Yearly Archives: 2016

Sculpt a golem then freshen up in this Warcraft mana pool

Paul Trach takes inspiration from the World Of Warcraft movie for his latest LEGO creation — a scene depicting The Guardian Font. Here, Medivh, the titular Guardian, takes a break from creating a stone golem for a refreshing dip in the rejuvenating Mana Pool. Or at least that’s the story I’ve made up in my head around this fabulous model.

The tan and sand green colors work beautifully — a pleasant change from the traditional gray and brown of much Castle and Fantasy LEGO building. And the curved wall and double staircase are obvious highlights. But that backlit pool and the floor command all the attention. Normally I’m not a fan of the loose-brick “crazy paving” flooring style, but when it’s used like this, allowing the creation of an epic circle of runes, then I’m all in favour of it.

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New digital LEGO building software, BrickLink Stud.io, now available [News]

Those of you who build with digital bricks now have a new option. BrickLink launched a CAD-like digital LEGO building software earlier today called Stud.io to compete with current programs such as LEGO Digital Designer and LDraw. The software was demoed for builders at BrickCon 2016 and is now available for free on both PC and Mac computers.

We have a review of the software coming, but at first glance, there are quite a few features to get excited about.

Direct integration to BrickLink’s catalog to make finding LEGO parts easier
Color check as you build to see if a part even exits in the color you want
Continuous price estimates to see how a part affects the total estimated price of the model
Simultaneous real-time building with multiple people
CAD-like controls to allow for building in any direction (including illegal connections)
Ability to import your current projects from LDraw and LDD
Integration with BrickLink to export a digital model to a wanted list

The Stud.io software is an open beta test right now, so you can expect a few bumps and more updates to come, but we’re always excited to see a new tool for the building community.

Himeji Castle, Lighthouse of Alexandria, and other Wonders in LEGO

LEGO Certified Professional Ryan McNaught and his team recently created several Wonders of the World in LEGO, ranging from Himeji Castle in Japan to the Lighthouse of Alexandria in Egypt.

Ryan and his team member Troy Walker built a huge minifig-scale Himeji Castle, one of the last remaining feudal fortresses in Japan. I lived in Himeji for three years growing up, and my family visited the “White Egret Castle” frequently, including the year it celebrated its 650th anniversary. Ryan and Troy’s Himeji Castle includes the distinctive curved stone slope at the base of the castle, built by pressing LEGO bricks in sideways. The whole castle is built from over 71,000 bricks.

Climbing the many flights of stairs to the top floor and looking over the modern city was always the highlight of each visit, unless a samurai movie was being filmed on the sprawling castle grounds. Not only is this LEGO castle impressive from the front, it also has a full interior — even a deep well that extends through the castle’s base.

See more of these LEGO Wonders of the World

2016 LEGO Advent Calendars: Day 14

Welcome to Day 14 of your digital LEGO Advent Calendar! Each day, we’re revealing the day’s calendar model for the LEGO Friends, City, and Star Wars Advent Calendars. We know some of you want to be spoiler free, so you’ll need to “open” the day’s post to see the models by clicking below!

And if you want to build your own LEGO Advent Calendar, you can win big prizes by building tiny creations in TBB’s Create a Calendar Contest.

Click here to see Day 14!

These shoes rule!

(These shoes suck) No really, these LEGO shoes by Aaron Newman rule! Aaron based his design off of a super-expensive and ultra-rare pair of Nike high-tops from the 1990s. These kicks are stylish enough to impress even the most hard-core of sneaker heads. And for those of us who can’t afford the originals, these amazing LEGO replicas would suit us just fine.

Fossil Sahelanthropus tchadensis skull in LEGO

I’ve been blogging about archaeological LEGO for nearly 10 years here on The Brothers Brick, but I think this Sahelanthropus tchadensis skull might be the first fossil hominid we’ve featured here. Grant Masters has recreated the Toumaï skull discovered in Chad by French and Chadian paleontologists in 2001 and 2002. Grant has built the distinctive heavy brow ridge common to all but the gracile Homo sapiens, along with the angled face and tiny brain case — only about the same size as modern chimpanzees. I love that Grant even reproduced the fossil’s snaggletooth look with all its missing teeth.

Isotopic analysis revealed an age of about 7 million years for this remarkable fossil. While it’s not clear whether this is a distant ancestor or a distant cousin of humans, it was a remarkable find nevertheless.

(If you want to learn more about human origins and paleoanthropology, you might enjoy my Paleolithic reading lists on my non-LEGO blog.)

Create-a-calendar contest ends Saturday night! [News]

Ho, ho, ho! This is a friendly reminder that the Brothers Brick Create-a-calendar building contest ends at midnight this Saturday, December 17th. After that, judging will begin so that we can announce winners on Christmas Day. We’ve already seen some great entries in the contest Flickr group, so now you know what you’re up against! There are some cool prizes to be won, so dream up a theme and get building those tiny Advent calendar models today.

Exclusive LEGO Star Wars Rogue One preview, thanks to a bed sheet and a broken lamp

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story releases later this week, but Ian MacDonald has built a special preview shot in LEGO with help from a bed sheet and some extreme forced perspective in his basement. Rogue One takes place just before 1977’s A New Hope, when the Death Star was being built. Ian’s scene depicts Jyn Erso walking out of the hanger on Yavin IV, where the Rebellion is based. His scene matches a shot seen 44 seconds into the second official trailer, and 2000 bricks went into just making the huge hanger, let alone our view into the distance.

I just had to quote Ian’s description of putting this scene together, as I’m sure many builders will recognise their own experiences in these words: So many things had to go just right to make this image. There’s 3 layers of background, a bed sheet for a sky, and a couple lamps, one of which is broken. All shot in my basement.

As you can see, the end result is fantastic, but I really enjoy seeing ‘behind the scenes’ photographs that show the work and thought that goes into this kind of cinematic LEGO shot. The forced perspective of the layers of background gives the impression of differing size and scale with huge mountains at a distance, a tall pyramid-like structure and then the expansive hanger itself. A lot of effort for one shot but the finished shot is awesome.

2016 LEGO Advent Calendars: Day 13

Welcome to Day 13 of your digital LEGO Advent Calendar! Each day, we’re revealing the day’s calendar model for the LEGO Friends, City, and Star Wars Advent Calendars. We know some of you want to be spoiler free, so you’ll need to “open” the day’s post to see the models by clicking below!

And if you want to build your own LEGO Advent Calendar, you can win big prizes by building tiny creations in TBB’s Create a Calendar Contest.

Click here to see Day 13!

LEGO Overwatch characters on a macro scale

We’ve featured plenty of Overwatch LEGO here already, from a minifig-scale D.Va and her mech, to life-sized Overwatch weapons. But today we have something in between. Builder Piggy brother has graced us with these rather large builds of six of the game’s heroes. Seven if you count D.Va’s mech separately.

Each of these builds is large and detailed, so check out an individual view of each after the jump.

Continue reading →

...we salute you!

The other side to this year’s MOC Olympics finale madness was built by none other than Slovenian builder Deus Otiosus. Check out this amazingly detailed and rather mossy arena. The crumbling brickwork and throne are quite impressive, but my favorite details are the wonderfully expressive brick-built characters and the and fire-breathing dragon. Just look at that cone of flame erupting from the lizard beast’s mouth!

I think that the character sitting on the throne looks more jester than king, but that only adds to the madness of this LEGO creation. Deus Otiosus’s opponent in this LEGO duel to the death is W. Navarre, with his stupendous arena battle between a gladiator and a tiger. I certainly don’t envy the judges this year. To find out who was victorious, head over to MOCpages.

Those who are about to die...

The final round of battle of the 2016 MOC Olympics is here and the top two contestants have been thrown to the lions and forced to build spectacular scenes of gladiatorial combat. For his final entry, W. Navarre built a gladiator facing off against a fearsome man-eating tiger.

The most impressive thing about this build is not the beautifully sculpted figures (though those are amazing!), but the fact that the entire scene is completely filled with LEGO. There’s so much texture and even a bit of gore, it feels like I’m sitting in the front row of the great Colosseum. Mr Navarre’s opponent in this LEGO duel to the death is Deus Otiosus with his fantastical arena battle between a knight and a dragon.

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