The Brothers Brick

Our friends over at BrickArms were kind enough to send along a couple of their new direct-printed custom minifigs a while back, and they’re quite possibly the single greatest leap forward in minifig customization technology since Brasso.

Will Chapman uses a solvent inkjet printer that bonds the inks with the minifig’s ABS plastic, resulting in printing that I can’t distinguish from minifigs printed in a LEGO factory. And unlike the waterslide decals intended for “gentle play” or “display,” these are likely to withstand much heavier abuse.

I honestly haven’t oohed and aahed over a new BrickArms product in a couple of years, and kind of thought their ability to surprise me was long past. But I have to admit — perhaps a bit grudgingly — that these new direct-printed minifigs may be the coolest thing ever.

After his speech at BrickCon, Hillel Cooperman was rewarded with the luck finding series 3 minifigs early at a Fred Meyer store. 11 cases later, here’s a first look at the contents of each box and the minifigs themselves.

Did you know you can make a 3D laser scanner out of LEGO bricks and a few custom parts? No? Nor did I until today. Did you know you can then use your LEGO model to scan LEGO parts and turn them into 3D CAD LDraw parts to make virtual LEGO models out of? Amazing hey?

Phillipe Hurbaine (philo) is well known for his clever software, hardware, LEGOware and general LEGO-mechanical skill but I have to say his latest work just takes the cake. And as if making a 3D scanner wasn’t enough he has actually used it to model some LDraw parts. I think this is probably the best working LEGO thing I have ever seen.

It’s obviously my lucky day as, in addition to Rodney’s new model, Carl Greatrix (bricktrix) has delivered not one but two excellent freight wagons. And before someone complains there is no glue on those crossbars, just cleverness.

It’s no secret that Rodney Bistline’s (Buster®) “swoosher”s are some of my favourite spaceships. So loving the Nutherwun Strike Craft was a natural fit.

Eurobricks and Classic-Town.net present a contest to build more creations in the theme of LEGO’s two winter village sets. Christmas is the deadline and I’m very interested to see what people will come up with.

Julian Fong (levork) has made a set of nine DC Comics superheroes for Creations for Charity. Each features custom-designed waterslide decals and an acrylic finish. They’re one-of-a-kind minifigs whose quality is among the best I’ve seen. You can check out more of Julian’s works on Flickr.

UPDATE: They’re all sold out!

Flickr user marshal banana presents one of the best minifig-scale X-wings I have seen. None of the details seem forced; even the complex windshield design looks well-integrated into the ship. Check out more great Star Wars creations on the builder’s photostream.

Mr. Xenomurphy pays homage to H. P. Lovecraft with the summoning of an Old One from a grim mansion. Click through the picture for a story and more shots of the build.

At first glance of the picture, I expected a mosaic, but Marin Stipkovic surprised me with his 3D sculpture of the King of diamonds card. This complex model is built over 9-months and well worth the effort.

A new type of LEGO convention is coming to Europe next year, balancing the private convention experience I know I enjoy at US conventions with the public exhibition time that’s been bringing in the masses for years.

AFOLcon will be held between April 28 and May 2, 2011 at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester.

Here’s what the organizers say:

Come to AFOLcon and get the inside track on what is happening in the LEGO world. We have a busy schedule of private, AFOL-only events for you to take part in. Listen to guest speakers from LEGO, TT Games and more. Unless you live in Billund, there’s no way to get closer to to LEGO than at AFOLcon!

Read more about the events and activities on AFOLcon.com.

For all you LEGO fans in California between BayLUG and LUGOLA — that means you, dear readers in Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Goleta, and everywhere else along scenic 101 — there’s a new LEGO Users Group founded by one of our favorite people, Tommy Williamson, who’s created one of the classiest LUG logos of all time.

Check out PCHLUG.com for details.

The Classic-Castle.com Mini Castle Contest wrapped up a couple weeks ago, and winners were recently announced. MicroBricks has a great roundup of the winners and runners-up, but here are a few of my favorites that we didn’t blog already, along the way.

Valentin (Skalldyr) uses excellent forced perspective in this scene showing Roman conquest.

Avocado Butters uses Technic bushes and 1×2 grills to achieve the most amazing detail I’ve ever seen in a LEGO microscale castle.

Mr./Ms. Butters also entered this spooky temple, using the trophy from the Collectible Minifigure karate dude as a statue.

Thinking about putting up your Christmas tree soon? Here are two ideas to decorate it with Lego ornaments that you can buy or build. The first involves building small models that fit inside Lego’s holiday ornaments. They’re fun to make and offers a unique challenge of balancing size and detail on a micro creation. Here are 6 that I made, which you can buy from Creations for Charity.

Chris McVeigh (powerpig) takes a more traditional approach by building ornaments based on the Lowell sphere. You can use different colored bricks to make variations. Instructions are on Chris’ blog, or you can buy the three that he has kindly donated to Creations for Charity.

As best stated by the builder, Huib Versteeg (spacie 11), “this monstrosity will either blast the enemy into a trillion bits or devour it. And if it doesn’t do either of those, well, then it’s malfunctioning and should be disintegrated.”

Did I mention it actually walks?