The Brothers Brick

Though I’m more familiar with a certain steam shovel book by the same author, this lovely snowplow by Mike Psiaki (based on Virginia Lee Burton’s Katy and the Big Snow) has lots of lovely angles.

The simplicity of the power pole is also a nice touch.

Occasionally, I take a break from blogging and actually build something. For my most ambitious creation to date, I present “Fox Red: Omaha Beach”.

My D-Day diorama features the following vehicles and weapons:

• Willys MB Jeep
• Higgins Boat (LCVP)
• 10.5 cm leFH 18 field gun

Yes, that’s dark blue water. (I do believe I’ve mentioned before that I like LEGO Agents…)

Naturally, I couldn’t resist the urge to turn a few photos into black and white Robert Capa-esque shots.

See my full photoset of Fox Red: Omaha Beach pics on Flickr.

This pair of vehicles by Carter Baldwin may be the ugliest we’ve featured here. Carter’s new NATO “Jackal” LRV is a chunkified slice of awesome, but that troop transport is just plain wicked.

The Buddhist temple of Kinkaku-ji was originally built in 1397. In 2009, talapz built a Kinkaku-ji in a box. Okay, words fail me here. They really do.

The builder notes in the video that he used 4,500 LEGO pieces to build his pop-up Kinkaku-ji, and it weighs 4 kg. Be sure to watch the whole video — talapz shows how this amazing creation pops up out of the box.

And don’t miss Jumpei Mitsui’s Kinkaku-ji from 2007.

This narrow bakery by valgarise first caught my eye because of its pretty exterior that uses just a few pink bricks to add some nice color highlights. What then drew me in was the number details in the interior.

There are so many cute features, but my favorite is probably the chef on a footstool frosting the cake on the 2nd story.

Ryan Wood (lights) rocks. Also, he built a CubeDude, which also rocks.

I love the tattoos on his arm, and how he’s holding the whammy bar.

Speaking of LEGO Rock Band, the video game is due out next month, and the full track list has been announced. (I’ve been avoiding dedicating a whole post to this. Sorry for hijacking your CubeDude for news purposes, Ry.)

• All American Rejects: “Swing, Swing”
• The Kooks: “Naïve”
• The Automatic: “Monster”
• KoRn: “Word Up!”
• Blink-182: “Aliens Exist”
• KT Tunstall: “Suddenly I See”
• Blur: “Song 2″
• Lostprophets: “Rooftops”
• Bon Jovi: “You Give Love a Bad Name”
• P!NK: “So What”
• Boys like Girls: “Thunder”
• The Police: “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic”
• Bryan Adams: “Summer of 69″
• The Primitives: “Crash”
• Carl Douglas: “Kung Fu Fighting”
• Queen: “We Are The Champions”
• The Coral: “Dreaming of You”
• Queen: “We Will Rock You”
• Counting Crows: “Accidentally in Love”
• Rascal Flatts: “Life is a Highway”
• David Bowie: “Let’s Dance”
• Ray Parker Jr.: “Ghostbusters”
• Elton John: “Crocodile Rock”
• Razorlight: “Stumble and Fall”
• Europe: “The Final Countdown”
• Spin Doctors: “Two Princes”
• Everlife: “Real Wild Child”
• Spinal Tap: “Short & Sweet”
• Foo Fighters: “Breakout”
• Steve Harly: “Make Me Smile”
• Good Charlotte: “Girls & Boys”
• Sum 41: “In Too Deep”
• The Hives: “Tick Tick Boom!”
• Supergrass: “Grace”
• Iggy Pop: “The Passenger”
• Tom Petty: “Free Fallin”
• Incubus: “Dig”
• T-Rex: “Ride a White Swan”
• Jackson 5: “I Want You Back”
• Vampire Weekend: “A-Punk”
• Jimi Hendrix: “Fire”
• We the Kings: “Check Yes Juliet”
• Kaiser Chiefs: “Ruby”
• The Zutons: “Valerie”
• Katrina & The Waves: “Walking on Sunshine”

The latest updates indicate that stars like Iggy Pop will be making an appearance in the game.

Here’s the full list of potentially playable characters.

• Iggy Pop
• David Bowie
• Blur
• Queen

This is micro-scale at its absolute best. When I saw a thumbnail of this build by Fredoichi, I thought that it was minifigure scale. I can’t think of a more impressive feat for a creation at this scale than to read as bigger and more detailed than it is.

Flickr user and Classic-Castle member busboy489 posted this fantastic keep. Considering it’s really his first Castle creation in 7 years, I’m definitely thinking this guy is one to keep an eye on.

For added presentation, he’s posted a time-lapse video of the build. Check it out!

LEGO fan Joe (cheeseslope) recently proposed to his girlfriend Kristen.

Inviting her to a picnic, he began by giving her two custom LEGO sets he designed himself that feature important things in their lives.

Next, he gave her a set that included their minifig selves having the very picnic they were having at that very moment.

See all of Joe and Kristin’s LEGO engagement pics on Flickr. Congratulations to the happy couple, and thanks for sending us the link!

Sorry folks, we won’t be getting 6299 LEGO Pirates Advent Calendar here in North America. That decision was apparently made before the whole Castle Advent Calendar drama last year.

Fortunately, the Forbidden Cove October Seed Part Challenge gives you a way to win one — for free!

Click the graphic to read the rules and check out the discussion on ForbiddenCove.com.

I spent a lot of time this afternoon poking around and looking at new creations online. As you can see, I found a couple good things to blog, below. I had some free time, I tried to use it to build, but was stuck with builders block.

I’m currently working on something medium-sized in dark blue, and so I had some of that color sitting around on my desk. Looking for stuff to blog didn’t end up helping me get past the builders block with what I had in progress, but it did get the juices flowing. I ended up building the Piranha in just a couple of hours.

Is the Crimson Skies fad coming back? If the Red Zephyr by Jonhall18 is the start of the comeback, sign me up.

This plane has a great feel of bulk in all the right places. I like the airfoil shape of the wings, and the bubble up at the front of the fuselage adds a great touch of the fantastic.

Maybe it’s because this new mecha by H3llb0ye reminds me of the aliens from the opening of The Fifth Element. Maybe it’s because it’s posed something like a gorilla. Perhaps its how expressive the poses seem to be.

Whatever the reasons, I’m a big fan of this mecha.

Louise Dade (Bladewood) and Reasonably Clever are teaming up for a very cool contest — build a pimped-out version of Louise’s wheelchair!

The contest runs from today through November 15th. Click the graphic to check out the rules and prizes.

I continue to be a sucker for just about any creation that alludes to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels. My favorite character finally came to life when Sylvain (captainsmog) created and placed the Librarian in his natural habitat, the library of Unseen University. He’s an orangutan, not a monkey. Do not call him a monkey!

Aside from my easy seduction by Discworld and apes behaving as humans, this diorama features some neat posing, building techniques, and fantastic attention to detail, such as books chained to shelves, metal rods to conduct magic from the books, and of course bananas. I wonder if he even has a Watch badge in his desk.

He also has a great scene of an Agatean farmer that inspires me for an upcoming project of my own, and his diorama of an Omnian inquisition chamber is horrifyingly fantastic. And Hex, and an iconograph demon, and 72-hour Ahmed, and Hodgesaargh, and . . . never mind. Don’t take my word for it. Check them out yourself.