You are currently browsing the The Brothers Brick weblog archives for February, 2009.
Adrian Florea has built a spectacular utility ship. Not content to just build a great space ship, though, he’s captured it in the midst of an explosion. I love how Adrian has managed to capture the energy and motion of the explosion.
New stuff by Brent Wolke (thwaak) has been absent for far too long but he has, at least, made a lovely return. The Blunderbuss provides a welcome return to his world of Magic Punk.
I promise, we are not in fact contractually obligated to blog all Portal or Valve-inspired LEGO creations. But this Spontaneous Portal Generator Prototype II (aka Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device) by Neaku (also on Flickr) definitely caught my eye:
Via BioniBlog, where Ean has a nice overview of the latest Bionicle Building Contest over at BZPower.
In surprising post-Toy Fair news, 10194 Emerald Night just showed up on the LEGO Shop website.
The set appears to include several new parts, including large wheels (drivers? Tim?) unavailable to LEGO Train fans for many years except in the form of custom elements from Big Ben Bricks.
It’s unclear (to my untrained eyes, at least) whether this set represents the promised evolution in LEGO Trains after the demise of both 9-volt and RC trains.
UPDATE: And here’s the official word from LEGO (missed it earlier):
February 18, 2009 – In acknowledgement of the many fan blogs and posts in the last week we are writing to confirm that The LEGO Company will be launching the #10194 Emerald Night Train in late March / early April via LEGO Shop at Home and LEGO Brand Retail.
The #10194 will first be unveiled simultaneously at Brickfest PDX in Portland, Oregon and Wunderwelt Modellbau in St. Pölten, Austria on March 27 & 28, 2009.
Attached are approved marketing assets from The LEGO Company that help depict the details for this great new product. Also listed below is some brief product information with pricing for the #10194.
And to think there’s more………but we’re saving that for the fan events on March 27 & 28 as mentioned above.
Look for more information on the #10194 Emerald Night Train in the March 30th issue of the LEGO Shop at Home Catalog and online at www.LEGOshop.com.
#10194 – Emerald Night
Ages 14+
1,085 pieces
Pricing:
US $ 99.99
CA $ 129.99
AU $ 149.99
UK £ 68.50
DE € 89.99
UPDATE 2: And here are some pictures:
Pic 1, pic 2, pic 3, pic 4, pic 5, pic 6, pic 7, pic 8 and more details.
With piston-powered wheels, this train is an all-new LEGO® classic!
Here comes the Emerald Night! Build this incredible classic-styled train with loads of amazing details, from the steam locomotive with furnace to the opening tender and dining car with removable roof, opening doors and detailed interior. Measures 68 cm (27.2 in) long! Includes three minifigures, elements in rare colors and all-new large train wheels with piston motion!
This classically-styled train features a steam locomotive with furnace, opening tender, dining car with removable roof, opening doors and detailed interior!
- Train measures 27.2 inches (68cm) long!
- Lots of authentic touches including elements in rare colors and all-new large train wheels with piston motion!
- Includes 3 minifigures!
Og ride good. Proudlove build good.
We’ve blogged our share of LEGO motorcycles over the years, but it’s always a pleasure to find someone new who contributes his or her own unique style to these two-wheeled death machines.
Brixe (Brixe63 on Flickr) builds in a medium scale somewhere between the minifig and Miniland scales we’ve seen more commonly.
MV Agusta 750 S:
Moto Morini 3 (L) and BMW R60/6 (R):
Harley Davidson:
Check out lots more angles on these bad beauties on either Brickshelf or Flickr.
Andreas Weissenburg (grubaluk) is a mixed virtual and real life builder who is both one of my favourite renderers and one of my favourite designers. He doesn’t fail in either regard with this beautiful rendition of a working BR 78 DRG tank engine. Not only is it an absolutely excellent render but the model itself stands amongst the best. The use of the top hat is particularly clever.
I also highly recommend going on a good perusal of Andreas’ Brickshelf account.
Bruce Lowell loves a good double-double. He’s re-created an In-N-Out Burger in stunning detail. He’s captured everything right down to the X of palm trees marking the spot. Speaking of those palm trees, check out the awesome rendition of dried leaves. Make my burger animal style.
Or perhaps from the future. Spook’s new motorcycle certainly looks high-tech, that’s for sure. I love the windscreen, which is a difficult part to work with.
This oven with rotisserie chicken by Martin Jaspers (Marakoeschtra) is pretty cool, right?
But wait! Check out the video:
The oven has a 9-volt micromotor to rotate the chicken, along with oven lighting. Thanks for the tip, Ronald!
Erik Smit (.eti) recently won the LowLUG MiniMocMadness contest with “The mermaid that came from under the ice.”
After winning two prizes in our GO MINIMAN GO Photo Contest, Erik is on a roll. Congratulations!
Dan Siskind (Brickmania) depicts that fateful day in 1914 when a young man named Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, plunging the world into the Great War.
Following quickly on the announcement at Toy Fair 2009, 10195 Republic Dropship with AT-OT Walker is now available for pre-order from the LEGO Shop online.
$250 for about 1700 pieces, with two clone pilots and six clone troopers.
(Hat tip to Sjaak. Thanks!)
UPDATE: Another recent addition, Vintage Minifigure Collection Vol. 2:
Pete Reid isn’t the only guy who’s building a revival of the old classic space style sets. Both Thomas Oechsner and Josselin Guédes have lent creations to this theme. I really like the vertical orientation of Josselin’s fighter (shown to the right).
Meanwhile, it’s the subtle details about Thomas’s glider (below) that really grab me. The tiny transparent yellow windscreen and the yellow-black-yellow stripes are both nods to classics like the Galaxy Explorer.
The MindCorp Building, by Sebastiaan Arts, has been declared a historical landmark. What do they do there? No one knows….
Click on the picture for the surreal backstory.
It’s not uncommon for us to use trite phrases in the title of our posts, but this time we mean it literally. Check out this microsized vignette by edulyoung from the ballroom scene of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. The vignette also functions as a real-working music box, in which components from an actual music box where modified to fit with LEGO parts. Check out how it all works in the gallery on Brickshelf.
UPDATE: Joel over at BB Gadgets created an embeddable version of Edul’s video, which is absolutely gorgeous:
Beauty & the Beast LEGO music box by Edul Young on Vimeo.
Apparently astronauts did exist many hundreds of years ago. Crises shows us that it doesn’t take rocket science to launch an enthusiastic natural investigator high into space.
The Brothers Brick got an invite to the LEGO Preview at Toy Fair 2009, but we just couldn’t make it. :-( The good news is that our pals from FBTB and BrickJournal are covering this important event.
Although we’ve seen quite a few of the late 2009 LEGO sets from the earlier Canadian toy fair, there are still some surprises in store for LEGO fans.
The big news — particularly among LEGO Star Wars fans — seems to be the announcement of 10195 Republic Dropship with AT-OT Walker, here being shown off by Erik Varzegi:
Other major LEGO Star Wars news includes a playset of Admiral Ackbar’s Home One (the result of fan voting back in May 2008), with these minifigs:
Personally, I’m most excited about the new Space Police sets, including 5971 Gold Heist:
In other news, LEGO and Disney have announced a deal to release LEGO sets based on three Disney movies: Toy Story, Cars, and Prince of Persia. (What, no LEGO Wall-E?)
Check out more photos from Ace Kim, Mike Crowley, and Joe Meno.
There are a lot of photos to go through, so let us know if you see something particularly cool we should highlight.
Just in time for the second anniversary of Arvo’s Nintendo Game Boy, Joris Blok has posted great LEGO versions of two handheld video game consoles.
Nintendo Game Boy Color:
Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP):
Sometimes when I’m browsing Flickr a LEGO thumbnail grabs my eye and I love the creation even before I really know what it is. This is the case with Mainman’s Micro moonbase module that features parts from the Power Miners line. I didn’t know at first it was a (micro) moonbase module, let alone a space creation, but I immediately thought it was awesome. Just something about it, with all those cheese slopes and the orange/dark gray color scheme…
Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! A few builders from MOCpages have created some nifty little charms for the occasion.
From Heather LEGOgirl:
From Alex Eylar:
and from Ciamoslaw Ciamek:
Thanks for keeping the fire burning, you guys rock!
It’s time for issue 5 of RAILBRICKS magazine and once again Jeramy Spurgeon and the team bring another feature packed edition all about LEGO trains. This time it’s dedicated to steam
This Steam Issue focuses on all things Steam with tips & tricks on building steam trains as well as ideas on incorporating Power Functions into you creations. There are also interviews with Anthony Sava and Ben Fleskes. As always, there are great articles from our editors on creative challenges, flashback reviews, and MOC creations.
Check out the website to download a copy. Check it out.
Wow, these sure brought back some memories. Back in the day, I was a big GI Joe fan. These recreations by Alexander Schranz are spot on. Click on the picture and scroll down. There’s a lot of awesome GI goodness there. I always liked the bad guys best though. Cobra!
Great job, Alex! Thanks for pointing these out to us.
Okay, this thing is enormous. The Terex RH400 is the biggest, baddest hydraulic power shovel in the world. The Lego version by Zbiczasty is no light-weight either.
Thanks to Leif Michelsen for the heads up.
