ArzLan built his LEGO version of the Treasury for the Hong Kong Animation Festival, and features Indiana Jones in his Last Crusade visit to this UNESCO Heritage site.

However, another very cool result of that process was that TT Games recently sent us these two bricks as a “thank you” gift.

They are very awesome. According to TT Games, these two launch bricks are the only ones in the public domain. You will also be happy to learn that the bricks came with one stipulation. They have to be given away. To honor their request, we will be donating them as prizes in some future event. It hasn’t been decided what or when that will be, but it will be something special, as these are incredibly unusual pieces.

The five-foot-long diorama features dozens of awesome mini-scenes and techniques, including gunrunners, leaf springs on the locomotive, proper horseback riders’ legs, and lovely sand-green cacti. Check out the full photoset on Flickr.

Thanks for the tip, Austin!

Jeramy Spurgeon and the team have just released a double issue edition of RAILBRICKS magazine covering all things LEGO trains. It has in-depth articles on a few models we’ve featured here on TBB.

This 100 page issue was a long time coming, but features an interview with UK
builder Carl Greatrix, more Steam tips & Tricks, the Indiana Jones Circus
Train MOC by Brian Williams, Billund’s Miniland Trains, and much more!

Check out the website to download or read the magazine.

There is a lot to like in this creation, but oddly enough my two favorite things are the stanchions at the left, and the use of the different dark gray tiles to create the X on the floor, especially cool that he made it at the appropriate angle. I really appreciate the variety of colors that show up now that I’m sorting my 25+ year accumulation of LEGO for the first time.

[Edited to fix some inaccuracies-Thanel]

First up, 10196 Grand Carousel incorporates Power Functions and plays music. The set is also the first to feature tan beards.

New LEGO Star Wars sets feature vehicles from the Clone Wars, including 8037 Anakin’s Y-Wing Starfighter and the Venator playset.

Other new LEGO Star Wars sets include:

• 7748 Corporate Alliance Tank Droid with a pair of Clone Troopers wearing jet packs.
• 8036 Separatist Shuttle with Nute Gunray and Onaconda Farr (Greedo!) minifigs.

The newest magnet sets make buying rare LEGO Star Wars minifigs affordable, including the LEGO® Star Wars™ 10th Anniversary Stormtrooper™ Magnet for $10. I call him “Chromy”.

The latest LEGO Indiana Jones sets take us back to the classic trilogy.

Finally, trolls and dwarves from the current LEGO Castle theme get their own Battle Packs.

And remember, by clicking through to the LEGO Shop online from The Brothers Brick, Brickset, Peeron, FBTB, or elsewhere, you’re helping to support the LEGO fan community and to keep these community sites running. Thanks for your support!

The top of the square part is excellent. Like LEGO sets of the 70′s and 80′s, the back is open and has a fully detailed interior (photos forthcoming, Chris promises).

Oh fine, here’s a chipmunk photo, too.

Due out this fall for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PSP, Windows, Wii, and Nintendo DS, the game is apparently going to include all of the content from the first LEGO Indiana Jones, along with new objectives, a new Crystal Skull section, and a level editor (a first among the current generation of LEGO games).

7195 Ambush in Cairo:

7196 Chauchilla Cemetery Battle:

7197 Venice Canal Chase:

7199 The Temple of Doom:

LEGOLAND® California Model Builder Helps “Mythbusters” Dispell Myth!

Popular Discovery Channel Show Highlights Family Theme Park in Upcoming Episode

CARLSBAD, Calif. (April 28, 2009) – “Mythbusters” reached out to a Master Model Builder at LEGOLAND® California to help dispel a myth regarding a giant LEGO® ball on an upcoming episode of the popular international show airing April 29, 2009 on the Discovery Channel.

“It was an honor to be included in the project,” said LEGOLAND Master Model Builder Gary McIntire. “I have always been a huge fan of the show so for them to come and ask for my help was really a proud moment in my career!”

Show hosts Kari Byron, Tory Belleci and Grant Imahara trekked down to Carlsbad, California from the show’s home base in San Francisco to use McIntire’s expertise on how to build a nearly 10-foot LEGO sphere.

The myth originated with a YouTube video in which Indiana Jones fans reenacted the famous boulder chase scene from “Raiders of the Lost Ark” with the “boulder” being made of five-million LEGO bricks. The boulder is rolled down a steep street in San Francisco, crashes into a car, and remains somewhat intact. The “Mythbusters” team set out to discover if a boulder of that size could really be made entirely of LEGO bricks and still roll so smoothly down a steep hill without breaking apart into millions of pieces. In order to debunk the myth, McIntire and 20 others worked on building the ball using nearly one million LEGO bricks over the course of nearly two weeks.

“We have more than 15,000 LEGO models here at LEGOLAND California,” said McIntire, “and this is by far the singularly largest creation I’ve ever helped to build!”

The “Mythbusters” team spent a day at LEGOLAND California researching models similar to the one they needed to build studying sphere shapes such as the head of the giant 17-foot-tall pharaoh in the Park’s newest area, Land of Adventure and the dome of the Griffith Observatory in Miniland U.S.A.

To discover the results, tune into the Discovery Channel April 29, 2009. Please consult your local TV guide for channel and times in your area.

I was hanging out with Gary this weekend (all this travel has been keeping me from blogging) and he’s really excited about this episode. He said to keep an eye out for a time-lapse video of his hands building the Mythbusters logo. I’ll definitely be tuning in tonight to watch.

LEGO Star Wars 10186 General Grievous™ is down to $30 from $90:

• 5587 LEGO® Basic Bricks with Fun Figures: The perfect gift for those friends and coworkers who constantly tell you, “It’s so hard to get LEGO sets without all those specialized parts these days!” ($10 down from $20.)
• 5598 Dino Valley: Perfect for all your meatpunk creations. ($20 down from $50.)
• 7646 ETX Alien Infiltrator and 7649 MT-201 Ultra-Drill Walker: Okay, so the Mars Mission sets weren’t perfect, but this is your chance to get some great minifigs (not the aliens), white, orange, and black elements on deep discount.

Sharks with frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads are $10 off in LEGO Agents 8633 Mission 4: Speedboat Rescue:

And don’t forget that there are some awesome new sets from the LEGO Shop, too. 10194 Emerald Night should be shipping soon, and 10195 Republic Dropship with AT-OT Walker is now available.

Check out all of the discounted LEGO sets now!

Brian Williams has built an amazing rendition of that train. Complete with a chase over a flatbed car. He’s made some excellent custom stickers to add the extra details specific to the movie as well. I just hope that there’s a lion and a whip inside there somewhere.

He’s also built some other great Indiana Jones creations, like the tank to the right, which are on his flickr account.

Although we’ve seen quite a few of the late 2009 LEGO sets from the earlier Canadian toy fair, there are still some surprises in store for LEGO fans.

The big news — particularly among LEGO Star Wars fans — seems to be the announcement of 10195 Republic Dropship with AT-OT Walker, here being shown off by Erik Varzegi:

Other major LEGO Star Wars news includes a playset of Admiral Ackbar’s Home One (the result of fan voting back in May 2008), with these minifigs:

Personally, I’m most excited about the new Space Police sets, including 5971 Gold Heist:

In other news, LEGO and Disney have announced a deal to release LEGO sets based on three Disney movies: Toy Story, Cars, and Prince of Persia. (What, no LEGO Wall-E?)

Check out more photos from Ace Kim, Mike Crowley, and Joe Meno.

There are a lot of photos to go through, so let us know if you see something particularly cool we should highlight.

In particular, I’m looking forward to FBTB’s upcoming coverage of Toy Fair New York! (Graphic by Mike.)

On a personal note, FBTB was the place where I first “de-lurked” and joined the online LEGO fan community, so the site will always hold a special place in my brick-built heart. It’s great to see the current admins taking the site in a fresh direction, and I look forward to spending more time on FBTB in the future.

All the good times on the old forums have been archived, so you can still go back and revisit the final zombie apocalypse, but head over now and register on the new FBTB Forums.