The Brothers Brick

Yungang Grottoes are a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Datong, China. Tiger0207 presents a scene of a Buddhist monk meditating in one of the caves:

Via VignetteBricks.

Having lived there for 15 years, I can attest to that. But Moko scales his house down to microscale:

(Via Klocki.)

Nicholas Foo is a LEGO Certified Professional in Singapore who uses the trade name “blackbulb creations.” His creations on Brickshelf have always caught my eye (link):

His latest project is a large retro rocket:

Nicholas’ rocket is a central component of a massive “Great Ball Contraption” assembled by LEGO fans in Singapore. Here are a couple pictures [...]

Moko shows off some armor:

Nice reflection.

The University of Tokyo LEGO club has been working on a large-scale version of a campus landmark, the clock tower, and they’ve just announced that it is now complete:

(Via Edge over at レゴ系.)

I know my brother’s going to resent me for saying this, but first-born children tend to get all the photographic attention — at least until the second kid comes along. The first five years of my life were meticulously photographed by my mom and dad, including a handful of photos documenting my early love of [...]

Toys R Us in Japan is sponsoring an Exo-Force Mashup Contest that challenges builders to combine any two Exo-Force sets into a new mecha. The two example mashups should be familiar to TBB readers — Van-Force and Naoe-Force. Several Japanese builders have already contributed entries.
Kwi-Chang gets things going with a mashup between 7700 Stealth Hunter [...]

Excitement about 10182 Cafe Corner has been building in Japan ever since it was announced that a new specialty store called Toys R Us Select will be carrying this set. As Japanese fans start to get their hands on what some are calling the best LEGO set ever, it has started showing up on [...]

Jumpei Mitsui and Sachiko Akinaga have earned international reputations through their participation in the LEGO King Championship TV show. More importantly, they’re both well-known for their great building skills, as Jumpei demonstrates with his recreation of Kinkaku-ji, the “Golden Pavilian” in Kyoto, Japan:

(I think Hippotam over at Klocki has a time machine.)

Japanese hobby magazine Figure King has featured alternate models for Exo-Force sets ever since the theme was first released in Japan, and the alternate models have been fairly popular with Japanese LEGO fans (at least the ones with blogs I read).
Anime director Shoji Kawamori has designed two “Van-Force” models, which you can read about and [...]

No, not the verb, the ancient Asian game. Go is too complicated to explain in a blog post about a vignette, so you can read about it on Wikipedia.
Brickshelfer T-Brick distills the game down to an 8×8 base:

(Via VignetteBricks.)

To celebrate the upcoming Girls’ Day festival in Japan, mumu’s wife has created a cool little vignette:

Read more about Girls’ Day, or the Hinamatsuri holiday, in the first post about it here on The Brothers Brick (well, actually Pan-Pacific Bricks) last year.

I don’t think very many people will disagree with me when I say that Squieu is one of the greatest mecha builders around. He recently uploaded pictures of more than a dozen new mecha, but this one in particular caught my eye — an awesome suit of power armor:

Yokozuna are the highest-ranked class of sumo [...]

Brickshelfer HIEN has updated one of his many World War II aircraft, the Nakajima Ki-44 (Wikipedia link). Named “Shoki” by the Japanese Army Air Force and “Tojo” by the Allies, the aircraft was used to intercept B-29 bombers:

Martin Jaspers’ continues his castle characters with two great new figs.
The strongest man in town:

An elite warrior from Asia:

Classic-Castler Enryu recently posted two vignettes inspired by Japanese history.
Here’s “Dappan” (more info in Enryu’s C-C post):

And here’s “Tachioujou” (C-C post):

Back on the old blog, I posted a couple times about a series of TV episodes in Japan called “LEGO King Championship.” You can read more about the show here, and see a YouTube video here. Unfortunately, the images I linked to in my original post quickly expired, and the YouTube footage doesn’t do justice [...]

I can’t count the number of Shinto shrines I visited growing up in Japan. I visited plenty of shrines in big cities like Tokyo and Kyoto, but my favorites were always the small shrines tucked into a grove deep in a forest or perched atop a tall hill. No matter what one’s religious alignment, [...]

Japanese builder dellta presents a very large warrior on horseback:

(Click for gallery on Brickshelf, when public.)

Yeah yeah, I already posted a roundup of LEGO creations inspired by Japanese new year’s celebrations, but Soren kindly pointed out an important masterpiece I missed. Without further ado, I give you “Wild Boar Girl” by mizuki:

Have a great 2007, everybody!

As I predicted in a recent post, New Years Day in Japan has brought a spate of timely LEGO creations, including many inspired by the Year of the Boar.
First up, a boar ATV by Izzo:

Next, a new years card (or nengajyou) from mumu and his wife:

Here’s another new years card from Ayucow over at Bacalogue [...]

2007 will be the Year of the Boar. Of course, tigers eat boars for breakfast, so I’m thinkin’ it’ll be a good year.
As I explained on New Years Day 2006, Japanese homes begin to fill up with new years cards — called nengajyou — this time of year.
I assume we’ll see lots of boar-themed LEGO [...]

Sachiko Akinaga is a champion builder who lives in Japan. My favorite creation from her latest batch of updates is a McDonald’s value meal:

Check out what happens when some minifigs come along and spill the Coca-Cola:

Chinese inventor Su Song (1020-1101) invented a water clock that Brickshelfer oldhamk has faithfully recreated in LEGO:

oldhamk has included lots of great details, from the armillary sphere (or astrolabe) and other astronomical instruments on the top to the working gears inside. Click the picture above to watch two movies of the water clock in motion.

Add [...]

For the past five years, LEGO specialty store Click Brick in the Odaiba shopping district of Tokyo has held an “Original Model Contest.” (Via mumu’s I Love Cute LEGO and VignetteBricks.)
You can view all of the entries in Sachiko Akinaga’s Brickshelf gallery, but Edge informs us that the winners have been announced. Here they are:
HIRO’s [...]