The Brothers Brick

Once again Ralph Savelsberg and I seem to be on the same wavelength.

Ralph made an ambulance and semi-trailer.

And I made an ambulance and trailer (the actual truck was made a while back).

And I promise it was totally coincidental.

For those of you who read Lugging pt. 1 or have been interested in finding a LEGO user group (LUG) for some time, this is my effort to help you find a LUG. At a recent event at LEGOLAND California where my LUG (SandLUG) hosted a display, a lot of visitors from the rest of the country and world had questions about how to find LUGs in their home towns. I was pleasantly surprised by all the interest, though I wish I’d been able to provide lugging first aid.

I was lucky enough to have my brother, Andrew, refer me to my local LUG that included people he knew personally. They knew to expect me and my path was smoothed by his sheer nerd fame. I cheated. My brother told me he was sick of me just making comments on TBB and that I needed to start DOING something. For those of you who were not so lucky, I’ve done some research.

At first, I tried compiling a list of LUGs by region and interest, but it just got ridiculously long, which is a very, very good thing. If I could find dozens, you can hopefully find one in your area. Remember though, even if you find a LUG, some cover huge swaths of territory (e.g. TexLUG, TurkLUG, Brickish Association) some are inactive, and others may be essentially an online-only group. Though to the credit of many of the online groups, they’re quite creative and active.

One of the challenges of finding LUGs is that they are based on multiple platforms. Some are basically just an e-mail list that the members have stashed away somewhere, some are discussion threads or groups within LEGO communities like LUGnet, some operate within larger online networking sites like Google, flickr, MySpace or facebook, and still others host their own sophisticated websites. Some groups have members and groups on multiple platforms, but use a single platform for group-wide discussions or announcements.

A good place to start is the right-hand column on this very site, which has scores of communities and resources listed, including several LUGs. Look through them. See if anything looks familiar. If nothing pops out at you there, go to LUGnet, Eurobricks, MOCpages, Brickshelf or any of the other LEGO-specific “umbrella” sites and browse for a forum, topic, discussion or group that relates to you. LUGnet also has a map (though slightly out of date) that has pins showing the locations of different kinds of LEGO clubs throughout the world, with links to those clubs/LUGs.

If this doesn’t work, I’d search for groups on the non-LEGO networking sites listed above.

Probably the easiest (you’ll inevitably get some junk) is typing “lug lego” or “lego user group” into any old search engine. If you want to get super-fancy, type in a city, region, state, province, country or interest as well (though not all), which may narrow your results. Avoid just typing “lug,” it’s too common a word and apparently entering “lug” and a German city name could also result in some fairly interesting, but non-LEGO related hits.

If you’re looking for something that relates to a specific interest area, like Star Trek or trains, change your search accordingly. Most train groups are called LEGO train clubs (LTCs), though that varies too. In some parts of the world, LTCs outnumber general LUGs. Other specialized LUGs will use a word or two to hint at their interest, such as TrekLUG.

If none of the above work and you’re up to some serious sleuthing/stalking, look for hints on other users’ profiles, postings or other things that might indicate that they’re near you, then drop them a quick message asking for guidance finding a LUG, but try not to pester.

TBB has a fairly large readership, so questions about LUGs are more than welcome and there’s a good chance one of our other readers or contributors will have an answer. I also have a discussion thread in the flickr LEGO group that’s dealing with lugging issues.

Remember, some LUGs don’t have meetings and are mainly internet based, so if you’re thirsting for face to face contact, you may not be quenched at the end of the day. Also, some areas just don’t seem to have active general LUGs, like shockingly enough Chicago and New York City (CLB and NYCLUG don’t appear to be active, though I’d be happy to be disabused of the notion). That will be part 4 of the series, how to start or revive a LUG.

Happy hunting!

Coming soon . . . Lugging Pt. 3: Actually lugging (tips, etiquette, and activities)

“Big Daddy” Nelson’s wife build this beautiful pink medical moon base several months ago and he posted pictures today. I just love it. Absolutely love it. My wife’s Barbie collection would love to live in this thing, if they were small enough. Ha ha! Too small for them!

Check out the back story and other pictures in Big Daddy’s photoset.

I’d been looking forward to Tyler Clite’s (Legohaulic) display for BrickWorld before the event, so I naturally split my face with a smile so wide when I saw Zion Dock Defense in person. This scale of this creation and the sense of action conveyed by the dynamic poses of the APUs and the Sentinels are intense.

Tyler’s APU also won the Best Mecha Award at BrickWorld. Congratulations!

This very striking scene by Erik Smit is really something. The white and transparent background pieces really set the stage for the purple highlights. I can’t stop staring at this scene.

Space-zombies need a chaser. Since LEGO unicorns are in short supply, we’ll go with LEGO weddings. Ryan and Katie aren’t the only ones who’ve celebrated their love with little plastic bricks.

Chris Wunz created a series of five vignettes as his cake toppers when he married Erin last year (see all five on Flickr):

One of my favorite LEGO-themed cakes is the one Louise and Greg Tudor had at their wedding (full photoset). Greg made LEGO cufflinks for the groomsmen, and a Classic Space minifig even adorned Louise’s garter belt!

Even celebrities get in on the LEGO wedding action. Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz commissioned Nathan Sawaya to create this enormous bee as a wedding gift for Ashlee Simpson:

Finally, Cake Wrecks had a great roundup a while ago of some very cool LEGO cakes, including this wedding cake for Alex & Adrian:

Congratulations to all the happy couples!

Sometimes, the words we write for our blog posts can’t do justice to the wonderful LEGO creations we feature. Here’s Kevin (Legorevolution) in his own words:

The NSR (or New Space Reich) lost contact with the battle cruiser Andromeda a little over 2 light years ago. Since the vessel was exploring an uncharted sector of space, whatever they had mapped or come across was vital to our database and to the progression of our colonies. As a trained veteran in both military, technological, and scientific affairs I was natural chosen to find the ship and bring her and the crew home. However no training could have prepared me for the frightening discovery I have just made. The ship is in utter ruins- the crew all dead and seemingly infected with some sort of unknown agent that turns their skin tone green. Scouting out the lower hull of the ship so far has produced various wall murals written in blood. The most disturbing of which I have just found in one of the hangars spelling out ‘RUN’. Why RUN? The quietness is so eerie; all I can hear is myself breathing in my hardsuit. My god, what has happened here…

I don’t think I’ve ever blogged a technique before but since this one is fast becoming one of my most ‘favorite’d pictures on flickr I thought I might share it more broadly. I came up with the idea after seeing Peter Norman (swoofty) post these incredible (and complicated) stripes. As I am lazy I wanted to simplify them.

Many of you will be familiar with studs-not-on-top (SNOT) techniques and many of those will actually know what it means (for the rest it means building with the studs not pointing vertically, not building a smooth model). Commonly this is achieved using certain popular bricks such as headlight bricks, bricks with studs on two or four sides and brackets as well as plenty of others.

What many of us forget (myself included) is that bars and clips provide an alternative way to change stud directions which is sometimes more compact and simpler than using bricks. It can be easy to get caught up in trickery [1] and neglect the simple answer. I would guess that set designers more often use these techniques than AFOLs and I suspect that part of this is that they are working to harsher constraints than we are. Their models must be simple.

Anyway, the point of this rambling is that LEGO so often provides many different ways to achieve the same result and that sometimes looking outside your usual tricks can be a good way to find them. You never know, it may save you an hour of work.

[1] On the topic of overcomplicating things I can remember one memorable occassion where I spent about an hour trying out various SNOT techniques for a train windscreen. One of my friends then pointed out that a windscreen piece would do the job perfectly. It did.

JD Luse built this cute little scene and it made me laugh. Yes, it’s cruel and mean. But what else are you going to do on a lazy, Sunday afternoon? And the cows like it, you know they do.

This rusty grenade by Victor Vitale is da bomb. No, really, it is! The color scheme really works well and using a keychain ring is very clever. My question is whether a rusty grenade more or less safe than a new shiny one?

Ben Ellermann brought some fire to the Pirate layout at BrickWorld this year. This light-up volcano is one of my favorite recent LEGO creations. I may have to figure out a way to incorporate this technique myself. After all imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?

They’re great. I noticed Michael Lasky-Saparito’s (Two Michael’s) furniture and modular houses while I was first cruising for possible TBB posts about a month ago. When he recently emerged from his annual hibernation, I thought it would be timely to features this great furniture set.

The rest of his photostream showcases great buildings that use a lot of colors that I find vibrant and interesting, but don’t see often enough. Worth checking out.

We continue our series of Admin interviews by talking to Ben Ellermann of Classic Castle.

TBB: Can you tell me a little bit about yourself? What are you known for other than an Admin at CC?

Ben: My name is Ben Ellermann and I am a huge LEGO Castle fan! On Classic-Castle.com I work on contests, interviews, various articles, and the sets archives. Offline I am involved with my local lug in the Saint Louis area, GatewayLug. I also have been a theme coordinator and/or presented at North American Lego fan festivals (BrickFest, BrickWorld, and BrickFair). From 2006 to 2008, I served as a Lego Ambassador giving fan feedback to TLG. Other than designing castle mocs, I also enjoy building in the Western, Pirate, and sculpture themes. Occasionally I dabble in Town and Space as well. This year I also teamed up with several fans to found a new Pirate fan site: www.forbiddencove.com

TBB: How long has Classic Castle been in existence? Can you give a brief history?

Ben: Classic-Castle.com has been a part of the online fan community since September 2003. A small group of like-minded Castle fans felt that www.lugnet.com was not meeting all of the castle communities needs. The active early administrators were Troy Cefaratti, Anthony Sava, Lenny Hoffman, Kevin Blocksidge, and myself.

TBB: What is purpose of CC?

Ben: Our mission is to meet the needs of LEGO Castle fans. We try to do this by providing castle articles, set reviews, building tips, preview pictures of new sets, contests, highlighted mocs, designer interviews, a chatroom, and a friendly organized forum.

TBB The site is called Classic Castle. What does that mean? Do you exclude things that aren’t “classic”?

Ben: When Classic-Castle was founded in 2003, the retail Lego Castle theme was not in production. Castle fans were looking for a well-designed Classic-Castle line of products similar to lines of the 1980’s and 1990’s.

We accept all castle fans, including those who love Knights Kingdom 2. Many fans have a favorite castle sub-theme from when they were children. We have a General Lego forum for discussion of other Lego themes in which are fans are interested, such as Space, Pirates, and Steampunk just to name a few.

TBB What is your vision for the future of CC?

Ben: My vision is that Classic-Castle will remain relevant by continuing to meet the needs of our community. Fan sites must be able to adapt and grow over time in order to survive. To do this we must always listen to the fans and incorporate their suggestions into the site.

TBB What issues are you dealing with as CC grows?

Ben: Real life is an issue that most Lego fan sites have to deal with. Members, moderators, and administrators often move on from our community due to real life circumstances. Fortunately we are always gaining new members, excellent moderators, and talented admins. Classic-Castle has always been a team effort. This prevents our site from ceasing to exist if one person tires of running it.

TBB Why should someone join CC?

Ben: If you are a Lego fan who loves castle, please check out our site and forum. We are the source for all your Lego Castle needs.

Classic-Castle also recently completed a forum upgrade and it’s looking good. Go join now to immerse yourself in all things medieval!

Ryan Wood proposed via this giant LEGO ring. Pretty cool idea, if you ask me. This happened back in 2006, but Ryan just posted new and improved pics.

His lovely wife, Katie, built this cool mosaic of their wedding.

She displayed it at BrickCon 2007, but I don’t think we ever blogged it.

…as Nelson Yrizarry shows us, in this historically accurate recreation. No wonder this one needed a little extra “courage”. I’ve always felt sorry for bus drivers. It’s nice to see that kids haven’t changed.

Billy McGill just built a giant version of the LEGO monkey for his niece. I’ve always liked this monkey…now why didn’t I ever think of doing this?

Seems appropriate to feature these two creations in the same post, since they capture very different sides of the same coin, but I found them within 24 hours of each other.

The first is a great detail-rich street scene by SlyOwl capturing a scene inspired by the film “Die Welle.” It’s apparently based on the American book “The Third Wave” by Ron Jones, and after-school special “The Wave” about a teacher trying to illustrate to his students how autocracy can take root anywhere and doing a bit too good a job of it. Definitely worth checking out the other angles and detailed deeplinks that SlyOwl has included.

This second creation, by Igor Makarov (Zeek), called Precinct 56 is a great take on the traditional LEGO police station sets, which have always struck me as too small. This is more fitting of a big city police headquarters and sure looks lite it’ll fit more than one cubicle, parking space and holding cell.

Portuguese LEGO fan group 0937 hosted the 2nd TomarLEGO between June 11 and 14 in Tomar.

One of the centerpieces of the event was an enormous, custom-built tank full of water, plied by a fleet of LEGO Pirates.

See lots more photos from this event in Rupi’s Brickshelf gallery.

UPDATE: Biczzz has a full roundup of all the photo galleries from attendees, along with a few videos like this one below.