Misini F-14 Tomcat Review

 Here we have the latest set Misini sent me: the F-14 Tomcat. My favourite model of the ones Misini sent me so far. Before I explain you more about the set itself let me mention that the F-14 is a plane made by Grumman for the US Navy in the decade of the 1960s. 712 were built and the first flight happened in December 21 1970. In 2006 it was retired. The plane is also known for its appearances in the film Top Gun made in 1986. It also appears in Executive Decision (1996) which is a film I love. The plane in the picture below belongs to the squadron named VF-84 (1955-1995) and is the one Misini represents in this set. A beautiful plane if you ask me.

Source: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_F-14_Tomcat#/media/Archivo:Grumman_F-14A_Tomcat_of_VF-84_in_flight,_circa_in_1978.jpg

The plane sold by Misini has the quality of the previous Black Hawk helicopter I reviewed this past summer. So a high quality. The design itself has only one weak spot which is that it is fragile. You have to take care while holding it and adding the final parts. It is a set to be shown and not a toy so I don't think that's a big problem. The quality of the bricks is almost like LEGO ones and they fit perfectly between them. The scale is 1/35 and the sizes are 44.4cm wide 19.9cm tall and 57.9cm long. So it is a big one! It features moving wings. All 6 move. This time it features no minifigs which I don't think is bad either because the minifigs is what these brands do the worst. The building difficulty is medium-high according to the box information. I would say just medium. Nothing to worry about.

Stickers have a good quality too. They have improved since the first set I got from them. There are many of them and I wish they would print bricks but well I guess that would increase the costs so I understand they prefer to keep using stickers instead. 

The cockpit of the plane is my favourite part of the build.

Same as the previous sets the instructions are easy to follow in most of the steps. It really feels like building a LEGO set most of the time which is something really good! When you open the box there is a big bag with all the bricks inside. At the same time this bag has smaller bags inside with each of the 7 steps to build. In the next picture you can see that bag. This has improved since the last set I reviewed because in the Black Hawk one there weren't any intermedium bags and you had to search for the 4-5 bags you needed for each step. Now is more like a LEGO set so well done Misini. Instructions come in a book. The book features some info of the real plane in the first pages and renders of the finished model in the final ones. They are easy to follow as I mentioned before. 

This set comes with a stand for the plane. It works properly if you doubt about it.

And I think that was all and I wrote all I wanted to. I hope you enjoyed reading this. I enjoyed as always building the set and taking pictures and showing you and I would like to thank Misini for this oportunity. Also thanks guys because the blog views have grown x4 in the last weeks and it makes me happy to see interest in what I do. Thanks for your attention and feel free to ask me any questions you have about this set. If you are interested in taking a look at Misini's store you would help me if you do through my affiliated link: https://misinimoc.com/?ref=ari23# 

Instagram post with videos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DRXlzg8DA2A/?img_index=1

Week 3 building the Hadrian's Wall in LEGO

 In the update of this week you can see that I built the walls bigger and created the main door. I also built the stables of the fort. As we already saw in the first post there was stables and and building for the garrison in these little Roman forts of the Hadrian's Wall. I really like how turned out the corridor I did in the corner to have an idea of how tall will be the wall and how high will be the minifigs standing there. This week I didn't advance in the snow part since the floor is finished. Just as a remainder there is still a thin part to build in front of the main gate where a sloped ditch was built in the real Hadrian's Wall. I guess I will recreate a light step in the snow representing the entioned ditch but I will see. Will depend on how many parts I have left. 

This week I ordered some last parts in BrickLink since last time I forgot to buy the arch of the main gate and I need both the exterior and interior ones and each uses 2 of them so I need 4 and I have 3. I hope by next week the parts are here. There is no rush since this week I'm building a F-14 Tomcat I got from Misini to show you so this week I guess there will be little work on the MOC or none at all. I will show you the plane here too this weekend or the next one and then finally I will finish in the coming weeks this Roman milecastle. I'm really excited with the build. I really like how it is looking and I can't wait to see it finished with my Roman minifigs which I consider amongst the best minifig combos I can create. Next I will focus on one or two First Chechen War MOCs but that will have to wait to late December or January but I'm really inspired for it so stay tuned because I'm sure you will enjoy it a lot! Thanks for reading and see you in the next update guys!

Week 2 building the Hadrian's Wall in LEGO

 Here is the latest update of my current project. I'm busy so updates are slow but here I will give you and update of the project. Walls have been raised and the design of the building and the space it will use are clearly seen by now. I did built one of the building inside the little fort which is the barracks. Sadly there is nothing inside to show but in the last pictures you can see the roof with snow. The walls will grow around it. I consider it finished and now it's time for the stables building in front of it. I also built the doors you see on the pictures and I'm really happy with how they turned out. I will need to buy some new parts to do what's on my mind but I really hope the MOC is done in 4-6 weeks. So far I'm happy with how is it looking. I really love how the little parts in dark tan and dark bluish gray look mixed with light bluish gray parts. Take a look at the pictures and feel free to share your ideas and suggestions! A few weeks ago the blog reached 10000 views so thank you all for your support guys :-)

Week 1 building the Hadrian's Wall in LEGO

 Come join me building my latest project: The Hadrian's Wall. Well. A little part of it. To be fair the project is to build a milecastle of the wall. They were little fortlets built every Roman mile and the Hadrian's Wall itself was a wall going from Wallsend on the river Tyne in the east to Bowness-on-Solway in the west. It protected the modern day England (more or less) from the northern territories where different tribes lived back then. Nowadays a good part of it still exists and the ruins are protected. The wall had 80 milecastles and 158 turrets. 

Here is what I plan to build:

Excuse me for my low Paint skills 

The past 10 days or so I built the base. It takes a lot of time doing it that way but I think it will look significantly better. With the stables and inside buildings I have some doubts. I need to figure out how to build the roofs and I wanna create my first brick built horses and avoid using the typical LEGO single part molded one. I think it could take the MOC result one step forward.

With the minifigures to use I still have to decide if I use my Roman minifigs I always use or to try to create Late Roman minifigs. It would take more time and I guess I wouldn't be able to create more than 6 of them. I will see. In any case they must be winter versions as you can see the scene built will be in winter. I think snow will add more mystery to the already mysterious idea I have in my mind of what it must have been to be in the edge of the northern frontier of the Roman Empire with the bad weather of that place and the curious tribes who lived north of the wall. Creepy. 

Now I will post some pictures of the progress I made. Feel free to copy the technic and build something you too! I hope I can upload a new chapter weekly or almost weekly showing you the updates of the project. Stay tuned!

This is just a simulation of how much space would use the structure of the milecastle

LEGO Set Review: Weapons Wagon from 1996

I present you today a new kind of post I'm very excited about! Here I will show you and review a LEGO set from 1996 from the Western line. All started years ago when I was in a second hand app and a post selling this set for 25€ appeared on my screen. It looked in an almost perfect condition so I had no doubts. Older LEGO sets have something special in my opinion. They look so simply and cool. They look awesome to display.

The kit itself has 59 parts and 1 minifig. The minifig has different accesories to use and the cannon shots 1x1 round bricks! It must have been an amazing set to play with as a kid. The cloth of the carriage still looks perfectly white 30 years later. 

The minifig still looks pretty good even the face has an eye that looks misprinted. The yellow head gives it a vintage feeling that makes it even better! Horse looks amazing too. Is the same mould LEGO still uses today but as the whole set it looks simply but amazing. I'm surprised because I didn't expect some parts of this set to already exist back then!

The instructions look simple too and they aren't as easy to follow as more recent sets because the new parts you build in each steps aren't showed above as usual. You look at the page and you have to find the parts added in this step to search for them and build them in your real build. The book is in a good shape too luckily.

Love the little scenes shown here

I don't have the original box but here I show you a picture of it.

Source: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?S=6716-1#T=S&O={%22iconly%22:0}

Nowadays the prices are over 40€/40$ in Bricklink for used ones and well over 100€/$ for sealed ones. These prices in BrickLink. In second hand apps or wherever you can buy old/used stuff you might be lucky to find them cheaper.

I made a YouTube video for it where I recorded the building process. If you want to take a look you can do it here:

Many thanks for reading guys! Hope you liked it! Let me know what do you think! Next one might be a Ferrari F1 set I got as a kid which was my first LEGO set ever I would say! But first I have to find a place in my room for it! 

Thought it would be worth it to share the thumbnail too

Rif War Spanish minifig

 In this post I present you my latest minifig. The idea has been in my head for some time now and I'm happy how it turned out. It is a Rif War Spanish soldier. 

The Rif War was a series of conflicts happened in northern Morocco between native tribes and the French and Spanish rulers there. Led by Abd el-Krim the tribes fought mainly the Spanish troops and got some victories like Annual which here in Spain is known as the Annual Disaster that caused a political crisis in the country. The French were afraid the problems expanded to their part of Morocco and decided to help the Spanish government and both countries did operations together like the Disembark of Alhucemas were Spain made the first organized disembark mixing ground sea and air units. Abd el Krim surrendered in 1926 and since 1927 until 1956 when Morocco got it's independence from Spain there were no major problems. 

Talking now about the minifig itself I painted it ina couple days and I think it looks pretty decent. I will try to find a green color that fits better the LEGO Olive Green color. All is hand-painted by me. Torso is fake LEGO from AliExpress same as the hat. The torso is one of the 10 I got months ago and I find them specially useful for Spanish uniforms from the 1920s-1930s. Of course they are very useful too for Chinese troops from the Second Sino-Japanese War which is what they are/were sell for. The gear is from BrickWarriors and the Gewehr 98 rifle is from BrickArms and is hand-painted by me too. 

I'm thinking about doing a MOC in the future about this war. I would need to do some more minifigs of course. I will see in the future. Is one idea of many but Spain is my country and I'm proud of it and I want to show history of my country since even here in Spain they are barely known nowadays and it's a shame and sometimes a controversial topic here because nowadays the history of Spain is always used as a political argument from left and right political parties. 

Now using a side cap I made years ago.

Reference pictures:

Colourised picture with Francisco Franco in the middle. Source: https://www.abc.es/historia/abci-el-krim-franco-conquisto-espana-guarida-rifeno-desangro-ejercito-202103230108_noticia.html 

Source: zinnfigur.com

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Colorization/comments/nuehjo/corporal_of_the_spanish_army_in_the_early_1920s/

And finally a video I made of the minifig for social media.

I really hope you liked this post guys! Stay tuned because in a matter of days I plan to post a new one!