ran my ideas past my building assistant and he reeled off some awesome ideas of his own and we got building (well I got building, the first part of the upside down build is a large obscure shaped baseplate and as far as Opeie is concerned that part is boring and beneath his skill level). With the base plates built we started the 'Fun part'. Saturday was one of those building days where it felt like we had slipped into a black hole of bricks, before we knew it it was bedtime and we had spent the entire day rummaging for parts.

Sunday started pretty much the same way Saturday had ended. Opeie (now my 'build master') had pretty much ushered me into the lego room as soon as I was awake and on my feet, he did however make my breakfast and bring it into me with an excited 'I'm ready to build' face. By late Sunday afternoon we had built both houses but realised that we didn't have any of the pieces to hold the two together so we were straight on Bricklink to make sure they were here this week. When I had put Opeie to bed that evening I sat and built the trees that hold the houses up. I loved building the original Stranger Things kit but I got so much more out of this custom one building with Opeie. Theres something about recreating a LEGO build with an extra fun twist and not being held back by colour schemes is really satisfying (and we went all out with the colour... well it is Unikitty).

On Tuesday afternoon the beautiful sound of package hitting the hall floor filled the house with excitement. Opeie couldn't wait to get our creation clipped together. Once it was all secure and he could see it in all his glory, we really started getting stuck in to the little touches that we love so much. The build of course needed to be populated, Someone pretty amazing had bought me Unikitty's Sweetest Friends Ever, for my birthday, which was the perfect start. Opeie pointed out a whole bunch of characters we didn't have and I'd not even seen before so it was back on Bricklink, like I need an excuse to be buying more LEGO.

The build turned out to be one of the most fun things that we've built together, usually I prefer to build something completely 'US' but this fun colourful twist on a pretty amazing build was very satisfying... but what to call it? the Upside-Frown of course!

Oh and I may have also built a Unikitty Demogorgon... I get carried away, what can I say.

"Colour is the finishing touch on everything"

"Hey, I just met you, And this is crazy, But here's my number, So call me, maybe!"

Opeie tends to have many imaginary phone conversations during the week. Usually it is Nanny Roo that gets all of the weekly gossip unbeknown to her, but yesterday it was our friend Katie who was deep in conversation while she was supposed to be at work. The conversation was hilarious and ended with a one sided in depth discussion about the time she inserted an ice-cream into our good friends bottom following a Minifigure we made of her the weekend and some photos they sent us.

Personally I think it is ridiculous to give a child a mobile phone too young but at the ripe old age of 3 I thought he was ready for the commitment. So we sat down together and discussed what it was he wanted from his new handset (it was like an immature sales pitch from a car phone warehouse representative).

What do you want it to look like?... LEGO! , colour?... Pink! (No problem). Everything is awesome!!! Okay??? Spinney things! Well I can never say he doesn't know what he wants. So I got to work while Opeie created me the handset I've been pining after for years, guess I won't be needing that upgrade now and we can keep in contact wherever we go (as long as it's in the house).

"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.