Great Ball Contraptions are a mainstay of LEGO conventions, consisting of short sections of machinery which transport LEGO soccer balls from one side to another. Each builder’s machine can be connected to the next, to transport a dizzying number of balls around a display. Many builders focus on the all-important task of getting the fundamental mechanics working smoothly, but we’re seeing more and more builders take some time for the aesthetics as well. One such example is this enthralling contraption by chumuhou (楚沐猴), which has a fantastic steam-age industrial vibe. Check out the video to see it in action, too!
Yearly Archives: 2016
BrickCon 2016 is less than two weeks away [News]
BrickCon 2016 in Seattle is less than two weeks away! The convention begins Thursday, Sept 29 and runs until Sunday, Oct 2. The public is invited to come see everything on Saturday from 9am – 3pm and Sunday from 10am – 4pm.
Click for more reminders and information
LEGO City 60122: Volcano Crawler [Review]
Well, raise your hand if you miss good old Rock Raiders sets. They were huge, brutal and were all about fighting rock monsters and crashing rocks — and that was cool. Technically, crashing rocks with huge machines is still pretty cool, but something went wrong when the Power Miners sets hit store shelves in 2009. Of course, they looked fresh and bright, but something has irrevocably changed at that moment. The new Volcano Explorers City sub-theme is a new brave attempt to revive the all-time classic. 60122 Volcano Crawler is the most well-balanced set of this year, containing 324 pieces, 3 minifigs and retailing at the price of $39.99 / 29.99€ (currently on sale for 20% off on Amazon), and includes almost everything the new sub-theme has to offer.
Giant LEGO grasshoppers can be terrifying
It’s one thing to say that a plague of locusts, cicadas, or grasshoppers has gone after your crops. It’s another thing entirely when they destroy the entire farm. sanellukovic has posted what can only be a thing of nightmares with elephant-sized grasshoppers destroying the remains of what I imagine was once a farm, full of life. Not so much anymore.
Click to see details of the carnage
LEGO City, Nexo Knights up to 38% off on Amazon [News]
In addition to the Minecraft sets we posted earlier today, there are a number of other sets on sale today, including 60134 Fun in the Park! As always, click the images or links below to get awesome sets (for up to 38% off!) from LEGO City and Nexo Knights, and help support The Brothers Brick.
60134 Fun in the Park
The Shiva Class Quark Bomber goes for precision
September is in full swing, and with it, another lovely large ship for us to share with you. Today’s beauty comes from Brick Martil, with the Shiva Class Quark Bomber. This beautiful ship has elegant lines along with some fantastic color highlighting, with the orange. It stands out nicely.
I do like the custom stickers, which give it a nice finished feel. I like the angles in the stern of the ship, which give the whole thing a nice feel.
The City of Durrough is full of life
Built for BrickFair Virginia, this lovely diorama was displayed in full for the first time. Gary^The^Procrastinator has been working on it for some time and I must say the finished product is wonderful. Each time I look at it, I find a different detail.
Each of the buildings themselves are excellent examples of castle buildings. Seeing them all together, with minfigs throughout, brings the whole display to life.
LEGO Minecraft sets on sale on Amazon up to 44% off [News]
Amazon has a number of sets on sale today, including many of the current Minecraft line. If you’re looking to pick some up, today is a great day to do so. By clicking on the links below, you’ll be able to pick up some excellent sets and support The Brothers Brick!
Click on any set to order it from Amazon…
21122 The Nether Fortress
Click here to see all of the sets
A ship built for the defense of Earth
Andreas Lenander’s destroyer, named the USS Viking, shows that good design doesn’t necessarily require fancy building techniques. It’s Andreas’s design work that caught my eye on his spacecraft, with clean slots through the red plating on the sides and top revealing a good amount of detail bits. Impressive work, especially for his first build of a spacecraft at this scale.
See more photos of the USS Viking, with shots of the building process, on Flickr.
LEGO Ideas 21037 Caterham Seven 620R unveiled [News]
In March, we shared the great news that LEGO Ideas chose Carl Greatrix’s Caterham Super Seven as one of their newest additions to the LEGO Ideas family. Today, LEGO unveiled 21307 Caterham Seven 620R, and it will be available October 1. The set has 771 pieces, and will retail for $79.99 USD.
Click for more information below the cut!
Still life painting of LEGO fruit and seafood
Joining the ranks of Caravaggio, Paul Cezanne, and van Gogh, birgburg has taken a break from depicting the human (or in our case, minifig) form and instead replicated a still-life basket of fruit with his paint and canvas (ie. LEGO bricks).
The composition of the still life is superb. I especially love how the builder has stacked the LEGO cherries to resemble a flowing bunch of grapes. But what really sells this LEGO painting for me is that gorgeously-gilded, over-the-top, ostentatious frame. I’ve definitely seen this kind of frame in art museums before. Interestingly, a tour guide at the Cleveland Museum of Art once explained to me that some works of art are left in their original frames, while other works at the museum are placed in newer (although still usually ancient) frames for aesthetic reasons. Real art buffs can spot these “frame upgrades” even when the age difference between the artwork and the frame is less than 100 years based on historical frame styles alone.
For this piece though, I’d say this is a frame upgrade. But only because I know the LEGO painting was completed last year and the frame is brand new.
Gotta build them all!
Some of you may remember seeing Carson Hart‘s fully-evolved LEGO starter Pokemon a few years back. Well, Carson has been hard at work adding the rest of the original 151 Pokemon to his collection. And the end result is this fantastic collage.
The best part about Carson’s project is that all of the Pokemon are more or less properly scaled to each other. Onix takes up nearly three rows of vertical space, while tiny little Ditto is only a 1×1 round plate on top of a 1×1 plate. Take some time to zoom in and appreciate each build. My favorites are #102 Exeggute, #114 Tangela, and #146 Moltres. Which of Carson’s LEGO Pokemon do you like best?