As a child, I loved the Tintin Explorers on the Moon, I must have checked it out from the library dozens of times. I’ve seen many fantastic attempts at building the rocket Tintin and friends take to the moon, but this latest by Tyler Clites (Legohaulic) is the first build of the lunar tank I’ve seen. Simply put, this is awesome, this scene captures the right atmosphere, from the lunar surface to the brick-built Snowy under one of the domes.
Flickr member simplybrickingit has created this intriguing triptych of household rooms. Each one is beautifully furnished but completely figure-less, and symbolizes a different aspect of our everyday lives. It’s all very Zen. I love the way the partial walls make these scenes feel somehow out of time.
Got builders block and need a break? Want a challenge? Or just want to test your building know how? Then I suggest you check out the fun little Reverse Engineering Contest. Unlike a lot of LEGO contest that ask you to create something, this one asks you to copy a build. They’re all small and deceptively simple, but once you actually sit down and start playing with it, it’s not always as easy as it seems.
This marks the first, of nine, weekly challenges:
It starts off simple and gets progressively harder. So why not join in on the action? Stretch your building brain a bit with these building exercises – oh and don’t forget to read up on the rules on how you could win some prizes. Though this contest is one where the best reward is figuring out all the puzzles.
Oh who am I kidding, a Birds set, and most importantly: rare and useful pieces from contest runner Ryan H. (LDM) is a pretty great prize.
Tonga sao, My Dear Friends!
Here I am, once again, the lemur intern for The Brothers Brick! As you know, I’ve taken it upon myself to answer any and all of your questions regarding the LEGO fan community or The Brothers Brick itself. If there is anything that has been on your mind, please feel free to post it in the comments and I will do my best to answer it.
What crazy fun have you been up to this week? I’ve been so productive! The TBB library needed organized, so I took it upon myself to sort all the books. The library looked so pretty when I was done, with all the books arranged into groups by color. The contributors seemed less than enthusiastic but their moods are very unpredictable. I’m beginning to despair of ever making them happy. Nannan took me aside and explained that most libraries use some system called “Dewey Decimal”. I don’t know who this guy Dewey might be, but he seems to have created a monopoly of sorts. It’s really not fair. Anyway, while I was sorting the books, I stumbled upon Andrew’s antique pipe collection. They are great for blowing bubbles. Don’t I look handsome?
Enough about me. Now for the important part…your questions!
How do you find the images you do on flickr?
As far as Flickr goes, most of the contributors start looking in the LEGO group. If you want the most exposure, put your pictures there. After that they all have their favorite groups that they check out. Most of them also do a search for recent pictures tagged as “LEGO”.
If you want your pictures to be seen, simply building a good model isn’t enough. Good photography is a must, learning which groups to frequent is vital and figuring out what to tag your photos is very helpful.
Vince Toulouse demonstrates his signature art-deco-retro-future building style with this latest vehicle, the Polar Transport. In red, I think this one nicely complements earlier blue and green creations that we featured a while ago.
Inspired by science magazine covers of the 1930’s, this juggernaut’s profile is simple, but it’s packed with beautiful curved details, and makes clever use of some vintage pale orange Scala parts to introduce an accent color rarely seen in LEGO creations.
This creation by Bill Vollbrecht is a building from Balboa Park in San Diego called the El Prado Arcade. The ornate architecture of the model is stunning and is a real treat for the eyes.
Perhaps I am using the word character a bit too frequently to describe models lately, but the parrot built by Dicky Laban has it in spades. It doesn’t just want a cracker; it needs one. It looks so sad and yet adorable.
This is also yet another nice example of how you don’t need to build something ridiculously large for it to be cool and interesting, as long as it has mixels eyes.
Spring has only just started (on the Northern hemisphere), but the restaurant built by Snaillad already makes me long for summer.
This must be because it was inspired by the wonderful art deco buildings along Ocean Drive / South Beach in famously sunny Miami Beach. It looks very nice on the outside and also comes with a detailed interior. Normally I am partial to visible studs on a LEGO model, but I have to admit that this would not look nearly as good if it wouldn’t have such a clean and studless construction.
After yesterday’s foray into Classic Space, Chris Perron (thebrickbin) must have known that like a SpaceVampire – I needed more! So magically this jaw dropping atmosphere masterpiece popped up:
It’s a gritty scene where the brave men and women of the First Space Police patrol some cyber-punkish district. I’m not sure who they’re looking for, but with that heavy duty SP1Koma Think Tank backing them up, these boys and girls of the black, blue and trans red are well looked after!
And as a second bonus link, this beauty by Moritz (nolnet) was in my blog queue for awhile it’s just so damn fun and cool:
The model itself is top notch, but what turns this from awesome to #BennyAWESOME is the remote control action:
The combination of Trans Yellow, Blue and Grey (with bits of yellow and black) will always have a special place in many builder’s hearts. It’s the definitive Classic Space colour scheme and it always delights me when I see it, and see it done well.
Today is a great day because Jarek (Jerac) worked his usual magic and unveiled this amazing build to the world:
Chalk full of gorgeous details and super clean lines, this is the sort of Classic Space Starfighted I’d kill to have!
But today is Friday, the best day of the week and as a special bonus B Mauro (bread_man_017), in a seemingly coordinated attempt to make me happy also posted his Classic Space Starfighter:
While it might not be as pretty as Jerac, B’s version has some pretty great wing play action.
Hopefully this is a sign of more great Classic Space builds to come!
A slight digression … I’ve been meaning to see the Chappie movie for a while now and finally got around to it last night. And of course like any good builder, I spent an inordinate amount of time during the movie mentally figuring out how I could build him when I got home. I’ve seen a few other LEGO Chappie’s built already, but not a really big detailed one. It would have been my time to shine! And maybe even get blogged!
So I was super stoked to try … I got home, broke out my Dark Blues, got the Orange antennae built and just… gave up. It would have been too large and too complex and too difficult. But thankfully for everyone, Roman (th_squirrel) didn’t give up as easily as I did. Much like Chappie himself, he kept on going and built a super awesome LEGO Chappie:
This is just a thing of beauty. I also really love how Roman used pieces with the original stickers on them, it really adds that gangster touch to his LEGO Chappie.
Presented without commentary. Other than to say, this simple vignette by Letranger Absurde reminds me why I *love* the medium of LEGO, and the creativity of the LEGO fan community!
