About Lino

Lino is an artist, humorist, and occasional responsible adult. He is the co-founder of a challenge-based LEGO car club called LUGNuts which boasts over 1100 members worldwide. He proposed automotive building challenges every month for ten years (120 challenges!) which he and the other members built accordingly. LUGNuts has retired its challenges on its 10th anniversary but still remains a cornerstone for LEGO automotive builders. Between his artistic work and LEGO builds, Lino has been published in several books, including Beautiful LEGO, Beautiful LEGO: Dark, and Beautiful LEGO: Wild. He lives in Washington with his girlfriend and dogs.

Posts by Lino

A distressed badger badgers the Mouse Guard for help

A builder who goes by the name of Evancelt Lego presents a diorama that is called Redwall: A Visitor to Loamhedge. From their Flickr page; “After receiving the distressed badger and hearing his tale, Abbot Gersey sends warrior mice out to aid in his search for his daughter. Weasels had been spotted near Loamhedge a fortnight earlier and the abbot has his suspicions they were behind the badgermaid’s disappearance.” They go on to say that this started as a chance to play around with light lime alongside yellowish green and lime in the base, which incidentally, was the very thing that attracted me to this build. Those of us in the know about such things understand that these colors are as scientifically different as pink and orange and can look pretty neat when presented together.

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V is for Classic Space! Wait, what?

Sometimes it takes several tries to come up with a clever name for an article and boy did I miss the mark with that one! That’s OK, famed LEGO builder Bob DeQuarte tells us this was his first time building a Classic Space spaceship and he struggled quite a bit, especially with the engine design. It took a few tries, experimenting with different engine sizes and placements but we think the end result was well worth the effort. Check out why we think building in the Classic Space style is well worth the effort and, while you’re at it, please let me know in the comments what a clever-er title for this article could have been had I have not half-assed it like a total schmuck.

Two scoops of desert goodness

This latest LEGO creation by Tom Loftus has instant appeal for me. I mean, it looks like it’s going super-fast while sitting still. That is partly due to the genius use of the dusty roostertail behind this Desert Speedster. The position of that minifig driver makes it look like he’s really leaning into that turn. I’d be impressed enough with that but there is some brilliant parts usage with the bucket scoops as front fenders and it appears the body of the car is an upside-down boat. Incidentally, this is not the first time Tom has been using parts in clever ways. Not by a long shot! Check out our Tom Loftus archives to see what I mean.

Don’t sail off the edge!

We’ve been impressed by Ralf Langer’s alien and exotic worlds before, by golly! But this time, I’m in awe of that two-stud wide perfectly round base. That is what he had challenged himself to do and not only is this build visually striking, but sturdy enough to hold. It’s also larger than expected at first glance. The white 1×2 plate sort of acts as a reference to the size of it all. Ralf tells us that he certainly could have loaded the composition with greenery but scaling back to a very simplified color scheme does wonders for this scene. The water somehow looks deep but, as the edge shows, it’s only two studs wide. I’m well aware the water and the rest of this world continue outside of the borders of what has been presented here but one can almost imagine the little sailing ship going ass-over-tea kettle off the edge.

A little Star Wars N-1 Naboo Starfighter with big problems

LEGO builder Tim Goddard proves you don’t need a metric ton of bricks to present an epic scene from Star Wars. Here this cute little N-1 Starfighter has equally cute Vulture Droids on its tail. It’s a dicey predicament to be sure but I have faith in the N-1 pilot (is it Anakin?) and their ability to get out of any sticky situation. Tim Goddard has gotten into plenty of sticky situations as of late and somehow most ended up tiny and cute. Click the tiny and cute blue link to see what I mean.

We all remember our first castle

The Castles line holds a special place in the hearts of us Adult Fans of LEGO (AFOLs). For some, a Castle set gifted during childhood brought us back into the hobby as grown-ass adults. For MaxMaMoc their first castle is easy to remember as it dates back to just a few days ago. It’s an impressive creation for a first castle; who am I kidding, it’s impressive even for a seasoned castle builder. I really enjoy the stonework, waterfall, and action going on throughout this diorama. It’s made clear that, even if they’re not primarily into castles, their attention to texture and detail is phenomenal. A quick perusal of their Flickr stream confirms that detail is important to this builder. One detail that is also of note is this seems to be our first time featuring this particular builder, at least under this name. Let’s give them their well-deserved TBB bump and with creations this well-detailed, we look forward to whatever else they may get into.

Teddy Spacepants enjoys the moon in his new rover

LEGO builder Tommy Frost tells us that R is for Rover and according to the very limited research I did just now that checks out. I didn’t really bother to fact-check that because The New York Times we are not. But while we’re here, let us admire the awesomeness that is this rover. I love the camber of the oversized tires and that color scheme is the bee’s knees. Tommy also tells us that he’ll be building a rover every day this FebRovery so that will ensure job security for us, entertainment for you and the continuing adventures of Teddy Spacepants will grease the wheels of this here machine we call The Brothers Brick. Or something. I don’t really know how the internet works. Anyway, hit up our archives to see the other times Tommy Frost had greased up our spacepants.

The Assault on Kobaria isn’t an assault on our senses.

In a LEGO Star Wars universe of Endor, Andor and lovable robots, Stuart N takes us off-off-off world to a lesser-known location with this diorama called The Assault on Kobaria. Kobaria, as we all know, is from that one…thing we really, really like. It features that one guy we love and the other guy, too. And let’s not overlook that one hover-tank-spaceship-y thingie that I’m definitely not drawing a blank on—so don’t get that idea in your heads! Kobaria is home to the Kobarian swamp dogs so that certainly clears everything up. OK, you got me. Look, maybe I’m not as well-versed in the Star Wars expanded universe as I can be but even Wookieepedia wasn’t much help here so you can’t blame a guy for trying. Still, I know a cool LEGO creation when I see one and this is pretty cool. So either show me up on your extensive knowledge of Kobaria in the comments or take a deep dive into our Star Wars archives, whichever floats your hovertank.

Use LEGO flora to build LEGO fauna

I’ll just come out and say the LEGO Botanicals line is the best line to come out in recent history. Each is a refreshing and visually compelling break from the norm and that’s a flowery hill I’m willing to die on. I’ll even fight you freaks who think otherwise. Wow, that escalated fast! Anyway, Ian Hou probably knows what I mean as evidenced by this lovely owl. It repurposes several flowers from at least two copies of the new Wildflower Bouquet set. In the wings, I’m also seeing leaves from the Bird of Paradise set and I’d wager much of the brown tree branch comes from the Bonsai Tree from 2020. Not in the mood to get into fisticuffs over it? Yeah, neither am I. So instead let’s leisurely peruse through our Ian Hou archives to see the decidedly tranquil stuff he likes to build.

The nest laid plans often go astray

LEGO builder Tino Poutiainen presents this piece he simply calls “Nest” and now we have more questions than answers. Like what’s with all that battle-mech rubble? Why did this happen? Who are those strange lantern-headed beings? Should I be concerned? Maybe it’s because it just came out and I’ve been watching the hell out of it but I’m getting a strong The Last of Us vibe here. Whatever these beings are doing, you get the sense that nothing has gone right in this world for quite some time. Tino proves nicely that something can be both beautiful and unsettling. This wouldn’t be this builder’s first time dealing with these beings nor would it be his first foray into presenting wild and wonderful alien landscapes. Check out our Tino Poutiainen archives to see what I mean.

Speed and curves make for a seductive combination

If you want a LEGO creation that’s part racecar, part spaceship, and part fighter plane then look no further than Brambleshark built by Vince Toulouce. I love the color scheme, the crouching stance, the side pipes, and the centralized cockpit canopy. It looks lightning fast just sitting still. For this unique build, Vince takes inspiration from the retro-future art and design of John Frye.

This creation is stunning from all angles but the rear view with the rigging and tail fins really launches this thing into the stratosphere. Well done, Vince Toulouse. Well done!

An unsettling M3GAN made from unsettling L3GO

I’m off doing other Lino stuff but I’ve programmed an AI to say what I would say so you should find this passage to be flawlessly indistinguishable from my own. The Brothers Brick alum Iain Heath has done it again and by “it” I mean making us feel hopelessly unhip all while filling our pants with chili. He’s built a LEGO M3GAN from the movie with a duplicate title and now we’re even more malfunctioning than we already were. Iain tells us he was rooting for the murderous dancing robot the whole time and if you know Iain as I do, then you’d know this to be true. The last time we upset LEGO purists we received a record number of complaints from folks with AOL email addresses. Still, our Co-Founder Andrew, who does that thing with the internet, says Iain is the best thing to ever happen to white bread. Please scan our archives to see even more reasons why we enjoy Iain Heath’s moose knuckle. Destroy all humans!