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)

A striking frigate

Chris (Ironspniper) says his latest model is a microscale space frigate, but I think it could work just as well as a fig-scale drone or fighter.

That’s one of the odd things about LEGO models not built to resemble something “real” — it’s really up to the builder to decide what scale it’s in. I’ve built spacecraft myself that I only decided were microscale after I’d finished them and taken the pictures.

Regardless, the great color choices and contrast between angular and circular shapes make for one excellent LEGO model.

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.

Clattering along in Ɍaillery’s Jigger-class Steam Railtank Mk. LXXIV

Going in the opposite direction, chronologically, from the last post yesterday, here’s an armored hand car by Beau Donnan (Ɍaillery).

Two minifigs fit inside this “railtank,” pumping the adorable little war machine forward.

Though posted nearly a year ago, I also can’t pass up Beau’s wonderfully inventive windmill locomotive in the same alternate history theme.

The lovely asymettry of the Azuki Shipyards Myrmidon-class missile boat

John Stephens (-=Steebles=-) says of his missile boat that it’s “designed to deliver endless salvos of medium and long range missiles.” While the loadout is certainly formidable, I’m most impressed by the radical asymmetry of the craft, with the cockpit offset from the center-line, balanced by the sensor array and two very different wings. Nevertheless, the forward projections and wingtips on both wings tie it all together very nicely.

A tiny lighthouse made of Modulex

The sheer scale of all the dioramas we’ve featured today calls for a tiny chaser — just something different. Modulex is as different as you can get, so here’s a lovely lighthouse built by Carson Hart.

Modulex has a fairly limited palette compared to SYSTEM bricks, so the sand under the water and the printed piece on top of the lighthouse are particularly excellent details.

No evidence children harmed by greater variety in LEGO minifig facial expressions

We’ve been studiously ignoring the rather ridiculous press coverage of a study published last month in the Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction. The study itself is simply a numerical analysis of minifig facial expressions from 1975 to 2010, concluding that facial expressions perceived by adults as “happy” have decreased over time in favor of “angry” faces and other emotions. It’s actually a rather interesting study, if you bother to read it.

But the media frenzy surrounding the study has been silly at best and consistently inaccurate — not necessarily about the trend toward more variety in minifig facial expressions but about the substance and conclusions of the study. One of the more moronic trends among the articles — or at least their headlines, which many people probably don’t read past — is claiming that the study says that the greater diversity in minifigure facial expressions is somehow harmful to children.

Conan O’Brian did a bit last night that is representative of the misunderstanding many people have about the issue. While Conan and his writers put the material to good comedic use, it reminded me that we might still want to post something about the study and the press coverage surrounding it. The story just doesn’t want to die!

Thankfully, not all the coverage is as idiotic as what you’ve probably seen on your local news. Scientific American editorial intern Arielle Duhaime-Ross has written an excellent blog post about the study and its media coverage, with insights into why people have been so attracted to the story.

She quotes one of the New Zealand researches as saying, “Our little LEGO study was never intended to give scientific evidence of the minifigures’ harmful effects — it cannot even give a hint.” Christoph Bartneck continues, “The media fights for our attention and one mechanism they use is to invoke fear.”

It’s this fear-mongering that I find so distasteful (and consistent with the controversy surrounding LEGO Friends). I’m no defender of the LEGO brand or corporation, nor do I always agree with the decisions they make — I’ve been advocating for more ethnic and gender diversity in minifigs for years, in fact — but I do take issue with bad journalism.

Head on over to ScientificAmerican.com to read Arielle’s post, and let us know what you think yourself in the comments.

These Despicable Me minions know how to have a good time

Everybody’s favorite super-villain returned to movie theaters this past weekend, assisted by an army of minions. Joachim Klang (-derjoe-) has created a series of photos featuring the adorable minions from Despicable Me 2. One of my favorite scenes from the first movie is when Dave the minion blows up several of his colleagues with a rocket launcher.

Here they are suggesting that you head back to theaters again later this year.

And finally, a little something for those of you who’ve seen the movie.

Though not as bitingly hilarious as the first movie, I thought Despicable Me 2 certainly lived up to its predecessor in sheer entertainment value — my wife and I laughed so hard several times tears were streaming down our faces.

New and upcoming LEGO books for Jul-Oct 2013

It seems like there are new books about LEGO coming out constantly, both from famously “LEGO-friendly” publishing houses like No Starch Press and from many other publishers.

We haven’t been able to feature or review all of them, so here’s a quick roundup of the many LEGO books published so far in 2013, along with links to pre-order a number of future books.

The Big Unofficial Lego Builder’s Book: Build Your Own City by Joachim Klang and Oliver Albrecht
Brick City: Global Icons to Make from LEGO by Warren Elsmore
LEGO Minifigures: Character Encyclopedia from DK, with an exclusive toy soldier minifig
The BrickGun Book: Build the World’s Most Realistic LEGO Handguns by Jeff Boen
Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry by David Robertson with Bill Breen
Lego: Build Your Own Vehicles by Joachim Klang
The LEGO Build-It Book, Vol. 1: Amazing Vehicles by Nathanaël Kuipers and Mattia Zamboni, due out July 29
Beautiful LEGO by Mike Doyle, due out September 10
The LEGO Adventure Book, Vol. 2: Spaceships, Pirates, Dragons & More! by Megan Rothrock, due out September 22
The LEGO Build-It Book, Vol. 2: More Amazing Vehicles by Nathanaël Kuipers and Mattia Zamboni, due out September 22
LEGO Galaxy: Build Your Own Universe by Joe Klang, Oliver Albrecht, and Lutz Uhlmann, due out October 16
LEGO Space: Building the Future by Peter Reid and Tim Goddard, due out October 22

I’m particularly excited about LEGO Space by perennial TBB favorites Pete Reid and Tim Goddard. Though we don’t have too many details about what’s inside, the cover alone hints at Neo-Classic Space greatness.

Vaalderie Science Vessel by Pierre E Fieschi

Proving once again that my brain doesn’t work like his, Pierre E Fieschi‘s latest large-scale microspace ship incorporates so many realistic bits and bobbles that the mind just boggles.

Pierre’s usual attention to detail encapsulates four large spheres (notoriously difficult to work with EDIT: And notoriously not LEGO, in this particular case…), three of which represent research biodomes. It’s been several months since Pierre posted his last large model, so I was very pleased to see this come through in my feed today.

The green, green ships of home

It’s been nearly a month since we’ve posted any microspace, so it seems high time we correct that with this verdant pair of spaceships by Erik (Lemon_Boy).

The angled shapes are lovely, especially where sections of the ships connect to each other. As always, judicious use of Exo-Force stickers and small spots of color can really make a model pop. Erik says his ships were inspired by ones in Legend of the Galactic Heroes.

10237 Tower of Orthanc out now, plus free hotdog stand in July [News]

The new LEGO Lord of the Rings set 10237 The Tower of Orthanc is now available to everyone from the LEGO Shop online.

The set has been available early to LEGO VIP program members for the last couple of weeks. And speaking of the VIP Program, members can get a free hotdog stand with any order over $75 in July.

Link for US readers:

Link for Canadian readers:

Toys & Games on Amazon.ca

And speaking of Canada, Amazon.ca now sells toys and games, including a fair bit of LEGO. As we’ve reminded our US readers, you don’t have to buy LEGO from Amazon to support The Brothers Brick — a percentage of every purchase, from books to video games, goes to help TBB, at no extra cost to you.

TR will be bringing you updates about sales and deals he sees on Amazon.ca.

BrickCon 2013 registration now open [News]

BrickCon 2013 is now open for registration! As we’ve said before, BrickCon is our favorite LEGO convention in the increasingly busy North American LEGO convention circuit.

The official theme for BrickCon 2013 is “Pigs vs. Cows” (as I’m sure everyone gathered from the Kickstarter project we highlighted earlier this year). What does that craziness mean? Well, that’s really up to you — LEGO is, after all, a creative medium. I’m not sure how town and train builders will manifest the theme in their layout, or whether we can expect cows storming the pig-defended beaches of a LEGO Normandy, but I do know that the castle builders have something spectacular planned.

Speaking of collaborations, watch this space for more info on the various themes that will give you the opportunity to contribute to a group build.

If you haven’t been to BrickCon before, check out BrickCon photos on Flickr and our own BrickCon coverage here on The Brothers Brick.

Be sure to go to BrickCon.org/Builders/ to register for the full, four-day private convention.

Cyberpocalypse Now

One of the most spectacular collaborations unveiled at Brickworld 2013 was a cyberpunk city full of tall buildings lit up with working lights. I had the privilege of providing a bit of input on the Japanese signage (a lot of which is very, very silly), and I was overjoyed by how wonderful the end result was.

Like all great collaborations, the display involved many builders — Carter Baldwin, Chris Edwards, Nate Brill, Kyle Vreze, Forest King, Ignacio Bernaldez, Sam Wormuth, and Alex Valentino.

It’s beautiful in the dark, but you can see a lot more of the detail in the light.

Some of the signage is built from EL (electroluminescent) wire, though there’s plenty of brick-built lettering too. Carter saved my personal favorite for himself — a big building in the background that says “Foreign Girls” in giant red letters.

Chris Edwards’ main photo has links to lots more photos.