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 fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy

We all know the Millennium Falcon is the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy. We’ve all heard the whole song and dance about it making the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs. But what we don’t get to see much in LEGO is the iconic ship blasting through hyperspace. Rui Miguel Anacleto has made it happen in all its stunning glory. The blue afterburner trails are a particularly good touch. I can go into detail about all the neat techniques used here or, better yet, you can build your own by following along with Rui’s instructions. It’s a better use of your time than watching some giant head yell on TV.

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Ice road dumper

When you’re an up-and-coming builder someone along the way makes it clear that you’re supposed to say and type it as “LEGO” and not “Legos”. It was a LEGO designer who initially made it clear to me. As a seasoned builder and writer for The Brothers Brick, I’m pretty much by now contractually obligated to use the word correctly. However, in a fit of rebellion, I’ll sometimes misuse it for humor’s sake. Legos! See, it’s funny, right? That’s why it’s so refreshing to discover an up-and-coming entity (debuting a few months ago) who goes by the name of LEGOZ ;). The winky face means that he (we think his name is Sean) gets the joke too and what an amazing builder he seems to be! To be clear, this WEGENER Mining Dump Truck is a render created with Bricklink Studio 2.0, and the image was enhanced and edited in Photoshop. However existing parts were used and, as far as I can tell, can be constructed legitimately. I am just enamored with this thing!

Click to see more and to unveil an even bigger surprise!

A shack in the woods might be all you need.

I generally don’t broadcast my vacation whereabouts to potentially millions of readers but since I’m back I can say I’ve just spent a week in a tiny home similar to this one. With nothing but my own amusing self to keep me company, I have a new appreciation for living minimally. Daniel Barwegen may know what I mean as evidenced by this LEGO shack. Multidirectional bricks, plates, and slopes make for some neat textures here. I really enjoy the barren trees here and the all-around rustic feel. In my tiny rental, I fancied myself as a rugged old hermit (gray beard and all) just like the minifigure here. He’s doing it right with solar panels. And just when I started to smell like a guy who lived in a shack in the woods, it was time to come back to civilization, car payments, Zoom-room meetings, mortgage, and all that. But would I do it again? Totally! In a heartbeat.

Sheena: queen of the jungle or maybe the zoo

LEGO figure builder Letranger Absurde is at it again and this time he’s built Sheena: Queen of the Jungle. Where else but the jungle or possibly the zoo can a bald eagle and a zebra live in the same ecosystem? The builder tells us this idea has been a work in progress since 1874. If you’re like me and believe everything you read on the internet this means he had knowledge of Sheena sixty-three years before she made her comic book debut in 1937. No wonder Letranger is so talented! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to respond to an email from a super-polite Nigerian prince who has a lucrative business proposition in exchange for just a little account information. He seems to be a nice fellah. In the meantime, check out Letranger’s impressive archives, especially the Stone Age Huntress we recently featured.

The house of sand and coral

The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part was a fun and amusing romp that reunited us with our friends Emmet, Lucy, and LEGO Batman. More importantly, though it released a few sets that featured a new color; coral. It’s a pretty color but limited and potentially difficult in its use. But builders like Simon Hundsbichler step up to the challenge and do it with amazing results. There are only three colors in this creation: Dark Tan, Light Royal Blue, and the aforementioned Vibrant Coral. A mix of plates and tiles adds intricate texture to the ground while a variety of coral bricks makes for a vibrant splash of color. Simon has proven to be a master of the LEGO medium, even with a limited palette. We’ve been smitten with Simon’s build techniques and color choices before.

Take your permanence on the go

Castles, fortresses, and the like have a big imposing permanence to them and appear as if they have been carved out of the very landscape they inhabit and have seemingly been there forever. But this LEGO fortress by WoomyWorld can lift itself and walk away. It is a re-imagining of Alexander, the Roaming Titan that can be summoned in the Final Fantasy games. Each section looks like it would be right at home in a fantasy microscale layout. I can just imagine the earth rumbling as it moves along!

Some happy little trees to pee on

Bob Ross taught a generation of artists and would-be artists to paint, myself included. He had a soothing, gentle demeanor about him and a voice that could squelch a prison riot. You can tell he was a guy that just loved the world and all the lakes, mountains, creatures and trees within it. Happy little trees, he called them. Soothing, mellow little trees without a care in the world, yeah, that’s nice. He taught us that there were no mistakes in your world, only happy accidents. This LEGO Bob Ross Corgi by BrickinNick has surely had a few happy accidents in his day, probably on the rug. But do we get mad at the little fellah? Nah, he’s just doing what he’s put on this planet to do; paint happy trees and maybe pee a little behind the couch. Yeah, that’s nice. And wouldn’t you know it, BrickinNick got us all mellow and groovy before. Give it a gander, my friend.

In the court of the crimson king

LEGO builder Grant Davis demonstrates quite a few tricks with this massive King of Diamonds playing card. The seed part is a white 4×4 flower. He incorporates twenty-one of those mamma-jammas into the intricate design of this card. Also expertly woven into the design is yellow ribbed hoses and a myriad of parts situated in complex angles. Grant doesn’t provide size dimensions in his write-up but based on the bricks that we can see, we estimate this feat of artistry is nearly three feet high! Now let’s hope he’ll also build fifty-one of his closest friends to complete the deck. Until then, you may want to settle in and check out some of the other stuff Grant has built.

Surfs up with the Duflo!

Here’s the scene; you get a sweet haul of used LEGO from a garage sale at a great price. Their loss, your gain, right? You race home to inventory your new acquisition only to find there’s plenty of LEGO as advertised but also some busted Matchbox cars, a few hairs you’d rather not speculate on their origin, one stinky flip-flop, and a DUPLO van body. Aw, nuts, “baby Legos”! You can let it totally harsh your mellow or you can do what Edward Lawrence did and build a custom surf van out of it. Introducing “The Duflo”, it uses System LEGO parts to construct a kickin’ sound system a knuckle-dragging stance, and a re-colored surfboard from the 10252 VW Beetle set. The exhaust pipes fit just perfectly in that cutout area. It’s like it was meant to be!

Behold THIS, Mickey and Minnie!

LEGO set designer and artist Wes Talbott saw the large macaroni pieces in the new 43179 Mickey and Minnie Buildable Characters set and knew immediately that he must build a beholder from Dungeons and Dragons instead. I approve of every last facet of that preceding sentence. It has an engaging start, takes us on a riotous journey through the middle, then concludes with a most satisfying end. Some best-selling novels don’t even go that well. What can I say? When it comes to geek memorabilia or the big corporate mouse, I will side with boardgame monsters every time. I think you’ll agree that this beholder is a sight to behold.

Edwina Scissorhands and I would have totally been besties!

The film Edward Scissorhands inspired a generation of teens to tease their hair, put on black lipstick, listen to Bauhaus and sulk about pretending that their very touch brings pain to anyone who would love them due to their horrible affliction of having scissorhands. Or something. I have to admit, the untouchable, artsy sullen bad-boy image was quite appealing to me as a young man. But what if you dig the look and also happen to be female? Letranger Absurde has you covered with this Edwina Scissorhands LEGO creation. She has all the sullen gothy put-upon misguidedness as her male counterpart excpet she’s wearing an awesome skirt. We would have totally been besties when I was eighteen!

Now that I’m middle-aged and with Bauhaus still frequenting my current Pandora playlist not much has changed, other than I’m paunchier than I used to be and my days having hair to tease is long gone. Frankly, I’m not sure if I could pull off the whole outfit anymore either. But do you like the idea of a paunchy, balding Edward Scissorhands wannabe? Soak it in, ladies and gents! Or not. Whatevs! Just check out the archives.

Kennedy Space Center awesomeness in 10...9...8...

Here at The Brothers Brick we often feature LEGO spaceships, shuttles, and rovers both real and fictional and we are usually quite impressed. But as you can imagine we achieved a new level of…impress-ness when we saw the entire Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A. This stellar creation was built by Lia Chan. Lia is a person of few words, no words, in fact. Other than providing a title we have no idea how many pieces this has or how long it took to build. One thing is clear is that this was a labor of love and the end result is just breathtaking.

Lia could have stopped there and we would have been plenty impressed enough, by golly! But an alternate configuration features the shuttle launching with a realistic plume of exhaust. That is just…stellar!