For those who weren’t at Brickworld two weeks ago, there are two walkthrough videos of the convention by Paul Vermeesch and Josh Hanlon. The video by Paul features two narrators, Max Pointner and Ian Spacek, in an edited coverage of the exhibit hall. The other video by Josh features himself and Matthew Kay as the commentators in an in-depth look at many of the creations on display. Sit back, grab a snack, and enjoy the best MOCs that Brickworld has to offer!
This stunning mosaic, by Adam Meyers (AKA getdamonkey), is real eye-candy. I love the technique of stacking different transparent colors in order to achieve colors that LEGO doesn’t make. It isn’t a technique that I have mastered myself but I do love it. The technique really makes this particular mosaic pop! Awesome job, Adam, simply awesome.
ChromeBricks is a longstanding Bricklink store that sells custom chromed Lego elements. I reviewed a sample of their products several years ago, and I recently received some of their new items for a review. Below is a video of the review along with a summary of pros and cons.
Pros:
Cons:
In conclusion, ChromeBricks offers top quality chrome elements for those with a budget for them. Their crimson red chrome is eye-catching and their unique two-toned weapons are outstanding. The tight connections between their chromed minifigure parts might diminish the play value, but I suspect most buyers will not subject them to heavy use.
Well boys and girls, there is a new super hero team in town. If you thought The Avengers or Justice League were cool, just take a look at The Brothers Brigade. Twelve super powered, super cool individuals from around the World (well, most of them are from the U.S., but they do have three token foreigners). They are fighting evil and taking names.
Full Character Bios:
Front Row (L-R)
Tripod, Gold Member, Mad Physicist
Second Row (L-R)
Artist, The Stud, El Capitan
Third Row (L-R)
The Surgeon, Archaeology, Knight Farmer
Back Row (L-R)
Justice of Space, Mr. Naked Train, Death Pixie
Seb Toutouille (spidertoutouille) has recreated the iconic 1930 painting “American Gothic” by Grant Wood using minifigs and a bit of forced perspective.
It’s not quite perfect — I think the farmer could’ve and should’ve held the pitchfork vertically — but it’s a lovely scene nevertheless.
This cemetery chapel scene by Nooreuyed is fairly simple, but shows what a good color palette (now available thanks to LEGO’s expanding cadre of earth tones) and a bit of competent building can do. He’s even got a pretty cool night scene.
Once every two years, the Danish Ferrari owners club have a meeting in LEGOLAND Billund. Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, the former LEGO CEO and current owner of the LEGO Group, may have something to do with this, as he is known to have a soft spot for these Italian beauties. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of his own cars were present. However, this blog is about LEGO rather than about cars. Fortunately, Stephan Sander, whose movie cars were a major inspiration for my own, combines a passion for the famous cars with the prancing horse with a passion for LEGO.
He was there displaying his impressive collection of LEGO Ferraris, photographed here in front of the LEGOLAND model of the Amalienborg Palace. The collection is built to the 1/20 scale used for LEGOLAND cars and includes models of classic Ferraris such as the ultra-rare 1962 GTO and 1970 Ferrari 365 GTB/4 LeMans. My favourite, however, is his model of the much newer 2009 Ferrari 458 Italia.
I love how he has painstakingly sculpted the vehicle’s extremely curvy shape by using clever combinations of half-stud offsets, curved bricks and slopes (and am more than a little jealous of his collection of rare trans clear elements).
A couple weeks ago, we featured a 4-foot-long Normandy SR2 by Ben Caukins, but if I’m doing my math correctly, this version of the same ship from Mass Effect by ktorrek is twice as long (96 inches, or more than 2.4 meters). He says that it took him 225 hours since February and uses about 15,000 parts.
ktorrek’s Normandy SR2 is to scale with the SR1 he posted a couple years ago — an impressive ship in its own right.
You don’t have to go to a theater to enjoy a movie, as Karwik shows with this lovely rounded truck from the days of black & white cinema.
Much more modern and colorful but no less impressive is Karwik’s Volvo F89 semi-trailer, with fantastic lettering on the cargo container:
Here’s a creative take on a tank by Luke (LukeClarenceVan). You don’t see white tanks every day, and especially not monotracked ones. I particularly love the way the armor sits all the way down on the sides, and all those little antennae make me think of a caterpillar. Luke also makes great use of stickered and printed pieces on the sides.
This is another one of those brilliant BrickWorld builds I alluded to earlier this week. Simon Liu (Si-MOCs) presents a fantastic approach to scrap-gathering space style.
This collaborative build was conceived a year ago with the help of Isaac Mazer (Ricecracker.) and the build debuted in Schaumburg. Overall, the creation consists of three major pieces: the RS Hudson, the RS UNWIN cargo vessel, and the scrap heap itself. Isaac contributed the RS UNWIN, with Simon building the RS Hudson and the scrap heap.
The RS Hudson is mechanized, too, which is hypnotizing to watch.
You can check out some of the WIP pictures in Simon’s flickr gallery!
Once again, constant reader, it has been a pleasure being your weekend DJ. The request line and the long-distance dedication line will be open all week. Until then, enjoy one more tune, courtesy of that pesky Joel Baker. Joel claims the smurf vomit is part of some outlandish structure called the ‘Brick River’ that leads to a play area at the new LEGOLAND Hotel at LEGOLAND California. That’s a likely story.
See you at the fights next Friday.