I always love LEGO Technic creations that look like they’re built from SYSTEM components, but turn out to have lots of functionality. This Liebherr L580 Marek Markiewicz is an excellent example of SYSTEM aesthetics combined with Technic capabilities.
Watch the video to see this vehicle in action.
For all the technical details, check out the write-up on TechnicBricks.
The second Pillage the Village contest has been launched on Classic-Pirates.com.
Prizes will be awarded for large, medium, and small LEGO creations, with a deadline of November 30th, 2009.
We skipped a week last Saturday for BrickCon, so here we go with a two-week roundup.
LEGO Atlantis: Reactions to the first high-res pics of 2010 LEGO Atlantis sets are rather more positive. They’re kind of like Space Police … under the sea!
Yarrr!!!: A new LEGO Pirates set, 10210 Imperial Flagship, was unveiled at events in the US and UK. Pirate fans rejoice the world over.Beyond the originals by Angus MacLane, my favorite CubeDude so far is this lovely Princess Leia as Jabba’s slave girl by Larry Lars.
I love the fact that Larry’s Leia is less, uh, cubical than most other CubeDudes. Beyond juvenile references to CubeDude anatomy, Larry has incorporated some really interesting techniques, including LEGO coins as earrings. Larry explains:
The coins are squeezed in between the head and the 1×1 round plates connected to the underside of headlight bricks. Since there is an edge on the coins they stay there.
Lord Dane presents the best minifig-scale xenomorph from the Alien series that I recall seeing.
Exo-Force robot arms, minifig hands, and even flippers add a lot of organic detail to the alien.
Newly released and available on Amazon, The LEGO Book
The book is 200 pages long (in two volumes), and also includes a 96-page booklet celebrating the 30th anniversary of the minifig.
Through a fortunate series of events, Alan McMorran was in Seattle last weekend and dropped by BrickCon for a day. When he wasn’t hanging out with the zombie overlords, he was taking a really cool set of pictures featuring his Doctor Who minifig and LEGO TARDIS.
Here, the good Doctor manages to avoid Josh’s motorized dragon in a cave, part of a massive LEGO Castle display with a 2,000-minifig battle.
Check out all of Alan’s Doctor Who adventure photos on Flickr.
(And in case you’ve missed it, I’ve updated my BrickCon 2009 wrap-up post with more links.)
Though the new 2010 LEGO Atlantis sets were briefly revealed at a LEGO fan event in Russia, we didn’t have high-resolution pictures until now.
Dano has the full set, but here are a few highlights.
The minifigs are especially intriguing, with new aqua helmets for humans and intriguing creatures who live in the deep.
Fredo Houben (Fredoichi) builds his biggest mecha yet, and successfully channels some of the best Japanese mecha builders.
Fredo says he’s more than happy with the result. We are too.
Chris Doyle joins the CubeDude revolution with an awesome batch inspired by characters from Firefly and Serenity.
Don’t miss all of Chris’s CubeDudes on Reasonably Clever, as well as the growing number of adorable little guys in the Flickr group.
Zombie Apocafest 2009 has come and gone. The undead have been blown up, shot up, and mulched to oblivion. The humans stand victorious among the ruins of their civilization. Fortunately, that civilization was, by good fortune, built from LEGO, and it can be rebuilt, brick by little plastic brick.
Check out the full gallery of Zombie Apocafest 2009 photos in Thanel’s photostream on Flickr.
The display this year was more than double the size of last year’s, with 17 tables covered in all manner of buildings and vehicles, ranging from little mini-tanks to a fig-scale tanker. Once again, we had the organizational genius of LEGOLAND Master Model Maker Gary McIntire laying out the city, with major contributions from other LEGOLAND staffers, including Ryan Wood (Port ChiefLUG) and Joel Baker (awesome zombie head).
As announced before BrickCon, we had four prize categories. Here are the winners:
A huge “Thank you!” to BrickArms for their awesome contributor’s weapons packs, and to Valve for a batch of wicked Left 4 Dead 2 T-shirts!
So, how do these things work? What does it take to pull together a collaborative LEGO layout that covers a couple hundred square feet of display space? What have we learned after running a display at a LEGO convention for two years? Off we go…
Soliciting “cornerstone” LEGO creations, recruiting lots of good builders, and working with sponsors and partners is hard work. Similarly, planning for enough space with convention organizers takes time.
Despite my rather chirpy online persona, I have a subversive streak a mile wide. This manifests itself in my political vignettes and the occasional snarky comment. Before BrickCon 2008, a large-scale collaborative display of undead LEGO minifigs overrunning a Cafe Corner city, built by the adults who read The Brothers Brick, seemed like a reasonably subversive idea. I think last year’s display worked so well because that’s precisely what it was.
As cool as I think this year’s display turned out to be, it was a little spread out, and it was rather heavy on the small vehicles with spikes and ladders. The world really needs to be a nicer place than the purely ironic perspective some espouse, but really, some measure of self-referential irony would’ve been welcome.
I’m not a parent, and I don’t judge others’ parenting styles (okay, I do, but only a little bit). But it’s hard for me to imagine encouraging interest in the hyper-violent world of flesh-eating zombies and brain-smashing survivors. The subversive and ironic aspects of a zombie apocalypse built out of LEGO are likely lost on the 11-14 set.
Let’s be honest: The kiddies like the BrickArms, and will do just about anything for prototypes.
We’re big fans of the high-quality custom accessories produced by Will Chapman and his team, and can’t believe how generous they are. Will donated 35 packs of weapons for contributors, including hand-produced cricket bats at our request. Wow.
Nevertheless, we’ve all seen the “wil U trad wit me? kthxby” mentality on display in recent months, and I have to admit that the display this year seemed to attract a bit more interest from the 11-14 set than I’d anticipated.
In fact, there were at least two kids who leaned over the barricades during the public hours, asked to put one minifig on the display and asked for a contributor’s pack. Seriously, kids? The answer to both questions was — and will remain — a firm “No.” (I did let them take a picture of their figs on the display. I’m not a total jerk.)
Overall, I’m happy about how things went with Zombie Apocafest 2009, but it will be the last Zombie Apocafest, and I don’t plan for us to repeat themes from year to year. I’m even happier to report that we’re changing things up for next year. We’ve run our BrickCon 2010 display idea by a few attendees, and we’ll be announcing next year’s theme shortly. Plans are already underway…
Brickshelfer Scouzy treat us to a strange mecha with rather poky legs that have some cool details under them.
Thanks for the tip, Dablackcat!