Monthly Archives: August 2012

Free shipping, 10228 Haunted House out, & free Monster Fighters mini-set [News]

The LEGO Shop online kicks off September with free shipping in the US,icon UK,icon and Canadaicon on all orders over $75/£50, with a free Monster Fighters mini-set thrown in to sweeten the deal.

LEGO’s latest exclusive set, Monster Fighters 10228 Haunted House, has also just been released.

The set comes with six minifigs, over two thousand parts, and enough zombie heads to build a horde.

Here’s a look at the freebie, which actually looks like it has some pretty nice pieces in it (including another zombie):

Monster Fighters freebie set

As Ace over at FBTB rightly guessed, LEGO has also been kind enough to create a page for The Brothers Brick on the Shop@Home website. We’ll be filling it up with the sets we recommend shortly, but in the meantime you can click through from here to get your free shipping and free set:

Important: If you’d like to help support The Brothers Brick, we’d love it if you would bookmark this blog post and use it to click through to the US, UK, and Canadian Shop@Home websites. (Don’t bookmark the pages I linked to above. Oddly, LEGO’s systems won’t know where you came from and 3% of your purchase won’t go toward helping us pay the bills. Ah, software…)

FREE Shipping on all LEGO Shop orders of $75 or more! Valid through 9.21.12

Ralph’s B-52H Stratofortress is one gorgeous, Big Ugly Fat Fellow

Ralph Savelsberg (Mad physicist) takes his military aircraft in a massive direction with this gargantuan B-52 bomber. Ralph writes, “At 170 studs in length and with a span of approximately 196 studs this is the largest single model I have ever built.”

B-52H Stratofortress (1)

I’m headed back over to his photoset to finish looking at the pictures…

Waggly waggly fishy fish

Fish

Tyler Clites (Legohaulic) has been fairly quiet lately (relatively speaking) so I was happy to notice this unusual fish sculpture in my photostream. I was then very excited to notice that it waggles. Too cool.

Waggly LEGO fish

Can someone please get that goat off the road!

I think the reason that Maschinen Krieger is such a fantastic genre to build in, is the fact that it combines so many different styles within it’s design aesthetic. Many military builders out there will tell you that WWII era SAS & LRDG had some of the coolest kit. These guys had only themselves to rely on and as a result had to take everything but the kitchen sink with them. One Ma.K unit in particular that hearkens back to this style is the Sandstalker.

I have always been extremely envious of the amount of detail that actual Ma.K model builders can get in their models, so in an attempt to get a fraction of that amount of detail I decided to try my hand at a Sandstalker. I figured it was a perfect blank canvas to strap a bunch of junk to…

Sdh.224LR Sandstalker

Please feel free to check out the Photo Set

And for those interested…Ma.Ktoberfest is fast approaching, stay tuned for further details

BrickForge releases accessories inspired by a distant galaxy

BrickForge has just released a batch of new custom accessories perfect for bounty hunters and scoundrels alike.

BrickForge accessories

They kindly sent me a batch of their latest custom accessories — a pleasant surprise in my mailbox this afternoon. I haven’t been doing too much minifig-building this past year, so I can’t necessarily promise a review before BrickCon (too busy building other stuff), but it’s obvious these are well-designed pieces that take BrickForge in an interesting new direction.

Check out the full line on BrickForge.com.

Amazon.com discounts LEGO Lord of the Rings sets

Adding to the LEGO Star Wars sets that are 30% off, Amazon.com has just discounted most of the LEGO Lord of the Rings line as well.

Here’s the list:

Some of the discounts have dropped or ended since I got Amazon’s email this morning, so this one might not last as long as the Star Wars sets.

And unfortunately, these may only be available to our US readers. (We’ll have something cool for people in more places in a couple of days.)

Funny LEGO LOTR stop motion shows orcs’ true nature

BrotherhoodWorkshop has created a funny little stop-motion video that proves we might have a lot to learn about orcs.

The Wolverine Will Take You Down

Well, here’s a sweet mech. The Wolverine by flickr user TheBricks has a crazy muscled look, and sports not only a giant gun (naturally), but also some crazy claws of doom.

WOLVERINE

A Few Mini Ports

Here’s a trio of excellent microscale creations by flickr user Commander Hawk. He’s nailed the art of using just enough detail to evoke the shape. Be sure to check out his photostream, too, as it’s full of other great microscale stuff.

Microscale scenes

RIP Neil Armstrong (1930-2012), first man on the moon

Three days ago, astronaut Neil Armstrong died of complications after heart surgery. For a blog full of space-themed LEGO models (and recently obsessed with NASA’s latest adventures on Mars), it would be wrong to ignore this major news story. Neil Armstrong’s achievements, alongside all the other astronauts and cosmonauts of the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, and today, have inspired many of our contributors and the builders we highlight here every day.

McWii of customBRICKS posted this a couple weeks ago to honor the anniversary of the moon landing in July. It’s only fitting that we highlight it here to honor the man who left so many footprints like this one on the moon (though the famous photograph is actually one of Buzz Aldrin’s footprints).

Lego Astronaut Footprint

5 LEGO CUUSOO projects that need your support by Sep 3

We’re just a few days away from September 3rd, the date that kicks off the autumn review period on LEGO CUUSOO. It’s not really a deadline, as such — projects that don’t hit 10,000 supporters can continue earning supporters and get into a future review cycle — but there are a handful of projects that have enough supporters that we want to give them an extra nudge to see if they can hit 10K within the next week.

At the top of my personal list (and currently the most supported project in this post at 6,552 supporters) stands Peter Reid‘s hardsuit. It’s every kind of awesome, and deserves a chance to be made into an awesome LEGO set.

LEGO hardsuit by Pete Reid on CUUSOO

Since we first posted about his British bird series back in May, DeTomaso Pantera has not only created a project for them on CUUSOO, earning 3,213 supporters as of today, but also delved into tropical birds. They’re lovely, and deserve even more love from each and every one of you.

LEGO birds on LEGO CUUSOO

Any list with gorgeous LEGO birds wouldn’t be complete without this adorable red squirrel by Arjen Vuurzoon. This excellent and naturalistic model deserves many more than the 1,226 supporters it has today.

LEGO red squirrel on LEGO CUUSOO

Chris blogged Jason‘s customizable labyrinth maze game back in April, but like DeTomaso’s birds above, Jason created the LEGO CUUSOO project soon afterward, and he’s earned 2,205 supporters since then. This is an excellent, well-planned design with a lot of play possibilities, and deserves 7,795 more supporters.

LEGO labyrinth marble maze on LEGO CUUSOO

My admiration of Masao Hidaka‘s pianos goes back to the very earliest days of this blog. Masao’s LEGO CUUSOO project, currently with 2,725 supporters, proposes famous composers with appropriate keyboard instruments — and that’s music to my ears!

LEGO composers on LEGO CUUSOO

If you’re still here and not off clicking the big green Support button over on CUUSOO, I may as well explain a bit more how I see The Brothers Brick supporting LEGO CUUSOO projects in the future.

As I explained in our anniversary post last month, I’m really only interested in seeing The Brothers Brick support CUUSOO projects that have a realistic likelihood that LEGO will approve. Everything else is a waste of energy.

Just for a bit of additional clarity, here are the kinds of projects that we won’t be supporting here on the blog (so, seriously, please don’t ask):

  • Sets that LEGO already has a license for, like Star Wars and Batman
  • Ideas based on M-rated video games, R-rated movies, or “TV-MA” shows
  • Pointlessly obscure pop culture references
  • Set and theme ideas for which one of LEGO’s competitors already has the building toy license (K’Nex has Nintendo, Mega Bloks has Halo & World of WarCraft, and so on)
  • For that matter, pretty much any set or theme that would require a new license, whether it’s a specific make of car, the mascot of a mobile phone operating system, or a fruit-themed computer company…
  • Projects without global appeal (pretty much everything in the bullets above)
  • Gargantuan ideas — sorry, Nannan! :-P

Even though we’re going to be a bit less stringent about this next guideline here at TBB, LEGO has said that CUUSOO is about proposing specific sets, not broad themes. Proposed themes with great primary models (or many to choose from, like the birds) may indeed have something from among the project’s models made into a set, and we’re happy to highlight the idea, but we’ll be doing so with the clear understanding that we’re supporting (and asking our readers to support) a model/set, not a theme idea.

Again, what are you still doing here?! Head on over to LEGO CUUSOO to support these — and many other — deserving projects.

Wouldn’t want to be attacked by a horde of these!

Oh wait that was the Mongols wasn’t it??

Regardless, if a group of these Mongrels came stomping into town I would surely be headed for the hills!

Once again, m_o_n_k_e_y proves that he is a master at building large scale mecha with an absurd amount of detail. This thing looks like the mechanics are fully functional. And that colouring is just so fantastic!

MDI05_Mongrel

MDI05_Mongrel