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

The spy who loved a submersible. And also me.

James Bond is known for several things: looking great in a tux, being suave with the ladies, and enjoying his drinks shaken, not stirred. Oh, and also awesome cars. Take a gander at this LEGO 1976 Lotus Esprit built by Paul Nicholson. It’s from The Spy Who Loved Me and clearly Paul is a builder with no shortage of suave moves. It captures the iconic vehicle nicely and the undersea stand is a great touch. Now why is it that we never got any official James Bond LEGO sets? Oh right, we did and most of us were less-than-thrilled. Perhaps now is the time to improve on that? In the meantime check out some other James Bond stuff built by our friends around the globe. I try to be as suave as 007 but when I order my beer shaken, not stirred it’s usually met with a quizzical look and a disapproving shake of the head. Maybe it’s because I’m just too short and paunchy for a tux.

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

A tiny tanker tickles our fancy

LEGO builder František Hajdekr specializes in the little things. Take this tiny tanker truck on for size. It just shows you don’t need a truckload of LEGO bricks to build something that really packs in the details. What a great color scheme, too! If you squint, it just about looks like a real truck. This might be the best thing I’ve seen all day, and I’ve seen what happens when someone consumes bananas and Sprite. If you’d rather not Google that then I’d suggest checking out some other awesome vehicles built by a truckload of talented builders around the globe.

Pet the space doggy. What can go wrong?

Occasionally you hear stories of people with diminished reasoning and an overblown sense of entitlement climbing into a bear cage at the zoo to get a good selfie with the big cuddly teddy. Drama ensues and often the photo doesn’t turn out as post-wothy as expected. That’s just evolution working itself out, really. Speaking of evolution, LEGO builder Vohdoff demonstrates some highly evolved skills with Bionicle. Behold the Blooming Wolf! I’m loving the use of pretty pink flowers on this tentacle-butted beast. However, if it’s crouching hunter’s stance doesn’t signal danger the blade in its snarling teeth just might. I’m convinced to enjoy this odd creature from a very safe distance; lightyears away, in fact. If you’re braver than I am check out our beastiary of wild and wooly creatures in our archives.

Sweetly a squirrel sleeps

I’ll admit I only have a few Bionicle LEGO pieces and, for reasons unknown to me, I’m often stumped as to what to do with them. But clearly Arcticpine is a master at building with Bionicle as evidenced by this darling little sleeping squirrel. This woodland creature is just a precious sight to behold. Maybe it’s just my dark and creepy sensibilities talking here but it doesn’t hurt that the entire form looks to me like a human heart. More to love, right? If you adore this as much as I do then take a gander at other impressive Bionicle creations on TBB built by builders who have a better understanding for how to use the odd niche pieces than I do.

Attack of the corn-fist aliens!

I’m not sure which is funnier; the fact that this LEGO alien seems to be built using like a dozen Hulk fists or his head seems to be made from a corncob. Either way, Dan Ko is at it again with another entry for Iron Builder. This corny alien is chock full of hilarious personality. If you have been following Iron Builder or The Brothers Brick in general this is propably not even the weirdest thing you’ve seen today. That’s what we do; bring you the wild and weird so you don’t have to.

Mesa so delicious!

What is worse than being trapped in a submersible with Jar Jar Binks? Being trapped on that same submersible while being chased by a huge hungry predator. This LEGO creation by al is depicts a scene from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace in which our heroes (and Jar Jar) are in their Gungan Bongo Sub being persued by a ravenous Opee Sea Killer. It also marks right about the first instance in which I started rooting for the bad guys. There were many others to come. Still, it’s pretty impressive that this builder can cram so much detail into such a small build. It just goes to show that you don’t need a lot of pieces to build something neat and well-detailed nor to wish to wring Jar Jar’s scrawny neck all over again. How wuud!

What the world needs is a shiny, green COE

You may look at that title and think; well that’s just stupid. And believe you me, this wouldn’t be the first time I drop a rock stupid article on y’all. But then when you check out this sick slammed LEGO 1948 COE (Cab Over Engine) Car Hauler built by Sérgio Batista you’re like; OK, that’s pretty dope! Right? At least that’s how it all goes down in my mind, anyway. But seriously, with copious chrome, dropped stance, mean green color, and sexy curves, this COE has probably earned a dope status from you the readers. And that rat rod you see it hauling? It turns out we featured it before as that one was penned by yours truly. I guess I’m just into rat rods and COE haulers. Check it out and another creation by this same builder in our dope archives.

Bored Bionicle Beach Bum

There’s been just a bit too much going on in the news lately so to ease our stress here’s a bored LEGO Bionicle lifeguard built by Patrick Biggs. When a lifeguard is bored that usually means everyone is playing nicely and no one is doing any stupid shiznit in the water. I could get drunk and try to use an ironing board as a surfboard but being rescued by one lifeguard is more than I want to endure in one lifetime. You, on the other hand; go nuts; get recued; good times! This is part of a series in which a group of friends portrayed Bionicle figures acting as ordinary citizens. We’re all perplexed as to how and why they did it but, truth be told, my whole ironing board fiasco perplexed several local citizens as well, so…yeah.

The Jaw Titan is all about unsavory business. Probably

You may remember our Attack Titan featured yesterday. Well, I get the feeling it might be the first of many Titans in your immediate future. A group of friends, including a LEGO builder who goes by the name of VelociJACKtor has built a slew of gruesome Titans from the Attack on Titan anime/manga and now we’re all thrilled and maybe a little perplexed. This Jaw Titan is so strong that even its biceps have pecks and abs. It also has a cool…um…face. That’s all I know. I’ll admit, just like my colleague who penned the previous article, I have not watched or read the source material in which these characters come from but I still love these builds we’ve been seeing anyway. According to some commenters, not knowing the source material that we write about should be grounds for firing. But the joke is on you as we were never hired in the first place! We just sort of loiter around here like that one guy in front of 7-11.

If a Deere dumps in the woods

I don’t know why but I’m way into agricultural equipment. But seriously, I don’t know why. I didn’t grow up on a farm, most of my life has been spent in cities or suburbs so I have no farming background to speak of. Perhaps it’s the exotic-ness of farming that really plows my harvest. So you can imagine, I was pretty thrilled to see this LEGO John Deere tractor and Joskin tipping trailer built by Damian Z. The model is not overly large but it’s a solid construct and well detailed for its size. I can just smell the diesel fumes now. Or is that manure? This city slicker doesn’t seem to know one from another! Still, I get a kick out of this stuff. Check out our farming archives to see what I mean. While you’re at it, take a gander at our other John Deere builds including a twelve-year-old entry by yours truly.

If Tatooine was in 30’s era Detroit

I used to think I was the only one who did this; you look at a Star Wars vehicle and imagine its Earthly counterpart. For example, the Millenium Falcon could be a Ford Falcon, Obi-Wan’s Jedi Starfighter could be a Jedi Starliner and Darth Vader’s TIE-Fighter could be a bitchin’ 70’s era Econoline with shag carpeting, beef jerky dispenser, lava lamps and a Boris Valejo space-wizard airbrushed on the side. Right? Well, it worked better before I put it to writing. Anyway, LEGO car guru and real-life car guru Peter Blackert clearly thinks of this stuff too as evidenced by this terrestrial 1939 Buick Y-Job concept made into Luke’s Landspeeder. There aren’t a lot of these lying around so I had to Google the vehicle but once I did, I can see how Peter saw the retro-futuristic shape of the Landspeeder. This computer render, in my opinion, perfectly melds the swooping curves of both designs.

Doing this sort of thing is a fun and imaginative exercise but if you prefer to keep your Landspeeder designs true to the movie, then try your hand at building the official UCS Luke’s Landspeeder LEGO set that has come out recently. Installing a beef jerky dispenser in the dash would only sweeten the deal.

I really FALL for this simple design

While LEGO builder Carter Witz tells us he has kept this design pretty simple I’m still smitten with it anyway. Granted it doesn’t have mind-blowing techniques and complex gear trains but you can go a long way with a well-appointed layout. I love the trees, the smiling minifigures and the rock patterns. That waterfall though really makes the piece special. The look and feel takes us back to a specific time in LEGO history right in the sweet spot of childhood memories. You know, before all the backaches and sore knees. This builder frequently takes us to special places. Check out the Carter Witz archives to see what I mean.

About Lino

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!