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)

“The Great Order of the Universe” – LEGO featured in current issue of POETRY

I’m a little bit behind on my poetry journals, so I was very pleased to receive a link from Vito to an item featured in the current issue of Poetry Magazine.

The text on the left is a translation of a section from “The Great Order of the Universe” by Greek philosopher Democritus and the text on the right is from the 1959 LEGO brick patent by Godtfred Kirk Christiansen. The two texts are anagrams.

Now, my inner poet was rather disappointed that Christian Bök beat me to a LEGO-themed item in a major poetry journal. Sadly, my pair of poems published in Prairie Schooner last year were free of little plastic bricks. I take some consolation in the fact that Bök’s piece is in the “Flarf & Conceptual Writing” section. Perhaps I can write that Great LEGO Poem yet. (FYI, poets are even more competitive than LEGO builders.)

I’m glad I’m not the only LEGO fan who also reads Poetry, Vito.

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The impending rise of the undead will be televised in living color

A common criticism of ApocaLEGO creations is that they’re all shades of brown or gray — believable colors for many apocalyptic scenarios, but not necessarily for the zombie apocalypse. With that in mind, I’ve added a few more colorful creations to my fleet of zombie-hunting vehicles.

The big red vehicle is an apocafied version of my S&S/TATRA Wildland Ultra XT fire engine, while the light blue car should be familiar to fans of a certain boy wizard.

The requisite back story for the blue car:

A trio of intrepid survivors convert an old Ford Anglia into a zombie defense platform — complete with Browning M2 .50 Caliber machine gun and M134 Minigun requisitioned from an abandoned Army base. The flamethrower is apparently homemade.

Of course, these particular survivors have a few extra tricks up their sleeves. Other survivors say that the color of the fire from their flame thrower "just ain’t right." They can also be heard to exclaim "Incendio Cranium!" as they charge into a horde of zombies.

Like the green and white camper, the Ford Anglia is an example of an apocafied official set, one of the categories you can win prizes in during Zombie Apocafest 2009 this October at BrickCon.

I had so much fun with the little pink Vespa leading the charge that I had to build her a gang of zombie-hunting comrades.

The girls are riding scooters from BrickForge designed by Arealight, with custom weapons from BrickArms (including several new prototypes).

7747 Wind Turbine Transport isn’t the Vestas Windmill, but it’ll do [News]

The rumored, non-exclusive LEGO windmill set appears to be on the horizon, in the form of 7747 Wind Turbine Transport.

The set isn’t available in the US yet (we got the tip from reader Matthew in the UK), so here’s a direct link in case the ones above don’t work:

http://shop.lego.com/Product/Default.aspx?p=7747

And for those of you wondering what the heck a “Vestas Windmill” is, 4999 Vestas Windmill was a special limited-edition set created exclusively for employees of the Danish wind turbine company Vestas. As cool as it was, it was never made available to the general public, which caused quite a ruckus in the LEGO fan community.

Though substantially smaller than 4999, Perhaps 7747 Wind Turbine Transport represents The LEGO Group listening to that hue and cry…

Call for presentations/sessions at BrickCon 2009

Three months to BrickCon!

BrickCon 2009 is looking for any talks, roundtables, and special activities you would like to see at the Con this year. Going to and putting on sessions are one of the things that makes a Lego convention fun.

Past talks have included manufacturing custom parts, an introduction to LDraw, and packing Lego models for shipment, among many others.

Roundtables, or moderated discussions, have included Moonbase standards and design, landscaping, and anything that someone can think of.

Activities already planned for this year include the Dirty Brickster and the Wacky Race.

All we need for more talks, roundtables, and activities are ideas and people to run with them. Projectors and a computer will be available (although bringing your own laptop ensures compatibility). All spaces can be configured with tables and chairs as desired.

Any registered attendee who would like to run a presentation or activity should e-mail proposals or questions to me (my first three initials @ morfydd.net—please mention BrickCon in the subject). If possible, please include a possible title, brief description for the event program, and any time constraints or facility requirements. Events are typically scheduled to run up to fifty minutes but can be scheduled for more or less time.

I need proposals by September 6 to have time to prepare the schedule and the program. Earlier is better.

BrickCon is an annual adult Lego hobbyist convention and exposition in Seattle. BrickCon 2009 will be October 1–4, 2009, in the Seattle Center Exhibition Hall. For more information or to register visit
http://www.brickcon.org/

—
TWS Garrison
http://www.morfydd.net/twsg/
LEGO: CA+++ SW++ GA+c #++++++ LS+++ P+++++ YB77m

La lune est faite de fromage jaune

Okay, so I don’t know that this diorama by Mristoph Chonnaie (stenertje) is actually set on a moon made of yellow cheese, but it sure is delicious.

Take a closer look at the base and the fighters in the full photoset on Flickr.

Thanks for the tip, Rodney (we’re a bit behind right now).

See you on platform 3 at Central Station

As great as they are, brownstones and storefronts are fairly common LEGO structures built to the “Cafe Corner standard.” That makes this great train station by Johan van den Heuvel (Teddy) that much cooler.

I love the columns and the arches of the recessed entryway. The size itself is a first, as far as I can recall — not only double-wide but double-deep.

See interior shots and detail photos on Flickr, MOCpages, and Brickshelf.

LEGO Star Wars 8038 The Battle of Endor and 7749 Echo Base now available [News]

Following quickly on the latest LEGO Star Wars and Indiana Jones sets, 8038 The Battle of Endor and 7749 Echo Base are also now available from the LEGO Shop online.

The Endor set includes 12 minifigs and a great-looking AT-ST. The rebel commando minifigs have torsos that will work really well for military minifigs.

For only $25, Echo Base has a Tauntaun — let me repeat: a Tauntaun!!! — Han Solo, two rebel troopers (with new goggles), and two Imperial snowtroopers.

The past, present, and future of 10182 Cafe Corner

There’s no doubt that 10182 Cafe Corner will go down in history as a classic. But what would it look like at different point in human history? Crises has the answer.

Blacktron Falcon – 5973 Hyperspeed Pursuit made more classic by Nabii

Those of you who’ve built the LEGO Space Police sets will have noticed a number of subtle Easter eggs the LEGO designers included for long-time LEGO fans, including “Blacktron” spray-painted on the side of 5972 Space Truck Getaway.

Less subtle a reference but no less awesome, LEGO Designer Mark Stafford has built a Blacktron version of 5973 Hyperspeed Pursuit:

See more photos on MOCpages.

RIP Michael Jackson: 1958-2009

Whatever you thought of Michael Jackson later in his life, he leaves behind a legacy of iconic songs and amazing music videos. Ciamoslaw Ciamek captures Michael doing the moonwalk in “Smooth Criminal”.

Reminder: Testimonials needed for 2009 LEGO Ambassador nominees

As many LEGO fan communities discovered last year, convincing community members to step up and say something nice about each of the nominees proved to be harder than anticipated.

Some communities were even unable to submit their nominees due to lack of testimonials. Unfortunately, this part of the process is proving no less challenging this year.

So, this is a reminder for all of you out there to go to each of the communities where you’re active and write a testimonial for your LEGO Ambassador nominees.

Here are the three nominees for The Brothers Brick:

Classic-Castle.com | Nominees:

Classic-Pirates.com (process complete) | Nominees:

Bonaparte
Zorro

Comunidade 0937 | Nominee: Pedro “El_Gordo” Silva

Eurobricks (process complete) | Nominees:

FBTB | Nominees:

Flickr | Nominees:

HispaLUG | Nominee: Lluís Gibert

MOCPages voting is over, and testimonials are being collected by the individual nominees.

Palikkatakomo | Nominee: Tuomas Kukkamaa

PLUG | Nominees:

RoLUG | Nominee: Adrian Florea

SandLUG | Nominee: Fradel Gonzales

TurkLUG | Nominee: Cagri Yuz

Kockice | Nominee: Matija Grguric

I’ll be adding more lists of nominees as I encounter them. Other contributors are welcome to edit this post and do the same. Commenters are encouraged to add links in the comments as well.

If you’re wondering what a testimonial looks like, check out the three testimonials I posted for the nominees chosen by the LEGO fan community on Flickr.

Zombie minifigs infest Brian Colin’s paintings

Artist Brian Colin recently painted a series of small canvases featuring LEGO zombies. Gotta love that Classic Space zombie leading the horde.

Perhaps not the thing to hang in your baby’s nursery, but awesome on so many levels that I wanted to pick up a couple myself. Sadly, I was vetoed by my wife. The good news is that I’ve picked up a couple as prizes for Zombie Apocafest 2009.

Via Boing Boing.