The Brothers Brick

As unbelievable as it seems it appears that M and M has managed to make an adorably cute and motorised version of Stephenson’s Rocket. The original is notable as one of the first effective steam trains and the LEGO version might just be the first effective pull-back motor train.

This bust of the classic Terminator frame is incredibly detailed and wonderfully menacing. Martin Latta has done a most excellent job. While the actual Terminator is awesome, that base just makes it that much better and complements the build perfectly. This is one of those that I would like to own.

Many thanks to Tom Williamson for the heads up!

….Iain Heath’s “Tastes like Zebra”! The contest was grueling and the entries were hysterical. The judges were judgmental and the winner loathes minifigs. All in all, it was a great contest!

Congratulations to Iain and many thanks to all who entered. It really was a lot fun to watch and it was the easiest contest I’ve ran in many years. Mime On!

I can’t believe it’s been almost a year and a half since we last saw a castle creation by Rocko, but things are different when you have your own business to run. Fortunately for us, Rocko’s had time to build a new castle recently. I love the contrast between the tan walls and the blue water. The greenery gives a breath of life to this otherwise fig-less display. Check out the other view of the castle for a beautiful curved staircase.

Aaron Williams (m_o_n_k_e_y) ignores Summer to bring us Blizzard Peak. I wouldn’t fancy being the pilot of this beauty in a war but marching to parade would make me very proud.

I’ve never seen work by Henrik Hoexbroe but I’ve definitely been missing out. His 1:50 model of the Cutty Sark is one of the most beautiful and accurate LEGO sailing vessels I have ever seen. Most notably his mixing of studs-out sculpting and other techniques to create fluid shapes is a textbook demonstration of what can be achieved in LEGO.

If you remember some of the old Lego holiday catalogs, you may recall a few having covers that depict minifigs from different themes coming together to celebrate the holidays. I built this concept in a scene that features a gingerbread house and a Christmas tree. How many different themes are represented?

One of the Categories for the Colossal Castle Contest is Fairy Tales–and Scrat has chosen to illustrate the Danish tale The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen. In the vein of many original fairy tales, this is a sad, sad story. Scrat’s rendition captures the melancholy atmosphere perfectly:

The list of LEGO Ambassadors for 2011 has just been made public. If you belong to any of the following communities and you have issues that you want to bring to the attention of LEGO, you should contact your Ambassador. Tim Gould was our Ambassador last year and Andrew Becraft was prior to that. Both did an excellent job. This year I will be filling the role and I hope to live up to the standards that they set.

Here is the release from LEGO’s Jim Foulds:

This round for the Ambassador program, we changed things up a bit. We reduced the requirements to allow for a larger representation of the community. The only requirements that we kept were as follows:
· the group should be at least a year old
· the group should have at least 10 members
· the group should be able to demonstrate some form of activity
By doing so we grew the group from 44 members to 70 members. The following list gives the name of the Ambassador, what group(s) they represent, and what country/website they represent.

LUG – Location – Representative
Brickset – Brickset.com – Ian Greig
LEGOBLOG – lego.blog.hu – Tamas Lassanyi
Classic Pirates – classic-pirates.com – Tom Jacobs
PLUG – Portugal – Paulo Jorge Pinheiro Castanho
Brikkelauget – Norway – Cecilie Fritzvold
NILTC – Illinois, USA – Matthew DeLanoy
Byggepladen – Denmark – Svend Erik Saksun
SweBrick – Sweden – Rickard Rasmusson
TWLUG – Taiwan – Josephine Shih
1st State LUG – Delaware, USA – Robert Fries
BrickInside – South Korea – Sung-Wan, Kim
HUNLTC – Hungary – Donat Raab
LUGOLA – Los Angeles, Ca, USA – Paul Lee
TurkLUG – Turkey – Cagri YUZ
LEAHI – Hawaii, USA – Nelson Yrizarry
Classic Castle – classic-castle.com – Sebastiaan Arts
GTWLUG – Saint Louis, Missouri, USA – Benjamin Ellermann
TVLTC – Huntsville, AL, USA – Kristina Schwarz
PennLUG – Pennsylvania, USA – Michael Tighe
Cactus Brick – Phoenix, Arizona – Clark Edwards
VicLUG – Victoria, Canada – John Langrish
Forbidden Cove – forbiddencove.com – Rebecca Deak
Communidade 0937 – Portugal – Americo Verde
Brickish Association – UK – Andrew John Summersgill
Palikkatakomo – Finland – Tuomas Kukkamaa
Pockyland LUG – Taiwan – Yen-chih Haung
Eurobricks – eurobricks.com – Mikael Sjöstedt
Lebgo – Bulgaria – Borislav Mihaylov
FBTB – fbtb.net – Ace Kim
RoLUG – Romania – Alexandru Armin Roșu
LUGPol – Poland – Maciej Karwowski
ParLUGment – Ontario, Canada – Jude Beaudin
LUG Brasil – Brazil – Wagner Cavalli Rodrigues
1000steine – Germany – Christian Krützfeldt
TexLUG – Texas, USA – Anthony Sava
AFOL of Japan – Japan – YOSHIKAZU SAITO
QueLUG – Quebec, Canada – Patrick Bégin
T-LUG – Thailand – Pijarn Charoensri
The Brothers Brick – brothers-brick.com – Josh Wedin
TechnicBRICKs – technicbricks.blogspot.com – Jetro de Château
LGOe – Austria – Verena Schaden
Double Brick – Russia – Alexander Horoshilov
MaLUG – Hungary – Peter Katulin
Builders Lounge – builderslounge.proboards.com – Chris Malloy
RailBricks – railbricks.com – Benjamin Coifman
Kocke Club – Slovenia – Vedran Šubic
Thai Brick Club – Thailand – Pitsanu Boonyarit
ItLUG – Italy – Luca Rusconi
Brickenburg – Romania – Sever-Mihai Alicu
HispaLUG – Spain – Vicente Lis
SwissLUG – Switzerland – Stephan Matter
LowLUG – the Netherlands – Harald Roossien
FreeLUG – France – Daniela Drost
MBFR – Germany – Stefan Klomberg
NeLUG – New England, USA – Bill Bourn
HKLUG – Hong Kong – Andy Hung
BeLUG – Belgium – Ludo Soete
NCLUG – North Carolina, USA – Rick Gratton
SALug – Alberta, Canada – Trevor Van Aalst
CoLTC – Ohio, USA – Ken Cefaratti
TwinLUG – Minnesota, USA – Stacy Sterling
BZPower – bzpower.com – Andrew Bulthaupt
Bricklink – bricklink.com – Troy Cefaratti
WHaCKOLuG – Ontario, Canada – Jeff Van Winden
rtl – Toronto Ontario, Canada – Iain Green
TonLUG – Ontario, Canada – Jenn Wagner
Brick.ie – Ireland – James Shields
Phantoms.su – Moscow, Russian Federation – Igor Makarov

Please join us in congratulating this round of ambassadors. We look forward to working with them.

Sincerely,
The LEGO Community team

If you have questions about the LEGO Ambassador program, you can ask them in the comments section or click on the Ambassador logo. The page at LEGO.com has not been updated for the next cycle but it contains basic information that may answer your questions.

Andrew Carol built a working replica of the Antikythera Mechanism astronomical computer that dates back to 150 BC. The design was discovered in a shipwreck and is now brought to function for the first time — at least in LEGO. The video below is simply astounding. You can read more about it on New Scientist TV.

Thanks for the tip Brad everybody in the known universe!

And I’m glad I’m not on the menu for Anni Diment‘s Tasmanian Devil. Those teeth look sharp!

Thanks for the tip Tom!

Matt De Lanoy (Pepa Quin) built Andy’s room in minifig scale – Toy Story minifig scale that is. Thus it’s quite a large display at 30″X30″. If you’re in Chicago, you can see this creation debut at NILTC’s Christmas Show on December 11-12.

Meanwhile, you should check out the gallery of photos on Flickr, which includes details such as the Buzz Lightyear mosaic and the setup.

There are 23 days remaining until the close of this year’s Colossal Castle Contest over at Classic Castle! Let me tell you–I don’t envy the judges. There are some fantastic creations. Here are just a few:

The Pastoral Life Category – Walking The Goats (David Leest)

Fairy Tale Category – Humpty Dumpty (DarkTemplar)

Mythical Battle Category – Attack of the Skeleton Horde (ACPin)

Andrew Lee (onosendai2600) has just posted a cool mecha that he calls “Fluffy Bunny.” While it certainly doesn’t look fluffy to me, it does have a bit of a resemblance to a bunny. I also suspect that he may have found some inspiration in artwork for the upcoming film Sucker Punch.

Whether Andrew was inspired by that art or not, he’s done a wonderful job. The ear-like antennae on the body of the mecha really add to the bunny feeling. He’s also used just light touch of pink (a rare color, to be sure), that adds a bit of character to the creation.

If the Giga-Grader appeared in the stores I’d channel my inner 3-year old and chuck a tantrum. Shannon Sproule (Shannon Ocean) had better be bringing this LEGO delight to Brickvention for me to see in the brick.

And since I’m trained as a mathematician I’ll summarise with an equation: Tonka toys + M-Tron + (60s vibe)^2 + Rocking Robot = Awesome.