Yearly Archives: 2011

Just click to donate to Toys for Tots – and win fabulous prizes!

LEGO is running a charity toy drive this year at LEGOSantaYoda.com. All you have to do is send an e-greeting and LEGO will donate a toy to Toys for Tots. You can send as many e-cards as you want, and LEGO donate a toy for every message you send.

To make things less annoying for your friends and relations, our compatriots over at FBTB have set up a special e-mail account where you can send the messages.

LEGO Santa Yoda

Here’s how it works:

  1. Go to LEGOSantaYoda.com
  2. Select a greeting card.
  3. Fill in the form with your name and email address. Enter FBTB for recipient and giveaways@fbtb.net as the address. Enter a message of “For the Tots!”
  4. Hit send.
  5. Hit the back button on your browser.
  6. The information you entered should still be there. Hit send again!
  7. Go to step 5

FBTB assures us that every message will be opened so that it counts, and LEGO says that they’ll honor every message sent to this FBTB address. I’d love to see the LEGO fan community get together and collectively enable a million donated toys this holiday season!

But wait, there’s more! LEGO fan sites are also putting up fabulous prizes, not least of which is every single promotional LEGO Star Wars minifigure ever released (donated by FBTB).

Prize for Donations

Oh yes, you read that right. So, what’re you waiting for? Get clicking!

LEGO Steampunk Rock and Roll Contest – floating rocks & steamy rails [News]

Steampunk impresario Guy Himber is hosting the “Steampunk Rock and Roll” contest, with categories for floating rocks and steampunk trains.

LEGO Steampunk Rock and Roll Competition!

There are lots of prizes to be won:

Fantastic Prizes to be WON!

The contest is already underway, and runs through January 8 — plenty of time to build with all that holiday LEGO loot!

Check out the announcement thread on Flickr for details, and watch the entry thread as the LEGO steampunk models *ahem* roll in.

A cuter scooter

Karwik is no stranger to two-wheel creations but I think these latest scooters are some of his cutest. The use of the hollow 1×2 slope brick is the cleverness that makes these work.

Scooters

Shadow prowler

Ralph Savelsberg (Mad Physicist) has packed in the action on his latest iteration of the EA-6B Prowler of VAQ-141 Shadowhawks. I’m especially keen on the opening brick built cockpits but the rest of Ralph’s impressive bag of tricks are all on show.

EA-6B Prowler of VAQ-141 Shadowhawks (5)

Spaceship Bistouri

Legodrome‘s 190-stud long Bistouri spaceship comes from the Metabaron comics. Did I mention that it’s 5 feet long? The size of the ship is deceptive due to the large triangular fins that could be easily replicated on a smaller scale. The brick-built skull design from a close-up view should convince you of the true size of the model.

Bistouri

Mirage in the desert...

Or possibly just war machines in camouflage. The hardsuit in this crack team of desert warriors is a true beauty. And much more to scale with minifigs than most I’ve seen. Thanks Chris (Ironsniper) for this compact delight.

NRGJ Desert Landmate and troops

Lego Oscar Mayer Wienermobile

Bruce Lowell uses the Lowell sphere design he invented 10 years ago to complete the creation that the technique was originally intended for.

Oh I Wish I Were an Oscar Mayer Wiener!

Seravee heavy mecha

Until today I was unfamiliar with the LEGO mecha made by G P (gdido2k10), but I hope to remedy this soon by checking out his back catalogue. His GN-008 Seravee Gundam is a highly impressive creation and great rendition of the original.

Seravee

Novvember 2011 Vic Viper map

Novvember is the month of the Vic Viper, and the tradition lives even stronger than the previous year. Here is the fighter map by Pascal of the 255 Vic Vipers by 135 builders.

Nnovvember 2011

LEGO LUGBULK program for 2012 now open [News]

The LEGO Group created the LUGBULK program a couple of years ago to enable LEGO clubs and LUGs to purchase LEGO for use in collaborative displays. It’s a great opportunity to purchase large quantities of LEGO at much lower cost than Pick-a-Brick or BrickLink.

Here are the basic rules:

  • The LUG need min. 10 members (please tell us the member figure of your LUG)
  • The LUG need to feature at least 2 public displays a year (always the events from the previous year count so please send dates and links to pictures of your 2 biggest public events from 2011)
  • The LUG need to exist for at least 1 year (please tell us [TLG, not TBB. -ed] the founding date)
  • The LUG need to have an official website (please send us the link – Facebook, flicker or other social media WEB sites will not be accepted)
  • The LUG need to have at least a 1 page description of the LUG and the activities on the website (please send us the link to that page)
  • Send the Master Data Sheet and the list that you fulfill the above mentioned requirements to the LEGO LUGBULK Team at lugbulk@LEGO.com no later than the 15th of January 2012 (The required information need to be send by every LUG whether the LUG has already participated before in the program or not!)

Full details (including the templates mentioned above) should already have been distributed within your LUG, but if not, leave a comment here and we can send them to you, or you can contact TLG at the e-mail address above.

Christmas gets off to a LEGO start with 38-foot tree at St. Pancras in London

LEGO Certified Professional Duncan Titmarsh of Bright Bricks (who was also involved in building James May’s LEGO house) recently led a project to create what is likely the world’s tallest LEGO Christmas tree at London’s St. Pancras train station.

LEGO Christmas tree

Standing 38 feet (12 m) tall and built from 600,000 bricks, you can see the tree in person on the lower concourse at St. Pancras through January 2.

Thanks to all the readers who sent us links about this.

Update: Lots more pictures on The Verge.

The Emperor’s Christmas Arrival

Mos Eisley used Star Wars minifigures to create this Christmas version of the Emperor’s arrival. Can you identify all the minifigs used, including the chrome stormtroopers?

Via FBTB