The Brothers Brick

Lukas W. (gladius) appears to have channeled Soren Roberts to build this excellent maintenence bot for the Civilian Mecha Competition on flickr. The long doodad (technical term) next to the cockpit has some truly superb detailing and the whole model is compact and excellent.

As someone obsessed with archaeological LEGO, the new BrickForge accessories for 2009 make me happy.

The Tribal Spear works perfectly as a scalloped obsidian blade from the Neolithic — just the sort of weapon for cavemen to take down a mastodon or mammoth:

The Tribal Sword is designed to resemble the Aztec macahuitl, inspiring me to give my Aztec god minifigs some Aztec warriors:

Of course, not all of the new BrickForge accessories are stone implements.

The Plasma Blaster and Crowbar enable LEGO fans to build video game minifigs like Master Chief from Bungie’s Halo and Gordon Freeman from Valve’s Half-Life:

The Goblin Sword and Goblin Shield allowed me to update my Uruk Hai minifigs from Lord of the Rings. What horde of orc minifigs would be complete without a Saruman minifig? Saruman wields a Sorcerer Staff.

The new Nightstick (right) combines with the older Military Helmet and Round Shield to create a policeman in riot gear.

Finally, the Particle Gun and Particle Pack (below) work beautifully for Ghostbusters. With multiple connection points like the Megagun, both of these new BrickForge accessories can hook up hoses or whatever else you can think of:

I have quite the backlog of ideas for musical minifigs, so I couldn’t decide which one to highlight BrickForge’s microphone. I’ll get to that new accessory later…

With so many things to inspire interesting minifigs, this may be my favorite batch of BrickForge accessories so far. All of the new stuff is available in both black and gray (though I still prefer BrickForge’s black accessories over their gray).

See all of the new items (except the microphone) in my BrickForge photoset on Flickr, and check out the BrickForge website for the full line of custom accessories.

Slovenian LEGO club Kocke Klub has announced that they will be holding a second LEGO exhibition on April 4, 2009 in Ljubljana. (“Kocke” means “brick” and is pronounced COT-SKA.)

Here’s the full announcement in Slovenian:

Kocke klub v soboto, 4. aprila 2009, 10h-17h v OŠ Šmartno pod Šmarno goro pri Ljubljani organizira 02. KockeFest – pomlad 2009 – LEGO delavnico in razstavo LEGO kreacij.

KockeFest bo nudil tekmovanje v LEGO sumu, svetovno premiero novega pnevmatskega V8 motorja iz kock LEGO, predstavitev delujočih modelov LEGO gradbene mehanizacije in različnih Mindstorms robotov, makete gradbišča, vlaka, gusarjev ter LEGO Technic sete, dva igralna kotička z nagradami za najboljše kreacije in LEGO bazar ter še veliko drugih LEGO zanimivosti. Za več informacij prosimo poglejte na www.kocke.si/kockefest/.

And in English:

Kocke club will organize 2nd KockeFest – spring 2009 – LEGO workshop and LEGO creations exhibition. It will be held on Saturday, April 4th between 10am and 5 pm in primary school Šmartno at Ljubljana.

KockeFest will present the LEGO sumo championship, the world premiere of new V8 pneumatic engine made out of LEGO bricks, the working models of LEGO construction equipment and various Mindstorms robots, the mock-ups of building grounds, trains, pirates and LEGO Technic sets, two playing corners with awards for the best creations, Lego marketplace and more LEGO interesting features. For more information please visit www.silug.si/kockefest/eng_index.php.

Read more about KockeFest — and see pictures from the first KockeFest — on the Kocke Klub website.

EDIT: Kocke Klub has also released a 16-page magazine illustrating some of the best LEGO creations from members. Download your copy of KockeList and check it out! It’s in Slovenian, but LEGO is our common language, and there are lots of great pictures.

Set 6951, the Robot Command Center was my absolute favorite Classic Space set (of the sets I actually had) when I was growing up. When the opportunity came up to create a Neo Classic Space creation, my mind immediately went to this set. It was basically a mecha, except that the legs didn’t move at all, and the arms were attached to the knees.

I figured that new parts and techniques would allow me to do something really cool with this idea. I did decide to lose a few of the play features from the original, even though I like them. There was just something about a little ship docking in my mecha’s crotch that didn’t seem right. I’m surprised that so few of the builders in this effort built robots, but at least it makes my contribution fairly unique.

I also have to thank one of my non-LEGO friends for suggesting an electric guitar, so it could rock out.

March is may be winding down, but the level of creations being posted for the LEGO Neo-Classic-Space project sure aren’t. Some really spectacular stuff has been posted lately. There’s a really cool research base by Ben Jarvis, shown below. Not to mention Adrian Drake’s massive updated rendition of the 6950 Mobile Rocket Transport (which is the huge truck with rocket, at right). I also cannot get enough of the LL-301 Falcon (below, spaceship) by Stuart Crawhaw. Stuart used old train rail pieces to make the wings, which came out beautifully. I’m also really excited, because I’m finally going to be able to post my own creation tonight, after more than a month of keeping it secret.

Daniel Z has revealed the third stage of his castle evolution project, now featuring a fully recognizable castle with highly fortified walls. For the previous stages, see 2 and 1. Will the project develop further? I sure hope it does!

With his latest diorama, Jordan Schwartz (Sir Nadroj) taps into one of my favorite sources of inspiration — the deep past.

In this scene, an early human stalks a woolly mammoth during the Ice Age. With a half-barrel on his head and Adventurers hats for ears, the mammoth is also full of interesting part uses and building techniques.

I came across two different LEGO renditions of VW Beetles in the past few days, and I thought they were both great. I don’t know if there’s some sort of Beetle meme going on that I’m unaware of, but these are both nice models, for different reason. Daniel Zayac (urthedead) built a model that looks like it would be great fun to play with, and is roughly to scale with a minifig. Meanwhile, Ralph Savelsberg (Madphysicist) has built a larger, more detailed model, that captures the shape of the original excellently.

Rod Gillies (2 Much Caffeine) tells us:

The only Midget Submarine to see action was the “Little Pig”, captained by Jock “Stumpy” McGurk. In a daring incursion into the Vulgarian fjords, the small craft used its single Explosive Harpoon to sink the battleship “Dragon”, bringing an abrupt end to Vulgarian naval ambitions in the Baltic.

Read more about O’Neill’s Midget Submarine on Empire of Steam.

The ApocaLEGO landscapes we feature here on The Brothers Brick tend to be fairly crowded with action. Kris Kelvin has, perhaps, a more realistic vision for our mutually assured destruction:

Garbageman13‘s diorama may include a few more survivors, but the detailed building is what I find most striking:

…then you’ll no doubt like the Lair of the Bare-Chested Bandits by Philip Stark (Erdbeereis). This vignette depicts the crew of a strange band of pirates “known for their fondness for wearing nothing but skimpy trousers, exposing the thick, muscular and rather smelly flesh of their rugged torsos.” Join them and indulge in their merrymaking – if you’re the type.

Tyler Clites (Legohaulic) enters the podrace challenge with an unusually cool and deadly looking design. Called the Spearit, this podracer is claimed to have “no hidden weapons,” and indeed that’s for a fact.

I wasn’t planning to blog any of my contributions to Keith’s big diorama independently here. Then someone told me that they thought my helicopter was the best thing I’d ever built. I thought that in that case, maybe I should post it, in case I never match it again. I hope other people like it as much my vocal friend does. I have to give some credit for the dual-interlocking rotor idea to Tim G, as I first saw the idea on one of his creations.

Matt (Plastic Matt) has built a really cool mech for the mecha hub civilian mecha contest. I love the feel that this thing captures. It seems industrial and heavy-duty, just like something carrying an I-beam should. The head is just perfect too, though it reminds me of Maximilian from The Black Hole. Sometimes, it doesn’t take using crazy new techniques or bizare uses of parts to build something that looks fantastic, and this demonstrates that principle terrifically.

Full trains are an absolute pain to photograph well but Carl Greatrix has been busy doing rather a good job of photographing a bunch of his. As with Carl’s usual work the level of detail is astounding and the excellent custom stickers add an extra level of realism to his work.