Yearly Archives: 2008

A horror to end the year with

My final project of 2008 entails a sixteen square feet diorama depicting the theme that I know best: horror. In a Russian World War 2 setting, a collossal alien artifact which I refer to as the Black Fantasy Column towers from the ground, spreading darkness along with an invasion of Cyclopean Virtues across the landscape, consuming the helpless soldiers. The creation contains over 20,000 pieces, including custom minifigure accessories from Brickarms, Brickforge, and MMCB.

To get the most out of the viewing experience, I recommend going through the teaser and then reading the backstory, which is historically accurate to the best of my internet research. Happy New Year and enjoy End of Days.


Download the IATTAR stats graphic here

Speaking of tracked racers, The Brothers Brick is pleased to bring you Nnenn‘s standard stats graphic for your IATTAR images. For the uninitiated, “IATTAR” stands for Interplanetary Association of Tracked & Thrust Assisted Racing.

Here’s Mike Psiaki‘s “bumbleBEE,” showing how you can incorporate the graphic into the photo of your racer:

You can download the graphic in one of two formats:

Notes:

  • Please only download the image you need, just once, and only if you’re actually going to use it. Bandwidth isn’t free.
  • The Brothers Brick cannot provide technical support for these files.
  • You should be able to use Adobe Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, GIMP, or similar software to add the graphic to your photo.
  • If you’ve already uploaded an IATTAR photo without the stats graphic, you can replace it.

For more IATTAR photos and discussions, check out the IATTAR group on Flickr.

ISS-1427p Dorella heavy flak cruiser

Nnenn isn’t just about fighters and tracked racers. Demonstrating his versatility, his latest microscale creation is a large-scale cruiser with a pair of support ships:

The Adventures of Sherblock Holmes

Located at “221B Bricker Street,” this scene by Tyler Clites beautifully evokes Victorian London as well as the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

For interior shots and more details, don’t miss the Brickshelf gallery.

B is for Blockula

The indomitable Mike Crowley is working on a series of alphabet animals. They are small, cute and packed with that Crowley charm. Makes me wish I could build like that.

M is for Monkey:

He’s also built a pretty sweet Penguin.

Microscale Howl’s Moving Castle by Horace Cheng

Howl’s Moving Castle is easily my favorite Miyazaki film of the last 10 years or so. I never imagined the enormous castle could be shrunk down to microscale, but Horace Cheng does it with detail to spare.

Begun, the Clown War has. Nyuk nyuk!

Maybe I should’ve included this in the ApocaLEGO roundup…

Angus MacLane (Brickshelf) combines two really scary things into pure awesome — a clown-shaped tank and its clown pilot. The nose cannon is sheer genius.

By the way, those of you paying attention during the BURN-E credits probably noticed that Angus directed that great short feature on the Wall-E DVD. CinemaBlend.com did a great interview with Angus last month about BURN-E, so check it out!

GO MINIMAN GO Video Contest winners announced [News]

Jesus Diaz has just announced winners in the Gizmodo GO MINIMAN GO Video Contest. Head on over to check out the top five entries, including the winning brick-flick by David Boddy:

For those of you wondering when we’ll announce winners in our own GO MINIMAN GO Photo Contest, we’re almost there! Look for an announcement here shortly. In the meantime, watch all the great videos over on Gizmodo, and peruse nearly a hundred entries in the GO MINIMAN GO Photo Contest pool on Flickr.

I’m the one holding up the judging for our contest. Unexpected travel for work, the holidays, and getting sick haven’t helped. Sorry! I’m not procrastinating, really.

ApocaLEGO roundup for December 30, 2008

I’m not sure whether it’s the uncertainty of the coming new year or all the free time builders have over the holidays, but there are just too many great ApocaLEGO creations to keep up with.

Justin Vaughn holes up in Bunker 282:

Joris Blok‘s brickwork in this diorama inspired by I Am Legend is excellent:

Kevin Fedde reaches the end of civilization:

Wipeout Racer by Arts

Sebastian Arts recently published a very sleek racer from the Wipeout series of games. I love the clean lines of this thing. It’s Bee-yoo-tee-full!

The new MOCpages, a better place for sharing your creations [News/Editorial]

Starting today, visitors to MOCpages will discover a whole new set of available features to make the sharing of LEGO creations a more fun and interactive experience. Going into the new year, MOCpages has undergone significant changes following the suggestions of fans over the years. The new features allow you to join groups and participate in discussion topics, receive activity updates on your creations and from your favorite builders, explore the recent most popular creations and do much more.

The new MOCpages has integrated popular features from sites such as Flickr, Youtube, and Facebook. At the same time, the website is still the only place where LEGO fans can dedicate a HTML-enabled webpage to presenting a creation. The new comments system (which previously functioned as reviews) now allows for discussion of creations, further enhanced by users being able to create a buddy icon for individualized identity.

The activities pages display comments on your creations, new creations by your favorite builders, latest discussions in your groups and more.

MOCpages has adopted an explore feature that lets you browse the most popular creations of the day, week, and month. In addition, you can sort through creations to see the most discussed ones and the most recent.

Groups bring together people, interests, and creations. You can create and administer your own or join others. Also, you can start discussion topics within groups, host contests, work on group projects, and do more.

These are just a few of the many new features of the new MOCpages. If you’re not a user yet, signing up is free.

And now for the brief editorial portion regarding the new MOCpages. As someone who has been actively using MOCpages for its past four out of five years of existence on the web, I can say that the new site marks the most significant change in the history of this community. However, in the course of the past few years, MOCpages has acquired a negative image among some LEGO fans, who have observed the quality of its showcased creations to decline; and as a result, many withdrew from using MOCpages and switched to sites such as Flickr. Nevertheless, there are still a handful of reputable builders who continue to use MOCpages for its unique feature to dedicate a customizable webpage to the display of one’s creations. With the implementation of the new features, MOCpages gains characteristics that significantly boosts its previously lacked interactive qualities. Will these changes be enough to attract prominent builders and more adult fans to its new community?

It is worthwhile to note the achievements of man running the show, Sean Kenney, who singlehandedly maintained the website during all these years. In the recent past, Sean has been busy with setting up the new MOCpages and has made revision after revision to the site following the suggestions by the testers. Having explored all the main features of the new website, I attest that the new community is ready for its launch. Sean has put down the potentials for the new MOCpages to become an even more popular place to share LEGO creations; it is now up to us builders to add our contributions.

In the course of the near future, MOCpages will continue development and implement even more features. The coming year will mark significant changes and growth. So stop by and dig out your old password or make a new account. Join in on the party while it has just begun.

Mechanical horrors

Brian Kescenovitz presents this stunning monochromatic sci-fi horror diorama bearing the interesting title 19 Seconds to Find God. Check out the gory action and destruction in this chaotic scene, and if you’re still wondering about the title, look closely to find the bomb.