The Brothers Brick

Speaking of branching out, Cameron (Primus) temporarily set aside his Bionicle to build this great robot from Technic gears.

Apparently Cameron was challenged to build something “non-spindly.” Otto turned out rather formidable indeed.

Speaking of color, we’ve come to expect a certain chromatic consistency from Rong Yiren. Though his animal-shaped mecha are certainly gorgeous, it’s always nice to see a builder branch out.

In this scene depicting stormtroopers off to work after the end of the Evil Empire, I particularly like R2-D2 wearing a tie.

See more of Rong’s latest creations in his photostream on Flickr.

The year: 1953. The US and Soviet space programs are in full swing, and a war rages for control of earth’s only natural satellite, the moon. Shannon Ocean has the full story.

See many, many more awesome Battle for the Moon creations by Shannon on MOCpages.

I recently finished reading Arthur C. Clarke’s very early Islands in the Sky (published in 1952), full of both prescient hits and blind misses.

Catarino has perfectly captured in microscale LEGO the look of retro-future space stations I imagined as I read Clarke’s science fiction.

Via MicroBricks.

I’m a little bit behind on my poetry journals, so I was very pleased to receive a link from Vito to an item featured in the current issue of Poetry Magazine.

The text on the left is a translation of a section from “The Great Order of the Universe” by Greek philosopher Democritus and the text on the right is from the 1959 LEGO brick patent by Godtfred Kirk Christiansen. The two texts are anagrams.

Now, my inner poet was rather disappointed that Christian Bök beat me to a LEGO-themed item in a major poetry journal. Sadly, my pair of poems published in Prairie Schooner last year were free of little plastic bricks. I take some consolation in the fact that Bök’s piece is in the “Flarf & Conceptual Writing” section. Perhaps I can write that Great LEGO Poem yet. (FYI, poets are even more competitive than LEGO builders.)

I’m glad I’m not the only LEGO fan who also reads Poetry, Vito.

A common criticism of ApocaLEGO creations is that they’re all shades of brown or gray — believable colors for many apocalyptic scenarios, but not necessarily for the zombie apocalypse.

With that in mind, I’ve added a few more colorful creations to my fleet of zombie-hunting vehicles.

The big red vehicle is an apocafied version of my S&S/TATRA Wildland Ultra XT fire engine, while the light blue car should be familiar to fans of a certain boy wizard.

The requisite back story for the blue car:

A trio of intrepid survivors convert an old Ford Anglia into a zombie defense platform — complete with Browning M2 .50 Caliber machine gun and M134 Minigun requisitioned from an abandoned Army base. The flamethrower is apparently homemade.

Of course, these particular survivors have a few extra tricks up their sleeves. Other survivors say that the color of the fire from their flame thrower "just ain’t right." They can also be heard to exclaim "Incendio Cranium!" as they charge into a horde of zombies.

Like the green and white camper, the Ford Anglia is an example of an apocafied official set, one of the categories you can win prizes in during Zombie Apocafest 2009 this October at BrickCon.

UPDATE: I had so much fun with the little pink Vespa leading the charge that I had to build her a gang of zombie-hunting comrades.

The girls are riding scooters from BrickForge designed by Arealight, with custom weapons from BrickArms (including several new prototypes).

This vignette by Justin Vaughn (-Mainman-/Xifux) that portrays a small group of Colonial soldiers at Valley Forge during the Revolutionary War seems particularly fitting for Independence Day. I’ve been sitting on it for a little while waiting for the right time, and this seemed to be it.

I love the snow clinging to the tree.

Johan van den Heuvel (Teddy) built this diorama that incorporates several building techniques to give the impression of a wood-paneled study. Mr. Whiskers, the cat, is plotting to take over the world. Mine just nap.

My favorite element is probably the coffeemaker, though the bookshelves are a close second.

The rumored, non-exclusive LEGO windmill set appears to be on the horizon, in the form of 7747 Wind Turbine Transport.

The set isn’t available in the US yet (we got the tip from reader Matthew in the UK), so here’s a direct link in case the ones above don’t work:

http://shop.lego.com/Product/Default.aspx?p=7747

And for those of you wondering what the heck a “Vestas Windmill” is, 4999 Vestas Windmill was a special limited-edition set created exclusively for employees of the Danish wind turbine company Vestas. As cool as it was, it was never made available to the general public, which caused quite a ruckus in the LEGO fan community.

Though substantially smaller than 4999, Perhaps 7747 Wind Turbine Transport represents The LEGO Group listening to that hue and cry…

The winners of Classic-Castle’s Battles Contest have finally been chosen. Not surprisingly, some of the winners will be familiar to TBB readers. But enough talking, here they are!

1st Place: Medieval Hooligan Brawl by forseti

2nd Place: Defending the Village by DNL

3rd Place: Defense of the Iron Oak by SuvieD

Best Vignette: Sir Wunstud jumped by Orcs by Rod Gillies

Congratulations to the winners! There were a lot of good entries in there and judging was very difficult. Way to go!

This action-packed vignette by Harry Russell (Karrde) has so many neat expressions captured. He built this to showcase his new BrickArms rapier.

Also impressive to pack seven minifigs into about a quarter of the plate while still conveying a sense of motion.

Thank you Alex Schranz (Orion Pax). Superb LEGO walkman, tape and headphone set.

Three months to BrickCon!

BrickCon 2009 is looking for any talks, roundtables, and special activities you would like to see at the Con this year. Going to and putting on sessions are one of the things that makes a Lego convention fun.

Past talks have included manufacturing custom parts, an introduction to LDraw, and packing Lego models for shipment, among many others.

Roundtables, or moderated discussions, have included Moonbase standards and design, landscaping, and anything that someone can think of.

Activities already planned for this year include the Dirty Brickster and the Wacky Race.

All we need for more talks, roundtables, and activities are ideas and people to run with them. Projectors and a computer will be available (although bringing your own laptop ensures compatibility). All spaces can be configured with tables and chairs as desired.

Any registered attendee who would like to run a presentation or activity should e-mail proposals or questions to me (my first three initials @ morfydd.net—please mention BrickCon in the subject). If possible, please include a possible title, brief description for the event program, and any time constraints or facility requirements. Events are typically scheduled to run up to fifty minutes but can be scheduled for more or less time.

I need proposals by September 6 to have time to prepare the schedule and the program. Earlier is better.

BrickCon is an annual adult Lego hobbyist convention and exposition in Seattle. BrickCon 2009 will be October 1–4, 2009, in the Seattle Center Exhibition Hall. For more information or to register visit
http://www.brickcon.org/

–
TWS Garrison

http://www.morfydd.net/twsg/

LEGO: CA+++ SW++ GA+c #++++++ LS+++ P+++++ YB77m

Okay, so I don’t know that this diorama by Mristoph Chonnaie (stenertje) is actually set on a moon made of yellow cheese, but it sure is delicious.

Take a closer look at the base and the fighters in the full photoset on Flickr.

Thanks for the tip, Rodney (we’re a bit behind right now).

I never thought it could be done, but it’s possible to build your own fully-functional LEGO combination safe. Merijn van Wouden has shown us how to do just that with detailed step-by-step instructions and a cool video to show how the mechanisms work. I’m astounded.