![\"\"](\"https:\/\/halofanforlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Scarab.jpg\" "\\"Scarab\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nHaloFanForLife (HFFL): <\/strong>When did you first become a Halo fan? HFFL –<\/strong> Nothing wrong with being thrifty. Nice to see you were a fan of Bungie’s stuff before they blew up in fame with halo.<\/p>\n (HFFL):<\/strong>\u00a0What about Halo made you a fan in the first place? HFFL –<\/strong> The UNSC Barracks is but one of the buildings from Halo Wars. I’d LOVE to see Mega Bloks make all of the UNSC buildings. If not this scale, then a mini scale.<\/p>\n (HFFL):<\/strong>\u00a0Of the games that there have been achievements for, have you completed them all? HFFL –<\/strong> Enjoying the games is what it’s all about. There are many ways to do that of course. Nice to see someone who doesn’t take is all as serious as some others do.<\/p>\n (HFFL):<\/strong> Which game in the Halo franchise is your favorite and why? HFFL –<\/strong> I have been amassing green camo bloks myself to attempt a custom of the Vulture. Such an impressive ship, and GH did an amazing job in his custom.<\/p>\n (HFFL):<\/strong> What is your favorite Multiplayer game type and why? (ie., Team Slayer, FFA, BTB, Infection, etc.) (HFFL):<\/strong> Favorite Weapon from any of the Halo games and why? (HFFL):<\/strong> What are you most excited about for Halo 4? HFFL –<\/strong> I hear ya man. Cortana freakin’ out is something I’m most looking forward to as well. Heh, and new vehicles. While, I may not be as good a customizer as you are, I agree there are going to be some cool new vehicles. I just hope I don’t have to custom make them…<\/p>\n (HFFL):<\/strong> What do you think about the changes 343 is making to Halo? HFFL –<\/strong> Hmm, I like the Mammoth. More of a closed top Elephant. Bigger too. If I recall, I’ve heard it’s important to Spartan Ops, so we’ll likely see it a bit.<\/p>\n (HFFL):<\/strong> Where are you pre-ordering the game from (assuming you are pre-ordering)? (HFFL):<\/strong> You have an impressive talent for creating custom Halo MEGA Bloks sets. Where did you get this talent from? (HFFL):<\/strong> How long have you been making these customs? HFFL –<\/strong> Sounds like me and my toy collections. Nice job on the amount of video game titles!<\/p>\n (HFFL):<\/strong> How do you go about starting to make a custom? HFFL –<\/strong> Above is his own creation, the “Mastadon.” It’s a mobile MAC Cannon platform. Very cool idea. Wouldn’t it be something if this made it into a Halo game?<\/p>\n (HFFL):<\/strong> Do you plan it out first? Or do you just start to build? HFFL –<\/strong> I hear ya on having to rebuild something over and over. I must have done that a couple dozen times to one of my customs before I felt it was where I wanted it to be. When creating, one should not rush to get it done. There is much to learn from having patience.<\/p>\n (HFFL):<\/strong> Do you figure out what parts you need and if you don’t have them where do you get them from? (HFFL):<\/strong> How many Halo MEGA Bloks customs have you made? HFFL –<\/strong> Impressive videos of your customs to say the least.<\/p>\n (HFFL):<\/strong> Which is your favorite and why? (HFFL):<\/strong> (This one comes from a friend who wants me to ask) Do you work for MEGA Bloks? (The company) HFFL –<\/strong> Heh, a man with the same desires as I have. Though I’m in Pittsburgh…<\/p>\n (HFFL):<\/strong> If no, would you like to work for them? (HFFL):<\/strong> What one Halo MEGA Bloks set are you most looking forward to getting and why? (HFFL):<\/strong> What vehicle\/scene\/playset would you like MEGA Bloks to make that hasn’t been made yet? HFFL –<\/strong> There will indeed be models of some of the bigger ships (not to scale with the rest of the Halo Mega Bloks line). The first one is slated later this year, called the “Forward Unto Dawn.” It is touted as being the first in a new line called the “Signature Series.”<\/p>\n (HFFL):<\/strong> What else would you like to tell my readers either about you or your fascination with Halo\/Halo MEGA Bloks? (HFFL):<\/strong> Any shout outs or links you’d like to say? HFFL –<\/strong> Pleasure to interview a talented fan such as yourself. And yeah, my wife thinks I’m obsessed too…<\/p>\n You can many more photos of GH’s customs here: Flick.com<\/a><\/p>\n For now here are some more examples of his work:<\/p>\n That last one (Nightingale), I’m particularly fond of. Not just a swap of red and white blocks from the Target exclusive and Arctic version. This just begs to be made as a real set for the masses. Well, pretty much all of his customs do.<\/p>\n Is that Scarab amazing or what??<\/p>\n -HFFL<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Just outside of Milwaukee, WI., Rich is\u00a0a Creative Supervisor for a packaging company\u2019s in-house Marketing department. So you may be asking, Rich who? Well folks, he is one of if not the BEST custom Halo Mega Bloks model builder out … Continue reading
\nRich Bubik (GH):<\/strong> I was a fan of Marathon on the Mac, so was looking forward to Halo all along. As soon as I found a used Xbox at my local second hand game shop (I rarely buy anything new or at full price \u2013 charter member at cheapassgamer.com), I picked it and a copy of Halo up, and have been a big fan ever since.<\/p>\n
\n(GH):<\/strong> I\u2019ve enjoyed first person shooters since Wolfenstein, so playing Halo was a given. The play mechanics, storyline and music, however, are what made me fall in love with the Halo universe.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n(GH):<\/strong> I\u2019m more about enjoying the campaign and checking out the maps than the achievements. I\u2019ve been able to complete all of the Halo games on their highest difficulty level, but it usually is a long, leisurely process with lots of exploration. If I had to guess, I probably have somewhere north of half of the achievements in these games.<\/p>\n
\n(GH):<\/strong> I\u2019m probably one of the few people who will say this\u2026but it\u2019s Halo Wars.\u00a0\u00a0In addition to being an FPS player, I also enjoy RTS games (my two favorite acronyms!) and am a huge fan of Dune: Battle for Arrakis on the Sega Genesis. As the play mechanics for Dune and Halo Wars are very similar, I fell in love with the game right away. In addition to providing so much fodder for the builds I have done, I really like the story and the characters in Halo Wars. Sgt. Forge is probably my favorite character in the Halo universe, and I was very moved by his sacrifice. And that battle between the Spartans and the Elite Honor Guard is my favorite video game cutscene of all time!<\/p>\n<\/a>
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\n(GH):<\/strong> Slayer if I had to pick one\u2026don\u2019t play multiplayer all that much though.<\/p>\n
\n(GH):<\/strong> Love the Gravity Hammer\u2026the sound and the effects are hard to beat \u2013 but in game, I can\u2019t get enough of the sniper rifle\u2026prefer to thin the herd before charging in.<\/p>\n
\n(GH):<\/strong> Cortana getting her rage on\u2026(and new vehicles to build!)<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n(GH):<\/strong> Trying to keep an open mind\u2026the new enemies and weapons look interesting, but what I\u2019ve seen of the Mammoth doesn\u2019t strike me as much of a Halo-type vehicle – perhaps that will change when I see it in action.<\/p>\n
\n(GH):<\/strong> Whoever has the best deal\u2026usually Amazon for me.<\/p>\n
\n(GH):<\/strong> I\u2019ve been a model builder my entire life. Built, weathered and customized Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, and any other model kits I could get my hands on when I was a kid. I wanted to work for George Lucas making models for movies, but that, along with dreams of digging up dinosaurs for a living, did not come to pass. But aside from putting together a few models for work and school presentations, or playing legos with my daughters, I hadn\u2019t done any real building for almost 20 years\u2026until I came across a Halo Mega Bloks set during a Goodwill hunt, that is\u2026<\/p>\n
\n(GH):<\/strong> My first custom build was the Covenant Revenant, made in February of 2011 from a Wraith set I found at my local Goodwill. I was at Goodwill, by the way, hunting for vintage video games, which is where my forum handle, Goodwill Hunter, comes from.\u00a0\u00a0My first love, in terms of hobbies, is collecting classic video games\u2026and thrift stores, rental locations, second-hand shops and rummage sales are where most of my collection originated. In 20 years of collecting and playing, I\u2019ve amassed nearly 6,000 unique titles for nearly 50 systems, spanning the Atari 2600 to the Xbox 360, and everything in between. Believe it or not, I keep my video game and custom build collections in a 10\u2019 x 12\u2019 room, which also requires building a lot of custom shelving\u2026but this effort has helped to ensure a happy home (the married guys know what I\u2019m talking about).<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n(GH):<\/strong> I start every custom build the same way, by finding as many images of the vehicle or structure as I can online, and printing them all out (unless I\u2019m building something I just dreamed up, like the Mastodon or Dragonfly, because all of those pictures are only in my head). I then look at the pictures and try to imagine what existing bloks would work best to match what I see in the pictures. Getting good guide images to work from is the most important step in creating a successful custom build, IMHO.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n(GH):<\/strong> Researching the guide images is about all the planning I do. Once I have them, I just start putting pieces together, trying to match the guide images as closely as possible. Sometimes I go front to back, sometimes it\u2019s bottom to top, and sometimes I build in sections that then need to be knit together. Sometimes it is seemingly endless trial and error (sections of the Vulture build were torn down and rebuilt dozens of times), and other times everything just seems to click on the first try (the Mastodon went together like I had a set of instructions in front of me for some reason).<\/p>\n
\n(GH):<\/strong> All my spare parts are sorted by color in bags or bins. Much of my build time is spent sorting through piles of bloks looking for a certain piece. If I don\u2019t have that certain piece, I usually try to find another way to execute that part of the build using the pieces I do have. Most of my parts come from sets bought on clearance (I couldn\u2019t have made the Scarab without that Walmart clearance sale earlier in the year)\u2013 and BOGO sales combined with the occasional $5 Mega Bloks coupons are helpful in acquiring parts for customs.\u00a0\u00a0I also keep an eye on Ebay for cheap lots of older vehicles or boxes of unassembled pieces.<\/p>\n
\n(GH):<\/strong> I just put together a couple of YouTube videos that feature the 25 or so custom builds I have made since February of 2011.
\nhttp:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=9JibRkVyZUU&feature=plcp<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=oXtzrFRcjjw<\/a><\/p>\n
\n(GH):<\/strong> That\u2019s a tough one\u2026I like the Revenant because it was the first one I did, the Vulture<\/a> for its working missiles, the Scarab<\/a> for it\u2019s size, the Darters<\/a> for their obscurity, the Spirit<\/a> because no one else has attempted one, the Reactor for its detail, the Mastodon<\/a> for the concept\u2026I like them all for many different reasons \u2013 part of the reason I\u2019ve chosen not to take them apart or sell them\u2026guess I don\u2019t really have a favorite.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n(GH):<\/strong> No\u2026I keep waiting for someone from Mega Brands to come to Milwaukee and throw money at me, but it has yet to happen.<\/p>\n
\n(GH):<\/strong> Of course! That would go a long way towards healing my previously mentioned Lucasfilm and Archeology wounds!<\/p>\n
\n(GH):<\/strong> I am really looking forward to the Covenant Spirit that has been hinted at. I\u2019m curious to see how the final compares to the prototype that was shown, and how they deal with some of the structural issues I encountered while building mine.<\/p>\n
\n(GH):<\/strong> I would love to see a set of mini-scaled heavyweight ships from the Halo universe like the Pillar of Autumn and the Spirit of Fire, among others. If they had done that with their new die-cast line, I bet they would have sold a ton of them. The Infinity set looks promising, but I fear what the final price will be when it hits the shelf at TRU.<\/p>\n
\n(GH):<\/strong> I still make engine and weapon noises when I move the vehicles I make\u2026my wife thinks I\u2019m nuts, but tolerates me and my obsessions for the most part.<\/p>\n
\n(GH):<\/strong> I\u2019d like to thank Ernie for originally inviting me to share my builds on the fan site he created \u2013 SpartanBloks.com<\/a>. Thanks also go out to Mega Bloks for giving my customs some recognition by awarding \u201cAuthorized Personnel Only\u201d – my toymation contest entry, an honorable mention for best builds. And I\u2019d like to thank anyone who has ever helped me get some sets or parts for my builds, or left me a comment or feedback on one of my posts or videos.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nFind my custom build collection thread on SpartanBloks here<\/a>.
\nVideos of my custom builds can be seen on my YouTube Channel here<\/a>.
\nAnd lest I seem ungracious, thank you very much for the interview\u2026I enjoy your site and discussing my interests (or obsessions as my wife would say) was a lot of fun!<\/p>\n<\/a>
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