The Brothers Brick

High-resolution pictures of the box art for the new Castle sets have been posted on LUGNET.

Check out the new face on one of the soldiers in this set (click for full-size pic):

To celebrate the release of these sets, LEGO and Classic-Castle.com have teamed up for a contest in which you can win each of the new sets. Simply titled “The Castle Contest,” read more about it on Classic-Castle.com.

To celebrate the upcoming Girls’ Day festival in Japan, mumu’s wife has created a cool little vignette:

Read more about Girls’ Day, or the Hinamatsuri holiday, in the first post about it here on The Brothers Brick (well, actually Pan-Pacific Bricks) last year.

Martin Jaspers is at it again, this time using “jellybean” colors for his castle characters.

A pair of veterans scarred by battle:

A pair of younger soldiers guarding a crystal:

Nice leaf-walker, Izzo.

Brickshelfer Optimus Convoy waves his Wiimote and makes the words “Wii” appear on his big-screen TV:

(Via VignetteBricks.)

Our regular readers may have noticed a couple times in the last week or two when The Brothers Brick has been unavailable. Our crack team of server ninjas is hard at work, though, so we should be back to normal shortly.

Ochre Jelly asks, “Hasn’t the world had enough custom Lego robots and space ships? ;-)”

Ha! A fair question, to be sure. So, if you’re tired of seeing nothing but mecha and intergalactic cargo haulers here on The Brothers Brick, do what OJ did — build something different, post it, and let us know. If we like what you send us, we’ll post it.* :D

Here’s Ochre Jelly’s very microscale Bikini Bottom:

Even cooler, OJ has created 3D stereograms of many creations. Click the image above to see Bikini Bottom in 3D.

* And for the record, we can’t post everything, so just because we don’t post it doesn’t mean we don’t think it’s cool.

Seems our very own Linus is feeling either shy or modest, so I’ll go ahead and post this for him. ;-) Here’s his “Yellow Devil”:

Here’s what he has to say about his latest creation:

Rob Kraataclaw is a legend in the Interstellar Snuff Circuit. Rob was once a human, but when he tried to enhance himself with super-strength implants he went insane. Believing himself to be part of an ancient tribe that never even existed – the Kraataclaws – he cut off his left arm and replaced it with a giant, well, claw. Now all he wants to do is to eradicate all Pure Humans(TM).

The Yellow Devil is part of the ISC, as Rob believes the prize money will help him reach his goal. The contestants are dropped down on a planet and given a physical point on the planet. Goal: get there as fast as possible, on land. Other rules unexistant.

For some mysterious reason the space ninjas has taken an interest in Rob. Could be that he is flaunting a mutilated space ninja corpse on his wagon of doom.

You can see more pictures on either MOCPages or Brickshelf.

Alan Saunders (well, actually, Kent Brockman) says,

I, for one, welcome our insect overlords. I’d like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality I could be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.

Heh heh.

Check out this 20-minute interview with LEGO CEO Jørgen Vig Knudstorp by MONACLE magazine editor Tyler Brûlé

Thanks to the magic of Google Video, you can watch it right here on The Brothers Brick:

Izzo’s latest series of powered suits incorporates Bionicle masks:

More cheesebots from the ever-resourceful Nelson Yrizarry! Delicious!

And what cheese(bot) plate would be complete without Quackers?

Don’t miss the rest of Nelson’s yellow robots in his gallery on Brickshelf.

Several years ago, Jake McKee, the former “community guy” for The LEGO Company, created the Building Instructions Portal (currently unavailable).

Due to real-life priorities, Jake announced over the weekend on LUGNET that he’s looking for someone to whom he can hand over the reigns of the site.

Read all about it on LUGNET, but in particular Jake is looking for someone familar with Adobe ColdFusion. (I miss Allaire…)

EDIT: Jake clarifies:

I’m looking for someone interested in a solution, which may or may not be based on ColdFusion. Since the site AND the database need to be recreated from the ground up (because both were done by a foolish young code noob…me), language doesn’t really matter.

Via Polish LEGO blog Klocki Lego dla dorosłych, here’s MisterZumbi’s adorable five-wide Citroen DS:

Naturally, MisterZumbi created some fashionable Parisians to go with the classic French car:

Check out that purse! And I’m no fan of real-life poodles, but what minifig Parisian would be complete without a brick-built pooch?

Jared Burks (aka “Kaminoan”) and Emily Brownlow (aka “RecluceMage”) are best known for their minifig customization work — waterslide decals and resin-cast accessories, respectively.

This is what you get when these two work together:

Awesome. :twisted:

I’ve had my eye on Jas Nagra’s Flickr photostream ever since I noticed the mecha he’s been working on. In the meantime, here are some great minifigs:

Somewhat larger than his Nano Zeon Mobile Suits, Chuck Citrin has built a big blue Gouf (info):

Nelson Yrizarry has done it again.  Tremble in fear and awe at his Planet of the Exo-Apes vignette.  Check out those awesome Exo-Apes made out of Exoforce bots. He’s also made a exo-scorpian out of the bot parts.