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

Isaac is a ray of Sunshine

Based on all of his LEGO creations we’ve seen lately it might be safe to assume that Isaac Wilder is having the best week ever! The dude is prolific, that’s for sure. Now, thanks to Isaac your day can be just a little brighter, too. Here’s a sunny little ’32 Coupe he calls Sunshine. You feel that? That’s your day getting just a little brighter. This might be the best thing I’ve seen all day and I’ve seen someone try to gas up a Tesla. Still not convinced? Then check out our archives to see why we think Isaac lights up our lives with sunshine.

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A surfin’ rat rod suitable for Pooh

No, I didn’t resort to using kindergarten potty humor as inspiration for this title. That would be every last one of my other articles, except this one. Instead I’m talking about this slammed little LEGO surfin’ rat rod built by Isaac Wilder. He took inspiration from Jack Dick’s Surf Wagon. The stickers, now that’s where the Pooh reference comes from. They were pilfered from the Winnie the Pooh set that came out a few months back. Pretty sweet, right?

A massive castle and bridge just under the deadline

Some people can work magic under a tight deadline. Take this LEGO castle and bridge built by Thomas van Urk for example. He tells us it was an entry for the Summer Joust: Bridging the Gap category and was finished an hour before the deadline. In his own words; “Since there wasn’t really a category for a large castle I decided to include a bridge in front of the gatehouse. Originally I wanted to leave it at that, but because of the pressure from the arching bridge, it needed to stand on a baseplate. But then, of course, there needed to be water around the whole castle, and then of course there needed to be a landscape across the water. Maybe I went a bit overboard.” If working until the deadline and going a bit overboard yields results like this then we’re pleased as punch.

Thomas says he didn’t even have time to build his favorite part of the castle. I wonder what that could be. To see how the Summer Joust is heating up with all the other builders check out our Summer Joust category in our archives.

The spaceship that (hopefully) comes with fries

Maybe it’s the color scheme or its simplistic blocky shape but this LEGO spaceship built by David Roberts reminds me of a delicious carton of McDonald’s fries. Other commenters on his Flickr stream state that they are reminded of Buck Rogers while others claim this is reminisant of a Viper from Battlestar Galactica. What does this remind you of? No matter what the answer is, we can all agree that this spaceship looks pretty tasty.

We’re going to need an even bigger boat

In 1975, Stephen Speilberg (and to a lesser degree Peter Benchley) made the world afraid to enter the water when the unsettling movie Jaws came out. How do you top that, exactly? Well, LEGO builder Julius von Brunk may have figured out that formula. You simply go larger. He may have arrived at that success quite by accident; the shark turned out much larger than anticipated so the “normal” shark attack scene he thought he was building became an encounter with the prehistoric Megaladon. The protagonists (or are they antagonists?) are a group of pirates proving that a pirate’s life isn’t always yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum. The water, and especially the shark with its complex curves, are done to great effect. However, as enticing as a deep golden tan and a breezy cocktail may be, this is one beach I’d much rather avoid!

Cluckery on the high seas

LEGO builder and The Brothers Brick alumn Benjamin Stenlund acquired some chickens recently. This inspired him to build The Bad Egg, a plucky pirate ship inhabited entirely by chickens. As Ben tells it, here we see Captain Cockerel and his bloodthirsty buck-buckaneers prowl the seas in search of gold. Golden corn, that is. The plume of tail feathers at the aft of the ship is a brilliant touch and the chicken masthead is also quite funny, but I like that one of the crow’s nests is an actual nest. Ben tells us he enjoys watching the real-life chickens roam the yard and do their thing, which is mostly eating and pooping. It’s about as productive as some humans get, truth be told.

It’s always great to check in on how an old friend is doing. Have a gander at our archives to see why we think Benjamin Stenlund is still the cock of the walk around here.

Falcon and the winter Toa

LEGO builder Aaron Van Cleave tells us that this is Kualus, Toa Hagah of Ice and wears the Kanohi Mask of Rahi Control. Consider yourselves informed! I like the overall shape of this character, the sword, shield and the doodads going on in the chest area. Its feather plume is also not without its charms but my favorite detail has to be the black hawk companion. It would fit in perfectly on the hood of a 1979 Trans-Am!

A dastardly duo of freaky-deaky bots

In a LEGO world of massive castles and spaceships sometimes it’s refreshing to see little things that are well built. Take this duo of odd little bots created by the enigmatic R 194, for example. First, we see the very expressive Spear Soldier.

Next, we have my personal favorite, the Highway Disturber. It’s like a mythical creature with its unicorn horn.

What is the purpose of these two? Why does the spear soldier look so sad? How does Highway Disturber disturb the highway, exactly? The builder offers no explanation so these little bots propose more questions than answers. Pretty cray-cray, right? Sometimes ya just gotta stop asking questions and go with it.

The hell-ridin’ Hemogoblin within all of us

If my Instagram stream is any indicator, anyone with a plunging neckline or pimples to pop can be an internet influencer. But it takes a special kind of genius to be as influential as LEGO builder Eero Okkonen. With his amazing characters, he has most certainly influenced dozens of other builders, all without resorting to even a hint of cleavage. Here we see Hemogoblin, who hauls oxygen along the Aorta Highway on his badass dirtbike. Oh, and it turns out he lives inside each of us and is actually helpful. So, yeah. To see this genius at work, check out our Eero Okkonen archives; the guy is super-prolific and you won’t be disappointed. As for me, I haven’t built anything in a while and have to resort to cheap, lurid gimmicks to hold any shred of influence I may still have. Time for me to put on a skimpy top, pop some zits and watch the profits roll in!

The Jury is out and we’re probably screwed

A LEGO builder who goes by the wackadoodle name of MySnailEatsPizza has concocted this Bionicle creature called The Jury. They tell us that this is a “Divine Automaton responsible for seeking truth and evaluating guilt”. They go on to say it is “composed of many consciousnesses, its single eye pierces the soul”. That settles it then. I’m pretty sure they know it was me who opened a bottle of dish soap in The Brothers Brick hot tub. Admittedly some maturity could have gone a long way but I definitely didn’t leave a whoopee cushion on Andrew’s office chair so don’t get that idea in your heads.

This stunning U-Boat has roughly 15,000 LEGO pieces and removable hull panels

Sometimes something comes along that has us simply awestruck. That would be the case with this stunning LEGO 1/38 scale U-BOOT TYP VII C built by Ciamosław Ciamek. This model has roughly 15,000 pieces and is about 70 inches or 177 centimeters long. It also took staggering four-and-a-half years to build. In case you were wondering this is the same type of U-Boat from the Das Boot movie, which, in my opinion, is one of the tensest and most exhilarating movies ever made; a worthy watch if you haven’t seen it already. The hull panels can be removed on both the port and starboard sides. Here’s a view with the port panels removed to view the interior spaces.

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This mini Brick Bank won’t break the bank

Back in 2015, LEGO came out with 10251 Modular Bank set. It retailed for $170 back then but, like most good investments, it appreciated in value and you’d have to shell out more than twice as much nowadays to get your greasy mitts on one. Or, adversely, you can do what Marion Weintraut has done and build a scaled-down version of it. Whether it be the archways, the corner clock or the little ladder out front, she doesn’t miss a detail with this tiny bank. There’s been a slew of microscale set remakes lately and we’re a little thrilled about it. Actually a lot thrilled, but the retro set remakes are still little. That came out weird but you know what I mean!