About Andrew Becraft (TBB Editor-in-Chief)

Andrew Becraft is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Brothers Brick. He's been building with LEGO for more than 40 years, and writing about LEGO here on TBB since 2005. He's also the co-author, together with TBB Senior Editor Chris Malloy, of the DK book Ultimate LEGO Star Wars. Andrew is an active member of the online LEGO community, as well as his local LEGO users group, SEALUG. Andrew is also a regular attendee of BrickCon, where he organizes a collaborative display for readers of The Brothes Brick nearly every year. You can check out Andrew's own LEGO creations on Flickr. Read Andrew's non-LEGO writing on his personal blog, Andrew-Becraft.com. Andrew lives in Seattle with his wife and dogs, and by day leads software design and planning teams.

Posts by Andrew Becraft (TBB Editor-in-Chief)

MAKE interviews BrickForge’s Kyle “Armothe” Peterson

One of the things I love about BrickForge is that they seem to be just ahead of what LEGO ends up producing — from cows, pigs, and crowbars a few years ago to 1×1 round tiles and park ranger hats in the upcoming 2012 LEGO City sets. Does The LEGO Group have a spy in BrickForge world headquarters?!

Anyway, I always like to learn more about the LEGO vendors and custom accessory makes who populate the brick “ecosystem,” so it was great to run across an interview with Kyle Peterson on one of my favorite non-LEGO blogs, MAKE.

I hear some 3rd party manufacturers of Lego accessories recycle old bricks in their ABS, grinding them up and adding them to the molten plastic. Can you talk a little about this?

Obviously the ABS has to come from somewhere. BrickForge deals with very large production runs – thus we use specifically dyed ABS pellets during the self-contained, automated injection process. Other vendors may use a smaller, lightweight injection press for smaller production runs. This requires a manual feed of plastic into the hopper. Either the artisan has to purchase pre-mixed pellets (that match the LEGO color palette) or simply grind up and smelt existing LEGO brick. The first option is expensive, the second option is time consuming (not to mention having to deal with toxic fumes).

Read the complete interview on the MAKE Blog.

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2012 LEGO City sets bring hillbillies, bears, forest fires, & park rangers [News]

In an odd but awesome twist, LEGO City leaves the, well, city and heads for the hills in 2012. All of the law enforcement and emergency services that form the core of each year’s LEGO City sets are represented by wildland firefighters and park rangers instead.

Looks like there are some interesting new brick…bricks.

Oh yes, there are bears. I am so building a moonshine still out back of this hillbilly cabin.

In the same vein, the firefighters battle forest fires with their bulky wildland equipment.

I wonder if wunztwice will approve of the chainsaws…

Via Eurobricks.

Bricks of War brings Gears of War 3 to life in epic LEGO animation

When I haven’t been working, sleeping, building, or blogging, most of my waking hours over the past month have been spent playing Gears of War 3. My favorite things often inspire LEGO creations, a tendency I seem to share with LEGO stop-motion animator Kooberz Studios (aka Alex Kobbs), whose “Bricks of War” is going viral — for good reason!

It’s hard to miss Marcus’ Hammer of Dawn taking out the Corpser, but watch for some cool details like aiming the frag grenade and a Retro Lancer execution.

The making-of film itself has some excellent stop-motion sequences:

4184 Black Pearl out + free shipping from LEGO extended [News]

A bit belated news for some, I realize — I’ve been sick — but 4184 Black Pearl is out now from multiple sources (text link goes to LEGO Shop; image link below goes to Amazon).

The highlight in this set for me is definitely the minifigs, with Davy Jones and the shark-headed Maccus. It goes for $100 (less at some big box stores at the moment) and includes 804 pieces.

Free shipping has been extended again from the LEGO Shop, with double VIP points through the end of October.

Finally, every purchase over $99 includes the first of a two-part Christmas vignette for free:

Here’s the second part, due out in November:

Nagara-style Indian temple

One of my favorite new themes at BrickCon this year was “World Architecture,” organized by Anu Pehrson. Her own contribution was one of my favorites — this gorgeous Hindu temple in the Nagara style of Indian architecture.

Anu provides a bit of background:

This is an Ancient Temple from India. This is the Nagara style of Architecture which was fully developed in the 10th century. Such Temples exist till date and are very much in use as a place of worship and pilgrimage. In Hinduism the devotee offers flowers and fruit to the ‘deity’ as a form of worship. Therefore we always see stalls selling garlands, flowers and fruit outside a temple. A visit to the Temple is not a sombre event, and could be and evening outing for the family or a ‘picnic’ Therefore one finds a ‘fair’ like atmosphere around the entrance.

Her beautiful diorama deservedly won “Best Architectural Style” at BrickCon.

Series 6 & 7 Collectible Minifigs revealed [News]

Nannan just posted about the 6860 Batcave and other 2012 sets, but I think this deserves its own post: We now have our first decent/official photos of the upcoming Collectible Minifigures Series 7.

Here’s what I’m seeing, with names I make up as I go along:

Internet Geek
Bride
Daredevil
Operatic Viking Lady
Tarzan & Cheetah
Easter Bunny
Swimmer
Tennis Player
Riot Grrrl
Aztec Warrior
Bagpiper
Future Cop 3000
Flower Child
Necromancer
Little Red Riding Hood
Poseidon/Neptune

Quite a diverse bunch!

EDIT: Not sure how we missed these, but here’s Series 6 (via Toys N Bricks):

Machinations in the Boardroom

To get the necessary overview of what’s happening in the LEGO world, we here at TBB often have to rely on various sequences of small pictures — it’s just not possible to review hundreds of LEGO photos a day in deep, individual detail. Sometimes, amazing LEGO models get overlooked as a result. So we’re eternally grateful to readers like Chris Edwards to make sure we don’t just blog LEGO models that “looked good from the thumbnail.”

This fantastic photo by Nathanial Brill (Shuppiluliumas) is a perfect example of what we might have missed if we were only looking at a tiny version of the picture.

Low light emanates from the walls and ceiling, illuminating the scheming executives. Outside the window, Nathaniel uses microscale buildings to provide a clue to the scale of the city in which these captains of industry plot their hostile takeovers.

It’s definitely worth taking a look at the large version on black. And don’t miss the setup shots.

Trying out LEGO Cuusoo

After the LEGO Cuusoo Beta launched in English last week, I’ve been keeping an eye on the site to see what people are up to. As announced last week, winning projects have to reach 10,000 supporters, and the winning designer keeps 1% of the proceeds from the LEGO set’s sales.

Projects from several Japanese builders are also available on the English site, including one of Hidaka‘s classic, oft-imitated pianos.

Other cool projects include a Back to the Future Delorean and Macross/Robotech Valkyrie.

Of course, we here at TBB don’t want to be left out! Dan already mentioned his Protype Attack Mecha Alpha Zero design, while Nannan submitted his massive “Mirage” collaboration with Tyler:

I thought I’d go a bit smaller, with a couple of my favorite vehicles — a wildland fire engine and WW2 ambulance:

It’ll be interesting to see where all of this goes!

LEGO Technic 8110 Mercedes-Benz Unimog U 400 [News]

The VW Camper Van isn’t the only German vehicle released in LEGO form this year. Long-time readers of the blog will recall that I’m obsessed with the Mercedes Unimog, and I’ve featured several — starting with Adam Grabowski’s Unimog back in 2006. Adam now works for LEGO as a designer. I don’t think Adam works on Technic sets, but it’s nice to see an official LEGO version of this awesome vehicle.

It’s been out for a few months, but I suspect it might be news for a couple of you out there. TechnicBricks has the full review.

Time-lapse video: Building 10220 Volkswagen T1 Camper Van

I spent a good chunk of Saturday and Sunday at BrickCon building 10220 Volkswagen T1 Camper Van, assisted toward the end by an able young spacer (I build slowly — really slowly — savoring the build, or something). Marshall Matlock has managed to squeeze the build into a minute and a half.

Video game designer Hideo Kojima uses LEGO to build levels

Metal Gear Solid designer Hideo Kojima recently gave a talk at USC in which he revealed that he and his development team have used LEGO to design game levels.

Relating a story about taking his son to work one day during a time when his wife felt he was spending too much time at work, his son says that Dad “plays with Legos all day.”

I can imagine little scenes like this one by David McNeely scattered around Kojima’s design studio…

Eternal Dusk

The Ma.K starfighter contest may be over, but there still some fantastic builds to be found in the LEGO Starfighters group on Flickr. This shapely fighter by ROOK is an entry for the FBTB MOC Madness 2011 tournament, and features some excellent weathered stripes and interesting textures on the wings.