All hail His Hirsute Majesty Fuzzwuzzle the Third, Sovereign of the Fuzzlands, Ruler of the Furrywoollies, Emperor of the Hairy Isles, Grand Duke of the Downy Downs and Viscount of the Velvet Valley! Bow beneath the majesty of his beard and mustachios.
This amusing character brought to you by the ever-entertaining Djordje.
As we kick off 2015 and reflect back at 2014, let’s take a look at some of the great LEGO creations we’ve featured here. LEGO builders all over the world built thousands and thousands of models over the year, but here are the ten that were viewed most on The Brothers Brick.
1. Mayhem in the Mines by Grant Davis (right) gave us a view into the dramatic tension between goblins and Uruk-hai. Apparently, these two kinds of villainous creatures from The Lord of the Rings don’t get along particularly well.
Grant’s multi-tiered diorama features realistic rocks in the cave, lots of wooden structures, and little stories on each level.
I hadn’t encountered Grant’s work until we featured “Mayhem in the Mines,” but with the top LEGO model on The Brothers Brick in 2014, I’m very much looking forward to what he’ll share with all of us in 2015!
2. Build your own Ghostbusters HQ firehouse with instructions from Brent Waller. With the release of his LEGO Ideas Ecto 1 set, I’d say Brent had a pretty good year!
But if your personal Ghostbusters layout was missing anything, it was probably the firehouse that the crew used as a headquarters. Brent saves the day, though, by giving us all instructions to build his firehouse design.
3. They mostly come out at night — mostly…”. Back in May, Xenomorph designer H.R. Giger died at age 74. We rounded up some of the best LEGO models inspired by the Alien franchise from previous years, as well as some great new scenes from Aliens put together by “Missing Brick.”
We’ve highlighted the stellar LEGO Castle creations of César Soares (three times already this month, in fact!), but each one stands out as beautiful and unique in its own right. César’s latest building stands not atop a mound of highly textured landscaping but an incredibly thin spire.
The builds themselves deserve the attention and praise we’ve given them, but César also presents each with an enigmatic story told with carefully placed minifigs going about their little minifig lives.
František Hajdekr has built an adorable little Technic chainsaw with both a working chain and a piston that pumps up and down.
You can see the chainsaw in action in this video.
Even more adorable is this teeny tiny dump truck. Squeee!!!
If you haven’t checked out František’s photostream on Flickr, do so now — you won’t be disappointed, with everything from cute little vehicles to beefy motorcycles.
As a small child back in Japan, I used Go pieces to create serpentine roads across tatami floors for my little Tomica cars, but my family left Japan before I ever played a proper game. I still get nostalgic whenever I see Go games. Joe Miller built this fully functional 9×9 Go set completely from LEGO, using some rather complicated techniques to place the black lines on the board.
The lines themselves are the tops of 1×2 half-panels wedged into full (3-brick high) panels, combined with some serious sideways and upside-down (SNOT) construction.
This time of year in the northern hemisphere can be a bit depressing, especially as far north as it is here at TBB headquarters (poor Lemur…). Peteris Strogis sheds some light on this dark time with this futuristic, solar-powered vehicle. Every greeble seems to have a purpose, and the rear tires built from track treads are inspired.
Oddly perhaps, one of the things I enjoyed most about the Maschinen Krieger models I built myself a couple years ago was not the hardsuits and vehicles themselves but the little bases I made to display them. Matthew Oh takes this to a whole new level with the highly detailed ruins with which he surrounds his SAFS “Wolverine” hardsuit.
Many LEGO builders take our inspiration for Ma.K models from the creations of plastic modelers both working with the original kits and scratch-building in the Ma.K universe inspired by nothing more than their imagination. The cross-section profile of Matthew’s LEGO diorama beautifully matches the aesthetic of what plastic modelers do, while retaining enough visible studs to ensure it’s abundantly evident that the model is built from LEGO. Oh, and that roof!
The recovering industries of post-war Europe produced a number of fascinating micro-cars to operate in the narrow streets of countries like Germany, Italy, and France. Chief among these was the Isetta, a gorgeous little bubble-car that ming1903 has faithfully recreated in LEGO.
I’d challenge builders out there to create a LEGO Isetta that fits a minifig and has a functional pop-open front, but this version beautifully replicates the shape of the real-life car.
The Bricks to the Past group in the UK unveiled their latest large-scale collaboration at the Great Western Brick Show (aka STEAM) a couple weeks ago, and it’s a sight to behold.
Featuring scenes from Victorian London at the time of the Industrial Revolution, the display was built by James Pegram, Jimmy Clynche, Simon Pickard, and Workshysteve
The display not only includes street scenes, great architecture, and other above-ground details, but also extensive underground detail, such as sewers, crypts, and fossils.
Check out their Flickr group and website for more photos and a walkthrough of the various builds in the display.
Earlier this evening here in Seattle at BrickCon, LEGO officially unveiled the new 75060 Slave I. Unlike every other incarnation of this set, the UCS version is truly minifig-scale, and includes Boba Fett, Han Solo (with carbonite), a Bespin guard, and Stormtooper. With nearly 2,000 pieces, the set will be released in January 2015 for $200 in the US (full pricing details in the press release later in the post).
We had a chance to take a close look at the new set at BrickCon. Play features include everything you’d expect — pop-out blasters, revolving cannon, rotating wings, etc. See nearly 20 official photos in the photoset on Flickr.
Slave I is quite swooshable, as I demonstrate with my Hadouken! pose.
Here’s the full press release from LEGO.
75060 Slave I™
Ages 14+. 1,996 pieces.
US $199.99 – CA $229.99 – DE 199.99€ – UK £169.99 – DK 1699.00 DKK
*Euro pricing varies by country. Please visit shop.LEGO.com for regional pricing.Lift off for bounty-hunting adventures in the Slave I!
Search the galaxy for fugitives with Boba Fett and his Slave I with rotating cockpit and wings, dual shooters and a display stand.
Track down fugitives with legendary bounty hunter, Boba Fett aboard the powerful Slave I! This exclusive LEGO® Star Wars model features a rotating cockpit and wings for flight and landing mode, plus dual shooters and hidden blasters to repel attackers. Reenact the capture of Han Solo in Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back and take off from Bespin with the carbonite-imprisoned Rebel hero in the cargo hold. Attach the stand to display this iconic ship in characteristic upright flight. Includes 4 minifigures with weapons: Boba Fett, Bespin Guard, Stormtrooper and Han Solo.
- Includes 4 minifigures with weapons: Boba Fett, Bespin Guard, Stormtrooper and Han Solo
- Also includes Han Solo in carbonite!
- Features a rotating cockpit and wings, opening side hatches with hidden guns and missiles, 2 rotating dual shooters, cargo hold and a display stand with data sheet
- Weapons include special blaster pistol for Boba Fett, blaster pistol for Bespin Guard and a blaster rifle for the Stormtrooper
- Boba Fett and Bespin Guard minifigures are unique to this set
- Rotate the cockpit and wings for flight and landing mode
- Place carbonite-imprisoned Han Solo in the cargo hold
- Open the side hatches to unleash missiles from the hidden guns
- Showcase the huge Slave I in upright flight on the display stand
- Recreate classic scenes from Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back
- Measures over 7” (20cm) high, 17” (45cm) long and 14” (37cm) wide in landing mode
Available for sale directly through LEGO® beginning January 2015
Finally, here’s the designer video. Be sure to watch it to catch a pretty hilarious play feature.
Nannan will also have a walk-around video, unless I was talking too much in the background…
In less than 72 hours, LEGO builders from all over the world will gather in Seattle to kick off BrickCon 2014. Eight of us from The Brothers Brick will be there, and we’ll of course be running our ChronoCon 10,000 BC collaborative display, handing out a bit of swag, and generally making BrickCon that much more awesome.
“A Sound of Thunder” by TBB’s own Simon
If you haven’t left yet and want to throw together a last-minute build for us, we’ve made things easy — just build a convention booth, celebrity signing desk, or fighting dinosaur.
And finally, if you won’t be making it to the full, four-day private convention starting on Thursday, be sure to swing by during the public hours on Saturday or Sunday. You can buy tickets on BrickCon.org.
BrickCon is going to be awesome, but it’ll be even more awesome with you there!
Whether on our Facebook page, Twitter, or requests to each of our contributors individually, I’d guess that fully 99% of the LEGO Ideas projects we’re asked to throw our weight behind are not original ideas born of the project owner’s own imagination, built in LEGO with their own talent and skill. This is why we, along with many of our readers, were so excited about the LEGO Ideas Exo Suit — it’s a truly original design by a talented LEGO builder. We’d like to see more ideas like that succeed.
I’ve always said that Jon Hall is one of my favorite builders, and I’m happy to see that he’s posted one of his stellar sky-fi planes to LEGO Ideas.
The project already has over a thousand votes, which means it’s gaining a bit of momentum. Join me in supporting this great original idea and see if we can get it to 10,000 supporters.
(Thanks for making sure we saw this project, Curtis!)