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)

Favorite runners-up from the GO MINIMAN GO Photo Contest

LEGO fans submitted nearly a hundred entries to the GO MINIMAN GO Photo Contest, which made choosing the Grand Prize, First Prize, and Second Prize winners very hard.

Here are are a few of my personal favorites from among the rest of the entries.

Moritz Nolting packs a crowd of minifigs aboard a party truck, led by a dude with a monkey tattoo on his chest:

Peter Edwards constructs a lovely scene using a megalithic RCX brick:

Second Prize winner dabol_t entered nine photos in the contest. Here are my own favorites:

Fabuland, check! Maxi-figs, check! Retro car, check! This diorama by Aaron Andrews includes so many nostalgic elements, I’m about to pop! Plastic Revolution indeed.

Each of Erik Smit‘s entries was in contention for a prize in its category, and combined, they’re a truly wonderful series (best viewed large):

So, dear readers, what were your favorite entries?

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

Latest LEGO sales & deals from the LEGO Shop & Amazon.com [News]

With all the new LEGO sets out in December and January, it’s been a while since we’ve shared sales and deals with you.

10175 Vader’s TIE Advanced™ is 50% off:

Lots of small sets are also on sale, including Racers and Bionicle.

Click the banner to see all of the current deals from the LEGO Shop online:

In a first for us, here are the latest LEGO sales and deals on Amazon.com as well:

25% off: 7674 V-19 Torrent
23% off: 7673 MagnaGuard Starfighter

Amazon.com offers free shipping on most orders over $25 that ship directly from Amazon.

As much as I’d personally like to avoid it, advertising is what keeps The Brothers Brick running smoothly. In a weakening economy, diversifying our sources of revenue is critical. Still, let us know what you think about our addition of the Amazon links.

Announcing winners of the GO MINIMAN GO Photo Contest [News]

We’re very pleased (and relieved) to finally announce the winners of our GO MINIMAN GO Photo Contest!

Grand Prize goes to “The Surfer” by tiberium_blue:

Erik Smit takes himself back in time for First Prize in the 1970s category with “Me in the 1970s”:

Al Eisenbart captures the spirit of the 1980s with “Iron Maiden – World Slavery Tour Circa ’84”:

Alex Eylar keeps things musical through the 1990s with “Mid-nineties: The Rise of Indie Rock”:

“30: The Photograph” by keithcku wins First Prize in the 2000s category:

Second Prize winners:

1970s: “Watergate” by au_riverhorse
1970s: “Daydreamin’ of Adventure” by Shmails
1980s: “Go Miniman Panic Go!” by Ricardo Silva
1980s: “Live in Wan Chai Street in Hong Kong” by Alex Hui
1990s: “Me in the 1990s” by Erik Smit
1990s: “Go Miniman Go Downhill” by Rupi
2000s: “The 2000 Recount” by Alex Eylar
2000s: “Minifig Museum, Year 12000 by dabol_t

Congratulations to all the winners! And thanks to LEGO Brand Relations for generously providing the prizes and judging. Winners, we’ll be putting you in touch with LEGO for your prizes shortly.

Thanks for your patience as we stepped through the judging process. Look for my roundup of my favorite runners-up shortly as well. ;-)

LEGO Designer/Artist position open at TT Games [News]

Video game studio TT Games contacted us recently to ask if we could help them find someone to fill a cool new position they have on their LEGO design team. Naturally, we thought of all the talented builders who read The Brothers Brick! ;-)

Check out the job description below:

LEGO Designer/Artist

We are looking for an individual to join the LEGO Games – design/modelling team within our company in Cheshire, England.

Candidates must have a passion for all things LEGO and will need an excellent knowledge of existing LEGO sets and bricks in order to design and build unique LEGO models within a given time scale. The indivudal will be required to design models for a range of purposes for various members of the team in our dynamic and exciting working environment.

3D modelling experience in Autodesk Maya will be required however training can be made available. We are primarily looking for an individual who is able to create fun/accurate/working LEGO models for the increasing number of LEGO games we are working on.

Examples of designs from previous games can be found here.

Applicants should send their CV and sample images to cmcnair@t-tales.com.

Here at The Brothers Brick, we’re big fans of the LEGO video games created by TT Games, so further confirmation of an “increasing number of LEGO games” is good news indeed!

Good luck to the applicants, and let us know (if you can) how things go.

Taking on the Seething Mass of Slorox 5

The latest installment in Rodney Bistline‘s Space Action Hero series takes our intrepid hero into new dangers. Will he survive? Will he meet an untimely end on Slorox 5?

More in Rodney’s Brickshelf gallery. Via Klocki.

Entrevue avec Mark Stafford disponible en français

Our three-part interview with LEGO Designer Mark Stafford is now available in French on the FreeLUG website.

If you missed it the first time around in English, check it out:

The Brothers Brick releases all of our original content under a CreativeCommons license, and we’re happy to work with other LEGO fan sites and organizations to deliver our content in a variety of ways (like the mecha news feed on Mecha Hub). If you’re interested in using any of the content here on The Brothers Brick, just let us know.

And please let me know if I got the French in the headline wrong! ;-)

The sweet sounds of Michael Jasper’s musical instruments

Michael Jasper showcased some cool string bass and saxophone designs played by his Some Like it Hot characters last week, but he’s just added some more amazing musical instrument designs.

Not only do these Scotsmen carry ingenious bagpipes, but they’re also wearing kilts (made from minifig torsos):

This design for an electric guitar rocks my world:

Rock on, Michael Jasper, rock on.

From concept through execution at Jackson Fish Market

It’s not often I look at a LEGO creation, go off to read more about it, and then come back and find that my appreciation for the work has grown. Even as a writer, I’ll admit that words rarely add anything to a LEGO creation for me.

Not so with this scene by Hillel Cooperman from Jackson Fish Market:

Hillel built this as a second-anniversary gift for his startup’s partners, using the restricted palette in LEGO Digital Designer.

The simplicity of the overall design hides some very cool conceptual details, like each person performing symbolic work on a representation of the first website they built, a virtual flower gift site called They’re Beautiful!

Head on over to Cooperman Brick Foundry to read more.

Shelter in a post-apocalyptic storm

Kevin Fedde’s “larger project” Josh alluded to has apparently come to fruition:

A group of survivors cling to civilization in the middle of a wilderness. More on Brickshelf.

Mister Zumbi + Hellboy = Wicked Awesome

We love Adam Grabowski‘s vehicles, minifigs, and, oh, pretty much everything he does, but this Hellboy sculpture is an interesting departure. I suspect Mike Mignola would be proud.

Via Klocki. And don’t miss Jordan’s custom minifig from last year.

Colorful steampunk by draugaer

Like ApocaLEGO, steampunk creations have a fairly standard color scheme. You see brown, black, and gray and it’s safe to assume, “Oh. That’s steampunk (or ApocaLEGO).”

Draugaer illustrates that the Victorians who inspired our conception of steampunk probably had a can or two of paint lying around…

The Forgotten Beacon by Nathan Todd

It’s been more than two years since Nathan Todd posted the first installment in his “Entrance to the Caves” story — illustrated in LEGO, of course.

“The Forgotten Beacon” was well worth the wait:

The mountain has an interior full of caves, and Nathan says that the beacon uses a new curved tower technique.

Check out lots more pictures on Nathan’s website.