Do you need a new bandwagon? I thought so. The Castle community isn’t known for fads. They just don’t happen very often, but this one has taken off and it cracks me up.
The idea is to build a scene with a footprint of one stud. It has to balance…that’s the key. Naturally everything built so far is Castle-related and a battle, but the idea can work with any theme or scene.
This scene, by Dan Joosten, currently holds the record for most figs on one stud, with 55.
BrickForge, the custom minifig accessories shop, has five new colors available including yellow, dark green, purple, transparent green, and dark bluish gray (dark bley). This means that now you can now get your custom items in a total of 20 colors! In addition, several colors have been restocked including the coveted chrome silver.
In addition, BrickForge has announced the release of 12 new products at BrickWorld. If you can’t make it to the convention, we’ll bring you a first look at these new items!
Is it a train? Is it a mecha? Yes.
According to Adrian Florea (Olog), this bipedal mecha with wheels on its feet can fit “any gauge and any track, from your grandma’s 4.5V to RC tracks.”
Is it a helicopter? Is it a mecha? Yes.
Not new, it would seem, but this heli-mecha by Matt S. (Plastic Matt) is very cool. The ammo chain uses a string and a bunch of Technic half-pins, and the legs/landing gear fold down.
Although LEGO Battles for Nintendo DS was announced back in February, details so far have been sparse.
Kotaku had a five-minute look at the game yesterday and has some pre-release impressions.
Stephen Totilo writes:
In traditional RTS fashion, the player draws a box around their Lego units and clicks on places for them to move to or attack. A pull-down menu enables the player to build to build appropriately-themed Lego structures: towers and factories and the like. There was no drag-and-drop Lego construction, but manual block-building hasn’t been much of a component of any of the recent Lego games.
Our speculation back in February that the images we had then were pre-rendered cutscenes and not real game-play turns out to be true. Oh well, not surprising.
LEGO Battles will be available in June.
You know it’s true.
legomocs combines LEGO elements in a fairly simple way to achieve perfect brick-built phasers and a tricorder. Combined with the red and yellow torsos, these minifigs are instantly recognizable.
Jamie said it best: “Normally they look too plain, but it’s amazing how nice black pants and a few accessories can make blank torsos look.”
LEGO stop-motion animator David Pagano has stepped forward as one of the people behind the recent LEGO Space Police teaser.
Check out the first episode in what is apparently going to be a series.
And yes, we know that the new sets are starting to show up at TRU.
Artist Jason Freeny amazed us last year with his detailed minifig anatomy schematic, suggesting that minifigs are just regular humans inside their plastic skins. Turning that idea inside out, Jason’s latest piece — “What you’re made of” — suggests that we all have a brick somewhere inside all of us who consider ourselves LEGO fans.
For all you LEGO train builders attending the NMRA National Train Show this summer, here’s some pretty cool news:
As part of the National Train Show on July 10-12, 2009 in Hartford, CT, Jamie Berard, set designer of the newly released ‘Emerald Night’ and employee of The LEGO Group (TLG), will participate as part of the show. Jamie will be giving a talk on both July 11 and 12 (Sat. and Sun.) about the design process and thinking that led up to the final ‘Emerald Night’ set, and about the Power functions components that support it. Fans are encouraged to participate to offer their views on the new platform. Jamie will also be available during the show for any questions you may have about his other excellent creations – Fast Flyer, Cafe Corner, Cool Convertible and Green Grocer.
Also as part of this year’s show, Steve Witt, LEGO Community Relations Coordinator for North America, has graciously offered to host the traditional ILTCO pizza party at LEGO corporate headquarters in Enfield, CT after the show on Sat. July 11. Along with pizza and hanging out with Steve, Jamie and some of the LEGO Master Builders from Enfield, other events such as tours of the model shop and parts of the campus will occur. All train show participants are invited to attend.
To contribute to the layout please post to the Trains-n-Town NMRA 2009 forums at:
http://www.trains-n-town.com/forum/index.php?forum=34
Information about the National Train Show can be found at:
http://www.nationaltrainshow.org/2009/hartford.html
Photo above, from last year’s NMRA show, by Peter Norman. See more photos of LEGO models at NMRA on Flickr.
Very few people render castle models and even fewer do it well. Aellaron is a rare and exciting exception. He even manages to put good minifig life in his scenes which is, from my experience, quite difficult.
Jesus, Tim, do you have some sort of contractual obligation to jump on every bandwagon that comes down the pike?
Copywriting by Leigh Holcombe (worker201), model by me.
