Anika Vuurzoon has combined two very different areas of our LEGO hobby and crafted a very cool, animated version of the Friends robolab. I would love to see the NXT used like this in more themes. Way to step it up, Anika!
via Legomymamma
Posts by Josh
The best Technic arm...hands down.
Max Shepherd, a biomedical engineering major, doesn’t normally build with LEGO but when he does, it is really awesome. This fully articulated technic arm is quite incredible. I’m really impressed at how well it mimics the range and motion of a human arm and hand.
I also found this quote rather interesting.
I started following some Lego blogs, and realized that with the new stuff out (power functions, linear actuators, more connectors), there was a real opportunity to do something new.
It would be cool to know which blogs he has been following. I know we don’t highlight as much Technic, Power Functions and Mindstorms items as we should, but the blogs that do cover such things are quite good.
Read the entire story here.
New Custom Parts Roundup [News]
We recently have received news about a number of new custom items so it seemed appropriate to cover them together.
First off, I was sent a package of some new items from Brick-Warriors. The new items are high quality and fit well, as did the last batch that we reviewed. The new items represent a fun cross-section of genres. Naturally I’m a big fan of the Medieval/Fantasy pieces, but the modern weapons are very nicely done too. Check out the set in my photostream for more pictures.
Secondly, Brickarms has released four new variants of the M-16. While I haven’t had a chance to see them in person yet, I have to say that the M110 is my favorite. But they all look good and Brickarms quality has always been high. I was also remiss in reporting the awesome Castle prototypes that Will announced at BrickCon back in October. You can check those out in my photostream as well. They are incredible and I only hope that they become production pieces at some point.
Lastly, there have been some new items over at Brickforge that slipped in under our radar. Their Shock Trooper armor is now available in Dark Tan and Azure Blue (with Alien Defense Unit logos). The Shock Trooper helmets, Tactical Vests and Tactical Helmets are available in those colors as well. Pretty cool stuff!
5th Installment of Blast from the Past Lego Commercials [News]
Advance just released their latest classic LEGO commercials! Town fans get twice the love this time, with two commercials, and the third features Belville. Each of them has their points of interest but my favorite this time is the one for the City Precinct. Gotta love controversy!
LEGO SYSTEM 1993 City Central Precinct
This was shot in Los Angeles and features a storyline that generated a lot of Grand Theft Auto-type controversy. It features a thief called Max who steals a car and is pursued through the city by police. In the end he escapes and we see the police precinct set from above. There were no CGI effects here – everything was built from scratch.
LEGO SYSTEM Belville 1994
Belville was an early attempt from LEGO to move into the girls’ market and is still available today. This spot is a somewhat surreal girls’ fantasy universe with lots of horses and mum and dad are still perfect sweethearts. The only time you see a boy is when the girl pushes him out of the picture.
LEGO SYSTEM TOWN 1998
This was done before we had 3D graphics so we used 2D animation. The spot features two ‘live’ animated figures while the rest are static mini-figs. At 00:10 and 00:16 we see the chopper in the air without any hands holding it – something that wouldn’t be legal today.
Blast from the Past includes Castle, Adventurers and more in Week 4
In this fourth installment of classic LEGO commercials by Advance, we have Black Monarch’s Castle, a journey through time and space and, lastly, an adventure in Egypt inspired by Indiana Jones.
LEGO System Black Monarch’s Castle – 1988
This was an extremely simple set-up — it was just the castle set depicted on the box transferred to a studio, just LEGO trees, a cardboard hill and a cardboard background. We made the background the same colour as the box to create the playful effect when the box appears. Notice the name of the play-theme 00:15 “LEGOLAND”, back then it was a LEGO category and now as you know its a world wide theme park.
LEGO SYSTEM Intergrator 1996
Still the most expensive commercial we’ve made at Advance, this was a huge project. The ad was inspired by LEGO Time Cruisers. We travel through the boxes into three different LEGO worlds but time stops in the ‘real’ world. When we return to the store, the cleaner hasn’t moved. Actually the cleaner also played the pirate in the striped top you see at 00:14. The casting for the pirates was hilarious, we had ten different guys show up with amazing costumes. We built the LEGO city in the desert at night and shot the next day, I slept in the truck that you see. The set almost blew away in a desert storm during that night.
LEGO SYSTEM Adventure 1998
Set in Egypt and heavily inspired by Indiana Jones. What looks like a huge set was built entirely in LEGO filmed with extreme close-up lenses. And the boy was shot on bluescreen. What’s interesting here is that in the boy’s room 00:26 we see lots of toys that aren’t LEGO – LEGO is almost taking a back seat and that would not happen today.
LEGO Friends – a father-daughter review
The Brothers Brick recently purchased several sets from the LEGO Friends line in order to give our readers a feel for the new line. My 11 year old daughter and I reviewed the following sets and I let my nieces (6 and 8 years old) play with the sets for an afternoon. Nannan has already done one review from a parts perspective and Caylin has done one from the perspective of an adult female fan. Hopefully this review, from a father and daughter view, will be just as useful.
3188 Heartlake Vet
This was my favorite set of the four that we built. It’s a well-designed set with lots of play value. The exterior is a rather simple build but the interior is packed with some pretty cool details, such as an X-ray machine, scale, and examination table. It includes a stall for the horse and lots of new accessories, which are only slightly over-sized when held by traditional minifigs. It also includes the new flowers, which I liked. The new animals are cool, but I was pretty disappointed in the horse. It has no moving parts and the new mini-dolls can’t sit on it or interact with it in any way, except to stand on its back. So unless you’re going to build a horse-vaulting arena with it, the horse is pretty useless. I liked the mini-dolls more than I expected but they’re nowhere near as versatile as regular minifigs. The biggest drawbacks are that the legs can’t move individually and the almost total lack of connectivity.
3061 City Park Café
This set has the most interesting exterior of the sets we reviewed. But the interior is really good as well. It has a display case w/register, booth for customers and small kitchen area. The forks and knives will be useful and the mixer has some interesting connection points that I’m sure will enable it to take a place among its greeblish brethern. My main complaint with the set was the new cupcake pieces. They’re designed to hold a 1×1 round plate/stud but there’s really no “connection” as the 1×1 just sits in it. A tighter connection would have made this piece much more versatile.
3065 Olivia’s Tree House
The tree house is a fun little set with some interesting animals. The tree design is really nothing new but it is sturdy and stands up under play very well. The set comes with the new flowers in red but also includes some of the old flowers. Having the two together in a set makes it immediately obvious that they two don’t go well together. They each have their place but together looks rather off.
3936 Emma’s Fashion Design Studio
This was the smallest set we got and I’m not sure that it is a good buy for what you get. There are unique printed pieces in the set (ipod, anyone?) but there were no interesting design features.
Josh’s Daughter:
To start with, I think that one of the biggest drawbacks is that the girls feet can’t separate and they can’t sit on studs. Also the horse in the Vet set can’t pose very well because the head does not move up or down.
Their hair is pretty neat because it can be switched with a different mini-doll or regular mini-fig. I also really like the three sets of silverware in the Cafe set. They are cool because the mini-dolls can hold it and it looks more real when they eat. Also in the Cafe set there are cupcakes that a single stud can sit in. I like those because it adds another food.
I like the pastel colors but I think there needs to be more dark colors in the sets. Also having only five mini-dolls could get boring because you can’t switch them around as much as you can with mini-figs. Having all the new animals and food is really nice. My dad had the cat chasing the bird. The new flowers, butterflies and Ladybugs add some more detail to the sets. Also, since every new animal I’ve seen has a hole in their heads, you can put bows and things on them all. The girls also have the holes so you can put bows and ribbons on their heads. The Vet set has a little hat for the veterinarian to wear. She also has an icepack that fits into the hole on the animals heads.
Out of all the sets that we built, the Vet is my favorite. All the new animals are cool and the hedgehog is my favorite.
My two nieces both enjoyed the sets, but the 8 year old liked them the best. She already likes LEGO and she loved the new mini-dolls. Her favorite set was the vet because of the animals. My six year old niece is normally bored with LEGO as she prefers Playmobil. But she played with them for a couple of hours and specifically commented on “the pretty colors”. After I had put the sets away, she came up to me and asked if she could get those “Playmobil Lego sets” out again.
If you have any questions about these sets, please feel free to ask them in the comments. Here is a link to my entire gallery of Friends pictures. I hope this review was helpful to you!
Series 6 Collectible Minifigures showing up in quantity + case breakdown [News]
Series 6 Collectible Minifigures are beginning to show up in various retail stores and in significant quantities.
I picked up a sealed case yesterday and the breakdown was as follows:
- 4x Alien
- 5x Highlander
- 3x Pajama Boy
- 3x Statue of Liberty
- 5x Bandit
- 4x Flamenco Dancer
- 3x Robot
- 5x Minotaur
- 4x Leprechaun
- 3x Roman
- 3x Surgeon
- 4x Skateboarder
- 4x Space Girl
- 3x Butcher
- 4x Mechanic
- 3x Genie
I’m curious if this is the breakdown that our readers are getting as well. Please post your case breakdowns in the comments. Make sure you say whether or not the case was sealed.
More classic LEGO commercials from the Blast from the Past Project!
Now in week 3 of our collaboration with Advance, we are happy to bring you three more commercials from the days of yore. The lineup this week features ZNAP, Pirates and DUPLO. Did any of you actually buy ZNAP? I picked up some at a second-hand store once upon a time but that was about it. Regardless of the success of the line (or lack thereof), this commercial is pretty cool. The Pirates commercial has a great classic feel to it and the DUPLO ad is simply adorable. Now I want to build a giant Noah’s Ark out of DUPLO myself.
LEGO ZNAP Virus 1998
LEGO went right up against K’nex with the new Znap system featuring bricks
that could come together in all directions. LEGO were a bit worried and were
trying to redefine the brand as a cooler and up-to-date toy.
LEGO Pirates – The Islanders 1994
We shot all of this on a built set — there’s no blue-screen or compositing. The island set was pretty big and constructed out of polystyrene and joint filler. And the water was a giant glass plate. The shot at 0.14 when the pirate lands in the small rowboat had to be shot quite a few times before he landed right!
LEGO DUPLO – Noah’s Ark 1995
We shot this in the States in 1995. The house was completely built up from scratch. To me it has a very ‘ 80´s advertising’ feel — it’s got a kind of Southern warmth about it.
Three new vintage LEGO commericals from the “Blast from the Past” project!
Advance just released three more vintage LEGO commericals. This week features Technic, Divers and Time Cruisers. My favorite is the Technic one. The “real” man and his car being manipulated by the boy cracks me up. On the other hand, the full-size Timmy in the Time Cruisers ad sort of creeps me out. Enjoy!
Art Director, Christian Faber tells us:
This was one of the first times we used 3D – the parking lot was built entirely in 3D and the man was shot on green screen. I think the spot has something of a voodoo feel – the boy is controlling the cars remotely. This spot is a bit different because the intro had nothing to do with toys.
Faber says:
The idea for this spot was inspired by Back to the Future – we actually built a Delorean for the set. The 2D/3D character animation was done by PDI and we shot in a plane interior in a Hollywood studio. Naked Gun was filmed in the same plane. It was a pretty chaotic set!
Faber says:
The shark here is a 2D animation shot on a 3D background – the models in the shark’s mouth are real though. This was a very simple line of sets and we felt we needed to spice up the communication, hence the real-looking sharks. We called it ‘borrowed interest’ back then. In retrospect, I think it’s a shame because I think we took attention away from the actual product.
Advance releases classic LEGO commercials! [News]
Advance has been making LEGO tv commercials for over 30 years and recently they rediscovered many classic commercials in their archives. They will be releasing them online over the next ten weeks, so look for them here, with a bit of commentary from the people involved in their creation.
I am a big fan of vintage LEGO ads and commercials, so I’m pretty excited about this project. Come take a trip down memory lane with Advance and The Brothers Brick!
Blast from the Past Trailer video:
Spyrius (1994):
Art director Christian Faber says:
“We shot this in London or LA, I can’t actually remember! It was one of the first motion control spots we did. At 0:15 We used a kind of ‘magic building’ technique where the bricks are held on the end of metal rods and then pulled apart. And if you look closely at 0:00 you can actually see the edge of the studio in the top
left corner.“The set filled a whole studio and we used a lot of analogue techniques — the planet is just painted cardboard and the backdrop is just a screen with
little holes in it and a big light behind it. The hands you can see moving the sets at 0:05 and 0:21 secs are actually wax hands. I had quite a lot of
explaining to do when customs asked why I had a bag full of fake arms!”
Technic Racers (1997):
Faber says:
“We shot it in a specially built 10-metre tunnel that was hand-painted and filled with smoke. While it may look straight, if you look closely at 00:15
you can see the yellow lines bending slightly — that’s because at this point we filmed the car in a carousel to make it look like it was speeding
forward! The animatronic hand was cast on a girl’s hand so it was a perfect fit and gave her the control she needed in the more complicated movements.”
Wild West (1996)
Faber says:
“We juxtaposed stills of the LEGO sets being ‘magic built’ with lots of scenes from classic American Westerns. The last few shots featuring the fight scene
were filmed and then graded to fit in with the rest of the background scenes. The magic building techniques shown here are actually illegal now —
the law today requires that toy sets that need to be constructed have to be shown being built by hand.
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night...
…could stop Bruce Lowell from building this awesome mailbox. I never thought I would say that a box had beautiful lines and curves but this one does.
Wrap up: Castle at BrickCon 2011
I have to say that Castle totally rocked this year. This was my sixth year being involved in the Castle section at the Con and I think this was the best so far. Everyone involved really stepped it up this year and they all deserve a round of applause.
The quantity of creations was overwhelming and we had to beg, borrow and steal more area (Many thanks to Steve Walker and Wayne Hussey for making that process virtually painless and to Scott Fowler for graciously giving up part of the neighboring Pirate tables). But quantity doesn’t really say much about a section. It was the quality of the creations that really blew me away. I knew that the builders who were coming had skills but they all out did themselves.
Our collaborative layout was packed with so many builds, flowing from one to another, that it was difficult to see everything and the section of stand-alone models was outstanding.
We had three categories for which builders could win a trophy and a LEGO set. The voters were very hard pressed to make their selections, but they finally did and the winning models and builders were:
Best Overall Castle Creation:
Hogwart’s Castle by Alice Finch
Photo of Hogwart’s by Bill Ward
Best Community Contribution:
Al Wahat by Sebastiaan Arts
Best Fly-in Dragon:
Whiskers by Myself
Hearty thanks also need to go out to the following people and companies: To Will of Brickarms for the awesome contributor packs and prototype weapons that he made especially for us, to Ryan of BrickWarriors for the sweet fig packs he donated and to Learning Loft Toys for the Lego set prizes they donated to our winners.
We all had a great time and plan to make next year even bigger and better. So if you want to ‘Go Medieval’ at BrickCon next year, please join us! BrickCon!!!