Community Spotlight

At Blizzcon this year there weren't that many StarCraft costumes but don't worry, everyone loves dressing up and the StarCraft community is no different. Over the years we've seen a variety of different StarCraft costumes running around our streets and today we bring them to your eyes.

Kerrigian, Queen of Blades

Whilst the variety of units people choose to dress up as is fairly small, there is still a great range in costumes as people try to bring our favourite characters to life.

Marines

It's amazing to see how many different styles of Marine can come from the StarCraft world, cloth, foam and cardboard are just a few of the materials that people choose.

If you liked number 3 then make sure you check out the I want to be a Marine! article from August.

Nova and the Ghosts

A common theme in StarCraft cosplay is Nova, Ghosts and Ghost like NPC's seem to be a regular choice for the female costume wearer.

Pick `n` Mix

There are many more costumes which have at one time or another been seen at a party, convention or just in the bedroom and these are the Pick `n` Mix outfits that we picked out.

Hopefully in the coming months we will start to see more StarCraft cosplay and an even better variety of costumes.

Halloween is a couple of weeks away and Blizzard have announced the annual pumpkin competition so we thought it would be a good time to look over some of the StarCraft pumpkins from recent years.

Source: worldofwarcraft.com

Often when we think about pumpkin carving we don't consider it an art, just something kids do for an hour once a year, but that is far from the truth. Some pumpkin carvers create amazing works of art worthy of our attention.

Source: worldofwarcraft.com

If the Baneling didn't impress you then maybe this Roach will open your eyes.

Source: tweph @ photobucket.com

Whilst we do see more single unit carvings sometimes we do get a full scene such as this 2007 Blizzard entry of 2 marines in a bad place.

Source: worldofwarcraft.com

It's not just Blizzard who hold pumpkin competitions and last year lagmaster and his girlfriend took victory in the Team Liquid pumpkin competition with this SC2 and Hydralisk pumpkin set.

Source: Team Liquid

I can't wait to see what comes in the 2010 pumpkin competition, I'm sure with StarCraft 2 being the current big thing we are going to see far more StarCraft pumpkins than ever before and hopefully one of them will take the top spot by crushing the Diablo and World of Warcraft pumpkins.

It has happened before and back in 2007 this amazing Zealot took the top spot, so let's get out our carving kits and carve for StarCraft.

Source: worldofwarcraft.com

I love food and I love StarCraft which led me to a great idea, why not get some snacks and watch today's GSL matches. A few hours later I decided it was time to delve into the world of StarCraft baking, so here is this weeks addition to the community spotlight.

Team Liquid's Beta Competition

Back in June 2009 Team Liquid had a cake competition, the winners of which received beta keys to StarCraft 2, in the end over 60 cakes were baked and the results were great. The winner of course was Vincze01 with the famous Zerg Base.

Source: Vincze01, The making of.

Closely followed by Vedic & Venes's Marine and DoomFish(& Girlfriend)'s Kerrigan, Queen of Cakes.

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• Source: Terran Marine Cake by Vedic & Venes | Kerrigan, Queen of Cakes, by DoomFish & girlfriend

Of course there were many other entries of varying standards which resulted in a video being produced by cevapchicken showing all of the entries. If you're into cakes and have a few minutes to spare then it's worth watching, It's amazing to see the variety of cakes that were produced.

The Lucky Groom

But don't think this competition was the start of StarCraft baking as it's been a past time for many people for a long time. Take The Cake Chic's StarCraft delight made back in January 2004 for one lucky groom!

Source: The Cake Chic

Zerg - Most Baked Race

Whilst researching for this article one thing became clear, there are far more Zerg cakes than Terran or Protoss - Thank god they are popular somewhere. Maybe this is because of all that extra brown creep and general slime that equates to thousands of calories in the form of sugar, chocolate and other wonderful ingredients.

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• Sources: Zerg 1 by xmaine | Zerg 2 by NegativeSuns | Zerg 3 by Unknown | Zerg 4by Starfeeder

Best Modern StarCraft Cake

As usual though, this Terran Command Center is totally overpowered and is our modern StarCraft cake of choice, a true work of art from Stephanie at Cake Fixation. Not to say that this Nexus from xeophin isn't worthy of a place in the spotlight too.

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• Sources: Command Center by Stephanie at Cake Fixation | Nexus by xeophin

A Handheld

It is great to see how many cakes are floating around and how many people have been lucky enough to receive a special StarCraft gift for a birthday, wedding or other special occasion. Perhaps one day I'll be lucky enough to receive a StarCraft cake as well, even if it is just a handheld like jkenning's cupcake.

Source: jkenning

We are always looking for new people and groups to cover in our StarCraft community, if you have a suggestion then please let us know in the forums.

When I was younger I was a great fan of Lego and I spent countless hours with boxes of bricks making all sorts of things. Yet I never managed to make anything that looked as good as some of the things that we have for you today. It's time to look at some of the amazing StarCraft Lego works which people have been making.

Lego StarCraft: Brick Rush

Brick Rush has to be the first thing we look at, released on July 27th 2010 Brick Rush is a 4 minute video which recreates the game play environment using animated Lego.

"The blue Terran forces face off against the red Protoss threat in a classic battle for map domination and vespene gas!"

If you enjoyed the video like we did and still have your Lego floating around then maybe you'll be interested in watching some of tutorials which have been released showing you how to make your very own StarCraft units.

• Terran Barracks
• Terran Factory and Machine Shop
• Protoss Carrier

The Thor

We all love the Thor unit and now Thor is here in Lego format thanks to Sven Junga, this incredible model is extremely well made and I recommend you check out his other works over at flickr.

Source: Sven Junga

The Battlecruiser

I'm not so sure how well it flies but Jerac's Battlecruiser sure looks fearsome and is another great example of the amazing work the StarCraft Lego community creates.

Source: Jerac

A StarCraft World

If the Lego animation or individual units don't take your fancy perhaps a full environment filled with Hellions, Immortals and other StarCraft units will be more to your liking? External Video

Source: Pepa Quin

Pepa Quin aka Matt has produced a wide range of the StarCraft units tackling not only the Terran models but also both Zerg and Protoss.

Source: Pepa Quin

Still at the top

While there are many great new StarCraft Lego models out there, there is still only one which takes the trophy. AGI-bear aka yung-gi huang spent 2 months creating this masterpiece, the great red Battlecruiser.

Source: AGI-bear

I strongly recommended you visit AGI-bear's flickr and check out the full 83 photo collection he has on this beauty.

As StarCraft 2 matures and continues to spread amongst the crowds I can only hope others are encouraged to combine their talents with the game and create more wonderful works of art.

Quick and easy, that's the way we like it and this week there is nothing quicker nor easier than ReplayFu.com - The Simple StarCraft 2 replay sharing website.

Whilst we often like to go into detail about the websites we cover, ReplayFu is a very small website but offers a great service.

ReplayFu does for StarCraft what imgur does for images, it gives you a fast and furious replay uploading service which is hassle free. There is no need for registering, just simply upload your replay and get an URL in return to send to your friends.

Screenshot of ReplayFu homepage: ReplayFu

The website is still fairly new like most Starcraft websites at the current time, but it is fully functional with new features being added. You can keep an eye on the latest changes and updates on their twitter feed.

ReplayFu is the smallest websites we've covered so far but also one of our favourites, make sure you check it out.

Visit: ReplayFu