The Brothers Brick

Well, if we haven’t convinced you to attend BrickCon next week, you’re pretty much stuck following along at home, so we’re moving on without you. For those of you who’ll be joining us at Seattle Center a week from today, this post includes a bunch of important information — especially for first-time attendees.

Past attendees will also notice that this is largely an update of last year’s post. Please forgive the repetition.

Fill out your MOC cards by September 28

MOC cards identify your LEGO creations for fellow attendees and the general public. They also help theme organizers like Josh and me plan for how much space is needed.

Fill out your MOC cards on BrickCon.org by September 28 to ensure that they’re printed on the nice card stock that will help them stand up next to your amazing LEGO creations.

Remember, only “registered” LEGO creations (ones with MOC cards) will be eligible for the various awards given out by BrickCon.

By the way, unless you want to spend the public hours explaining what “SNOT” and “MOC” are to kids and their parents, avoid “AFOL-speak” in your descriptions. Seriously.

Bring stuff for the draft and Dirty Brickster

Drafting a LEGO set allows you to get parts in large quantities that you might otherwise have to buy individually (from, say, Bricklink). Read more about how the draft works on SEALUG.org. If you want to participate, the draft set for BrickCon 2009 is 5972 Space Truck Getaway.

Dirty Brickster is a LEGO “white elephant” gift exchange. Bring something that would be worth $10-20 to the recipient, wrapped.

Pack your LEGO creations for travel or shipping

Before you stuff your LEGO into your carry-on luggage, consider reading the LUGNET post by Duane Hess and the Classic-Castle.com article by Lenny Hoffman about packing and shipping LEGO.

Wouldn’t you rather spend your time socializing and integrating your pristine creations into the display instead of rebuilding them?

Unload your LEGO at the venue

You should soon be receiving a message from BrickCon organizers with details on when, where, and how to unload your LEGO creations at Seattle Center. Last year, the loading dock was only available during the following times (we’ll update this as the 2009 times are finalized):

• Thursday 8am – noon
• Thursday 5pm – 9pm
• Friday 8am – noon
• Sunday 5pm – midnight

Given the limited space (it’s a tunnel), please only use the loading dock if you have massive amounts to unload.

Give us a tour of your LEGO room

One of the most interesting things about LEGO User Group (LUG) meetings is getting to see another LEGO fan’s building space.

If you’d like to share what your LEGO room looks like with fellow BrickCon attendees, bring a few good photos on a thumb drive for projection during the con.

Build!

With a week left, you still have time to build something and bring it for one of the many collaborative displays. Here’s a list of the various themes planned for this year’s convention:

Battle Bugs Capital Ship Modular Project Castle Great Ball Contraption Mecha MicroCity Model Team Motors Operation Bricklord Space Town/Train Zombie Apocafest 2009

See you next week!

For once the answer is yes.

Ronald Vallenduuk (Duq) has recently added a couple of sets of instructions to Flickr and kindly showed me how to get LPub working again. I actually reverse engineered the seat gondola many years back after seeing a picture of it and coveting it so it’s great to see Ronald making it available to all and sundry.

I used to make more instructions but had to stop for a while due to a problem I had with LPub. With Ronald’s fix I’m back and running so did some instructions for my latest.

As far as abstract LEGO sculptures go, this one takes the cake. In this creation by Marisa, the builder portrays the birth of the brick in an abstract representation of a follicle rupturing to release the egg. At the same time, the sculpture is a tribute to Ole Kirk Christiansen, the founding father of LEGO. Critics may dispute the appropriateness of the metaphor, but I think the attempt is genuine.

Still deciding to get some chrome bricks? This Peterbilt 379 model by Jörg (lichtblau) may just convince you. It’s got enough shiny-shiny to drool over, but there’s also cool features such as an opening hood and sleeper cab.

Flickr user -infomaniac- strikes fear into the heart of the upper class with his diorama depicting the beginnings of a revolution:

I love the sense of utter chaos captured here! Nothing says anarchy quite like a brick through a window, either.

I have a very warm spot in my heart for the Piper J-3 Cub and this rendition by Ricardo Prates is a beauty. I’m really impressed that he was able to reproduce the iconic black stripe without using a sticker. Very nicely done.

I strongly suspect most of you have already seen this, but this LEGO Star Wars chess set by Brandon Griffith (icgetaway) is well worth another look.

In addition to a great board and the minifig stands one might expect from a LEGO chess set, Brandon built a bunch of microscale Star Wars vehicles and even a couple of cute little vignettes as chess pieces.

Via the LEGO CUUSOO blog.

Erik Smit has built two great Micropolis modules and combined them to show just how much detail you can pack into a very small space.

(Incidentally, BrickCon will have a collaborative MicroCity layout, so it’s not too late to build something and bring it!)

Inspiration can come from many sources. In the case of this L-36 Lapin courier ship, the color scheme was inspired by a pair of sneakers. Does the ship remind anyone else of a bunny?

Angus Maclane has been building like crazy lately. The craziness has manifested itself as CubeDudes, which appear to be famous characters with cubes for heads. They are adorable! He just posted oodles of these awesome little dudes. Click on the pictures to go to a gallery of related figures.

Which is your favorite?

Gerard Joosten just posted a picture of a flyer he found packaged with the latest Bionicle movie. The flyer claims that “The Adventures of Clutch Powers” is coming to DVD in the spring of 2010. I’m pretty sure this isn’t the movie with which Warner is involved. There are Universal and Tinseltown Toons logos on there. What are your thoughts and feelings about this?

(Edit: Its looks like this is the first of several straight-to-DVD releases.)

Jarek (Jerrec) has built a cool looking tank. I especially like the use of upside-down grille tiles as detailing in the armor over the treads. Better, still, it’s remote controlled! Check out the video.

The life-sized LEGO house built by the British TV presenter James May faces imminent destruction after LEGOLAND Windsor withdrew their plans to purchase the massive structure due to expensive transportation costs. The house was built with about 3 million LEGO bricks supplied by the LEGO Group and took about 1000 volunteers who worked tirelessly for about a month to complete. It features a furnished bedroom, living room, kitchen, and a bathroom with a functional toilet – all made from LEGO bricks. Unfortunately, this architectual feat will not be enduring the times. According to the Daily Mail, “if no one collects it by 8am on Tuesday, it will be hacked to bits with chainsaws.”

Read more on BBC News or the Daily Mail.

UPDATE: There’s even a Save James May’s Lego House group on Facebook.

While browsing Bricklink today, I came across a store that specializes in custom chrome LEGO elements. Here, you can get a diverse array of industrially chromed parts from minifig helmets and accessories to car parts for pimping your ride. You can even ask the store to chrome your own LEGO element. Visit ChromeBricks.com and browse their offerings in the chrome gold and chrome silver color categories. You can also find out more by reading their FAQ page.

The following video showcases their products with some rather dramatic and suspenseful background music. After all, chrome is serious business.

If you’re making an order, feel free to drop a mention that you’re a reader of our blog. If many people show interest, we will be featuring a review of these products in the coming weeks.

UPDATE: High-res photos of LEGO Atlantis sets are now out.

——–

Alexander (Shurik) posted pictures of some of the 2010 sets that LEGO has displayed at a sponsored event in Russia called Festival Rossiyskogo Fan Forum Lego. The featured sets include samples from the following themes: Atlantis, Toy Story, Prince of Persia, Star Wars, Power Miners, City, Bionicle and more.

EDIT (TG): These pictures were uploaded due to a miscommunication and have been removed from Flickr at the request of TLG. The local Ambassador, Igor Makarov, asked me to remove the deeplink which I have done.

UPDATE: Target.com also has box art for one of the 2010 LEGO Power Miners sets, 8188 Fire Blaster: