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)

Tiny and swooshable ships by legosamurai

Flickrite legosamurai presents two lovely microscale space ships.

Freighter One:

Fleet Guard Cutter:

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Enjoying fish & chips with Ralph Savelsberg

Following up on his delicious Curry House, Ralph Savelsberg adds a purveyer of fish and chips to his modular street:

Here they are together:

Harrison has a big red button

And he’s not afraid to push it:

More in Harrison’s photostream on Flickr.

LEGO changes magnet designs [News]

This should come as no surprise to anybody paying attention to all the magnet-related toy safety issues in the news over the last couple of years. Let me stress that LEGO has never, to my knowledge, recalled any of its toys that include magnets due to safety concerns. This appears to be a proactive change that anticipates future legislation in one or more of LEGO’s markets.

Here’s the word from Billund:

Hi all,

Due to a safety accident with another toy producers product, the LEGO Group is expecting a ban of small parts that contain magnets in the USA and the EU from 2009. As a consequence the LEGO Group has decided to stop selling products which contain magnets in small parts to obey already now the new rules and make no compromise with product safety.

This affects mainly 2 products – the LEGO fridge magnets and the LEGO train magnet couplings.

The train magnets will be re-designed as you can see on the pictures and we expect the new magnets in the boxes from August. LEGO Train sets packaged before August will still contain the existing magnets. The new LEGO train magnet element will be visually different from the existing train magnet element but due to that the magnet can rotate in the plastic cover and the clutch power will be as strong as at the old element the function will be identical and fully compatible with the existing train magnet elements.

The LEGO fridge magnets will also be re-designed and the new version is expected to be available for sale end of 2008.

Jan Beyer, LEGO Community Development

Discuss!

Horace Cheng masters the skies

After dropping out of the LEGO scene for a while, Horace Cheng is clearly back with a vengeance.

Can a hardsuit be swooshable? Yes, yes it can:

Bonus moon-bot with modular limbs:

Brando Bulldog the Butcher

I don’t know if it’s true, but I’ve always credited Mark “Hinckley” Larson with starting the whole Fabuland trend way back when with his Fabuland Housewives series.

Mark’s latest Fabuland creation features Brando Bulldog and his lovely house:

See more on Flickr or BrickZone.net.

Zero Suit Samus minifig by Moko

Moko has been playing Metroid Prime 3, or so it would seem from his latest minifig, featuring Samus’s Varia suit and her Zero Suit:

Malakh and Varuna

Kevin Guoh (Flickr) is on a mecha-building roll.

Malakh looks like it could take on a host of demons:

And Varuna looks agile enough to leap over tall buildings in a single bound:

Photo review of LEGO Agents 8631 Jetpack Pursuit [News]

I don’t know how or where, but Flickrite okayaraman has picked up a copy of forthcoming LEGO Agents set 8631 Jetpack Pursuit (due out this fall, I believe).

Click through to Flickr for lots of photos:

Ever since seeing the earlier prototype pictures, I’ve been wondering how the chainsaw is connected to the cyborg’s arm. This appears to be the first new arm piece in 30 years:

Vebotian purrymen have all the fun

Nnenn gets in on some retro space action with this whimsical “strider”:

Spooked again

I don’t have anything particularly useful to say about Tim “Spook” Zarki’s latest mecha.

So, without further comment from me, feast your eyes on the beefiness of the “Baelisk Variable Flight Artillery Platform”:

A pencil inside a mug

I’m not entirely happy with Donna, the 10th Doctor’s most recent companion. I was kind of hoping Astrid Peth (played by a shockingly young-looking Kylie Minogue) would join The Doctor on his journeys through space and time, but that was not to be.

Anyway, that doesn’t detract from how cool I think Ochre Jelly‘s latest Miniland figures are, inspired by Doctor Who:

Yes, Donna’s screaming. What else would she be doing?