The interesting colors that I found in these sets are medium azure, medium lavender, bright pink, and light aqua (when adjectives are used on colors that don’t come in a Crayola 8-pack, you know it’s a treat for the palette). Although previous LEGO themes for girls included unique colors, they were wasted on useless parts such as large castle turrets and giant facades. Fortunately, LEGO learned from their mistake and concluded that girls are no less competent than boys at using standard LEGO elements. As a result, LEGO Friends includes the usual mix of LEGO parts like bricks, tiles, and cheese slopes in glorious psychedelic colors.

While the new colors are certainly exciting, the same cannot be said for the figures. These anorexic Barbie counterparts may be tolerated by their target audience, but LEGO fans who value the modularity of the traditional minifig will be disappointed to see that only the hairpieces on the new figures are compatible with the minifig. LEGO has proven that they can make excellent female minifigs, and I don’t think fans (both kids and adults) will be disappointed in having regular minifigs in these sets.

If you’re a connoisseur of exotic colors and eager to try new color schemes, then Friends is the best thing to have happened to LEGO in years. Even the price per parts ratio on these sets is decently low and won’t break your wallet. The only question remains on what to do with those dismal doll-things. Reply on what you would do with the Friends figures and The Brothers Brick will send all of mine to the person with the most creative comment. Stay tuned for more reviews of the line.

UPDATE: the winning comment comes from lady_brickster, who says: “well, once i’d taken away their hairstyles, i guess i would create an island of bald amazonian women.”

I’m a big fan of tilt-rotors, though I hear this is properly called a tilt-wing. Either way, the tilting adds a fun little activity, when swooshing this thing around.

This display was only complete for a couple of days during BrickFair, and the components have since retired to our separate homes. Hopefully, the diorama is as fun to look at as it was to build. We tried to add enough details and action to keep kids entertained when viewing the display, because their reactions make it worthwhile.

Like our previous collaboration, Containment, Oasis also features lights, motion, and music. Enjoy the video.

By the way, this was built for Forbidden Cove’s June Seedpart Contest.

Three years ago, I ended up entering sort of a building hiatus. I still talked about LEGO, and bought sets, and attended events, but I couldn’t build. Most of my collection had ended up in storage. Circumstances, such as they are, have changed rather drastically, and now me and my collection have been reunited.

So, I present The Tomb of the Beloved.

The parallel between the Ruins of Mourning and the Tomb of the Beloved weren’t planned, but I think the metaphor fits rather nicely.

More photos (including WIP shots) can be found in the Flickr gallery.

I built this to compliment the other creations that I’d already built for the theme. I’ve uploaded my initial sketch of the design, and hopefully, you can see a bit of my creative process. I tried to incorporate some of the details I used in the wheeled tank I built for this theme, including a similar front and headlight configuration, and beveled top. I also tried to add some APC functionality, like hatches, and a removable top (which I failed to photograph).

I imagine them recovering a prewar robot, and deciding to turn it into an inspirational tool, as well as a weapon. I also just thought that the idea of a robot Lincoln was hilarious, and once I thought of it, I had to build it. The name, of course, adds to the joke, Linear Neuralnet Cyborg 1 (LNC-1).