Yearly Archives: 2019

Announcing the TBB Banquet brick-built food collab for BrickCon 2019 [News]

Do you like brick-built brunches? Studded snacks? How about AFOL appetizers and MOC munchies? Then you’ll want to attend the TBB Banquet! This year’s TBB reader collaboration at the BrickCon LEGO convention is all about life-size LEGO food. We’re spreading a magnificent feast made of our favorite bricks, and we want your help. The theme is simple: build something to eat and make it life-size. There’s just one twist: we’re featuring all these food items on real dishes and plates!

If you’re planning to attend Seattle’s BrickCon this year as a fully registered AFOL attendee, join us in laying out our parts-pack potluck! We know the title says banquet, but that’s just because we liked the alliteration with our name. Really, we’re not quite that pretentious, and our LEGO lunch is likely to be a lot more laid back. We’ve got a lovely-looking lobster (built by the inimitable Ty Keltner), but we expect the food to range from casserole to croissant. Want to bring potato chips and Coke? Great!

We’ve even got a potluck signup list, so you can sign up your SNOT-covered snacks ahead of time, and see what others are bringing! (Note: you’ll still need to register your MOC with BrickCon.)

Click here to sign up for the Potluck. (A name is all that is required to sign up. Email is optional.)

We’ll have some real plates, bowls, and glasses available to present your MOCs, but if you’ve got a special dish in mind or a MOC that requires a very specific size or type of dish, you’ll want to bring your own. As always with our reader-collab themes, don’t get too caught up in the details. As long as your model is about life-size, we’ll make it work and it will look great.

Now let’s take a closer look at a few of the models we’ve already got, brought to you by Ty. Continue reading →

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Thrill seeking among the skyscrapers

When it comes to LEGO roller coasters, you can find a wide range of thrills. Start off safe on the gentle slopes of a Friends Amusement Park, or go for more adrenalin on the Creator Expert version. But what if that isn’t enough for your minifigures? What if they want a real rush? Taking an apparent cue from real-world rides like the Las Vegas High Roller, French builder ilive moves the track off the ground and into the skyline.

The ride twists through a selection of ilive’s previously built micro-scale buildings, each of which features interesting shaping and design. The Cube uses plenty of eye-catching texture created from transparent plate, and Skyscraper-2 makes great use of transparent blue 1x2x5 brick.

The coaster itself, though, is minifigure scaled. The effect of the mixed scaling works well; it’s pretty easy to imagine an upscale park having a miniature version of their city incorporated into a signature ride. Don’t believe me? Take a look for yourself in ilive’s video!

And bring me the passengers, I want them alive!

The release of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story brought a sentence from the original film’s opening crawl to life and connected it directly to the start of Star Wars: A New Hope in a most dramatic way. And this model by Pablo Piccasos does just that in LEGO. What looks like a single model is actually made up of three distinct creations that fit together seamlessly, bridging the two movies in more ways than one.

Continue reading for more details

The airport rescue squad is here for that one passenger in seat 4C

This is likely not the kind of thing you want to see as you’re finally taxiing down the airport tarmac, but it is cool nonetheless. Steven Asbury has built this two-person crew LEGO Airport Fire Department Fast Response Squad. Custom stickers and chrome bits along with its lime green livery makes this rescue truck truly a sight to behold. The plane in the background and the bit of runway offers just enough detail to convey a busy airport. Seeing one of these bad boys most often means someone in First Class doesn’t agree with pre-flight safety directions (its always First Class!) or someone tampered with the smoke alarm in the bathroom. They mean serious business when they say not to mess with it. Once one of these arrives at the scene it is probably best to calmly get into the brace for crash position and remain that way all the way to Denver.

It is quite clear that Steven loves fire and rescue trucks. Here we previously featured a scene that likely has to do with rescuing a cat from a tree.

This massive LEGO Mos Eisley diorama has got it where it counts

The Millennium Falcon might be the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy, but she’s also the subject of many a LEGO creation. Here’s Daniel Ross‘ take on the famous Star Wars freighter, depicting the moment we first set eyes on her, squeezed into Docking Bay 94 in Mos Eisley spaceport on the planet of Tatooine. At first glance, you might think the ship is the massive official version — 75192 UCS Millennium Falcon — but no, this impressive piece of building is a custom model, all Daniel’s own design.

Click here to see more pictures of this impressive diorama

LEGO back-to-school supplies, just in time for the start of classes

It’s that time of year again, at least in the United States. Kids everywhere are getting to Target or Walmart and picking up folders, reams of loose-leaf paper, #2 pencils, pens, markers, crayons, Elmer’s glue, and everything else on the supplies list sent them by their new teacher. Builder H.Y. Leung brings us a timely series of builds, perfect for my kids to bring to their giant LEGO school. I say giant, because these are truly massive, despite how small they might seem at first glance. The ruler, for example, is not the mere 20cm that it indicates, but a whopping 195cm (or 77 inches – about three inches longer than I am tall)! Some clever studs-not-on-top (SNOT) work integrates the numbers and hash marks elegantly into the overall shape.

Click here to complete your back-to-school shopping

Keep on truckin’, Ingmar

Earlier this month we had featured a remembrance for Ingmar Spijkhoven, a LEGO truck builder who recently succumbed to ALS. The LEGO world, and particularly a small group of close-knit Dutch scale modelers, lost a good friend and a passionate builder. Dennis Glaasker built a fitting tribute to Ingmar in a way he would have loved. He took Igmar’s own “TR11” chemical tank trailer design and decked it out in shiny custom chrome bricks and then fitted it with a Peterbilt 389 tractor. The tractor is equipped with two Power functions XL engines for drive, and one servo for steering. It is controlled by an SBrick and powered by a 9.6 Volt battery pack which is located in the sleeper unit. The truck (and trailer) have custom stickers, and a fully modeled engine bay and interior.

This wasn’t so much an achievement for Dennis alone, but rather a culmination of the group of friends who wanted to pay tribute to Ingmar. Ingmar saw some work in progress photos and was honored and delighted by the idea but had unfortunately passed a week before completion of this model. A rear shot features the photographer reflected in the gleaming chrome tank trailer but also a clear view of the special custom license plate that adorns both the front and rear of the model. I think Ingmar would approve.

Enormous Imperial hangar is the perfect place to fine-tune your AT-AT

Back in 2017, tastenmann77 took inspiration from The Empire Strikes Back and built an impressive Imperial AT-AT Walker. However, now he’s taken things to a whole new level and put together a huge maintenance hangar diorama to surround it. This LEGO creation is enormous – the walker itself is 45cm tall and 50cm long, which should give some impression of just how big the hangar is.

Sometimes larger LEGO creations rely on their sheer scale to impress, but this one is also filled with a frankly astonishing amount of detail. We’ve got Darth Vader arriving to carry out an inspection welcomed by a formation of Stormtroopers, there are Imperial officers overlooking the maintenance efforts from a gantry, there’s welding going on inside the AT-AT’s hold, and the floor is marked with realistic-looking warning stripes and is covered in interesting cargo and equipment. There’s even a mouse droid tootling around! Continue reading →

LEGO 71044 Disney Train and Station now available for VIPs [News]

Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Chip, Dale, and Goofy are already waiting for you for a ride on the iconinc Disneyland Railroad train. 71044 Disney Train and Station is now available to LEGO VIP members for USA $329.99 | CAN $379.99 | UK £299.99. LEGO VIP membership is free, but if you don’t want LEGO perks and the occasional free set with purchase, this fancy train set will be generally available beginning September 1st.

The Supreme Leader of the House of Mouse

Builders Build Better Bricks built a better brick Mickey Mouse to put in your brick-built house! Now try saying that 10 times fast.

Mickey Mouse is one the most iconic and enduring characters in animation history and he’s captured the imagination of many an excellent LEGO builder. This version of the world’s most famous mouse puts Technic parts and hinges to excellent use. The Technic axle connectors that make up the arms and legs could easily swapped and replaced to make the figure capable of a variety of poses. The gloves are really nicely done with the Vehicle Mudguard making a nice curve to the palms and used again to create the curved back of the closed hand. The rounded tiles that give the illusion of rounded fingers are a nice choice. Mickey’s face, with its many odd shapes are well rendered with a combination of quarter round tiles, clever sideways building and rounded bottom plates for the cheeks. The pose is one that will be familiar to fans and imbues the figure with a wonderful sense of action and personality.

This Le Mans racer is alternately awesome

Real Le Mans racecars are carefully built and strategized to maximize efficiency and performance over the grueling 24-hour race. So it’s fitting that LEGO builder Milan has chosen to build this sweet Le Mans racer with a key restriction. He’s used only the elements from the LEGO set 42093 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1. That’s especially impressive because the Corvette is about the same size, yet features a radically different shape.

Milan has lots of experience with building custom creations using only the parts from one set, though (AKA alternates). In addition to being an expert Technic builder, alternates are his signature style. He also frequently provides instructions, meaning if you own the Corvette set, you can follow Milan’s guide to build a Le Mans racer of your own.

I am not in danger, Skyler. I am the danger!

A builder who goes by the dubious name of SuckMyBrick has built a stunning LEGO portrait of Walter White, the mild-mannered chemistry teacher turned badass meth dealer because…desperate times. I hope I didn’t spoil too much for you, but as Breaking Bad has been cited as one of the best TV shows of all time, it is strongly recommended that you watch it to see Bryan Cranston in the most pivotal role of his career, even if just to sputter off memorable quotes such as this article’s title. SuckMyBrick is exceptionally good at building characters and portraits. Here is a recent time we featured his Fred Flintstone, as well as a whole string of internet influencers and the Commander in Peach.