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

Greek Revolution or bust!

Our readers of Greek descent can rejoice. Talented LEGO builder George Panteleon is celebrating the 200th anniversary of the 1821 Greek Revolution against the Ottoman Empire in style.
Theodoros Kolokotronis was a prominent military leader and one of the key figures of the Greek Revolution. Frankly, I had to Google him but once I did I had learned that George’s rendition is spot on! The mustache, long gray hair, and helmet are particularly inspiring but my favorite detail is the gold filigree on his jacket. He tackles the gentle slope of the shoulders; not an easy feat in LEGO. Even his epaulets accurately depict the gold lion crest that the real revolutionist wore. George is well-versed as a builder and no stranger to our pages. Check out our archives to see for yourself.

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The Mars Flytrap is more terrifying and flytrap-y than the Venus one

I had a Venus Flytrap once. I bought it when I had an infestation of fruitflies several years back. Or were they mayflies? I don’t know, I didn’t ask. Either my flytrap was fussy or they’re not that into fruitflies (or mayflies) because it really wasn’t the fly kill-fest I hoped for. But this LEGO Mars Flytrap by Linus Bohman is the stuff of B-Movie nightmares. It’s big enough to eat cars and it doesn’t seem fussy at all. The Mars Flytrap is expertly crafted with plant bits and I just love that horrific gaping maw. Oh, and before you flood the comment section with what’s LEGO and what isn’t, it’s all LEGO. Yep, even the cars! They’re from a series of LEGO HO Scale offerings from the ’50s and ’60s and are now worth a mint. Tasty!

Zoinks! Get a clue! It’s Scooby-Doo!

If you look up Paul Hetherington in the dictionary you’ll find the definition to be builder of awesomely huge LEGO creations. Probably. I don’t know. Does anyone still have dictionaries anymore? Well, if we did, Paul’s smiling mug would be in it. The man has more talent in his little finger than most of us have in the rest of our fingers combined. Go ahead, look it up. I’ll wait. See? This time he takes us back to our childhoods and Saturday morning cartoons with this stunning Scooby-Doo diorama consisting of over 8000 pieces. Most of us would have just bought the Mystery Machine set from 2015 and called this case closed. But Paul integrates the iconic vehicle with an entire mystery mansion.

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We could all use more capes around here

You could say LEGO builder Marius Herrmann is having the best month ever. Earlier I raved about a Police Enforcer bot in a fashionable blue jacket. Then my colleague “Mr. Waffles” picked up a scoop about a flying bot in a sweet pair of Scala pants. Now I’m here again and this time Marius presents a 51L “Elanoides”-NC Enforcer adorned in a ragged cape. What can I say? I’m a fan of all these fashion-forward bots. It doesn’t hurt that the build techniques here and photography are on a whole ‘nother level.

Why don’t you build something cool that’ll attract our attention? That’s how this all works, you know. You build something neat, we feature it, and the world turns. Shampoo, rinse, repeat. It just seems that Marius shampoos and repeats more often than most and that means clean hair and job security for us!

The hare of the bunny that bit me

A Gatling gun, grappling hook, chainsaw, and an unfolding semaphore tower is not the kind of things you’d usually associate with little pink bunnies. But LEGO builder Ted Andes has done just that with this Nousagi (野ウサギ) Reconnaissance Tank. This mech-tank looks like it means serious business. However, just a few pretty pink touches and bunny stickers clue us in that one can pilot a tank and still have a playful personality. The open hatch gives us a glimpse of a playful young driver who can still get down to brass tacks when serious reconnaissance stuff needs to happen.

Two great Star Wars ships for all your bounty hunting needs

Whether you need to chase down two-bit scoundrels who owe money or tool around the galaxy with your foster kid in the Star Wars equivalent of a ’96 Nissan Stanza, you’re going to need the right equipment. First, you need a cool outfit, preferably one you’ll wear your entire life, even if you put on a few post-Sarlaac pounds. Next, you’ll need a bucket on your head and a credo about not talking much and never showing your face except during some mushy parts. Lastly, you’re going to need a sweet spaceship and that’s where LEGO builder Tim Goddard comes in. Here we see Boba Fett and his Slave I as well as “Mando” from The Mandolorian with his Razor Crest. Tim makes excellent use of both old and new gray bits for that lived-in mottled effect.

We’ve featured Tim’s Razor Crest before but with the added stands and posed next to his new Slave I, we couldn’t resist bringing it out again for an encore performance.

LittleJohn says “Hay there, farmer!”

LEGO builder John Snyder says “hay there, farmer!” To which I reply “hay there right back!” Frankly, I know nothing about farming, but I do enjoy a friendly greeting replete with puns so I figured I ought to jump at the chance to feature this John Deere tractor and hay baler. If you’re as a-moo-sed by this as I am, then you should check out -LittleJohn’s other stuff. He’s been building a lot of amazing stuff lately. But before you go, let me try my hand at a farmer joke. Here goes. How did the farmer find his cow? He tractor down. OK, admittedly that could use some work. Sorry, I’m just going to let myself out now.

Enjoy my jacket. You have 20 seconds to comply.

When Marius Herrmann said he’d start a series of LEGO robots with a sense of style I said color me intrigued! Here we have “Sialia”-N1 Police Enforcer adorned in a sassy blue number from the Scala line. In order to get this jacket in this specific color, you’d have to have bought the super-rare Scala 3158 Christian in Tough Wear set. Because nothing says tough-guy like a light blue blazer! I’m rather smitten by the look, actually. This robotic law enforcer comes with a matching reconnaissance drone to ensure that you are also smitten by the whole ensemble. Not convinced yet? Then check out our archives where Marius always keeps it interesting. I’ll certainly be on the lookout to see what other fashion-forward robots he comes up with.

LEGO Borat is great success!

Why would Brothers Brick alumni Iain Heath burn Borat’s slingshot mankini into our retinas when we had since 2006 to forget it? Well, it turns out Sasha Baron Cohen and his fumbling foreign alter ego are relevant again. Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm (actual title is much longer) had come out in late 2020 and garnered three Golden Globe nominations. Mr. Cohen won the award for best actor in a motion picture, musical or comedy, for his starring role as the titular character. Rudy Guiliani, who also appeared in the film, won no such award because apparently, that wasn’t acting. Plus, Iain has a knack for knowing what is hot at any precise moment. We have like two hours to jump on that bandwagon before Iain moves on to the next hottest thing. So if we want to stay relevant, we pretty much had to publish this. Consider yourselves hip and enlightened. High fives!

Feel like getting your mankini in a bunch? Check out the other times Iain Heath had us in stitches.

Because flying fish are the best kind of fish

True story; one of the best days of my life involved flying fish. I was in the Navy and got reassigned to gyro school while we were deployed out in the Gulf of Mexico. Instead of waiting until we pulled into port, they hired a small craft to meet our ship. I was (carefully) hoisted over the side, and onto the craft. Usually, the captain gets a series of bells to announce his or her arrival and departure. Little enlisted schlubs like me didn’t get the same treatment except during our final departure from the ship. So they rang me off with bells and headed for shore. Here’s where the flying fish came in, jumping over the craft in droves as we sped through the water. I felt like freakin’ James Bond on a special mission! Once on shore at Panama City, Florida, I was reverted back to common schlub transportation but for an hour or so, I felt pretty special. Thanks for the memories, James Zhan! It would have been extra-cool to depart on a piloted flying fish like this.

From a sprig comes a delightful Bonsai Plum Tree

It’s not usually our thing to feature LEGO works in progress. But when ZiO Chao posted a sprig of plum blossom, we featured it. Who could blame us, really? The subject was expertly crafted and photographed with utmost care. The sprig alone was rather breathtaking, actually. So you can imagine our thrill to learn the sprig was a mere teaser for this entire Bonsai plum tree. The builder tells us that the plum blossom is one of the most beloved flowers in China and has been frequently depicted in Chinese art and poetry for centuries. They can bloom in the winter and have therefore come to symbolize perseverance and hope, as well as beauty and purity. In my opinion, the official Botanical Collection has been the best new idea LEGO has come up with in a while. They have been the inspiration for so many beautiful creations such as this.

You see cake, I see ghosts

There is a neat LEGO part that comes with the Friends Baking Competition set as well as a couple of others. It’s the 2×2 cake topper. Most of us see that part and may likely use it for what it’s intended for; a cake bit. But Seung Hun Park saw it as something a bit more unsettling. He artfully constructed a Candle Ghost using the cake topper as melted wax. It’s as is Lumière from Beauty and the Beast had morphed into something from Silent Hill. The single eye on each candle and the tongues made from minifig flippers make for a nice, creepy touch.