Monthly Archives: June 2009

Nannan Zhang: LEGO Ambassadors nomination bio and platform

This is the second of three posts about the LEGO Ambassadors nominated to represent you, the readership community of The Brothers Brick.

About Nannan

Nannan became involved with the online LEGO community in late 2004. He is now 20 and has been a builder for as long as he can remember. Nannan builds in a variety of themes that often overlap with the science fiction universe; other times they are purely made up ones. In addition to building, Nannan is familiar with blogging, collecting, and selling a small part of his collection to fund the hobby. In addition, he attends LEGO conventions throughout the year and participates in his local division of TexLug. His varied activities across multiple communities make him a knowledgeable and active fan when it comes to the brick.

Nannan’s Platform

The key characteristics of a LEGO Ambassador should be communication and visibility in the community. As a communicator who shares information with the company and the public, I will actively participate in both professional and fan-based communities. Such participation includes contributions to forum discussions, providing feedback to the Community Development Team, and spreading announcements. In addition, I will uphold my visibility to the public, which is important to the representational role that Ambassadors play. I plan to achieve this through displaying enthusiasm for the hobby in online and offline communities, sharing my creations, and attending LEGO conventions and local events.

Feel free to ask the nominee questions or leave comments of support on this post, but please don’t forget to actually vote!

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Tim Gould: LEGO Ambassadors nomination bio and platform

This is our third and last post about the potential LEGO Ambassadors nominated to represent you, the readership community of The Brothers Brick.

About Tim

Tim Gould has a relatively long and fairly varied history playing with LEGO bricks. As an adult he began his serious model building with virtual bricks (an interest he hopes to revive again) but has now expanded his interests to the real thing. With ‘theme’ interests beginning with trains and progressing through town, space, a bit of castle and dribs and drabs of other things, he has played around with many bricks in many different ways. He’s also fortunate enough to have worked on a couple of projects with the LEGO company including the 10183 hobby train set.

Tim’s Platform

As a long-time multiple hat wearer I’ve had a long history with dealing with varied communities. In fact, one of the things I enjoy most about The Brothers Brick is its broad appeal and broad spectrum of interests. My view of the LEGO Ambassadors program is as a facility for communication between AFOLs and TLG and I hope to leverage my history and interests to help that communication.

Ultimately I believe that the fans’ best interests are best served by a pragmatic dialogue and I feel I am able to deliver this dialogue.

Feel free to ask the nominee questions or leave comments of support on this post, but please don’t forget to actually vote!

Delightful fare at Christine’s café

Christine (nortyspawn) built this lovely cafe for a collaborative layout by the BLBDC.

Click the photo below for links to several more buildings I was going to blog until I found them in one conveniently awesome photo:

Dr. Hoodwink hides away in Chateau Remarqué

I’m not quite ready to call it a trend, but if it is, I like it. More and more builders we’ve become familiar with for a specific style are trying new things. The latest to post something completely unexpected is Alex Eylar (Profound Whatever).

Alex’s Chateau Remarqué is the superfortress for the supervillain Dr. Hoodwink. A conference room, monorail, and remote control with big red button are just a few of the essential details Alex included in this creation.

See more photos on MOCpages and Flickr.

The force was with LEGOLAND California

LEGO builders and Star Wars fans, including the San Diego LEGO User’s Group (SandLUG) and From Bricks to Bothans (FBTB) converged on LEGOLAND California last weekend (June 13 and 14) and set up several tables across from The Big Shop. This isn’t an effort at self-promotion, but more a desire to share a few of the great creations that I’m pretty sure the builders don’t have time to post online or the creations are just too cool to pass up.

In addition to Mark Borlase’s gigantic Hoth diorama (it tragically took a “humpty dumpty” on the way back to Las Vegas) has been featured on The Brothers Brick before, here are a few of the other notables:

Cooperatively built Sarlacc Pit by Andy Grubb (anderson.grubb) and Gary McIntire (MrGSnot). Check out my other photos which show Sarlacc’s stomach contents, perhaps the coolest feature. Yummy.

Probably the most coveted creation at the display, people were quite literally offering to buy this “Star Wars: A New Hope” chess set created by Brandon Griffith (icgetaway) right off the table, thinking it was an official set. That good. Playing with toys are (left to right) Ryan Wood (lights) and Andy Grubb.

SandLUG member Brian Heins built this Ronto that has such great coloration and was quite playable.

(Edit: misspelled Brian Heins’ name. Corrected.)

Blaster Yoda

Somebody (Andrew) stole my thunder and mentioned this in a comment to another post a week ago, but I decided this vignette by Ken Robichaud (buriedbybricks) is still just too cool not to have its own entry.

Eis kalt

Holger Matthes breaks some rail speed records with his amazing ICE 3. As one of the ‘fathers’ of SNOT techniques Holger is no stranger to rendering complicated designs but the techniques on this are mind-blowing.

Sean Kenney builds the John Hancock Center

Sean Kenney‘s recent creation is a 5.5 feet microscale rendition of the John Hancock Center in Chicago, featuring nearly 13,000 pieces. The model has also been glued, which must have contributed to a good portion of the 80 hours Sean spent working on the entire project. Check out the gallery for detail shots including the bustling scene at the plaza.

One Flower

Sometimes it’s just nice to step back from the world of LEGO-only builders and photographers and see the great inspiration that art photographers derive from the simplicity of bricks. I ran across this flower photographed by Daniel Y. Go about a month ago and have been looking for an excuse to feature it. Then I just decided this picture doesn’t need any excuses.

LEGO Star Wars Chrome/Silver Stormtrooper minifig to be available online and in stores [News]

Many of you may know that during the recent Star Wars Weekend in LEGOLand, CA, the park sold a seemingly exclusive chrome silver Stormtrooper magnet that many fans and collectors including me have went lengths to get the limited 2 per customer. Good news for everyone: it has been confirmed with LEGO that the silver Stormtroopers will be making their way to LEGO stores and online worldwide in the next week or two.

If you’re wondering, you get a normal minifig with all the detachable parts. The cost should not exceed $12.99, which is the price they were sold at LEGOLand.

Beetlebum

We usually don’t show photographs taken on grass or other busy surfaces but I’m making an exception for this beauty by Steven Locke (legoavon). Like his other work Steve has really gone all out in getting both the shape and the texture perfect. And it works so well.

Mark conjures monsters from the beyond

I’m glad to see an addition to Mark Stafford‘s Cthulego series, which as implied by the name is a mix of Lovecraft and LEGO. This scene depicts some agents trying to reclaim a stolen artifact and is thwarted by demons from the beyond. So Mark, what the hell are those pink fairy things?