The winners of Classic-Castle’s Battles Contest have finally been chosen. Not surprisingly, some of the winners will be familiar to TBB readers. But enough talking, here they are!
1st Place: Medieval Hooligan Brawl by forseti
2nd Place: Defending the Village by DNL
3rd Place: Defense of the Iron Oak by SuvieD
Best Vignette: Sir Wunstud jumped by Orcs by Rod Gillies
Congratulations to the winners! There were a lot of good entries in there and judging was very difficult. Way to go!
BrickCon 2009 is looking for any talks, roundtables, and special activities you would like to see at the Con this year. Going to and putting on sessions are one of the things that makes a Lego convention fun.
Past talks have included manufacturing custom parts, an introduction to LDraw, and packing Lego models for shipment, among many others.
Roundtables, or moderated discussions, have included Moonbase standards and design, landscaping, and anything that someone can think of.
Activities already planned for this year include the Dirty Brickster and the Wacky Race.
All we need for more talks, roundtables, and activities are ideas and people to run with them. Projectors and a computer will be available (although bringing your own laptop ensures compatibility). All spaces can be configured with tables and chairs as desired.
Any registered attendee who would like to run a presentation or activity should e-mail proposals or questions to me (my first three initials @ morfydd.net—please mention BrickCon in the subject). If possible, please include a possible title, brief description for the event program, and any time constraints or facility requirements. Events are typically scheduled to run up to fifty minutes but can be scheduled for more or less time.
I need proposals by September 6 to have time to prepare the schedule and the program. Earlier is better.
BrickCon is an annual adult Lego hobbyist convention and exposition in Seattle. BrickCon 2009 will be October 1–4, 2009, in the Seattle Center Exhibition Hall. For more information or to register visit http://www.brickcon.org/
I never thought it could be done, but it’s possible to build your own fully-functional LEGO combination safe. Merijn van Wouden has shown us how to do just that with detailed step-by-step instructions and a cool video to show how the mechanisms work. I’m astounded.
As great as they are, brownstones and storefronts are fairly common LEGO structures built to the “Cafe Corner standard.” That makes this great train station by Johan van den Heuvel (Teddy) that much cooler.
I love the columns and the arches of the recessed entryway. The size itself is a first, as far as I can recall — not only double-wide but double-deep.
This year at BrickWorld, we shot a video coverage of the convention that features short clips of fans and builders talking about LEGO. This started when Tyler (Legohaulic) brought the idea along with a brick-built TBB microphone. Everything happened spontaneously and we are able to share with you the faces and voices of many LEGO fans for the first time on the blog.
I’d like give special thanks to Tyler for doing pretty much all the work with the video and everyone who shared their moment of embarrassment with us. We certainly wished to get around to more of the great people there, but the four days went by too fast! I hope you enjoy our first ever video coverage of a LEGO convention.
The Endor set includes 12 minifigs and a great-looking AT-ST. The rebel commando minifigs have torsos that will work really well for military minifigs.
For only $25, Echo Base has a Tauntaun — let me repeat: a Tauntaun!!! — Han Solo, two rebel troopers (with new goggles), and two Imperial snowtroopers.
I built this diorama with Donut, whom you may remember from our April Fools mock interview. Donut is actually a real person who’s indeed active online at Classic Castle and Eurobricks forums. I hope you enjoy our little project called The Last Samurai.
You can read the poem associated with the creation here.
There’s no doubt that 10182 Cafe Corner will go down in history as a classic. But what would it look like at different point in human history? Crises has the answer.
Those of you who’ve built the LEGO Space Police sets will have noticed a number of subtle Easter eggs the LEGO designers included for long-time LEGO fans, including “Blacktron” spray-painted on the side of 5972 Space Truck Getaway.
David Pickett (fallentomato) built this pair of lovely creatures he’s named “Piffish and Herbart” during the BrickWorld 2009 Combo Build competition out of the pieces from three sets (8113, 8114 and 8115). I love the coloring and especially that what in other builds might be considered the “wrong” side, in this creation adds visual texture. There’s also the creative incorporation of so many different kinds of pieces.
Apparently the team of monsters fell in love at first sight and have been crushing cities ever since.
A few weeks ago I spent a few great hours with friends just poring over old catalogs from the early 1980s through late 1990s. I especially treasured the 1985 catalog (right, US edition) and kept a copy that my friend could spare. That was probably the first year that I was old enough to start building up my own Black Falcon army to challenge my brother’s cowardly lions. This last Saturday, one of the most prized items in our LEGO user group’s gift exchange was a stack of Idea Books from the last 30 years.
So I was absolutely ecstatic to see that Robert VH (flickr and MOCpages) had built The Spearhead, a spaceship that appeared in the 1986 LEGO comic story “Jim Spaceborn.”
During my “dark ages,” I did a pretty good job of preserving most of my bricks and instructions, but I regrettably let the catalogs and idea books go. Luckily, I have friends who have plenty of extras. Reliving those memories and garnering inspiration from those classic documents can be a refreshing addition to building.
Whatever you thought of Michael Jackson later in his life, he leaves behind a legacy of iconic songs and amazing music videos. Ciamoslaw Ciamek captures Michael doing the moonwalk in “Smooth Criminal”.
It’s not often that a creation makes me laugh out loud, but this steampunk vessel by, Rod Gillies, did just that. I love that oversized gun, reminds me of the cannons that Lego is always putting in their rowboats.
As many LEGO fan communities discovered last year, convincing community members to step up and say something nice about each of the nominees proved to be harder than anticipated.
Some communities were even unable to submit their nominees due to lack of testimonials. Unfortunately, this part of the process is proving no less challenging this year.
So, this is a reminder for all of you out there to go to each of the communities where you’re active and write a testimonial for your LEGO Ambassador nominees.
Here are the three nominees for The Brothers Brick:
I’ll be adding more lists of nominees as I encounter them. Other contributors are welcome to edit this post and do the same. Commenters are encouraged to add links in the comments as well.
If you’re wondering what a testimonial looks like, check out the three testimonials I posted for the nominees chosen by the LEGO fan community on Flickr.
![Sir Nadroj has added a photo to the pool:For use in a larger MOC coming soon to a computer screen near you.Stickers are official! [I'm waiting on some larger ones to arrive, too.]](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2585/3685547260_35041cb393_s.jpg "Sir Nadroj has added a photo to the pool:For use in a larger MOC coming soon to a computer screen near you.Stickers are official! [I'm waiting on some larger ones to arrive, too.]")
As many LEGO fan communities discovered 