The Brothers Brick

As I predicted in a recent post, New Years Day in Japan has brought a spate of timely LEGO creations, including many inspired by the Year of the Boar.

First up, a boar ATV by Izzo:

Next, a new years card (or nengajyou) from mumu and his wife:

Here’s another new years card from Ayucow over at Bacalogue (turning boars into vehicles is quite the theme this year):

A boar by sumi_handy’s son:

Finally, two creations by inago100. Here’s a very large batch of new years eve noodles, or toshikoshi soba (link):

And new years decorations (link):

And straight out from the Star Wars movies, we have Reto Geiger’s Droid Trifighter:

Reto is well known in the community as a master of the UCS-scale, which basically means that he is great at building realistic replicas of the ships from the movies. Check out his UCS gallery for more examples of that.

João Figueiredo’s space city is, well, a fascinating display of LEGO’s official space themes. Ah, the nostalgia.

Hey all! There have been a pretty good output of nice models during the holidays – in addition to spending time with family and friends, it seems people are taking the time to finish old projects. A good thing! Lets start by taking a look at Adrian Drake’s Thomas E. Dewey, the steam powered airship:

The Dewey has been under construction for a long time – the earliest pictures (depicting the starting construction of the hangar bay) came up on Adrian’s flickr in May 2006. Heck, the smaller crafts this beast carries were finished in April! With a unique, sculpted exterior and a deliciously detailed interior, this ship is nothing but a work of art.

Classic-Castler and MCN member fry_slayer presents a very cool “Sun Warrior Princess” custom minifig (click for gallery on MCN):

Here’s a nice shot that shows off her cool face:

You can read a LEGO comic announcing the princess’s arrival in this thread on MCN Forums.

Have you ever wanted a nice display stand for your minifigs that doesn’t say “Star Wars” or “Sports” on it? Tim Gould (aka “Gambort”) has developed a great brick-built solution, complete with a slot in which to put a paper backdrop:

Click the image to go to Tim’s Brickshelf gallery, where you can download a PDF containing instructions.

2007 will be the Year of the Boar. Of course, tigers eat boars for breakfast, so I’m thinkin’ it’ll be a good year.

As I explained on New Years Day 2006, Japanese homes begin to fill up with new years cards — called nengajyou — this time of year.

I assume we’ll see lots of boar-themed LEGO creations over the next week or so, but mumu gets things rolling with the first new years card. According to his blog post, he created a LEGO boar that LEGO/graphic design site 05cube! has integrated into a nice DIY card-maker. Here’s mine (note personalized message to our beloved readers):

Click my card to go to 05Cube! and make your own. There are enough English instructions that you should be able to get by. :) Just leave a comment here if you have any trouble.

Sometimes the best little creations are the ones that can fit in the palm of your hand, as lego2000 of Classic-Castle.com shows with his Space Containers.  Check out this thread for discussion on how these neat little containers were built.

Today my copy of “The Unofficial Lego Sets/Parts Collectors Guide” finally came in the mail and it was definitely worth the wait.

Gary Istok has spent a lot time and effort on this CD and it shows. There are over 1,000 pages of wonderful Lego information. So much information that I don’t know if I will ever be able to read it all!

But the nice thing is that you don’t have to. Gary has divided the CD into multiple .pdf files with an excellent Table of Contents. It is very easy to find exactly the information you need. This work will be a significant resource in the Lego community for years to come.

Have a look at Mr. Istok’s website. There are sample pages and chapters. You can also check out the full Table of Contest as well.

Moko has build a rather ominous rendition of the jolly old elf:

Check out the gallery here!

2007 catalog scans are available on 1000steine.de, with pictures of previously unseen summer-release City sets (click to go to the page on 1000steine.de and view full-size images):

Czech LEGO fan site Kostky also has a picture of the new Castle sets for 2007 (via Eurobricks):

I’m very excited about the undead horses, new skeletons (with non-floppy arms) and new accessories (curved swords, round shields, etc.). I can’t tell too much about the castles from this picture, but I like the bone cage on the undead fortress. Wicked!

The thing I like so much about micro-mecha is that they’re built of tons of tiny pieces. Vaughan James’ recent mecha illustrates this nicely, following in the footsteps of master micro mecha builders like zizy2 and Squieu.

Here’s Vaughan’s “5ive”:

Sachiko Akinaga is a champion builder who lives in Japan. My favorite creation from her latest batch of updates is a McDonald’s value meal:

Check out what happens when some minifigs come along and spill the Coca-Cola:

Unit 186, who is active on flickr, brickshelf and on a recently started lego blog called Brick Blogue, has built himself a nifty AT-RT:

Chinese inventor Su Song (1020-1101) invented a water clock that Brickshelfer oldhamk has faithfully recreated in LEGO:

oldhamk has included lots of great details, from the armillary sphere (or astrolabe) and other astronomical instruments on the top to the working gears inside. Click the picture above to watch two movies of the water clock in motion.

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The casting agency for U.S. TV network ABC has been trolling LEGO-themed Internet forums and spamming prominent members of the online community with the following message over the last few days:

Hello, my name is Jodi and I am a casting producer for ABC’s hit show Wife Swap. I am seeking families who are Lego or robot hobbyists for our third season. On many occasions, we feature families with unique passions/hobbies and this is one we’ve never done. Plus, AFOL’s are obviously parents who encourage creativity and that is something that other families can learn. I came across your blog and thought you or someone you know may be interested in applying. Would you be interested in posting this on your blog, or do you know anyone who would be interested in applying to be on the show?

The premise of Wife Swap is to take two different families and have the mom’s switch place to experience how another family lives for one week. Half of the week, mom lives the life of the family she is staying with. The other half, she introduces a “rule change” where she implements rules and activities that her family has. It’s a positive experience for people to not only learn, but teach other ways of life.

Families on the show receive $20,000 and anyone that refers a family that is selected to be on our show is paid $1,000 per referral. Each family should consist of two parents, at least one child between the ages of 6-17, and should reside in the U.S. and have BIG, outgoing personalities.
Please let me know if you are interested or have any questions.

-Jodi

The Brothers Brick got this as a comment on a recent post (on the “old” blog), and it’s been pretty much everywhere, but I thought I’d pop this up to the top of the blog and get your thoughts.

I’ll start. The thing I hate about most reality shows is that they feel exploitative. Now, I can watch “Project Runway” and enjoy it because the people on the show have all truly volunteered for what we’re seeing on TV. But I have a special problem with shows that feature children, because the parents are the ones responsible for making the decision. What kind of long-term emotional consequences does the type of notoriety gained from these shows have on children?

Another thing I despise about shows like ABC’s “Wife Swap” and its Fox clone “Trading Spouses” is that they take something quirky (or loathsome) about a family and trot it before the TV viewing audience like a freak show. I don’t think people watch these shows to truly learn about themselves or the human condition (ironically, the way we watch good, fictional dramas). I believe people watch these shows out of a voyeuristic need to feel superior to someone else.

For both of those reasons, I hope no LEGO fans choose to cooperate with ABC to create this episode. I think my hobby — just like model railroading or numismatics or spelunking — is perfectly “normal” (relatively speaking, and there certainly are some freaks among us!). I’d hate to see it treated like a freak show.

And here’s what LEGO’s Steve Witt had to say when I asked him (on the SEALUG e-mail list) whether ABC had approached The LEGO Group about this:

Just so you know, TLG is aware and we’re not really all that happy about it. Mostly because no matter how cool AFOLs might be, show’s like this will make all of us come out looking like idiots. We can’t control anyone, but I can say that I seriously hope no one pursues this. This is for the sake of our hobby more than anything else.

So, what do you think?

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Check out these two funny videos of the new Mindstorms NXT robots. Thanks to LEGO Ambassador Nelson Yrizarry for pointing them out.

http://5×5m.com/files/mindstorms/

EDIT (AB): Okay, the auto-play is just too annoying. (Sorry LEGO, choose a different video hosting service next time.) I’m swapping the videos for a link to the page where you can watch both of them. Both hilarious, by the way.

Here is yet another entry of mine for the Colossal Castle Contest IV (getting tired of them yet?). This one is for the Medieval Bridge category. Spanning a ravine and only accessible through an elaborate cave system, this bridge is rests amid the spray of the famous Crystal Falls. While an intrepid fish trys to leap up the falls, a band of mysterious hooded figures crosses the bridge. Check out the gallery here!

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