Weezer Performance Stage at Key Arena Nov. 2001 LEGO MOC

In Fall 2001, I flew out to Seattle to visit friends and go to two shows–Tori Amos at the Paramount and Weezer at Key Arena.

After I returned home, I built this LEGO MOC (my own creation) of the Weezer stage. At that point, I only had some Star Wars LEGO sets, so I had to pick up some additional bricks and minifigures to create this model. Notably, I purchased the cheapest Harry Potter set (for the bespectacled Rivers Cuomo) and a large brick assortment set for the stage base and back.

I based the stage arrangement on Weezer’s stage design at the Key Arena performance. They had a backdrop covered with equally distant squares. Lights behind the black squares illuminated and played lights on the backdrop. In front of the stage back was a large stylized “W” that descended from above when the band began playing.

To mount the stage back at 90 degrees to the stage base, I used stub-and-fork friction joint bricks.

For the backdrop lights, I used battery-powered Christmas lights.

For the stylized “W,” I cut it out from card stock.

Also, I used card sock to cut out guitar and bass shapes that I taped to rods that the minifigures held.

Apologies for the quality of the photos. I took the photos with my second digital camera. The first was a Sony Mavica with 3.5″ floppy disk. I sold it and purchased a Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-P3 (I think). I’m lucky to have these photos as I think I took them more to experiment with the camera than to memorialize the LEGO model!

LEGO Mashup MOC of Gandalf 30213 and Fierce Flyer 31004

Back in 2013, I built a small LEGO MOC scene depicting Gandolf (from The Hobbit 30213 polybag set) riding on one of the great eagles (LEGO Creator Fierce Flyer 31004). The scene shows a miniature river flanked by mountainsides. I used one of the mountains to anchor a Technic support that buoyed the eagle carrying Gandolf on an important Middle Earth mission. Positioned correctly, the support isn’t seen and the eagle appears to be in midflight.

Iron Man’s Three-Level Hall of Armor and Workshop LEGO MOC

I built this gargantuan three-level Stark Tower LEGO MOC (my own creation) to bring together three concept spaces: Iron Man’s Hall of Armor, Tony Stark’s Workshop, and an X-Men Danger Room-like testing area. Also, it was a model that didn’t take up too much desk space, so I got the enjoyment of seeing it while working without it monopolizing my desk. I wasn’t going for accuracy to something canon-established. Instead, I was mashing up some different ideas into a single model with a high degree of built-in playability. Eventually, I disassembled it and used many of its bricks to create the taller Avengers Tower MOC that I built and wrote about here.

Two-Level Origin

The first iteration of the mode was only two-levels tall and focused on the Hall of Armor and Workshop.

Top Level: Hall of Armor

Armor Display

Trap Door

Ant-Man Hides in the Shadows

Bottom Level: Workshop

The Slab with Rotator Knob

Industrial Robot on Slider

Three-Level Expansion

But, I thought adding a high ceiling level for testing and training, kind of like The X-Men’s Danger Room, would be cool. So, the build grew in height to enclose the Hulkbuster Armor facing off against Loki, the Winter Soldier, the Mandarin, Ultron, and an Extremis soldier.

Hall of Armor Updates

Workshop Updates

Danger Room

The knobs at the bottom center move the armatures forward and back for Ultron and one of his familiars.

LEGO 75212 Kessel Run Millennium Falcon on Custom Display Stand

LEGO Kessel Run Millennium Falcon on display stand.

This is a lightweight custom display stand for a stock LEGO 75212 Kessel Run Millennium Falcon from the underrated Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018). Like the stand that I built for my heavier modified Falcon discussed here, it provides an angle upward and a swoop to the left. The landing gear lock into place on the stand and are held in place by gravity.

I hope there will be more Han Solo and Lando Calrissian adventures with Alden Ehrenreich and Donald Glover. I don’t think he and the rest of the cast of Solo got a fair shake due to the behind-the-scenes production turmoil. Let’s keep the dream alive!

LEGO MOC Return of the Jedi Scene of the Desert Skiff (9496) at the Sarlacc Pit

Desert Skiff rescue scene from Return of the Jedi created with LEGO.

Following some of my recent LEGO MOC and MOD posts here, here, and here, this LEGO scene of the Desert Skiff rescue above the Sarlacc Pit from Return of the Jedi (1983) is another pre-pandemic build of mine. The desert skiff is an unmodified 9496 set from LEGO. However, I added more minifigures (Han and Chewbacca), and I recreated the scene as it roughly appears in the film when Lando Calrissian falls overboard with one of Jabba’s henchmen who is devoured by the Sarlacc. The base of the build is the high walls of sand surrounding the Sarlacc’s maw with a toothed opening and digestive tract beneath the sand full of bones and skulls of its past meals.

Two wooden shelves of LEGO sets from LOTR, Avengers, and Star Wars.

Before building this version of the scene, I had constructed a wider base and used the Sarlacc Pit monster build that came with 9496 as shown on the top shelf in the photo above. Also, Lando was holding onto the Desert Skiff by a whip instead of a chain, which I used on the newer diorama shown in more detail below. Pity the poor bastards who get slowly digested over a thousand years–that is, until Boba Fett took care of the buried beast!

I’ll note that when I was a kid, the Power of the Force Tatooine Skiff by Kenner was one of my favorite vehicles next to the Millennium Falcon, not only because it had a lot of playability and features packed into but also because I recognized the engineering and craftsmanship that went into its design, including retractable skids, extending/dropping plank, and a sideboard action figure launcher.