It seems that most of the buses we blog are variants of the iconic London Bus (the Routemaster). Today I’d like to introduce you to the more modern buses seen in Europe. Both make excellent use of the new windscreen piece.
This bus by Nieks (mrbrick) runs in Breda, the Netherlands.
While this one by MasterChief1 is a common site in many English towns and cities. I do have to send the purists a warning that there is some use of double sided tape here.
BrickArms just posted new transparent weapons packs on their site. The packs are available in red, blue, green and clear. You get 34 for $25. I saw the transparent weapons flying of their table at BrickCon, so I would expect these to go fairly quickly.
According to BrickArms spokesman, the ever enigmatic badger, these are color matched to LEGO’s transparent pieces.
Edit: I’ve just been told that they added Chrome Weapons Packs yesterday. The chrome weapons are very sweet. I picked up a couple at BrickCon.
For those of who may not have heard, a referendum passed in Switzerland that banned the construction of minarets on mosques. Because, you know, apparently a minaret poses an existential threat to Western Civilization, while upending a tradition of cosmopolitanism is really what you want to go for. This is all Erik Smit (.eti) and I have to say to that:
James Shields traveled all the way from Ireland to Manchester in order to audition for a master builder spot at the new LEGOLAND Discovery Center there. We announced the auditions last week, and James went to check it out. He’s posted photos for everyone, and graciously agreed to this interview about the process.
TBB: Thanks for telling us about your experiences in Manchester, James. Let’s get started: Was this an all-day affair?
JS: Yes, it ran from about 10am until nearly 5pm.
TBB: Did they give you a building challenge? If so, what was it?
JS: There were two building challenges. For the first round we had 15 minutes to build an animal of our choice. This sounds easy,. but 15 minutes disappears incredibly quickly. I built a polar bear (though it started out intending to be a gorilla). About half of the candidates got through to the second challenge, which was to build a face. Again, it was up to us what face we wanted to build, and what techniques we wanted to use. I went for the fantasy author Terry Pratchett because I’m a fan of his work, and I thought he looked distinctive. Again an hour is very tight for this, so I concentrated on the centre of the face, with a view to expanding it if there was time left over. I built upwards, using sculpting techniques, and was quite pleased with the result, although I only got from the lips to the forehead (it would have been nice to include the beard and Terry’s distinctive hat). There were some excellent builds, and I wouldn’t have liked to be judging, but I was very pleased to get through to the final four and the interview stage.
TBB: Were there a lot of other AFOLs there trying for the job? What about non-AFOLs?
JS: Most of the participants were AFOLs to some degree, and there were clearly some very talented builders. However, one of the finalists hadn’t touched a brick in ten years – he said that Lego had inspired him to become a professional modelmaker using other materials.
TBB: What did the non-AFOLs think of the hobby, assuming they were aware of it?
JS: The one I spoke to said he was seriously thinking of unpacking his old Lego collection.
TBB: Do you think that being an active LEGO hobbiest helped you out in this process, or was that not a factor in what they were looking for?
JS: Definitely. I think the biggest factor was the skills I’ve developed over the last few years. In the interview stage I also stressed AFOL activities I’ve been involved in and how they are (hopefully) relevant to the position.
TBB: The big question for me, was it fun?
JS: Yes, I thoroughly enjoyed the whole day, especially the building challenges.
TBB: Is there anything else you’d like to add about the process?
JS: A major part of the event was to win publicity for the LDC, so everything was under the scrutiny of cameras, and we were all interviewed to camera several times during the day. It was made clear that PR was part of the modelmaker’s role, and as a result they wanted someone who can handle it.
One of my favorite holiday traditions in the LEGO fan community is MisaQa‘s annual Advent Calendar, taking us day by day from December 1st through Christmas Eve. This year, she’s presenting a new microscale building each day.
Keep an eye on the Flickr photoset or MisaQa’s website, STUD & TUBE.
The LEGOLAND Windsor website released the following image in a survey recently, depicting what is apparently a collection of minifigs that may be released next summer, starting around June 2010.
The collection appears to include the following 16 figures:
(At this point, I think there’s enough corroborating evidence to report this as fact. I’ll save the analysis for another day. Via Brickset.)
Well, the scarcity of good LEGO deals on Black Friday seem to be no indication of the good deals afterward. Toys R Us is having a Buy 1, Get One Half Off All LEGO Sets sale through December 5.
Moritz Nolting (nolnet) beat me to it, but I don’t begrudge him this awesome Unimog.
What makes Moritz’s Unimog extra-cool is the extra ground clearance he achieved by building the chassis studs-down.
We weren’t especially impressed with the selection of Black Friday deals on LEGO last week, but Amazon.com is making up for it a bit with some pretty good deals on LEGO today, “Cyber Monday” (when many people buy online for the holidays).
Overall, there’s 20% off select LEGO
Head on over to Amazon.com
I believe that the best builders are always trying out new techniques and new styles. For my latest creation, I tried to really push myself to do something new, and ended up well outside of my comfort zone.
I’ve never really worked with orange before building this mecha. I’d also never used multiple ball joints to create a spine in a mecha before this attempt. In addition, this was an attempt at a style of mecha, based on existing art, that I’d never attempted before.
I haven’t made up my mind yet as to whether this was really a successful build, but I do know that it’s done. I’m really curious as to what people will think of it.
[Edit] I got some great suggestions to improve the Dragon Unit from a variety of sources. Thanks to an ample dosage of peer pressure from Andrew Lee, here’s the MK II version.
Martin is giving us a nice taste of micro scale space. His new Halog frigate has some cool features. I especially like the use of hinge bricks to create a surface texture, a technique I hadn’t seen before. I’m also keen on the launch bay (or whatever it is) on the front of the ship. The photos are are on Flickr, but there’s more description here.
