The Final Fantasy series has been a frequent inspiration for my LEGO creations, so it was fascinating to read that Final Fantasy creator and head of game design studio Mistwalker Hironobu Sakaguchi builds with LEGO when he’s looking for inspiration.
Click each photo of a LEGO creation by Hironobu Sakaguchi to read how he uses LEGO in his creative process as a video game designer.
(Via Joystiq, with a hat-tip to reader Nathan Hale.)
Mark Stafford (Nabii) a corporate-sponsored military mecha “capable of fitting into bomb shelters and emerging later to aid in civil defense.”
See more pictures on both MOCPages and Flickr.
We don’t normally blog works in progress, but this massive LEGO Castle diorama by Johan “Teddy” van den Heuvel (Johanvande) is too epic to pass up.
Teddy has described his LEGO Castle as “a typical Dutch castle,” but it’s anything but ordinary. From the angled walls to the beautiful cross-shaped windows, I can’t wait to see what Teddy has planned for the final version.
Uspez Morbo gives the Republic Gunship design a seriously awesome upgrade with his Blackhawk.
Naturally, Clone Jedi Elite Captain Glorious has a cool swoop bike to jaunt around planets in the Outer Rim.
Read all about Clone Jedi Elite Captain Glorious on MOCpages.
The Landing Craft the Allies used to storm the beaches of Normandy were definitely not this adorable.
Nevertheless, this tiny diorama by Nick D.M. (DarthNick) includes plenty of action. The splash of cannon and the *piff* of machine gun fire on the sand are excellent touches.
Larry Lars has been posting a series of cool little figures he calls “Larryfigs”. Somewhere between tiny mecha and hardsuits, Larry demonstrates that these offer a wide range of possibility.
Chris P. (chrispockster) captures the moment when enigmatic inventor Nikola Tesla demonstrates powerfully arcing electricity generated from his magnifying transmitter
Sometimes, the best way to illustrate a complicated technical concept is through LEGO bricks. I spent my workday today shifting capacity around for a pair of virtual servers I manage (Hyper-V rocks), so this video about server virtualization in “the cloud” really hit home.
Ignore the “Lego’s” in the text, and Yes, it’s an ad for bluelock, but the video makes virtualization a bit easier to understand, and features engraved LEGO bricks by Tommy Armstrong, the Brick Engraver. Thanks for the link, Tommy!
After a couple weekends of PHP and CSS coding, I’m pleased to announce the launch of the new look and feel for The Brothers Brick!
This new design has a brighter header graphic and more room for cool widgets to either side of our posts — like a scannable list of the most recent comments — along with smaller tweaks like better-organized categories and collapsible archives.
For those of you on the RSS feed, be sure to click through to see what you’re missing.
We’ve tested our changes on Safari, Firefox, and Internet Explorer on both PC and Mac, but let us know if you have any issues.
One of the most common issues appears when you load the new version of Brothers-Brick.com for the first time. You’ll know it when you see it (right).
Just clear your browser’s cache and it should appear normally.
This is time-sensitive enough that I figured it was worth a reminder. The free LEGO Star Wars minifig poster promotion ends at midnight Eastern tomorrow, along with your chance to win a free Falcon.
It’s not clear how long the $125 discount on 10179 Ultimate Collector’s Millennium Falcon™ will last either.
Again, this is unfortunately limited to the US and Canada, but those of you elsewhere can download the high-res LEGO Star Wars minifig poster from Flickr.
Guy Himber (V&A Steamworks) recently began applying his special effects artistry to his LEGO hobby by producing custom stovepipe hats.
The hats are like hilariously exaggerated versions of the official LEGO top hats, and are absolutely perfect for steampunk and Victorian fantasy minifigs.
Guy was kind enough to send along a couple of the hats for us to review, and they’re made extremely well. I put one on a minifig and couldn’t stop laughing for five minutes.
The hats are beautifully machined from Delrin plastic and have that perfect “LEGO fit” — they slide onto the minifig’s head without effort, hold well, and come off easily with that satisfying “pop!” you expect from official LEGO headgear.
The V&A Steamworks Stovepipe Hat is currently available in brown, black, and white. Click the lineup photo above for pricing info and how to order.
(The Brothers Brick has a small backlog of custom accessories to review, including all the new BrickArms items, HAZEL’s accessories from CustomMinifig.co.uk, minifig stands from Minifig World, new accessories from Arealight, and more. Please bear with us as we get caught up.)
Joris Blok (joris.blok) recreated his house in The Netherlands. I’ve seen some nice brickwork, but Joris’s LEGO brick wall is outstanding.
While we’re at it, here are some of Joris’s very cool LEGO Pokemon, Oddish and Magnemite.
Oh, what the heck — here’s Joris’s Nintendo DS, too.
