Archive for the 'Asia' Category

You are currently browsing the archives for the Asia category.

Katsumoto

This samurai is astounding. The plethora of unusual pieces meshes perfectly together. Genius, I say. Pure Genius. You can color me a fan of the builder. His name is Cameron, by the way.

And, yes, this is the type of thing we would love to see in the Big In Japan [...]

Mechagodzilla stands ready to take on the King of the Monsters

This Mechagodzilla by Yasutaka (AIWSMOYA) takes me back to the monster movies and TV shows my brother and I grew up watching early on weekend mornings back in Japan.

The sculpting on Mechagodzilla’s head is particularly great, with nice use of cheese slopes and small wing plates.
This is also exactly the sort of LEGO creation we’d [...]

Depictions of the Chinese God of Wealth

I don’t know about you, but I got my red envelope on Chinese New Years a few weeks back. Here, two builders from Asia, rack911 and MrH have created the God of Wealth (財神). You can see the character 財, meaning wealth, depicted in both creations (in the latter it appears on the stand).

Here’s [...]

Hello Kitty

Over on Flickr, Car_MP has just posted a great rendition of one of the more adorable pieces of Japanese culture. Although I’m more partial her boyfriend Dear Daniel, for obvious reasons, it’s hard not to be a fan of this creation.

This would also be great in the Big In Japan display that The Brothers [...]

LEGOLAND Malaysia: the designers on the other side of the world

One of the interesting things about living in Southern California is that I get to talk quite a few of the model designers who are working on exhibits and installations for LEGOLAND Malaysia, which is scheduled to open in April of 2012. I get to hear about it, but I don’t get to see. I’ve [...]

The General in his Pavilion

Rod Gillies (2 Much Caffeine) applies his skills to medieval Japan with his latest creation, “The General is summoned to war”.

The stone wall has a great texture, and the green roof isn’t something you see that often in LEGO samurai/ninja creations (though they certainly exist in real life). My favorite detail is the fountain.

Japanese shrine

This shrine, by gtahelper, is top notch. It’s packed with all sorts of incredible details, including the first Shishi odoshi that I’ve seen. Make sure you check out the video too, the fish are very cool.

Thanks to Bruce for pointing this out to me in Classic-Castle’s chat room last night.

Pop-up LEGO Kinkaku-ji opens to reveal golden pavilion

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 [...]

Not Instanbul, not Constantinople…Brickistan!

And it’s beautiful! It’s the best layout I’ve seen in a long time. Very few people try to build in this style. The pieces are hard to get, European castles get more press, and the architecture is difficult to pull off. None of that stopped Sandy Cash. As soon as [...]

Brick-buildin’ the Chinese opera!

Vincent Cheung’s Chinese opera display is an incredible work of art that captures the essences of one of the oldest drama art forms in the world. The creation depicts the iconic colorful costume with its intricate designs and even the painted/masked face. The whole build is nothing short of gorgeous.

10199 LEGO Creator Christmas set revealed on Amazon Japan [News]

Amazon.co.jp has revealed details about the upcoming 10199 LEGO Creator Christmas set, due out later this year. The picture isn’t perfect, but good enough for discussion, I think.

Due to ship in Japan on October 25, 2009, the set will apparently retail for 12,600 yen. Comparing the prices of other LEGO sets between yen and USD, [...]

LEGO battleship Yamato, largest LEGO ship ever, completed after 6 years

In a feat of LEGO naval engineering rivaled only by Malle Hawking’s USS Harry S Truman and Ed Diment’s HMS Hood, Jumpei Mitsui (JunLEGO) completed his World War II battleship Yamato today.

digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/arts_culture/22_foot_LEGO_battleship_Yamato_now_complete’;

LEGO battleship Yamato has some very impressive specifications:

Length: 6.6 meters (22 feet) from bow to stern
Width: 1 meter (3 feet) at the [...]

Winners of the 7th clickbrick Original Model Contest announced [News]

I blogged the 7th annual Original Model Contest last week, but winners hadn’t been announced yet.
Sachiko Akinaga now has the final list of winners.
First Place: “Howl’s Moving Castle” by TEN (more photos):

Second Place: “Memories of a Dream” by Mokuami:

Third Place: “Goldfish Balloon” by Sachiko Akinaga:

Fourth Place: “Animal Happy Cake” by Kana-Oyako:

Fifth Place: “MSN-100″ by Tuwake-de-Sondake:

Photos from 7th annual clickbrick Original Model Contest now online

Although winners of the 7th Original Model Contest (sponsored by Japanese LEGO specialty store clickbrick) won’t be announced until March 7, some great photos of the LEGO creations entered in the contest are now available.
Entrants are free to choose their own theme, but are restricted to 20×20 studs and 30 cm tall, and they can’t [...]

Cozy winter kimono

Moko’s latest hair technique gives me an excuse to post his beautiful girl in a kimono (something we haven’t featured before):

Via The Living Brick, Ochre Jelly’s new LEGO sculpture blog.

Samurai showdown

Paul Brassington prepares you to witness a showdown over the fate of the sacred dumpling. This creation warrants a detailed look at its construciton and accompanying humorous captions. Don’t miss it!

Back to the past with Samurai Jack

For those who have seen the cartoon Samurai Jack, you’ll recognize the infamous Aku built by ImpreSariO.

First LEGOLAND Park in East Asia announced [News]

LEGO announces East Asia’s first LEGOLAND Park to be built in Iskandar Malaysia:
Johor Bahru, 13 December 2008 – Iskandar Investment Berhad (“IIB”) today signed a landmark agreement with Merlin Entertainments (“Merlin”), the world’s second largest visitor attraction operator, to build East Asia’s first LEGOLAND Park in Iskandar Malaysia.
This exciting RM750m joint venture – LEGOLAND Malaysia [...]

Ancient Japan

Chrispockster’s scene of ancient Japan has a ton of interesting building techniques and cool minifigures to look at. I like the vines on the trees and the broken stone steps leading up to the torii gate.

だるま (Daruma)

Like his recent test pattern, Nelson Yrizarry has been taking a break from the minifig-scale creations he’s known for, to build LEGO on a more sculptural scale.

Daruma are Japanese dolls most often used to make a wish or keep oneself focused on a goal. You paint one eye when you make the wish or start [...]

Korean TV show scenes recreated in LEGO by edulyoung

We’ve featured Brickshelfer edulyoung several times here on The Brothers Brick, often for rather complicated, large-scale sculptures.
This time, I’m highlighting edulyoung’s LEGO creations for their beautiful simplicity:

Somewhere between minifig and miniland scale, edulyoung’s characters are truly unique. The woman’s costume deserves a closer look:

Based on the striped sleeves (and the text in the instructions), I’m [...]

And then there was one…

Andrew Lee was inspired to create this pair of miniland samurai by a T-shirt he saw at Comic-Con earlier this summer:

Peter summarizes my reaction to this scene rather nicely:
This reminds me of those awesome and cliche’d scenes in anime where they dash at each other with swords, run right by in silhouette and stand a [...]

Celebrating GO MINIMAN GO – “30 Years: The Story of the Minifigure”

David Pagano, Nate Burr and myself were all recently asked by the LEGO Company to make a brickfilm to celebrate the LEGO minifigure’s 30th birthday.  This is my contribution, 30 Years: The Story of the Minifigure.  How many historical figures/events can you name?
 
Don’t forget to check out GOMINIMANGO.com for more videos and a contest (details coming soon [...]

Welcome to Nepal

Jordan Schwartz (Sir Nadroj) gives us a slice of South Asian culture with a scene of Nepal. He’s been working at it for the past few weeks and there are a number of interesting techniques to see. Direct your attention to the bridge, the flowing river, and the building interior, precariously nested on top of [...]

Rocko depicts Falun Gong organ-harvesting in LEGO

The recent Beijing Olympics — and NBC’s coverage of them here in the U.S. — painted a picture of the People’s Republic of China as a veritable utopia of modernism in harmonious balance with ancient tradition.
In this vignette depicting alleged organ-harvesting of Falun Gong detainees, Rocko suggests that the truth may not be so pleasant:

You [...]