Brick Throwdown: Andrew Lee vs. Nannan Zhang

Nannan's BattleA couple of months ago, Andrew Lee (onosendai2600) challenged TBB’s own Nannan Zhang (Nannan) to a building contest.

This was to be an epic challenge of skill, with only two limitations. The first limitation was the deadline, which was the end of April. The second, each builder had to use all of the parts supplied and chosen by a third party.

Derek Schin (dbol39) volunteered to provide the mystery part, and sent each builder EIGHT of the printed radar dishes from the UCS Millennium Falcon. A panel of judges was selected, and the guys were off to the build-tables.

Andrew's Space StationEach builder has now unveiled their creation. Epic is certainly the name of the game with these guys. It’s also remarkable how similar the uses that each builder made of the mystery part are. Both efforts have both pros and cons, and I don’t envy the judges their decision.

Nannan put together a battle (above) involving a massive flying saucer, several small saucers, and a huge-nosed mecha. I appreciate the effort he put in to illustrating an instant caught in time. The energy beam blasting a hole through through the mecha is really cool, although I hate the way the beam abruptly ends. I’m a bit confused by the tile floor at what looks like an out-door facility. It’s amazing what a couple of talented and dedicated builders can manage to put together in a couple of months.

Meanwhile, Andrew built a bustling asteroid spaceport/city. I can’t help but appreciate that there’s a building in the city dedicated to a theme of my own creation. I’m also generally a big fan of bases built into asteroids. I do wish that there was a bit more detail in some of the buildings and space ships, though.

Nannan's Battle

Andrew's Starbase

Click through either of Andrew’s photos to see more on Flickr. Nannan assures us he’ll be posting a full gallery and write-up once he’s through final exams later this week.

11 comments on “Brick Throwdown: Andrew Lee vs. Nannan Zhang

  1. Repoort

    Finally!

    I still feel really biased simply because Nannan didn’t post this publicly until today. Nor has he even talked about it.

  2. Andrew

    Nannan is incredibly busy with final exams right now, and I think we can all agree that real life always comes before LEGO. I just spoke with Nannan, and he reassures us that he’ll be posting a full gallery once his exams are over later this week.

    In the meantime, let’s withhold the unnecessary smack talk and give some understanding to a situation most of us have been in. ;-)

  3. TooMuchDew

    Yeah, I can see the medical school admissions interview… “Mr Zhang, I see you got a ‘B’ in Biochemistry back in Spring 2009” Nannan: Yeah… welllll… you see… I was participating in this LEGO “Brick Throwdown” thing, using printed radar dishes from the UCS Millennium Falcon… and, I really had to show mad skillz to try to beat down this guy Andrew aka “onosendai”, aka “wintermute” ’cause he was talkin’ smack and it was on like Donkey Kong… y’know what I’m sayin’ ?
    Real life intrudes, as it often does… My only complaint is that much of this is occuring on the boards of the invite only BuildersLounge because the stuff that has trickled over to Flickr has been highly entertaining.

  4. Repoort

    I’m only complaining because Nannan’s own flickr page hasn’t been updated in quite some time. So when he only posted pictures on TBB hard drive, I think the general public felt sort of cheated, because he didn’t post anything at all visible to the rest of us.

    I do realize life often does get in the way, but he’s known about the contest since Andrew first challenged him. He could have done something about it.

  5. cjedwards47

    Holy hell, these are both incredible. I was to comment specifically on Nannan’s entry. It has a lot of his trademark bley/monotone color scheme, and that makes the colorful highlights that are there stand out really well. Such striking imagery! I can’t wait to see more pics…

  6. Mark Kelso

    Unfortunately real life gets in the way for me too…I didn’t realize the gaunlet had been thrown down, and these two had stepped into the ring. Fortunately TBB is there for me once again! I’ve had a chance to see Andrew’s work on Flickr, and I’m really looking forward to seeing some detail shots of Nannan’s work. Some great building all around. Now to grab a drink and some popcorn, and wait to here final judgement!

  7. Mark Kelso

    woops…make that “hear” final judgement. *grumble, grumble* stupid typos! *grumble, grumble*

Comments are closed.