Model Citizen

I've not received an inheritance before, but my late mums inheritance came recently. It was a last act of kindness from a very kind lady. It was not a huge amount of money to some but I really wanted to get something with it that mum would have approved of. To me that said get something that will help your creative side because mum was always encouraging me in that. Even as a kid when I did some really silly things she never seemed to mind because I was experimenting. Things like accidentally spilling red gloss paint on my bed as I was building a model of  Eagle 5 from Space 1999, or the day I started to colour in the wallpaper in the living room to make it look more interesting. The felt pen took years to cover up!

I also remember mum helping me buy my very first camera for college. A Petri SLR with 50mm lens. I looked after that extremely well all through college and then passed it on when I bought a Nikon F501.

Yesterday i became the owner of what is the best camera I have ever laid my hands on. The Nikon D300.

Whenever i buy something significant I really do my homework, usually for months as I search out reviews, best places to buy etc. With a purchase as important as this I did the same. This time though I had a huge helping hand from my friend Richard at AV Talk  Richard has had a few Nikons and steered me to start thinking of the 300 rather than the 200 that I was looking at. He also helped me in the choice of lenses I bought and from where I got them. I took all his advice and bought them from MIFSUDS  a shop based in Devon that sell new and used equipment all with warranties. They give next day delivery and that's when all the equipment came. It's the sort of camera that will last forever, as with anything, you look after it. I hope to put some sample pictures up soon that I've taken with it, but in the meantime if you want to look at the review of this camera from DP Review look here.

Thank you very much Richard. Thank you very much Mum.

LEOCAD Is a FREE! 3D programme that lets you make Lego models on the computer in 3D. I downloaded it last year but just could'nt get on with it. Anyway, I  gave it another go this last week and found it a lot easier. It has a huge parts library with it though finding the part you want can be a bit tricky. What is good is that the parts will snap together and if they facing the wrong way you just rotate the piece again to a constrained angle. It has options for various viewports too. You can change the colour of the pieces before dragging them into the window and all in all it's a programme worth spending a bit of time on.

This is a view of the programme. I have a 24" monitor so it's a lot more spacey than this view.

I currently have only finished one test piece which I exported from LeoCad as a Wavefront object. This is great as I can then import it into whatever 3D programme I want. i chose Cinema 4D using the plug-in Riptide that also imports the materials too. I gave it a tweak here and there setting the Phong value to 60 and adding a few custom colours and here's the result:

  I want to try something more adventurous nex. i'm still learning but here's what I found so far:

Brickfactory  This site has hundreds of scanned Lego instruction manuals to help build your model.

MLCAD  This is also a Cad package for designing Lego plans. Not quite figured out how it can be used with LeoCad but I've seen some stuff on Deviant Art that is a 3D model from MlCad, soit must be possible.

  A few years old now this film, but after watching it last night with the kids it deserves a mention.

If there was ever a story that could be disasterous it's this. The synopsis is this:

Knoxville, who I dont particularly rate as an actor, especially after he was one of those responsible for trying to ruin all that was good about The Dukes Of Hazzard. Anyway, he plays Steve, a bit of an office loser who as the film starts is listening to self help motivational tapes at work. The result is he goes to his boss to ask for more responsibility...which he gets in the form of having to fire the janitor, a very sweet old man called Stavvi. Steve just can't do this so instead offers him a job cutting grass at his home complex. What happens next happens quickly, as Stavvi is trying to cut the lawn with the clapped out mower, he leans down to fix it and has 3 of his fingers cut off by the blade. At the hospital, without insurance, Steve has to pay $28'000 if Stavvi is to keep his fingers. After an attempt to borrow money from his loser uncle, a gambler, his uncle hits upon an idea to solve all their money issues...rig the Special Olympics.

  As said, if ever there was a film with the potential to be completeley politically uncorrect, this film was it. That it managed to steer well clear of any type of sentiment like that is amazing, but what you see is one of the most warm hearted, endeering, funny and thought provoking movies I've seen in a long time.

As Steve goes under cover at the Special olympics as a mentally challenged man called Geoffey he very quickly learns that the other athletes, real mentally challenged people, not only deserve his respect and honesty but eventually deserve a lot more than he has on offer.

  I think what struck me about the film after was just how much fun was being had by those who would be thought of as simple,tenting in their bedroom, having water fights, wheras the more sophisticated people I know have a good time by drinking until they vomit, clubbing to music so loud you can't hear yourself shout and then sleep with who ever's available. Hmmm, yeah, fun, right.

Back to the film. Well, if you've not seen this. Thought this was going to be just about the worst taste film possible.Think again, it's well worth the few quid it can be bought from on Amazon and leaves a lastingly good impression.

Rated 4 out of 5