You are currently browsing the The Brothers Brick weblog archives for September, 2009.
Though vehicles by Mark Stafford (nabii) tend more toward the spacey, new creations from him are no less an event than ones from his LEGO coworker Adam.
The “Saddleback” is part of the Star Justice universe designed by Chris Giddens. The front-end greebles are gorgeous, as are the engines (encircled by skis).
New vehicles from Adam Grabowski (MisterZumbi) are always a bit of an event. His latest is a Fendt Xylon, a German tractor.
Via Klocki, which has a great side-by-side comparison shot.
One of the themes we’ll be incorporating into the final Zombie Apocafest is “Victory!” If last year’s display represented the outbreak and chaos that would follow a zombie pandemic, we’ll arrange this year’s display to include the human counterattack, victory, and even reconstruction.
To that end, we’ve worked with BrickForge on a way to unify the organized human resistance. And what’s more iconic of multi-national military forces than the blue headgear of the United Nations?
BrickForge’s Military Helmet and Beret are now available in Medium Blue. The Brothers Brick will be handing out a bunch to those of you who bring military minifigs, but you can of course order more from BrickForge.com.
Through Tuesday, September 22 at 11 PM Eastern, if your order includes any medium blue headgear, BrickForge will automatically upgrade your shipping to USPS Priority (applies to domestic US orders only). This ensures that you get your helmets and berets in time for BrickCon 2009.
While you’re at it, you might want to include some of the great new colors and items BrickForge has just released. I’m particularly pleased to see that the mushrooms BrickForge teased us with at BrickFair are now available.
Shrooms are available in six colors, and don’t miss all the other items BrickForge has released in new colors.
In addition to the fantastic new creations coming out of Dan’s Mini Castle Contest V, we get to see immense creativity in micro-scale recreations of our favorite classic castle sets.
Griffon brings an excellent rendition of 6080 LEGOLand Castle, originally released in 1984:
It even opens up, just like the original! Check out the rest of the photos on Brickshelf.
This spiky spacecraft by Toby Heineman (tobyhein) looks like it could punch quite the hole in the hull of those flying saucers hovering over our city.
The texture on the engines is particularly nice.
BrickCon 2009 starts October 1, the Thursday after next. Five of our seven contributors will be there (Josh, Dan, Thanel, Caylin, and me), making this year’s BrickCon the single highest risk to blog continuity should an alien robot invasion take place in Seattle. Fortunately, our other contributors stand ready to pick up the bricks and carry on.
Enough with the silliness, though there’s plenty of silly that goes on at LEGO cons.
If you didn’t register before the deadline for engraved badge bricks, you can still register right up until the day of the convention — you just won’t get the fancy bricks from Brick Engraver. With more than 300 LEGO fans registered so far, this year is gonna be awesome.
Finally, if you can’t take the time off from work Thursday and/or Friday, you can also register to attend private convention events with single-day passes on Saturday and Sunday.
Important notes for our younger readers: Like most other LEGO conventions, BrickCon is intended for adult fans of LEGO. Attendees under 18 must be accompanied by a parent, and children under 13 are discouraged from attending. Similarly, contributions from collaborative displays are only open to registered attendees. Unfortunately, we can’t accept contributions to displays like Zombie Apocafest 2009 and Operation Bricklord during the public display hours.
Marcos Bessa also built a scene from Megaman in 3D. The combination of studs in different directions works out well, but I think the waterfall would look better if it were built with plates placed sideways (at the same time costing much more). Overall, this is an interesting creation; check out the gallery to see the original screenshot.
This microscale castle scene by Marcos Bessa looks pretty nifty, especially the dock and the ship. Looking at this makes me want to see a full-blown medieval landscape that rivals the size of the famous Shannonia microcity.
A few days ago, Andrew reported that the Pirate Advent Calendar would not be available in North America. Now we find out that the entire Pirate line will be discontinued by the middle of 2010. This is not to say that it won’t be back, but there are currently no plans for new sets. This is especially frustrating given the fact that LEGO has repeatedly made comments that Pirates would now be a regular theme. In an interview with Gizmodo, LEGO said that Pirates would be an “evergreen” theme. Also, in the 2009 Company Profile, Pirates is called a “perpetual” theme, along with Town and Castle. However, Vikings is also listed and, as we all know, that theme had a very short lease on life. While I am not an avid Pirate collector, I have bought all the sets and I share the frustration of the Pirate fan community.
Ben Ellermann, on Forbidden Cove, has started a petition. You can also make your feelings known here and our resident Lego Ambassador will be able to forward that information onto LEGO.
There is also a thread on Classic Pirates discussing the same issue.
UPDATE: Steve Witt from The LEGO Group writes:
Pirates isn’t gone, its on hiatus like every other line that isn’t one of our primary themes:
CASTLE, SPACE, and CITY
Pirates isn’t going away, it’s just not going to be a constant theme. It’s going to phase in and out just like every other theme that isn’t one of those three… I just wanted to reassure you guys that pirates isn’t disappearing. Just taking a break. :-)
David Pagano has interviewed LEGO Certified Professional and MOCpages founder Sean Kenney.
Photo of Sean from Sean’s website
Head on over to the New York Geekcast to download the podcast.
Yes, yes, yes, we got your messages. For the four readers out there who haven’t sent us this suggestion, here’s the “Brick Construction Shirt” from ThinkGeek:
We’ll be reviewing this unique piece of apparel when it arrives in the mail.
That powerhouse of a builder, Michael Jasper, has been building choppers. In his usual fashion, he’s been building a lot of them and using all sorts of different pieces in unusual ways. Check out the whole gallery for some lovely eye-candy.
H Russel (TalonKarde) simply calls this a T-59 Snubnose. I call it cool. He’s done a great job of combining components at various different angles, to form a cohesive ship.
This was just too good to pass up. The Schubert family created this amazing Alpine Village, which was displayed at BrickFair. The only photos appear to be on Brickshelf from Abe (scrope), another attendee.
Thanks to Bruce, via Fascinating LEGO Model of the Day!
