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

From the ashes of a Fiat 500 comes an Auburn 851

I believe “totally stoked” is the correct medical term used to describe some of us when LEGO came out with the 10271 Fiat 500 set. It’s an iconic little car, which would have been exciting enough but heart palpitations reached critical max when it was realized the set would be primarily comprised of a rare light-yellow color. This meant builders could come up with our own lemony-bright creations in due time. Australian automotive engineer Peter Blackert loves a challenge. (You have no idea!) An Instagram follower asked him to do this and he answered the call of duty using only parts from a Fiat 500 set (or two) to build this 1935 Auburn 851 Boattail Speedster. The doors open and I particularly love that the convertible top works using the same canvas part from the set.

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Burnouts in the parking lot

Living near a school that hasn’t housed actual kids in several months, I am sometimes subject to seeing or hearing vehicles doing burnouts in the school parking lot. It’s a bummer because usually, the vehicle in question is a big honkin’ pickup truck with flags supporting a certain recently ousted public figure. I’d be slightly more thrilled if the neighborhood nuisance had a vehicle that looked a bit more like this LEGO chopped drag rod by Faber Mandragore. I love the use of Modulex bricks in the building in the background. The plate-built smoke plume is so convincing, I can just about hear the squeal of burning rubber on asphalt. No, wait, that’s actual burning rubber outside. It seems our neighborhood nuisance is back! While I deal with that, go ahead and take a gander at this builder’s archives.

In space no one can hear you hiss

Do you know what’s scary? Velociraptors. While the Tyrannosaurus is all teeth and ignorant brawn, the Velociraptor is a smaller, nimble and cunning creature capable of working together to hunt down kids in a laboratory. At least that’s what Jurassic Park has led us to believe anyway. Bob DeQuatre takes the already scary raptor and puts it in a spacesuit; one with opposable claw finger technology. You may as well just kiss your tookus goodbye by this point. Not only are the kids toast but the director and camera crew won’t be around to make the slew of blockbuster sequels. It’s a bummer, really. But all kidding aside this is a really cool idea. I particularly like the expression of the raptor’s face under the protective space dome.

What’s all the buzz about?

The Buzz Droid was first introduced in Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith as insidious saboteurs that could wreak havoc on unsuspecting starfighters. We’ve seen them before in LEGO but I don’t think anyone has done one with a UCS (Ultimate Collector Series) level of detail. Along comes Instagrammer pennydrop.works and now we’ve seen everything. I particularly like that even with a monochrome color palette, this builder brings out each detail nicely. The domes are made from Death Star halves, which is rather fitting, actually.

Want to see what this LEGO Star Wars UCS stuff is all about? Well, click the link and get ready to have your minds blown!

The Toyota Stacker does the heavy lifting so you don’t have to

For those undecided whether or not you want to see any more cool LEGO creations today, don’t worry, I just made that decision for you. André Pinto does all the heavy lifting with this stunning Toyota forklift. I would have been impressed enough with the lift’s many controls and overall look but André goes above and beyond with a simple yet detailed environment including a safety sign and fire extinguisher. While the builder doesn’t state this model actually works, it looks as if it can be rigged with power functions. Upon closer inspection, I can see that the shifter knob is an eight ball. Nice touch, André! We’ve been smitten by his detailed work before. This is probably the best thing I’ve seen all day and I’ve seen a small dog startled by her own farts.

It’s like a hermit crab but way scarier

A hermit crab moves into an empty seashell (and occasionally manmade discarded debris) and uses it to protect itself. This new LEGO creation by Andrew Steele is a Protoweapon XV-2 “WYRM”. It’s a worm-based organism that uses the empty husks and remains as protection and binds itself together using a sticky glue.

Andrew is quite good at making LEGO seem lifelike and organic. Check out his archives. I can assure you, you will not be disappointed. But before you do, take a closer look at this WYRM and try to sleep well tonight.

I’m Batman. You can be too.

You should dress for the job you want and not the job you have. Which explains why I spent the afternoon in the HR office dressed as Batman. I wish I could take credit for that joke but it’s not mine to claim. Still, I’m certain LEGO builder Riley Scott can appreciate the sentiment as evidenced by this wearable Batman mask. This is not Riley’s first rodeo with 1:1 scale wearable art. Here’s the Stormbringer from the Avengers: Infinity War and be sure to try D.C.s Atom outfit on for size. Also check out Starlord’s helmet. Riley seems to give equal love to both D.C. and Marvel, which just shows we’re all superhero dorks at heart, regardless of sides.

The (Pumpkin) Spice must flow

Don your Uggs and yoga pants as Pumpkin Spice season is upon us once again. But where do all those pumpkin spice lattes, lipgloss, scented candles, and dog shampoos come from? It’s probably all harvested by this creepy fellow constructed by Brothers Brick regular and LEGO builder extraordinaire Joss Woodyard. He tells us this is Pumpkinhead Fiddlesticks, a character from the game League of Legends which, upon further research, seems to have nothing to do with harvesting pumpkin spice. Well, there goes my humorous holiday tie-in! No one said we were good journalists, did they? Regardless of your opinions of my journalistic integrity, you’ll have to agree Joss is a pretty formidable builder. We offer a well-deserved pumpkin spice latte salute to all things Halloween and maybe you should too.

It takes guts to build something like this

I have resorted to cheap puns to grab your attention with that title but now that you’re here, you’ve got to admit this is pretty cool. You’re looking at (or looking through) a new LEGO creation by Tino Poutianen called Glass Cerberus. The traditional guardian to the gates of hell is fearsome enough as a three-headed dog but the mythical creature has now seeped into nightmare territory. We’ve seen a lot of gutsy creations lately, what with it being close to Halloween and all. Now if only I could gain this hound’s favor perhaps we can find a favorable end to this post. Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good widdle boy? Just kidding! It all ends in unspeakable horror.

Case and Bunning! They’re hard-boiled cops! Or farm equipment.

As much as I would have loved to have written an edge-of-your-seat cop action drama, this will be about farm equipment. Still, you’ve got to appreciate the love and attention Michał Skorupka gives to these LEGO creations. The red tractor is the International Harvester Case 1455 XL while the blue thingamajigger is the Bunning Lowlander 105mk4. For those of us more versed in hard-boiled cop dramas than farm equipment, the Bunning Lowlander is…a manure spreader. I’m pretty sure I can still integrate that in with some hard-hitting, no-nonsense cop drama dialogue. “My partner Bunning here has a unique set of skills, see? You don’t want to know! So lemme ask ya one more time. You feeling lucky, punk?” In case you are feeling lucky and would like to stick around for a while, why not buckle in and check out our vehicle archives featuring farming vehicles, police vehicles and everything in between.

Guten tag, Raketenwerfer!

The Brothers Brick regular Andreas Lenander has built a LEGO Ma.K SAFS Raketenwerfer, which I’m pretty sure is German for “launching rockets in a field of olive cheese wedges”. Don’t quote me on that. But that’s pretty much what is going on here. It’s just a small part of what is in store from Andreas in October. I’ll keep an eye out for what this builder is up to and I advise you do the same. This will get you started.

Mr. Mercedes makes many merry motorcars

LEGO car builder Jonathan Elliott tells us that boxy small-scale saloon cars like this classic Mercedes are fiendishly difficult to build, even more so then their curvier sportscar counterparts. I’m inclined to agree. This model is chock full of tricky SNOT (Studs not on top) techniques and complex offsetting. But I love its understated elegance. We’ve enjoyed Jonathan’s small-scale vehicles before. If vehicles of any scale are your thing, then I’d advise you buckle in and check out our archives. There’s some automotive gold in there for sure.