The Brothers Brick

(Via Ladrillitos, where you can read much more. Well, if you read Spanish…)

Pretty cool.

(Via LegOficina dos Baixinhos.)

Holger Matthes presents a building in Stuttgart, Germany designed by architect Le Corbusier:

Here’s something I built for Brickfest, called “The Bastion of Garda Tùr”. For those of you who might be a bit rusty when it comes to Gaelic, “Garda Tùr” means “guard tower” (or at least it does according to the online dictionary I found). Anyway, on the actual creation.

I hope you enjoy it!

Brickshelf user Kaitimar has been posting some really cool hover-vehicles (eels optional). My favorite so far is the Zoomer:

So, what might a SYSTEM builder use a MINDSTORMS NXT robot for? Sorting bricks by color, of course! Duh.

Check out Dave Astolfo’s Brick Sorter:

Read more about it on nxtasy.org or on Dave’s site, Plasti-Bots.

Eurobricks has had a thriving LEGO Pirates forum for some time now, but the Pirates theme has lacked a Web presence of its own since the demise of PirateBricks.com. But ahoy! What’s this? Behold the new Classic-Pirates.com.

To quote the announcement on the main page:

The booming success of Eurobrick’s Pirate LEGO® Forum has prompted the development of this website to cater to the interests of Pirate LEGO enthusiasts.

The discussion forums will apparently remain on Eurobricks for the time being (which is probably a good thing — splitting the community doesn’t always work). Head on over to Classic-Pirates.com to read the full announcement. Arrrr!!!

BrickFest 2007 wrapped up on Sunday, but I’ve been so busy I haven’t had a chance to sit down and reflect. Well, here goes.

Highlights for me:

• Hanging out with all the great people in the extended LEGO community — both from The LEGO Company and fellow fans.
• The ride down with Caylin. I think I left my sunglasses in your glove box.
• MAX, Chinatown, and House of Louie with TBB’s very own Josh, world-famous Mike, and aforementioned Caylin.
• Having a minion.
• The new UCS Millenium Falcon in person.
• The singlest largest LEGO Castle display in North America, ever.
• Sessions standouts for me were LEGO Quality with Bjarke Schoenwandt and the future of LEGOfan.org with Kelly McKiernan.
• Lunch at Wendy’s with Steve Witt and The Usual Suspects.
• $1 minifigs from Bob Kojima and Paul Hetherington.
• MINDSTORMS NXT Sumo!
• Sharing a Mountain High Mudd Pie between two tables at Red Robin.
• Scratched and dented LEGO sets (no damage to LEGO inside) for 50% off at the Washington Square LEGO Store!
• Breann Sledge’s Bionicle creations.
• Nathan Proudlove’s completed Blacktron II
• The ride back to Seattle and post-BrickFest dinner at I Love Sushi with Dan Sabath and Dan Boger. Best sushi ever! Sorry you couldn’t join us, Pamela.
• Seeing all the great photos in the BrickFest group pool on Flickr — more than 2,700 photos so far!

Phew. That was all so fun I’m now miserably sick. :-D

Still, I can’t wait for the next major LEGO event I’ll be attending, NWBrickCon. See you all there! (You can read more about what NWBrickCon was like last year right here on The Brothers Brick.)

RACHAL (RAytracing CHALlenge) is a challenge we run on ldraw.org where various people render the same virtual LEGO creation (typically a vignette like scene). The point of it is to allow people to challenge themselves on rendering a shared LEGO scene adding their own technical and artistic interpretations. The first one has just finished and it’s really fascinating to see how various people approach the same source material. If you like it you may also like its predeccesor that I ran early last year called “Remix Lenin”.

Agent oo7 demonstrates that it’s never too early (or late?) to show off your holiday-themed minifigs.

First up, S. Claws:

And the Grinch:

Finally, on a more positive note, Yehudah Hamakabi:

Ah, if only current RVs were this awesome. But perhaps Winnebago will be inspired by Mladen Pejic’s ATRV:

I love how the ladders swing out and down:

Be sure to click the first picture above for the gallery on Brickshelf, or head on over to Mladen’s Web site for pictures and his description of this unique vehicle.

I’m home sick today after BrickFest, but let’s see if I can do a little catchup without saying anything too embarrassing…

First up, a “Heavy Trooper” by Jehkay that integrates Bionicle pieces very nicely.

(And trust us, this won’t be the last Bionicle you’ll be seeing on The Brothers Brick. Stay tuned…)

I just got back from BrickFest 2007 in Portland, OR. What an amazing event! I see that there’s already a bit of early coverage here on The Brothers Brick from Tim and Nathan (heh heh), but look for detailed coverage from both Josh and I over the next couple of days.

In the meantime, check out the BrickFest group on Flickr for photos from attendees:

http://flickr.com/groups/brickfest/

And don’t miss more photos on Brickshelf:

http://www.brickshelf.com/

Okay, I seriously need sleep.

EDIT (12:30 AM, April 3): I’ve been able to upload my raw pictures to Flickr so far, and I’ve added them to the group pool linked above. Still working on write-ups. Sorry for the delays!

See for yourself:

At least Ginny doesn’t have an RPG like last time.  Oh, wait…

Holy %&*#!@.

Don’t forget to check out Caylin’s post on Classic-Castle.

Since the guys who are attending seem to be too busy to post pics yet I’ll give a teaser link to Duane Hesse’s Flickr images of the event.