About Keith Goldman

See Keith Goldman's LEGO models on Flickr.

Posts by Keith Goldman

“Mr Choo-choo train, take me away.”

It’s time to ride the rails with Ted Andes aboard the mighty land-yacht called Intrepid, an Art Deco style train built with the Steampunk genre in mind. I was drawn in by the brutality of the cow-catcher, but I stayed for the smoothed out lines and clever photography. According to the builder this model was constructed for an upcoming book by TBB regular V&A Steamworks.

I need to get in on this publishing frenzy, all the cool kids these days are either writing books about LEGO or being featured in them. I thought print was supposed to be dead? Good luck with the book, Guy and crew, if this photo is any indication of the overall quality I’m sure you’ll do quite well.

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Digital High Adventure!

“Antarctic Snow Cruiser” is the latest project by bigboy99899, and it looks like a great deal of fun. Not only is it a big burly-man vehicle suitable for all manner of high adventure, it also has some outstanding play features. I was wondering how the figs were supposed to get the plane down, but fortunately the builder has a good answer: “To get the airplane on or off the Cruiser, a ramp of snow was to be built-up to meet the sloping aft deck of the “Turtle”. Apparently the set is a Cuusoo project if you’re into supporting such ventures.

Friday Night Fights (Round 17)

Welcome back fight fans, to Sin City Nevada for another bare-knuckle edition of Friday Night Fights! Tonight’s bout is a rematch of the most recent Iron Builder battle; a chance for redemption or utter humiliation with YOU the public as the ultimate judge instead of a panel of highly acclaimed turbo-nerds. Let’s go to the tale of the tape:

Fighting out of the red corner, from The Great White North…“Punchy” Pascal (pasukaru76) and his “Ferroconstructosaurus“.

And fighting out of the blue corner, from “The land of green shins“… Gilcélio “El Guapo” Chagas and his “Star Wars“.

As usual, constant reader, you are tasked with deciding the outcome of this pugilistic endeavor by way of comment. On the last record breaking edition of Friday Night Fights, the battle of Hipster vs. Manga-Nerd, Mike Dung emerged the battered victor by a narrow margin of 10-8. Tune in next week for another action packed edition of Friday Night Fights!

LEGO Fan in Sad City

This video reminds me of a T.V. commercial from a big pharmaceutical company hawking its latest antidepressant medication. Maybe that’s fitting, considering how many fans build to relieve stress and in some cases to help fight depression. I’m not sure which cure is cheaper, but I know which one has fewer side effects. According to the builder, Denmark’s Anne Mette Vestergård (Anne Mette V), “Sometimes the everyday life seems to be sad and grey like in this town. But not for the AFOLs who lives there. Making LEGO Creations is his bright spot in his everyday life.. The build is not photographed in black and white, nor is it digitally manipulated but rather built with gray-scale parts, much like a portion of the recent Wizard of Oz diorama featured on this blog of blogs.

The music is a perfect match for the video, although it does make me want a Friday night martini, which shouldn’t be too hard to find in Vegas. Welcome to the weekend.

“Your test times show you are going too slowly.”

I have to admit that I’ve never played the popular video game Portal or any of its sequels, but I like to think I know a good diorama when I see one. I’ve been entirely too verbose this weekend, so I’ll just let this lovely image by eldeem do the talking. I will say that I really like the lift-arms under the platform, and the placing of the various elements in this shot is perfect.

According to the Ryan you can even actually play this course yourself, if you’re into that sort of thing.

The Companion Cube featured in this diorama was designed by Gaelen Mibeck (MooseBot) and used with permission by the builder.

As always it has been a pleasure being your weekend DJ here at TBB. Until next time, the long distance dedication line and the first time caller line remain open.

Cyberpocalypse Now Redux: The BrickFair Virginia Extended Cut.

A few weeks ago, Brother Andrew took us on a trip through Cyberpocalypse as it was presented at BrickWorld Chi-Town. A few weeks later the diorama was presented in its entirety for BrickFair Virginia, and it is my distinct honor to bring you extended coverage of what is without a doubt my favorite sci-fi diorama to date. Carter Baldwin and BroLUG manage to accomplish what is perhaps the most difficult aspect of collaboration; the seamless merging of diverse builders into a cohesive scene. When looking at convention-driven collaborative projects in person or online it is typically very easy to tell where one builder’s work stops and another begins, but such is not the case with Cyberpocalypse.

The influences for the project should be obvious to any fan of the genre; William Gibson, Blade Runner and Akira to name just a few, but I was surprised to learn that BroLUG also cites Kowloon Walled City as a major inspiration. Who knew the Bro’s were so literate and talented at beer pong too? Instead of me rambling on about the wonders of collaboration, I will provide excerpts from the Cyberpocalypse exit interviews conducted earlier this week.

Carter Baldwin is the somewhat reluctant Captain of BroLUG, a non-geographical club which seems to be equal parts RoninLUG, KeithLUG and a high-school Lacrosse Team. Carter (he’s the one in the photo with the nerdy Firefly shirt) was still loopy from the weekend’s shenanigans but with a little coaxing he was able to focus long enough to share his thoughts on the whole cat-wrangling endeavor.

“Throughout this project there were three things I found indispensable; concept art, caffeine, and noise rock…This display was definitely the most ambitious Lego project I’ve ever undertaken. Considering how poorly it could have gone, I’m beyond pleased at how well it all turned out. As much as I like to think that I run the show the real stars are all the contributors. I want to give particular props to Nate Brill and his builds inspired all of us to push our boundaries.”

Read the full article after the jump!

Two SHIPS leave port at the same time...

Two SHIPS leave port at the same time. One charts a course towards the Horsehead Nebula at 15 light-years per hour and the other charts a course for the Eagle Nebula at 20 light-years per hour. Find a function that models the distance D between the ships in terms of the time T (in hours) elapsed since their departure.

Speaking of time and travel, here is a gone but not forgotten SHIP by valgarise called “THE SOURCE OF LIFE” from 2012.

And since we’ve already got the way-back machine spun up, why not stay in 2012 and take another look at the mighty SHIP “Silenus” by Jean-Philippe Lajoie Dorval (zwitl).

“Now, just imagine you’re weightless, in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by tiny little seahorses.”

Germany’s Deus (“Big D”) Otiosus provides a soothing image for your Sunday perusal entitled “Sihors wif korals“. As you know, constant reader, I have a soft spot for undersea action and I really enjoyed Big D’s simple use of the 2×2 jumpers. In the process of writing this blog post I learned that a seahorse does not have a stomach, so food passes through its body very quickly, requiring it to feed nearly constantly. I have an uncle I have an uncle with a very similar digestive system and eating habits; I might have to start referring to him uncle-seahorse from now on.

Drone 25

France’s Damien Labrousse (legodrome) makes his third appearance of 2013 on the big blog with a nifty mobile rocket launcher he calls “Drone 25“. The bright colors and general style reminds me of nnenn, which is never a bad thing.

Big Flak Attack

iomedes! makes his triumphant return to the Brothership with the decidedly inconvenient title of “C-EYES – SPAGS : quad 35mm Self-Propelled Anti-aircraft Gun System“. You can’t really appreciate this model without inspecting it from every angle; this is one of the rare cases where the photo of the back-side has more hits and favorites on Flickr than the front. Influenced by legendary artist and scale-modeler Makoto Kabayashi, Iomedes! holds nothing back on this machine of war that comes with his personal guarantee that the SPAGS will keep the skies of your home prefecture clear of enemy war planes.

A big thanks to tipster Blair Archer on Facebook, who was quite correct in his assessment of the model as “strikingly badass“.

2nd LEGO Exhibition in SEOUL

I don’t have much information yet on the Korean fan-event recently hosted in Seoul, but there are some stunning photos available on Flickr from Brickmaster_Kor. We will begin our brief sampling with “The Mini SEOUL Project“, the model that first caught my eye with its micro-river, unique focus and lack of non-LEGO clutter in the background.

Then we move on to Seoul Station, proving that Korea’s KORAIL-inspired Train-heads are in the game.

And finally a shot of the magnificent statues that mark the entrance to Kyungbok-gung palace.

It is also worth noting that there were a great many Stormtroopers and Imperial Guard present as well. It looks like the exhibition was a great event, be sure and click through the entire set to soak in all the details of this extensive layout. Congratulations to everyone involved!

The very angry grasshopper

It’s time to get digital again, constant reader and check out the “Grasshopper light mech” by Hungarian builder Matthew Sylvan. One looks great, but how awesome would a cloud of grasshoppers look? Food for thought builder Sylvan, food for thought. Az óriás robot kiemelkedő! (Google Translate don’t fail me now).