The tenth year of the CCC was a big one! We had over 400 entries and many of the honorable-mentions would have been winners in previous years. Check out winners and enjoy some Castle-Greatness!
Here are some of my favorites among the winners:
Best Castle – Ras al Jabar by Fianat
Best Winter Scene – And the Band Played On by SlyOwl
Best Misc. – Visit by LolinoLL
The Master Builder will announced as soon as we can figure out who wins. It is an extremely close race.
Cole Edmonson has rocked my world again. He has recently posted pictures of his full-scale Glamdring, the sword carried by Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings. It is a beautiful sword and Cole has out-done himself. I hope he continues recreating LOTR weapons in LEGO form. I’m loving it.
This shiny new monster by Bricksonwheels is a thing of beauty.
Based on the color scheme and insignia of the iconic plane belonging the orginal Red Baron, Manfred Von Richthofen, this bike really pops. The level of detail and the scale make this one of those models that doesn’t look like LEGO until you look closer. We expect beautiful models from this builder but this particular build is something special.
I love a good battle scene and really good, properly posed ones are quite rare. This scene, by TheDonald13, has excellent posing and near perfect photography. It feels like you are right there in the middle of it, fighting for your life amongst the little plastic warriors.
Minifigs are suprisingly difficult to pose realisticly and action scenes are some of the most difficult. Massed battles are also difficult to photograph. The minifigs tend to blur together and it can be hard to get a sense of what the builder has going on.
We recently received a press release from the administrators of a new LEGO fan community dedicated to the popular new theme, LEGO Friends. The site is called FriendsBricks.
We are a worldwide community of Friends fans: Our members are AFOLs, TFOLs, Parents, Sisters and Brothers — some seasoned LEGO fans & builders, and some newly discovering the love of building through Friends bricks. Our core purpose is sharing creations, reviews & news. Since the January 1st, 2012 launch of LEGO Friends, Heartlake City life has been inspiring us. Stop by www.FriendsBricks.com and join in the Friendship!
If you are a fan of LEGO Friends you should go check it out!
Bart De Dobbelaer has built a classic “baddie”, the Cacodemon, from the iconic and controversial video game “DOOM“. It is so perfect (and adorable) I need one…or three.
EDIT: I had originally written that the Cacodemon was introduced in DOOM 2, but I was in error. Many thanks to Peter Morris for the correction!
Mark Larson has been no stranger to readers of The Brothers Brick. Mark is now working for LEGO as a Master Modeler. One of his recent projects has been working on the new Legoland hotel, set to open in April at Legoland California.
Mark recently did an interview with Huffington Post Travel and answered many questions about his work on the hotel, his job with LEGO and how to get a dragon in a bathtub to talk (spoiler alert: it’s secret LEGO magic).
Click on the picture to read the interview.
Dwalin and Balin are probably my two favorite dwarves from The Hobbit and Eero Okkonen recreated them perfectly. There is a plethora of cool details in both figures but the pattern on Balin’s shirt is incredible.
Adam Grabrowski has just worked up a couple of beautiful little World War I tanks, tan and olive green Renault FT-17s. This tank first saw use in 1918 and revolutionized tank design at the time.
World of Tanks fans will recognize these as the first tank in the French Tech Tree. Adam’s design is very true to the original and is a great build. But of course we expect greatness from Adam, so this is no surprise.
Before anyone gets all excited about the olive green parts, both tanks sport custom paint jobs. The olive green version is completely painted and the tan tank has a custom-painted turret. I’m really liking these awesome little tanks!
Dave Shaddix just finished this mosaic in honor of Buzz Aldrin’s recenly celebrated 83rd birthday. This is a great rendition of an iconic photograph. For the few who don’t know who or what is in the picture, it is a picture that Neil Armstrong took of Buzz Aldrin during the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969. The LEM and Neil Armstrong are reflected in the visor of Buzz Aldrin’s spacesuit. Well done, Dave, I love it!
This review is about an unusual item, namely one made for storage of LEGO rather than building with it. Sarah Kirk, the owner of Swoop Bag, sent us one to check out some time ago. My apologies to Swoop Bag for the delay in reviewing it.
This is actually a rather interesting product. Similar to the play-mats that LEGO made back in the 70s, the Swoop Bag is a combination play-mat and storage bag, designed to transform from storage to play-space and back again.
It consists of a 44 inch, round canvas mat with a nylon draw-string encased in a sleeve around the edge. The sleeve doubles as a containment “wall” when the bag is in play-mat mode. Place a pile of LEGO in the middle of the mat and build away. When you are finished simply pull on the draw-string and the mat folds up around the brick and transforms into a handy storage bag. It makes picking up a pile of brick surprisingly easy and hung up on a hook, ready for the next build session.
Pros:
The bag is very sturdy and it can hold quite a bit of brick. I dumped in an 18 gallon bin of brick (unsorted, of course) and it held it just fine. My six year old son was able to operate the bag, open or closed, in about 20 seconds. The sleeve around the edge is a lot better than the old LEGO play-mats in that the cord is almost completely enclosed. The cords on the old mats got in the way and tripped kids up. It also comes in two sizes now. We only reviewed the larger one but the smaller one looks like it would ideal for travel. The bag is also machine-washable.
Cons:
It is designed for a child’s collection of brick. It is perfect for my kids’ collection of LEGO but doesn’t have much use in my collection. This isn’t really a “con” so much as a design limitation. The price may also turn off some buyers. The large bag is priced at $48 USD, which is a lot to pay for something to keep your kid-brick in. The smaller bag is $26 USD.
Overall, I really liked the Swoop Bag. It is sturdy, makes clean up of “play brick” a snap, and my kids can do it by themselves. Obviously a lot of time and thought went into the design of the bag and it shows. This is a high quality item that will last for years. While the price is high, the ease of cleanup makes it worth it. If you have “play brick” and it gets used on a regular basis I would recommend checking out the Swoop Bag.
