Damien Labrousse (AKA Legodrome just posted pictures of a piece he built for CNES, the French Space Agency. Two control rooms were built for display and include a working screen and sound system. I just love the clean lines of this build but my favorite detail has to be those adorable little rocket models next to the speaker. Awesome!
This month I had the honour of selecting the cover photos for The Brothers Brick Twitter and Facebook accounts. Pictures for this need to meet somewhat different criteria than the stuff we usually blog. An attractive picture is much more important than the model itself.
That said, the model was what first attracted me to my choice for Facebook, the ATV-4 “Albert Einstein” by Stefan Schindler (Brainbikerider). I may not be into science-fiction models, but I do like real-world spacecraft. I have previously blogged the commercially developed Dragon, which serves as a resupply vessel for the International Space Station. The ATV-4 is its European counterpart, developed by the European Space Agency.
So, the model itself is interesting and already blogworthy in my book. What makes this a great picture for the Facebook banner is that it has the Earth as a backdrop. Even when cropped to fit the aspect ratio for the Facebook banner, it seems to have depth.
On Twitter, the photo has a lot of superimposed text and a TBB logo in the middle. Therefore, our choice should have a fairly large area in the middle where the text can go without getting lost against the background, and there should be interesting stuff towards the edges of the photograph. A nice picture of a model against a white background, which is fairly normal on this blog, simply does not hack it. By themselves, the models in the winning picture, by ROOK, would not have made TBB. They’re Brand Ribbon Sets built by members of ToroLUG for the Yorkdale Mall Lego Store Grand Opening in Toronto. The way they are arranged and their bright colours against the dark background, however, caught my eye and make it a great cover photo.
The ones chosen by Dan for June were a hard act to follow, but I think you’ll agree they look pretty. If you’re interested in the possibility of having your photo featured in same manner, upload it to our Flickr group.
Proving once again that my brain doesn’t work like his, Pierre E Fieschi‘s latest large-scale microspace ship incorporates so many realistic bits and bobbles that the mind just boggles.
Pierre’s usual attention to detail encapsulates four large spheres (notoriously difficult to work with EDIT: And notoriously not LEGO, in this particular case…), three of which represent research biodomes. It’s been several months since Pierre posted his last large model, so I was very pleased to see this come through in my feed today.
They may be my arch nemesisisss’s?, nemisie? nemisee? nemi, nemi…well let’s just go with enemies. But even I have to tip my hat to these guys’ performances. We previously featured some the team’s work for the 3rd round of the Starfighter Telephone Game. Well it was now Peter Morris’ turn, and not surprising he has come up with a slick little fighter. I will actually go so far as to say that this thing is approaching perfection. The angles and controlled colour blocking/striping are expertly done. For being such a compact fighter there is a tonne of details to catch your eye. I am not ashamed to say that I want one.
Well played Mr. Morris, well played…
Janey Gunning asked me to share this announcement about the fast approaching Canadian LEGO convention. I wish Canada wasn’t so big, as I would be there in a heartbeat if not for the distance. But I do hope my fellow Canadian LEGO maniacs all have a splendid time!
Ladies and Gentleman, LEGO fans of all ages…
Don’t miss a great LEGO festival in Toronto, Canada.
July 13th & 14th, 2013
10am until 3pm
www.brickfete.com
The public is invited to view the awesome LEGO Creations on display and we can not wait to show you what we have built. You can see things like a huge Serenity ship, large working amusement park ride, massive train/monorail layouts, classic space layout with working lights, funky art sculptures and mosaics, classic city, castle, pirate and viking creations, elaborate war dioramas, various scaled pieces of architecture, working robots and more!!! You will not believe your eyes when you see what our exhibitors can make from LEGO. There is even a brick building area for the kids and you never know when a special character might show up, from Darth Vader to Billy Blue Brick.
Tickets sold online here.
Parking & venue information here.See you on the second weekend of July,
The Brickfête Team“A festival run by fans, made by the fans, for the fans.”
It’s been nearly a month since we’ve posted any microspace, so it seems high time we correct that with this verdant pair of spaceships by Erik (Lemon_Boy).
The angled shapes are lovely, especially where sections of the ships connect to each other. As always, judicious use of Exo-Force stickers and small spots of color can really make a model pop. Erik says his ships were inspired by ones in Legend of the Galactic Heroes.
The new LEGO Lord of the Rings set 10237 The Tower of Orthanc is now available to everyone from the LEGO Shop online.
The set has been available early to LEGO VIP program members for the last couple of weeks. And speaking of the VIP Program, members can get a free hotdog stand with any order over $75 in July.
Link for US readers:
Link for Canadian readers:
And speaking of Canada, Amazon.ca
TR will be bringing you updates about sales and deals he sees on Amazon.ca.
This amazing “Steam Castle Falls” diorama was presented at the recent Fana’Briques expo in Rosheim, France, and represents the combined effort of three builders: Arnaud Besson (74louloute), Olivier Curto (oLaF LM) and Jimmy Fortel (6kyubi6). My complete absence of francais aside, I wish I could have been there to see it.
Weighing in at over 20,000 pieces, and taking each builder over four months to make, the diorama is clearly the result of a lot of effort. It is impressive that three builders managed to make something work together so cohesively, especially when you consider that the three live in different corners of France.
Furthermore, the major part of the diorama went on a 1000km trip, while another section took a long train trip. And unfortunately for everyone, the diorama could have been even bigger, had the originally planned fourth builder “Capt’n Spaulding” been able to participate.
With major inspiration from this picture, the diorama follows a loose interpretation of a medieval theme. Although I get a strong vibe of techwest anime cartoons as well. Regardless of what inspired it, it’s certainly an incredible work.
BrickCon 2013 is now open for registration! As we’ve said before, BrickCon is our favorite LEGO convention in the increasingly busy North American LEGO convention circuit.
The official theme for BrickCon 2013 is “Pigs vs. Cows” (as I’m sure everyone gathered from the Kickstarter project we highlighted earlier this year). What does that craziness mean? Well, that’s really up to you — LEGO is, after all, a creative medium. I’m not sure how town and train builders will manifest the theme in their layout, or whether we can expect cows storming the pig-defended beaches of a LEGO Normandy, but I do know that the castle builders have something spectacular planned.
Speaking of collaborations, watch this space for more info on the various themes that will give you the opportunity to contribute to a group build.
If you haven’t been to BrickCon before, check out BrickCon photos on Flickr and our own BrickCon coverage here on The Brothers Brick.
Be sure to go to BrickCon.org/Builders/ to register for the full, four-day private convention.
David Steeves (SuperHardcoreDave) is clearly working from the didn’t-look-like-LEGO-in-the-thumb playbook with his latest P.R.I.S.M. mech. And he clearly read it well. And it has spindly crotch arms. And I can even forgive the pointe feet.
Arjan Oude Kotte (konajra) is one of those rare builders who only seem to build and post brilliant stuff and we have blogged most of it. His latest masterpiece is a minifig scale model (1/40) of an offshore support vessel, the ERRV Grampian Don, which is operated by the Craig Group based in Aberdeen, Scotland.
An ERRV is an Emergency Response Rescue Vessel, which is a type of ship that constantly patrols a zone around offshore installations, to ensure that other ships don’t stray into the zone, thereby preventing collisions, and in case of an emergency, to rescue platform crews and coordinate the response. Arjan started designing this model in November last year. It’s a proper SHIP, with a length of 125 cm (more than 4 ft) a height of 74 cm (more than 2 ft) and a width of 32 cm (about 1 ft). His ships seem to be getting more and more complicated. The wonderfully sculpted bulbous bow is a novelty and check out the angles on the bridge windows.
