Greetings from a Lismoron!

Hey there,

The name's Gareth, I'm from Lismore NSW, 2 hours south of the QLD border. And yes, I call myself a Lismoron

Excited to join the group and socialise with other Aussie AFOL's. While I'm not the only AFOL in Lismore (I think there's about 3 of us - me and my 2 best mates) it'd be awesome to broaden my horizons. I'm not a member of a big LUG, cause I'm too far away
But my friends and I have our own tiny LUG - called "Lismore Lego Crew" or LLC for short.

I am a big MOCer as well as collector - my collection consists of over 3,200 minifigs (and counting) and over 1500 sets.
My main passions are Star Wars and Harry Potter, but am also swayed by Castle/Kingdoms, Modulars, some city, and almost all sets that begin with a "10"

I used to have a ridiculous amount of MOCs going, but never really finished any of them. So mid last year I decided enough was enough, and settled on finishing my first and ever changing MOC - Hogwarts.
It's not been easy, and I am nowhere near done. At one point this year I'd cleaned out nearly all sizeable Australian BrickLink stores of their Tan brick supplies, and started ordering from overseas. It's been an expensive MOC with - extremely rough estimate - between maybe 20,000 - 30,000 bricks. I won't say how much it's cost me so far (and I haven't even started on the cliffs )

I started out in 2001 joining the official sets from Philosopher's Stone and Chamber of Secrets together to kind of resemble the castle in the movie. Then when Prisoner of Azkaban came out, it changed everything, and despite my frustration, I changed my layout to suit.
The MOC was then put on the back-burner until Order of the Phoenix, when I sat down with my Wii game and plotted the entire castle from boathouse to Stone Circle. I started on a very crude "Quad" - the central building that connects to every part of the castle.... Until the Half Blood Prince..... The Astronomy Tower in HBP was the final straw - or so I thought... The Deathly Hallows part I came out, which hinted at further changes to the Castle.
I fought the changes for months - but finally gave up and said "I'll just do tDH pt II version" - and so I have - partially.

Because I'm a new member I'm not allowed to post links to my MOCpages/Flickr/Facebook yet - stay tuned

In the meantime, I'm really looking forward to meeting other Aussie LEGO enthusiasts!!!

RavenclawBoy

Hi Ravenclawboy.

Can't wait to see some images of your Hogwarts work in progress, sounds like it will be huge. I can't even imagine how much it would have cost you, I think it will be better to never calculate it (that is my lego motto, never admit how much it really costs us

Your collection also sounds impressive.

Greetings Ravenclawboy

I am a relatively new member of ANZFOL as well...and only came back into the light about 18 months ago. I am very impressed with the size of your lego collection and it sounds like you could deploy a full sized "Dumbledore's Army".

I also enjoy the Harry Potter lego...although am missing quite a few sets particularly of the first series. I have had my eyes out for a Order of the Pheonix castle but have not found one for the right price. There have been some very nice sets lately which have been great additions with lots of useful building pieces. I also have some star wars sets but must admit have generally concentrated on City and Kingdoms sets...with creator and some others thrown in.

I do have the full series of Viking sets which will be turned into a major Viking MOC at some stage...for the moment however I am concentrating on building techniques so I can turn my vision into reality. I am also keen on castles and have toyed with a Hogwarts MOC of some kind.

I am based in Brisbane and one of our lego group members is also very keen on Harry potter and is intent on building a Hogwarts so we will be keen to see some pictures of what you have been working on so far. We have a website if you search for the Brisbane Lego Train Group you should find it easily with loads of pictures of group MOC's and displays over time.

I look forward to hearing more of the exploits of the LLC in the future.

Regards

Brickton

Welcome to ANZFOL ravenclawboy,

I look forward to seeing pics of your Hogwarts. BTW I don't recall any restrictions on posting links for new members, though I imagine there might be restrictions on hosting images here.

Peter

Welcome ravenclawboy,

I must admit that I see myself in Gryffindor; though I'm glad that you didn't claim to be in Slytherin.

You and your mates will have to drive up to Brisbane for a weekend and meet with some BLTG members at Bricks n Fun.

I am very interested in your Hogwarts and can't wait to see the photos.

ravenclawboy

I laughed at the term 'Lismoron'.

I haven't heard that since I worked in central Qld. The next town was Ogmore so you could imagine what we called them.

The term really came to the fore the day a freight train stopped in Ogmore and some kids from the little school across the road opened the gate on a wagon carrying pigs. Apparently the whole town was out chasing porkers for hours.

This town is in BEEF country so it was refreshing to be offered roast pork the next time I went to Ogmore; nobody knew where it came from.