News Update

As may well have been noticed, there have not been any updates to this blog in a few weeks. The problem is twofold. On the one hand, I have been without home Internet since the start of September; one the other, my personal laptop (on which I have done most of the work for this blog, especially the webcomics) has "died," at least temporarily. As of today, I now have home Internet, so the first problem is addressed. This means that there might be a few irregular, non-Aquazone Breakfast News posts going up, but as long as my laptop remains out of commission, it is unlikely you will see a lot of work here, and certainly no webcomics. Once my laptop is back and kicking, I hope to make enough webcomics to make up for the weeks missed, but I would not expect that to take effect until sometime in November--and I have no idea if that will affect the Christmas season (last year had a daily schedule). If you're still around to read this: good on you! and hang in there.

Aquazone Breakfast News: 106

Aquazone Breakfast News: 105

Aquazone Breakfast News: 104

Aquazone Breakfast News: 103

Bricklink has *not* been behaving for me today, so this is uploaded to Blogger for now. I'll correct it to a proper upload after the long weekend. Hopefully... UPDATE (03/Sept/12): Well, Brickshelf is still being wonky, but majhost worked for me, so we'll use that for now.

Aquazone Breakfast News: 102

Aquazone Breakfast News: 101

All manner of computer problems have descended on me this week... my laptop seems to be dying. Simply *making* this comic took a day and a half of sitting (patiently?) through the endless restarting of my laptop. All things being equal, I *hope* to have next week's comic up--and up ontime--but who knows...

Aquazone Breakfast News: 100

Add a no-Internet situation at the new apartment to the rigors of moving and posts here will continue to be infrequent for a while--though I hope we won't see an AqBN-free week again.

Aquazone Breakfast News: 099

Space Police Patrol Ship

So far 2012 hasn't been a high-intensity year for MOCing. 2011 wasn't either, and things like wedding planning have made for understandable distractions; nonetheless, this year hasn't been completely without some from-scratch MOCing. The largest example of that was the Space Police patrol vessel that is the subject of this post.

Although Space Police II (the 1992 sets) has always ranked high on my list of favourite LEGO themes, its predecessor from 1989 only ever existed on the fringes of my LEGO world--chiefly because I was barely acquainted with themes that old. Nonetheless, a Space Police (i) ship has been on my radar for some time. I picked up a few figs on Bricklink over the years, as well as a few basic "Space Police pieces" to use when the day came. The day came when I added to my collection of Panel 3x6x6 Sloped with Window pieces. I have four of these, in blue with dark trans-blue panes, from 6520 Mobile Outpost, an Arctic set. To this I added four of the same piece in red, from Bricklink, with trans-red panes, and then swapped the panes: red panes in blue panels, to use here, and blue panes in red panels for use in a Spyrius ship.

These large window pieces and the trans-red cockpit that had sat waiting in my collection for three years were the first elements of this ship. Then I started amassing blue and black "spacey" parts that I could use with them, and the basic shape started to come together. The triangular girders on their side ended up being pivotal to the shape of what came, as did the decision to put the cockpit windshield on the side, ala the Millennium Falcon.

In addition to the parts that I had, the size of the ship was also determined by the crew: three of my four Space Police (i) figs are posted aboard--none of whom sport a classic "plain" head, a good sign that they were all acquired as parts rather than complete minifigures. As a general rule, I like the classic plain head... but I'm not always keen to outfit entire armies with it.

The interior shots don't show much of what's inside the ship, which is okay, because it's not particularly interesting. There are a couple of consoles, presumably monitoring the "power generator" and/or the "hyperdrive/warpcore/lightspeed-thingy" and a bed so that the crew can take turns sleeping. It doesn't have a jail cell, which might be counted a deficiency in a Space Police vessel...