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)

“Kitarou” by mumu’s wife

In some families, the husband and wife build together. (Ahem! I said…) One such family is the mumu household. Mumu frequently posts creations by his wife, including several recent entries in the long-running shiritori word game.

Mumu’s wife’s most recent contribution is a group of three (four?) minifigs from the long-running Anime series Gegege no Kitarou. Sort of like the Japanese Scooby-Doo or an animated Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the series features a title character (Kitarou) who fights ghosts, monsters, and other nasties alongside his father, a disembodied human eye.

I like the tan hinge pieces as wooden sandals, the black turban as Kitarou’s hair, and the 1×1 white clip piece as tiny little feet on Medama Oyaji (“Pops the Eyeball”).

(I don’t actually know much about the show, since I wasn’t allowed to watch it growing up. Ghosts and monsters were just too close to the occult for my missionary parents.)

More shiritori entries comin’ right up!

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Japanese New Year’s Cards: “Nengajyou”

An important New Year’s tradition in Japan is to send out New Year’s greeting cards, called nengajyou. The cards often feature the animal from the Chinese zodiac for that year (2006 is the year of the dog). Although these cards usually take the form of postcards, several Japanese LEGO bloggers have posted wonderful electronic New Year’s cards.

First up, mumu posts a wonderful card on I Love Cute LEGO!:

And ayucow does likewise on Bacalogue:

Finally, Edwin (a New Zealander posting in Japanese) has posted a pug-themed card made by Edamame05. (Linking directly to the image doesn’t seem to work, so click the link to see the card.)

Japanese New Year’s Decorations by izzo

In much the same way that Christmas has many traditional decorations, Japanese New Year’s (celebrated on Januray 1st) has its own share of traditional decorations. Brickshelf user izzo presents several representative LEGO creations based on these decorations:

First up, a traditional wreath made from pine boughs, paper, rope, and a mandarin orange, or mikan. These wreaths appear on or above doors, and even on the front of cars, trucks, busses, and other vehicles:

Next, a kadomatsu, which are placed on both sides of a doorway or gate. Kadomatsu are made from three bamboo stalks cut at an angle, pine boughs, plum branches, and other elements:

Next, a kagamimochi, which homeowners place in their decorative alcove, or tokonoma. Kagamimochi are a pair of stacked rice cakes, together with some small pine boughs and a mikan:

Finally — and this is by far my personal favorite — izzo presents a lion dancer with a fantastic mask:

izzo also has a home page.

If you’d like to learn more about New Year’s day in Japan, Wikipedia has a reasonably good article. Google also works.

Happy Year of the Dog!

Despite past behavior to the contrary, Pugsly has promised to be good to my LEGO in 2006.

The Bounty Hunter 4-LOM by Chris Deck

Chris Deck is a man after my own heart. Here’s a quote from his FBTB Forums post:

Same rules apply for him as for all my other minifigs, too: No saw, glue or paint.

Ah, sweet, sweet music to my purist ears! ;-) Oh, and here’s the alien Bounty Hunter 4-LOM himself:

I would not have thought to use binoculars on his face. Nice job, Chris!

LEGO INC

I recently blogged about Brickshelf user comic’s creations based on Hayao Miyazaki films, promising to highlight his blog here on Pan-Pacific Bricks.

Ichigou and Nigou regularly (sometimes daily) post new stop-motion LEGO Star Wars movies. You have to see them to believe them, so head on over to LEGO INC and check them out for yourself!

The movies are in Windows Media (WMV) format, so you’ll need Windows Media Player, available for free from Microsoft. The movies themselves are in English, with Japanese subtitles. They also maintain a master list of all the movies they’ve posted, broken out by episode. Pretty darn cool!

Nausicaa Creations by comic/Ichigou

I highlighted Brickshelf user comic’s Robonoid MOC a couple weeks ago, promising to post (must…resist…cross-linking!) about his Star Wars stop-motion movies. Before I had a chance to do so, he posted some really cool creations based on my favorite Hayao Miyazaki movie (and lengthy comic book saga), Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind.

First up, the fighter/gunship from the city of Pejite:

Admittedly, the gunship is dark red in the movie, but the shape is great! Nice use of the canopy from Anakin’s Jedi Starfighter.

Second, the powered glider Mehve that Nausicaa herself flies:

I like the little Ohmu in the fourth image in the gallery, as well as comic’s use of the submarine bubble as the Ohmu’s eye that Nausicaa gets from the forest. My only suggestion would be to use this torso for Nausicaa instead of the plain blue one. But maybe the plain blue works — I’ve never entirely liked the Nausicaa minifigs I’ve made myself…

Overall, great job!

Moko’s “Baikinman”

The popular Japanese cartoon “Anpanman” features a self-sacrificing superhero who has a head made of bread filled with bean jam. You with me so far? Anpanman fights starvation and hunger everywhere. His arch-nemesis is an evil space-germ named Baikinman (“baikin” means germ). Behold the animated GIF!

Moko has graced us with a version of Baikinman to rival all other LEGO space-germs:

Moko doesn’t seem to think much of this new creation, but I personally think it’s very accurate — and adorable! Now, let’s hope Moko makes our favorite edible superhero as well. Go Anpanman, go!

Edit (12/27/05): I must have missed it, but Moko did indeed create an Anpanman figure (thumbnails are links):

Tasty!

Technorati rank: 243,828

Technorati provides various tools for people interested in blogs. Technorati’s main feature is its search capability, and the site indexes more than 23.5 million blogs on the Internet. By “claiming” a blog (Technorati verifies that you’re the blog owner), you get access to more tools, including the ability to apply tags to your blog.

What’s interesting is that Technorati also displays your blog’s rank in the blogosphere, based on the number of incoming links to your blog. As of December 21, 2005, “Dunechaser’s Blocklog” is ranked 243,828. Out of 23.5 million, that’s not too shabby! Woo hoo!

New Header — Yeah Baby!

Thanks to my graphic designer friend Sky, Pan-Pacific Bricks now has a cool new header graphic.

For a blog about breaking down barriers between LEGO cultures across the Pacific Ocean, I thought a minifig from each of the uniquely American and Japanese themes would be appropriate. Thus the cowboy and the samurai, from the Wild West and Ninjas themes.

I like the slightly faded background behind the minifigs, and how the horns on the samurai’s helmet overlap the frame at the top of the original image.

Thanks Sky, you make good graphics!

Sugegasa’s “Fig-9”

Sugegasa has just posted a sinister-looking minifigure called “Fig-9” (okay, so all of Sugegasa’s minifigs are numberd, but “Fig-9” just seems like an appropriate name for this one):

“Fig-9” would fit in well in the Tech West theme. I wonder how Sugegasa attached the rifle behind the fig?

Japanese Figure Skater is a LEGO Fan

Japanese figure skater Mao Asada, currently in first place (Washington Post – requires registration) in the ISU Figure Skating Grand Prix Finals being held in Tokyo, is apparently a LEGO fan. According to her official Web site her hobbies include jigsaw puzzles and LEGO.

What set Japanese bloggers buzzing today was the one item she picked up off the ice after her routine — a LEGO bag.

EDIT (12/22/05): Mao Asada won the Grand Prix championship on December 17, but will likely not be allowed to go to the Olympics in Turin early next year. But wait, there’s good news! Here’s a quick translation of the first paragraph from a follow-up article in a Japanese newspaper:

Mao Asada: Reward for winning is ‘LEGO’
Mao Asada (age 15), who won the Figure Skating Grand Prix Finals for the first time, participated on the 19th in a press conference for Japanese National Championship (12/23-12/25) entrants. “I’m going to do two Triple Axels,” she said enthusiastically. In the midst of the discussion on the age limit that may prevent her from entering the Olympics in Turin, she innocently exclaimed, for winning the Grand Prix Finals “I’m going to get LEGO blocks.”

So her LEGO hobby is even showing up in sports section headlines!