The Brothers Brick

Kawazu1120 demonstrates that Breann Sledge isn’t the only Bionicle builder who can create large-scale creations from almost exclusively Bionicle elements:

Via BioniBlog.

Recent Flickr inductee H.G. Manifold‘s first microscale space ship has lovely stripes. The offset bridge also contrasts nicely with the rest of the ship:

Via YSAB and MicroBricks.

Peter Edwards was commissioned to build a Eurocopter Tiger ARH for Australian Aerospace, the company building the real thing.

As you can see from the minifig in the photo, the LEGO Eurocopter is absolutely huge. It’s over 51″ (130 cm) long, with a rotor span of more than 44″ (113 cm).

Peter designed the helicopter in LEGO Digital Designer, ordered the necessary parts from Pick-A-Brick, and then put together the 5,866 pieces over a weekend.

To withstand the rigors of long-term display at Australian Aerospace, Peter then took another 150 hours over 5 weeks to glue the model together.

To see lots more photos, check out Peter’s Bodville site and click ARH Tiger in the menu on the left.

Sadly, for those of you hoping to build your own Tiger from Peter’s design in LEGO Digital Designer, many of the bricks Peter used are no longer available from Pick-A-Brick, making this truly a one-of-a-kind creation.

I missed it initially, but Kotaku posted a fairly long video a couple weeks ago of gameplay footage from E3 of the forthcoming LEGO Batman video game. The video shows several scenes with playable characters that include Mr. Freeze, The Riddler, Catwoman, The Joker, Harley Quinn, and Poison Ivy.

More recently, DESTRUCTOID has a bunch of new screen shots that feature Man-Bat — who, I’ll be honest, I’d never heard of:

The game comes out September 1st, and rest assured that I’ll be taking some time out from my BrickCon prep to play the game and write a review.

One of my all time favorite builders, Tyler Clites (Legohaulic) conjures a scene where a greenhouse is transformed into a decontamination site for the Picking up the Pieces contest (ends today July 31st). For a closer look at the awesome vehicle, click this gallery. Don’t forget to check out the details in the main gallery linked from the picture below.

Flickr user tiberium_blue presents his entry in the Picking up the Pieces contest (ends today July 31st) showing a group of apocalypse survivors building their new home under on the Lionsgate Bridge. I’m guessing the height of this creation to be over 1.5 feet, which makes it the tallest entry so far.

Every good LEGO fad deserves to be parodied. In this case, RAMM gets the Teikjoon treatment with “All-terrain infantry carrier”

Teikjoon has also posted TRAMM, a “light rail prisoner transport”:

Ha ha! I just got “infantry carrier!” Okay, maybe I’m dumb…

Kidthor (MOCPages) incorporates LEGO Castle elements into this big, chunky mech from the Warhammer 40K universe:

Brent‘s last-minute entry for the Picking up the Pieces ApocaLEGO Contest on Flickr with a radio transmitter powered by several forms of alternative energy:

Click the pic to read Brent’s back story about these survivors 100 years after the apocalypse.

I love the microscale Jabba’s sail barge in this diorama by Tim Goddard, with dark gray “cheese slopes” that evoke the doors that open on the side of Khetanna. What sets this piece apart for me, however, is the Sarlacc sliced down the middle:

Via MicroBricks, though I lay claim to the provenance of the phrase “Cross-section Sarlacc FTW!” :D

While working on custom decals for a trio of Final Fantasy X-2 minifigs, Jamie Spencer combined his decal designs in Photoshop with scans of the minifigs he’ll be putting them on, resulting in a rather cool effect:

Rikku, Yuna, and Payne never looked so good. I can’t wait for the finished minifigs.

Karwik (Noddy) took a sharp turn in his noggin and built this amazing hot air balloon model using 100% LEGO products. While I see that rubber bands from LEGO sets were used to secure the string pieces, I have no idea where that transparent ball with the LEGO logo came from. Nevertheless, it’s amazing and I love every bit of it.

Update: Zombie Apocafest 2008 went off smashingly at BrickCon 2008, October 2-5. Don’t miss our full coverage here on The Brothers Brick:

The pre-registration price for BrickCon 2008 goes up from $40 to $50 next Tuesday, August 5th. If you’re still thinking about joining Nannan, Josh, Keith, me, and lots of other Brothers Brick readers in Seattle this October, now’s the time to register!

If you’re still on the fence, here are a couple building challenges and contests to whet your appetite.

ChiefLUG Initiation

ChiefLUG will be extending initiation to anybody who builds a LEGO Viper from Battlestar Galactica. Here’s what ChiefLUG founding member Ryan “Chief” Wood has to say:

ChiefLUG is a superrad group of Lego fans dedicated to veggie platters, crazy group builds, being awesome, and pretending to be half as cool as KeithLUG. You might be familiar with our work.

To join ChiefLUG, you just have to build and bring a Viper, like the one above designed by Andrew Lee (more photos). Creative color variations are encouraged.

The Brothers Brick LEGO Zombie Apocafest

Not to be outdone by some upstart KeithLUG wannabe, KeithLUG itself, or a bunch of reasonably well-adjusted Train/Town builders, we at The Brothers Brick are sponsoring the first ever large-scale LEGO Zombie Apocalypse. Think Shaun of the Dead. Imagine Max Brooks’ World War Z in LEGO.

Naturally, we’ve recruited some of our favorite twisted LEGO minds to contribute, including Rocko™ and Justin Pratt:

There will be free swag for participants, of course, including prizes in various categories (such as Best Building, Best Vehicle, or Best Minifig) the quality and quantity of which will be determined at our whim between now and October.

To make the display easy to integrate, we’re asking participants to follow the modular building standards exemplified by Cafe Corner, Green Grocer, and Market Street. Well, basically anything featured on Brick Town Talk — with a zombie twist, of course.

Since I can’t find any documentation on what the “Cafe Corner standard” is, here’s my take:

• Building stands on one or two Baseplate 16 x 32 with Square Corners.
• Two connectors on each side of the building: Technic Brick 1 x 2 with Hole placed on studs #10-11 and #22-23 (from the front of the baseplate).
• Floors can be any height (though 9 bricks high appears to be the standard).
• Curb at edge of baseplate built from 1 x n light gray tiles, and sidewalk built from dark gray tiles, seven studs from the curb to the building (curb + sidewalk = 8 studs).
• Building can be any size (though 16 x 16 or 16 x 32 appears to be the standard), built eight studs back from the front of the baseplate with an eight-stud “alley.”

(Please correct my description of the standard as necessary, and I’ll update this. I can post the standard separately too, if there’s interest.)

We’re talking about the apocalypse here, dear readers, so variations are certainly allowed. We’ll also do our best to integrate larger structures (like Justin’s bombed-out office building). We respect zombie diversity, certainly, but I really love the old Harry Potter troll as the basis for my own zombie horde.

And don’t forget survivors. And their multifarious modes of transportation.

So, if you’re coming to BrickCon, we’d love to include your contributions to The Brothers Brick LEGO Zombie Apocafest. Bring whole buildings, or partially destroyed buildings. Bring a truck. Bring just one zombie. Whatever. There’s room for one and all at the Zombie Apocafest!

Allister McLaren (CaptainUnderpants) has been slowly building up a series of large and awesome LEGO action figures which somewhat evoke Danger Mouse to me. Henchbot (the big guy) is his latest but do check out Doc Grok (also pictured) and Sgt. Destroy.

LEGO Universe remains fairly mysterious despite this video from Gizmodo and Kotaku (click through to view):

This is the first time we’ve seen any kind of real in-game footage, and the short video (and article) also provides some insights into how the game has been developed with input from LEGO fans.

(Nice to see LEGO Certified Professional Robin Sather in this, and I think I caught a glimpse of Tormod Askildsen too.)