The Brothers Brick

Following quickly on the latest LEGO Star Wars and Indiana Jones sets, 8038 The Battle of Endor and 7749 Echo Base are also now available from the LEGO Shop online.

The Endor set includes 12 minifigs and a great-looking AT-ST. The rebel commando minifigs have torsos that will work really well for military minifigs.

For only $25, Echo Base has a Tauntaun — let me repeat: a Tauntaun!!! — Han Solo, two rebel troopers (with new goggles), and two Imperial snowtroopers.

I built this diorama with Donut, whom you may remember from our April Fools mock interview. Donut is actually a real person who’s indeed active online at Classic Castle and Eurobricks forums. I hope you enjoy our little project called The Last Samurai.

You can read the poem associated with the creation here.

There’s no doubt that 10182 Cafe Corner will go down in history as a classic. But what would it look like at different point in human history? Crises has the answer.

Those of you who’ve built the LEGO Space Police sets will have noticed a number of subtle Easter eggs the LEGO designers included for long-time LEGO fans, including “Blacktron” spray-painted on the side of 5972 Space Truck Getaway.

Less subtle a reference but no less awesome, LEGO Designer Mark Stafford has built a Blacktron version of 5973 Hyperspeed Pursuit:

See more photos on MOCpages.

David Pickett (fallentomato) built this pair of lovely creatures he’s named “Piffish and Herbart” during the BrickWorld 2009 Combo Build competition out of the pieces from three sets (8113, 8114 and 8115). I love the coloring and especially that what in other builds might be considered the “wrong” side, in this creation adds visual texture. There’s also the creative incorporation of so many different kinds of pieces.

Apparently the team of monsters fell in love at first sight and have been crushing cities ever since.

A few weeks ago I spent a few great hours with friends just poring over old catalogs from the early 1980s through late 1990s. I especially treasured the 1985 catalog (right, US edition) and kept a copy that my friend could spare. That was probably the first year that I was old enough to start building up my own Black Falcon army to challenge my brother’s cowardly lions. This last Saturday, one of the most prized items in our LEGO user group’s gift exchange was a stack of Idea Books from the last 30 years.

So I was absolutely ecstatic to see that Robert VH (flickr and MOCpages) had built The Spearhead, a spaceship that appeared in the 1986 LEGO comic story “Jim Spaceborn.”

During my “dark ages,” I did a pretty good job of preserving most of my bricks and instructions, but I regrettably let the catalogs and idea books go. Luckily, I have friends who have plenty of extras. Reliving those memories and garnering inspiration from those classic documents can be a refreshing addition to building.

Whatever you thought of Michael Jackson later in his life, he leaves behind a legacy of iconic songs and amazing music videos. Ciamoslaw Ciamek captures Michael doing the moonwalk in “Smooth Criminal”.

It’s not often that a creation makes me laugh out loud, but this steampunk vessel by, Rod Gillies, did just that. I love that oversized gun, reminds me of the cannons that Lego is always putting in their rowboats.

As many LEGO fan communities discovered last year, convincing community members to step up and say something nice about each of the nominees proved to be harder than anticipated.

Some communities were even unable to submit their nominees due to lack of testimonials. Unfortunately, this part of the process is proving no less challenging this year.

So, this is a reminder for all of you out there to go to each of the communities where you’re active and write a testimonial for your LEGO Ambassador nominees.

Here are the three nominees for The Brothers Brick:

• Dan Rubin
• Nannan Zhang
• Tim Gould

Classic-Castle.com | Nominees:

• Ben Ellerman
• Bluesecrets
• Sebastian Arts

Classic-Pirates.com (process complete) | Nominees:

• Bonaparte
• Zorro

Comunidade 0937 | Nominee: Pedro “El_Gordo” Silva

Eurobricks (process complete) | Nominees:

• KimT
• Mark Larson
• Mikael Sjöstedt

FBTB | Nominees:

• Don Solo
• Jeremy Scott

Flickr | Nominees:

• Heather Braaten
• Lino Martins
• Ralph Savelsberg

HispaLUG | Nominee: Lluís Gibert

MOCPages voting is over, and testimonials are being collected by the individual nominees.

Palikkatakomo | Nominee: Tuomas Kukkamaa

PLUG | Nominees:

• Fernando Correia
• Paulo Castanho

RoLUG | Nominee: Adrian Florea

SandLUG | Nominee: Fradel Gonzales

TurkLUG | Nominee: Cagri Yuz

Kockice | Nominee: Matija Grguric

I’ll be adding more lists of nominees as I encounter them. Other contributors are welcome to edit this post and do the same. Commenters are encouraged to add links in the comments as well.

If you’re wondering what a testimonial looks like, check out the three testimonials I posted for the nominees chosen by the LEGO fan community on Flickr.

Artist Brian Colin recently painted a series of small canvases featuring LEGO zombies. Gotta love that Classic Space zombie leading the horde.

Perhaps not the thing to hang in your baby’s nursery, but awesome on so many levels that I wanted to pick up a couple myself. Sadly, I was vetoed by my wife. The good news is that I’ve picked up a couple as prizes for Zombie Apocafest 2009.

Via Boing Boing.

The latest LEGO creation by Guy Himber (V&A Steamworks) is a spot-on rendition of the Big Daddies from BioShock.

The Belville Scala figure works great at this scale as a Little Sister, and the Knights’ Kingdom II armor is especially nice.

Previously on The Brothers Brick: BioShock Big Daddy and Little Sister by Snyderman

Kevin Fedde (Crimson Wolf) knows that things are a bit safer in northern climes during a zombie outbreak.

I really like the contrast between the grey police station and the tan restaurant. The LEGO Universe panel on the top of the building is also a great detail.

LEGO Space Police, Agents 2.0 and other third-quarter/summer 2009 LEGO sets have been out for a month or so, but the rest of the new sets are now available from the LEGO Shop online.

First up, 10196 Grand Carousel incorporates Power Functions and plays music. The set is also the first to feature tan beards.

New LEGO Star Wars sets feature vehicles from the Clone Wars, including 8037 Anakin’s Y-Wing Starfighter and the Venator playset.

Other new LEGO Star Wars sets include:

• 7748 Corporate Alliance Tank Droid with a pair of Clone Troopers wearing jet packs.
• 8036 Separatist Shuttle with Nute Gunray and Onaconda Farr (Greedo!) minifigs.

The newest magnet sets make buying rare LEGO Star Wars minifigs affordable, including the LEGO® Star Wars™ 10th Anniversary Stormtrooper™ Magnet for $10. I call him “Chromy”.

The latest LEGO Indiana Jones sets take us back to the classic trilogy.

Finally, trolls and dwarves from the current LEGO Castle theme get their own Battle Packs.

And remember, by clicking through to the LEGO Shop online from The Brothers Brick, Brickset, Peeron, FBTB, or elsewhere, you’re helping to support the LEGO fan community and to keep these community sites running. Thanks for your support!

As a Wii owner, I’ve been feeling a little bit abandoned lately — no, Nintendo, I don’t want to play yet another incarnation of Wii Sports. And Wii Fit?! Are you kidding me?

These LEGO Pikmin creations by Filip Felberg (also on Flickr) made me smile, though, thinking back to those happy weeks in the summer of 2001 when I worked on Pikmin.

Filip has made Dwarf Bulborbs:

…as well as the game’s iconic little creatures:

Check out dozens of Filip’s wonderful LEGO Pikmin creations on Flickr and MOCpages.

One of the things that has been capturing my attention in nnenn’s posts of his space creations, is that each time he reveals a new ship, he includes at least one picture that shows the ship from all sides, in a beautiful layout that still allows the viewer to appreciate how the whole thing works together. You can really see each ship’s thickness, angles and structure. The first is his most recent space carrier.

The one that first caught my eye is this lovely escort fighter.

All kinds of little robots on his photostream too, but I can’t blog it all.

Legoland California just finished their hiring competition and selected 5 new Master Builders, as well as 4 Associate Builders!

Among the finalists are some very deserving builders, including several that will be familiar to Brothers Brick readers.

After participating in a routine job application process, finalists were subjected to a timed, two hour build-off, which narrowed the field down to nine who were offered jobs.

See the full article in the North County Times and video coverage from CBS8 in San Diego. Congratulations to the new employees of the Lego Company!

New Master Builders:

Mark Larson
Ryan Wood
Joel Baker
Brian Heins
Amanda Juon

New Associates:
Dana Bradsema
Eric Christie
Bryan Decker
Samuel Swiger

Thanks to Bill Toenjes for the heads up on this very cool information!

This medical bot by Rong Yiren appears to be the result of an unholy union between a Mech and a Segway. What’s really cool is that it looks awesome!

Cybernetic trolls by Aaron Andrews (darkspawn). They have optic feedback units. No more needs be said.