Purple Truck

I've decided to add my brother's commentary on this post when he saw it. It will appear in blue.
My brother designed this awesome purple truck. Mmm, I love you little flowers... *presses LEGO flower to his face*

Front view. Criss-cross fence piece is the grille on the front. The method used for the headlights is the same as in the LEGO Harry Potter Knight bus set (Which is where all these pieces are from.)

He used the knight bus sticker brick from the front of the knight bus for the bumper plate. (For you non Potterheads out there, the Knight Bus is a "violently purple triple-decker bus" used by witches wizards for transport.)

View of the bottom. Heh heh heh heh heh... ...bottom...

The doors. (When he originally built them, there was no way to open them because he neglected to include handles. I redesigned the door to make it possible to get in, hence the handled plate built into the door.)

The cab.

And one more outside view. Why'd you leave the doors open?

National Talk Like A Pirate Day

Avast! Today be National Talk Like A Pirate day, and to celebrate, here be some piratey minifigures!

(My apologies for the low picture quality,  this was taken on me mobile device.)

As a bonus, you will not get keel hauled  get some links to other past piratey posts!

Microscale Pirate Ships

MetalBeard!

Pirate Catapult Game

Pirate Catapult Game

Time for a fun, interactive LEGO creation! Me and my brother love playing with this! I made it Pirate themed, but you can make it any way you want.
The pile of round 1x1 bricks over there are your projectiles (We refer to them as soda cans, since that what we pretended they were at one point.), you use the catapult to launch them at the target. Landing on the different towers or colored zones gets you points.

Picture of the target of the catapult.

An open treasure chest and two barrels give lots of points if you land in them!

Landing the soda can on one of the towers gets a lot of points!

Here you can see the barrels I included in the stands for the towers, sticking to the pirate theme as much as possible.

Here's how I built my catapult. You could do it countless different ways though.

I got several different technic bricks and an axle. Some important elements are a large base so it doesn't flip over, a long plate or otherwise for leverage and a bucket of some sort to hold projectiles. I used a cauldron, but you could use anything, even build a box out of bricks!

Let's start with the base. I added various tiles and grilles to add some texture. Raise up where your catapult arm will attach a few blocks off the ground.

I strung two technic bricks on the axle to start.

Then the longer ones.

And finally, the cross shaped hole technic bricks to stop the other bricks from sliding off.

Now I attach the arm to the two center bricks.

And set it on the base. Ready for launch!

Yes! Landed in the chest! Twenty points!

Action shot!

Close up of the anchor and chain hanging off the tower. There's also a sextant sitting up there on the tower, along with a chest that you can get points for landing in.

Here you can see one of the chests and a cutlass, as well as all the different colored scoring zones.

A pistol, golden telescope and a pirate flag to add to the theme.

A ship's wheel and a pirate hat, complete with plume, adorn this tower.

Picture of the bottom.

Here's my scoring guide:
Black-----------1
Dark Gray----2
Red--------------3
Yellow---------4
Blue------------5
Light Gray---6
That Hole Behind
The Chest-----7
Chests---------20
Barrels--------30
Flag Tower---10
Chest Tower--12
Wheel Tower-15
Balancing it on any small object, like the sextant or the cutlass is worth fifty points, but it's unlikely that will happen. Also, there's an optional five point bonus for turning the steering wheel.
You can build any sort of target with any sort of theme. There's a game similar to this in my brother's LEGO play book, a giant castle with different colored scoring zones and things to land in like ours has. Even a flat set up of multicolored plates on the floor would work!
Enjoy!

Desert Whirlwind Ride

Another themed amusment park ride, this time, wild west!

We have some stone and gold nuggets.

Cactus, pith helmet and pick axes to complete the scene.

Here's the seat. The ride itself spins you around, as if you were stuck in a dust tornado!

Here's a close-up of the base.

A 2x2 tile with a vertical half-pin attaches to a two hole 1x2 technic brick. The other hole has a technic round half-pin, which attaches to the pillar of round 2x2 bricks.

There's a barrel built in to add to the wild west theme.

I couldn't figure out a better way to spin the ride with the pieces I have, so you just turn it with your hand for now.

Lost a hat!

The base is tan plates, with different layers of plates, bricks and tiles to give it a sandy desert look.

One more view of the whole ride.

Microscale Challenge: Pirate Ship

Another microscale challenge between me and my brother. We think of an object, then scour our collection to build a microscale version of it. Microscale is fitting as much detail as you can into the smallest amount of pieces.

His

Mine

Here's comparison of the two. Mine won, since it has less pieces, which is the point of microscale. Ignore the shell logo on the sail, I couldn't find a tile that was plain white. My other options were a car wash, a hammer, and the US flag.

Here's how to built his ship.
You'll need:

• 2 tan 1x4 plates
• 2 tan 1x3 plates
• 1 tan 2x3 plate
• 1 tan 1x2 plate
• 2 brown 1x1 plates
• 2 white 1x3 bricks 
• 1 black telescope
• 1 tan  1x2 grille
• 1 dark tan jumper plate

Place the 1x4 plates on either end of the 2x3 plate.

Place the 1x3 plates on either end of the 1x4 plates.

Place the 1x1 plates on the bottom to fill in the gaps.

Add the grille and 1x2 plate on the sides. I'm not sure if he made it uneven on purpose, or if he couldn't find the right pieces.

The jumper plate goes in the bottom of the boat.

 Now add the telescope to the jumper plate. On top of the telescope, stack the white bricks for the sail.

 Here's how to build mine. You'll need:

• 2 brown 2x2 inverted slanted bricks
• 1 white 2x2 tile
• 1 brown round 2x2 plate
• Ping-pong paddle like white piece found in an 80's police set

Attach the inverted slanted bricks together back to back using the round plate.

Add the mast. If you don't have this piece,  be creative and think of a substitute.

Now add the sail and you're finished. There's a few ways I'd improve it a bit, such as adding two stacks of two 1x2 brown plates on either end to make the ends curve up a bit, but fewest pieces was my priority when building this, so this is how it turned out.