The Brothers Brick

Ralph Savelsberg (Mad physicist) recently completed his P-61 night-fighter and decided to show it off with its German counterpart. Although if looks won wars I’d have my money on the Axis.

Even though Alex (Orion Pax) couldn’t afford to join the likes of Brian Wilson and Kanye West in owning a pair of the new Nike MAGs from Back to the Future, that didn’t stop him building his own from LEGO.

Auctions of the real shoes benefited Michael J. Fox’s research foundation for Parkinson’s disease, and raised several million dollars.

I have a soft spot for mono-tracks and this one is unique. The top-heavy look that Nick Catling chose really works here.

Here, at The Brothers Brick, we don’t review stores but I had a very unexpected little LEGO adventure yesterday and I wanted to share it. I realize that this post will only be of interest to people in the Greater Portland and Vancouver area of Washington and Oregon States. I apologize to our readers in the rest of the world. If you don’t live there, feel free to skip this post and bad-mouth me for the rest of the day. I’m okay with that.

I had to take a sudden trip to southern Washington State over the last couple of days and I decided to stop in Battle Ground, WA to see my grandmother. No LEGO was supposed to be involved. Little did I know. I had been told that there was an independent toy store in the area that dealt in used LEGO. I looked it up and the store turned out to be about a quarter of a mile from “Grammy’s House”.

I was much more impressed with the store than I was expecting. For the most part, prices seemed to be about mid-range of Bricklink’s prices. They had a large stock of older sets, some MISB, some opened in the box and some built but loose.

They had large bins of minifig parts, which they were selling for 60 cents a piece or three dollars for a fig. I grabbed up a handful of vintage castle torsos and an assortment of helmets that I was short on. My kids had a blast building figs for themselves as well.

They also had a bins of “building brick” which was sold by large and small cups ($10 and $5) or by gallon-sized plastic bags ($25). My wife was kind enough to fill up a bag with assorted bricks, plates and slopes in green and tan.

There was only one staff person on duty, named Micah, but he was very friendly, enthusiastic and well-informed.

They do not sell online, but have three store locations. They are in Beaverton OR, Canby OR and Battle Ground, WA. If you are in the area, check them out. I had a good time.

Along these lines, there have to be more independent purveyors of used and collectible LEGO out there. If you know of a brick-and-mortar store in your area, feel free to post the location in the comments. Just don’t tell us about your online store. We know about those.

In the interest of transparency, I would like to state that Bricks & Minifigs did not ask for this review nor did they give me anything in exchange. The only freebie that I received was the business card I swiped off the counter.

For a blog that gets accused of being mech-centric, we haven’t had a mech or hardsuit on here for over a week. This one will do.

I really like how Knobby Plastic used Jango Fett’s cowl for the head on this hardsuit. It gives it quite a distinctive look.

Naturally Brickbucki’s latest creation brings up thoughts of Sauron, although the builder doesn’t say that he was thinking of Lord of the Rings when this was built. Regardless of the inspiration, this is a nicely constructed effect.

This scene, by Teruel211, actually creeps me out. I think it is the feeling of suspense and the sense of anticipation among the vampires. Notice there is virtually no gore in this? Many people try to build a scary scene by including blood and gore everywhere. That never works for me because the action has already happened. It’s the suspense that gets to me.

Sean and Steph Mayo tap into the hive mind and summon these stunning creatures. Look but don’t touch. They don’t look happy.

Greebly and bulbous. I think that accurately describes this ship by Robert H. But that gives you no concept of how striking this ship really is. Check it out. It’s cool.

Brian Williams (BMW_Indy) is definitely not a LEGO purist and likes to do things his own way. With results like this I can see why. Whenever I see something new by Brian I always find myself questioning my own rules.

I’ve never seen The Wild Wild West TV show that inspired this creation, but I have to admit I’m tempted now. The idea of a lab on track is pretty cool.

This was an entry for the Spaghetti Western contest on Eurobricks and you can vote for your favourite train here.

This beast was built Jacob Unterreiner and has a very striking and menacing feel to it. I love the color scheme, as I’m an old school Blacktron fan, but this whole build just screams evil.

I bet you thought that Cole Blaq built this, huh? He didn’t…which means the trend is spreading. That’s fine by me as long as the bricks turn out as cool as this one. Ken Robichaud is the actual builder of this creepy coffin brick.

Adam Grabowski goes for a drive with an icon in this Mini. We will forgive him for painting one piece, since it turned out so well. Now he needs to build Teddy.

Apparently this cruiser by Vince Toulouse has been around for awhile, but I missed it and it has some rather cool components. The overall shape is one that we don’t see a lot, using pieces that almost everyone refuses to touch…the giant floor pieces from the old Sports sets. But they look really good here. Also I really like the cavalry flag on the side. Very nice touch.

Mark Stafford took a break from his real job and posted this lovely gem of a space ship.