The Brothers Brick

I woke up this morning to this lovely hotel by Kris Kelvin. Its a beautiful scene and I really like those cars!

Registration is now open for BrickCon 2009! BrickCon is a private convention and public exhibition for adult fans of LEGO, and will be held October 1-4, 2009 in Seattle, Washington at the Seattle Center Exhibition Hall.

BrickCon is the longest continuously running LEGO fan convention in the US. Last year’s convention drew more than 250 attendees from all over North America and Europe, with a significant contingent from Billund, Denmark.

As in years past, I’ll encourage those of you who haven’t been to a LEGO convention (or BrickCon specifically) to check out our past coverage of Brickcon here on The Brothers Brick and look through the photos in the BrickCon group pool on Flickr.

Highlights of last year’s BrickCon included the ChiefLUG BSG Viper Fly-In, the announcement of 10193 Medieval Market Village, and our very own Zombie Apocafest 2008.

For me, BrickCon is all about the people. Even though we’d been blogging together for nearly a year, I met Josh in person for the first time at BrickCon 2006. Similarly, Nannan and I met for the first time at BrickCon 2008.

LEGO conventions are also a good place to learn that LEGO fans don’t all look like their sig-figs in real life.

With an emphasis on a relaxed fan convention experience, BrickCon is a great way to sit back and get to know all those fellow LEGO fans you’ve only met online — an opportunity to talk about something other than LEGO, in some cases. That’s not to say that the public exhibition isn’t an awe-inspiring spectacle. BrickCon 2008 drew over 7,000 visitors in the 8 hours open to the public on Saturday and Sunday!

This year’s theme is “Imagination in Motion!” and looks to be even bigger and cooler. So, what’re you waiting for? Register today!

This steampunk hovercraft by Chase Lewis (Vid) may appear too small to carry any eels, but that won’t stop me from making a ridiculous Monty Python reference.

I suspect I will never get tired of referencing that sketch when I post a LEGO hovercraft, so y’all just better get used to it. Ha!

Even though LEGO has released ship hulls in other colors, it’s unusual to see fan-made LEGO sailing ships that aren’t brown. Haung (rack911) combines red hulls with light gray to create a battleship evocative of warships of the early 20th century.

The round cannon doors, LEGO Castle minifigs, and the tall statue ahead of the ship also lend an air of fantasy to the scene. See more photos on MOCpages and Brickshelf.

Dirk VH (dm_meister) has created a large-scale sculpture of Strong Bad from Homestar Runner.

Dirk even added details like the lacing on the back of Strong Bad’s luchador mask, along with photos of the internal structure that keeps LEGO Strong Bad…strong.

See more photos of Strong Bad in Dirk’s photostream on Flickr.

Chis Wunz built this incredible rose as a present for his wife, Erin.

Way to go, Chris, now Rachel wants to know why I haven’t built one for her…thanks a lot. ;)

Dano has built a cute little island fortress. Nice clean lines and just the right amount of detail. I’m liking it, Dano!

Athos just posted pictures of his chateau, and it’s rather striking. The contrast of the walls really jumped out at me. You also have to check out the detailed interior.

Chris M (powerpig) apparently has a troupe of semi-tame chipmunks living in his back yard. In fact, they’re so tame that they’ll pose for photos with his toys.

I’d just been paying attention to Chris’ LEGO photography until now, but his critter pictures are amazing too!

Following the official announcement of the rumored LEGO Rock Band, Darren Gladstone over at PC World has written a hilarious list of the 9 LEGO Games You’ll Never See.

• World of Legocraft
• Halo 3: LEGO
• LEGO NFL: 2011
• Grand Theft LEGO: Brick City
• LEGO Gear Solid: Bricks of the Patriots
• LEGO Fallout
• LEGO StarCraft
• Resident LEGO/Left 4 LEGO
• Mortal Kombat vs. LEGO Universe

Read Darren’s “pitch” for each game on PCWorld.com.

If you’d asked me six months ago, I couldn’t have imagined a LEGO Rock Band. With that in mind, I’m rooting for LEGO StarCraft.

Cheyne Potter (AfroEngineer) posted this cute little plane based on concept art in the Classic-Space.com concept art gallery.

The minifig has hair from one of the upcoming Town sets, so it looks like those sets should be more widely available soon!

While we’re at it, check out Cheyne’s ingenious use of blue chairs as water in this scene:

In more contest news, Reasonably Clever and TwinLUG are hosting the Bad Day for Micropolis contest.

As this gorgeous school (with adorably itty-bitty school buses) built by judge Max Braun illustrates, the TwinLUG Micro City Standard is fairly simple — to fit into collaborative displays — while still enabling individual builders to do some pretty cool things.

There are four categories in the contest, and you can win a cartload of prizes. The contest ends at 2:22 AM EST on May 4, 2009, so get building!

Many of you out there first became an adult fan of LEGO when you bought LEGO for your kids (while some of us just never stopped).

For LEGO fans like you, the GeekDad blog from Wired.com is currently running the perfect contest — the LEGO Builders of Tomorrow contest.

To enter, just add a photo of you and your kids building together to the GeekDad photo pool on Flickr. The contest ends next Thursday, April 30.

There’s LEGO to be won, of course, but the winning family also gets their picture featured on an upcoming LEGO set. In LEGO fandom, that’s pretty close to immortality.

Whether it’s in my list of 10 favorite LEGO blogs or as examples of the best LEGO blogs, Bruce H. operates several of the most influential and long-running LEGO blogs on the Web.

With VignetteBricks, MicroBricks, MinilandBricks, and now GodBricks, Bruce is looking for a little help from his fellow LEGO fans.

If you think you have what it takes to contribute to one of these blogs, head on over to Bruce’s call for co-bloggers to find out more.

A LEGO military model you probably can’t buy is this dark green beauty by Aleksander Stein.

The helicopter can seat ten minifigs (2 crew, 8 troops) and has internal lighting. I find the unique shape of the blades particularly noteworthy.

See more in Aleksander’s EH-191 Whirlwind photoset on Flickr. (Hat-tip to reader Kaupuan.)

The most frequent question we get from LEGO builders is How do I get blogged? But for all of you out there who read The Brothers Brick to see what we builders do, one of your most common questions is “Where can I buy that?” The answer is usually “You can’t.”

Daniel Siskind of BrickMania was one of the first LEGO fans to create and sell custom LEGO sets of his own design, way back in 1999 or 2000. After a five-year hiatus, Dan recently began producing new custom kits.

The Panzer IV Ausf. G. tank kit from World War II comes in Afrikakorps tan, with a unique BrickArms prototype MG42 machine gun.

Dan’s Panzer tank kit includes 690 pieces and sells for $99.95 with instructions on CD.

Apparently, StarWars.com is getting all the exclusive details about the upcoming 2009 LEGO Star Wars sets. I didn’t notice when I blogged 7754 Home One Mon Calamari Star Cruiser, but the site also has articles about 7753 Pirate Tank and 7778 Midi-scale Millenium Falcon.

From the Clone Wars animated TV series, 7753 Pirate Tank could be at home in the 2009 LEGO Space Police theme.

The pirate figs (Hondo Ohnaka and Turk Falso, apparently) look unlike any other LEGO Star Wars minifigs I’ve ever seen.

7753 Midi-scale Millenium Falcon is the third fourth scale in which the Millenium Falcon has been released, following 7190 and 4504 at minifig-scale, 4488 at mini-scale, and 10179 at UCS scale.

Read the interviews with Jens Kronvold Frederiksen in the articles about the Falcon and tank on StarWars.com.

Brickshelf user B-idea crafts an artistic diorama depicting the forced perspective sinking of a pirate ship. The foreground features the dynamic action of the sinking ship in minifig scale while the background floats a micro-scale rendition of an imperial flagship.