#block building

I bought cake so I used the box as a display case. I was just thinking this will be a pain to dust. Also the manufacturing quality is bad (lego copycats) so if i mess with them much more they'll break so washing them like legos will hard. a lot of "recyclable" plastic still ends up in a landfill. I made some flowers out of chocolate wrappers too and repurposed a chocolate box too. Honestly the design is better than Legos but the manufacturing quality is much lower. I've rebuilt this maybe 4 times and the bricks are starting to show white stress lines. I finally used all my plant diary pieces (that i can find) and they're at breaking point so i cant build with them anymore. Very cute tho.

The lego disease is back, I fear it is becoming chronic. anyways i checked the new lego sets and box flower wall is meh but has such personalization potential, you could use flowers from any set. The real star though is the sunflower set which actually looks amazing. A lot of lego sets are ugly but this one actually looks good.

And last week they were including the dandelion wheat set with purchases (can't buy individually). Lego is once again tempting me and my resolve not to buy plastic that will sit there.

Lego has it out for me. it helps that these sets actually look good. I saw the recent pokemon set and it's ugly.

Some of the lego competitors have excellent designs. This looks better than the lego sets

And then I once again went down an Amazon hole which led to an aliexpress hole which it how i got that top set in the first place. Also found this precious hampster berry brooch. Yeah I'm enjoying window shopping. I saw this darling hamster brooch (and a lot of knock offs) and when I scroll down I always see the lead paint warning. Well, at least it has a warning (thank you California even if prop65 is useless sometimes) and poisoning from contact is low so as long as you wash your hands before eating it's probably fine. aliexpress has even less moderation than amazon so store fronts pop up left and right stealing each other's images and delivering a knock off worse quality product and even when they get wacked they just make a new account or 5 and are back the next day.

This might be the best visual designed set lego has made but they don't sell them anymore (artificial scarcity to cater to "collectors" (scalpers)) and I refuse to pay $250 for it. Lego has to capacity to make more they just don't to keep value high so yeah I will go buy a $30 knock off on ali.

back to legos. Lego got me on the hook i signed up for a web account which led me to the fan submission page which has a lot of meh designs (better than i could do so good for them) but then I saw these two which are stunning, and that got me thinking. I'm new to legos but I've been hanging out in the reddit and youtube lego sphere for the last few months and while there's definitely creative people there, overwhelmingly these spaces are filled which such boring, uncreative, unthinking, robotic people. All they want to do is hoard unopened sets and follow step by step instructions. How can you live like this??? And then I have to repeat to myself that my life experience are not universal and as long as they're happy it's fine. Every time I see a lego set I just see all the ways I could improve it and that's with me being an uncultured newb who doesn't understand building techniques.

i downloaded brinklink studio and now need to figure out how to use it. One of the benefits of making plastic flowers is doing all the things plastic can that living flowers can't like transparency, metallics, iridescence, and other light effects. I'm new to legos so I both lack the physical collection and the technical knowledge to design a set. But wouldn't it be so cool to have a bouquet of blue roses, glassy crystal flowers, metallic gold, or iridescent black? Someone please take this idea and finish a build before i do.

Like I was looking through lego's catalogue of pieces (and I don't understand all the golds) but what about some of these crystal pieces in light blue for the pistil and stamen. Or the purple version of the top crystal for foliage on a gold tree. Even just going by existing transparent pieces there's a lot of potential for petal elements.

Which brings me to some of the underlying philosophy of lego. I see lego as similar to pixel art. In that good designs require the proper stylistic minimalism where the key features of something are portrayed and details implied through low fidelity pixelization while everything extraneous is cut away. This is also why the pokemon sets are so disappointing since pokemon started out of pixel sprites. Having 3d recreations of the pixel sprites would have been really cool. One of the major problems with legos is that they can't make 1x1 shapes, their edges are these weird rectangles. And then everyone copies legos so i haven't found a nice block company for pixel art.

What are the key visual elements that make each flower unique? What are the base geometric shaped that capture the essence of form. For example one of the major components of floral morphology are the axis of symmetry. A 5 petal flower will have petals is tiers and multiples of 5 giving a distinct rounded appearance. Rosacea and prunus are like this. Meanwhile 4-symmetry flowers look more angular even when doubled to 8 petals (clematis, hydrangea). Same as 3-symmetry flowers (lilies, a lot of monocots actually). And then you have the distinctly bilateral symmetry only flowers like pea or orchid. This is what the lego plum blossom set gets wrong, it doesn't accurately capture the feel of the flowers or branches despite plum being one of the easier flowers to stylize in blocks. Succulents also just look better since they're already blocky.

I managed to not buy anything. But oooh the temptation. Like i actually went and looked for lego events in my area. Sad that there's no botanicals pop up within 2000 miles of me or in the same country. Also there's never any events near me. The next one is on march 28 is like an hour away (no traffic and there's always traffic) in some random rural town (3-6 hours on public transportation on 4 buses). And that's the only one scheduled in the state. Like it's insane that they don't have events in the biggest metro area within a 1500 mile radius in this country. I have to call ahead to reserve space and even if i do might get turned away for being an adult? Ug.

Edit: the copy cats and lego hitch hikers once again ahead in the lego game. These don't read as roses to me the shape is wrong but for generic unidentifiable flower? Excellent.

There are many fake divides in life. Cat vs dog. Tea vs coffee. People who say “we’ll pick that up in the next meeting” vs people who silently die inside when they hear it. But if you are even mildly nerd-adjacent, the real question is this: Are you a Minecraft person, or a LEGO person? Both involve small rectangular things. Both involve building. Both have caused at least one meltdown when a…

Dragon Quest Builder gets a slimetastic! European release date! #DragonQuest

Square Enix has revealed details on the Day One Edition of it’s block-building game Dragon Quest Builders. Which arrives in Europe on October 14. Players who pre-order the game ahead of launch will receive a selection of exclusive in-game item recipes that allow for the creation of materials for use in the game’s Terra Incognita (Free Build) mode, including; – Springtide Sprinkles Recipe,…

TAXONOMY OF FORM - BLOCK BUILDING

1:  TOYO ITO: Mediatheque, Sendai

2:  Le CORBUSIER: Millworker Association, Chandigarh

3:  PETER ZUMTHOR: Kunsthaus, Bregenz