As usual at Calin and Christo, we do not joke with the quality of the customs and the photos which are used to present them to us.

Today Calin presents us his custom Dooku minifig with a screen-printed face by Christo and hair designed by Calin. This superb photo also features two particularly successful Assassin Droids customs.

They are designed using parts purchased from CloneArmyCustoms: Chest and head in Chrome Silver and these same two pieces in Black. CAC also sells these two pieces in Dark Bluish Gray.

It also offers us an update of its custom STAP which therefore displays a new color scheme which I find successful. In the background of the photo, a MOC from Droid Carrier that Calin promises to present one day.

You probably remember the Batmobile from SHARPSPEED, specialist in vehicles of all kinds, which I was telling you about in this article in November and which had caught my eye.

Well, Adam Janusick does it again with this version 2 of his favorite Batmobile. We immediately note the Tumbler influence on this MOC, in particular at the level of the front axle and SHARPSPEED admits having kept only a tiny part of the previous MOC. 

This Batmobile is bigger, less connoted Racers and I have to say that I find it just as successful, although I really liked the compactness of the first version.

To discover this new Batmobile in detail, go to the flickr gallery by SHARPSPEED.

Received today the January / February 2012 issue of LEGO Magazine. Nothing very exciting for AFOLs, but we are not the target of this support.

However, I note the presence of a short but nice 4-page comic strip on the Star Wars theme (of which I put a photo above) and in which we find the X-Wing of the set 9493 X-Wing Starfighter, the Tie Fighter of the set 9492 Tie Fighter as well as the minifigs of Luke and Jek Porkins.

This allows me to bounce back on the news of brick set about the release of a specific LEGO Magazine for girls highlighting the new range LEGO Friends.

I'm not sure what to think of this new range, but LEGO's strategic choice to divide the communication media according to the type of target does not seem to me to be wise. Bringing girls into the world of LEGO involves integration into the community of children who are LEGO fans, not by sectoring them into a pink universe populated by ice cream, puppies and pretty sports coupes.

You will tell me that the border between the two universes is porous and that the girls will be able to interact with the boys in the City universe for example. But I don't believe it, and the choice to design minifigs that are completely different from the ones we know may frustrate girls who show interest in classic LEGOs.

The future will tell if LEGO made the right choice, but as we have seen with other projects in fields such as video games, for example, LEGO is testing many concepts and will ultimately only keep those that are prove profitable over time.

The Friends range comes up against Petshops, PollyPockets, Zhu Zhu Pets and other Barbie dolls in a market that has its own codes and trends. The success of the range will largely depend on the possible contagion effect in schoolyards.

A little humor doesn't hurt, I bring you this hilarious vignette that symbolizes what most of us would have liked to do to Jar Jar Binks, the most annoying Gungan in the galaxy. 

His chronic clumsiness and his voice infuriated me in theEpisode I.. I found it more bearable in theEpisode II elsewhere. 

For the record, most of us remember the silly and cowardly Jar Jar seen in The Phantom Menace, but the Gungan will later become General during the Battle of Naboo, during which he will accomplish some acts of bravery thanks to his legendary clumsiness and will even become a delegate of Padme Amidala then Senator after the latter's death. His biggest blunder will remain his decision to support the attribution of full powers to Palpatine who will take the opportunity to raise an army of Clones and start the war ...

To see more of this impeccably designed vignette, visit the MOCpages gallery by Luke Chapman.

We already knew the LEGO Comic Builder (see this article), a simple and ergonomic tool to create in a few clicks (okay, a few dozen clicks) a comic strip with the super heroes of the DC Universe 2012 range.

The tool is full of options and it is really possible to produce a clean and efficient comic. You can save in pdf format, print, modify, etc ... your creations.Be careful, we get caught up quickly ...

Click this link or on the image to access this tool on dedicated LEGO Super Heroes space.