Week 5 building the Hadrian's Wall in LEGO

 Welcome to the last update of the project before the final reveal! I'm really happy to write that this is the last update I post before I post the final result of my current project. I started it in mid September and it will be finished this week probably so I think this is the project I did that took the longest. Main reason is that I don't have much time sadly but well I will build less but I will try to build better! In the past couple of weeks I almost finished all the walls and started the final section of the MOC. The real Hadrian's Wall had a ditch in front of the main door and that is the only part I still have doubts about because I don't know how to build it to be honest. Because it's all covered with snow I guess it will help me and I can just represent that the ditch is partially covered by snow so that's nice. I don't know how many parts I have used so far but I bet it must be at least 7000. It is really heavy. As you can see in the first pictures the main gate has been reworked and it is smaller now than it was originally. I prefer it smaller and closer to the other one even it is a bit taller and wider. I really love how the mix of Light Bluish Gray Dark Tan and Dark Bluish Gray turned out. I'm really happy with how good it looks over the white bricks. I really like the contrast of the fortlet colors compared to the white of the base. In the YouTube video I will edit and post I will do a little timelapse using all these photos I posted over the weeks so the progress of the last months is seen in a minute or so. I think it will look cool. Can't wait to finally show you the build finished. Merry Christmas guys!

I started the front section this past week

Internal structure

Week 4 building the Hadrian's Wall in LEGO

 As the year ends this project ends too (luckily) and today I show you the latest update. These past weeks I worked in the snow to give it some changes in the ground level so it doesn't look that plain and boring and I progressed in the wall part and made the minifigs! I would say the next post will be the last one before I post the MOC finished so there's still some surprise and mistery before I show you the finished build. I hope it takes no more than a month. This year I started studying again and progress to anything related to LEGO is painfully slow but I try my best because I have some ideas for future projects that I can't wait to start working on. For the next one I will try to have finished the ground section inside the fortlet. I have been thinking lately about making the big main door smaller to match the size of the other one (more or less) and so the main gate doesn't have an elevation over it in the wall section. I guess Romans kept it easy and made the fortlet walls without any kind of steps to patrol the walls and I find it kind of stupid to have some steps to walk over the main gate. So I assume in the next update it will be different.

       

      

And about the minifigs I made some of them for this MOC. When I had to choose if I do the build in the Late Empire era or the first century era I knew it would be more difficult if I go for the Late Empire era. But I did anyway. The price to pay is to have less minifigs but I think it was worth it. Roman soldiers of the late period have something special that I really like a lot. Even the first-second century soldiers look amazing too that's why I own parts to create 10-15 of them! I have to see if I build some civilians to add to the build. The helmets they wear are modified Brickforge ones. I cut them and paint them after I applied some putty to give it some shape. Some have better quality than others. In the future I will do more so I can create more minifigs but that will be for future MOCs. The minifigs are the commander of the fortlet and other soldiers who are patrolling the walls. The horse is brick built by me inspired in the design of the Instagram user @lazy_brixs. I would like to improve the neck of the horse but I don't know how. If I find a way to do it before I finish the build I will update it. Overall I think it looks decent and I'm happy with it. Capes are from AliExpress and body and legs are from LEGO. Skirts are from Capes4Minifigs. Shields are LEGO Gungan trans-purple ones hand-painted by me. I really hope you like them as much as I do. Can't wait to show you more about this MOC in the coming weeks!

My favourite minifigs of the MOC. Bodies from AliExpress.

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 :-)