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

Skulls could use more greebling in general

If you’ve read The Brothers Brick for awhile, you may have seen us reference the word “greebling” or “greebles”. The term was first used by special effects artists working on Star Wars and it describes all of the doodads and doohickeys on the surface of an object to help things like spaceships look more…well, spaceshipy. This effect is used heavily by LEGO builders, in fact, if you search Wikipedia for “greeble” you’ll find a photo of a LEGO creation. (Heck yeah!) Ethen T uses this effect, not for spaceships, but rather in a clever mosaic render of a LEGO skull. Subtle light gray, then dark gray parts rounds out the effect nicely and adds dimension to an otherwise flat-ish surface. This piece acts as a stark reminder that inside each of us is a disgusting skeleton hell-bent on scaring neighborhood kids! This is why I can’t wait for Halloween.

And be sure to check out our LEGO glossary for explanations of greebling and many other bits of LEGO terminology!

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Treasure of the Snake Queen

Not to make this all about me, but I’m an artist who enjoys illustrating book covers. My work is heavily influenced by old pulps, spy novels, game manuals, serial horrors, children’s mysteries such as Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, and anything involving elements of danger, intrigue, lush colors, and provocative titles. The point to telling you this is with a spooky castle, and a dense forest, this LEGO creation immediately resonated with me. The title, “Treasure of the Snake Queen” evoked a sense of danger and exotic adventure. Already this was something I was excited to write about. You can imagine my delight when I then learned that this piece was built by our own Brothers Brick contributor Flynn DeMarco and his partner Richard Board. Together they comprise a cohesive building team who goes by the name of Tricky Bricks.

See more of this massive model, including a video of it in action!

Got a magazine? This might take a minute.

When men get older, skin becomes a bit thinner and gravity affects and elongates certain features of the body like ears, jowls and…other things. This wreaked havoc in the old days when outhouses were all the rage. A fella would walk out to the pit latrine in the dead of night, have a seat, then promptly get a spider bite right in the dangly bits! Thankfully deadly spider bites have steeply declined in the US since the 1950s, according to records kept by national poison control centers. Changes in how people live have helped as the switch to indoor plumbing sharply decreased black widow bites. (And you were worried I was going to crack a litany of poop jokes with this.) Despite my delivery on the matter, you have to appreciate when someone like Chris Goddard has the gumption to…boldly go where not many LEGO builders have gone before.

Weathered details abound with the use of reddish brown and the similar-but-not-quite-the-same dark red. Corrugated bricks here and there offer up some texture while round plates denote knotholes or perhaps where termites have chewed through the wood. Traditional folk art such as the animal skull and the crescent moon cutout completes the rustic feel. What’s the story with the moon? Legend has it that it dates back to when the general populace was quite illiterate and the moon shape denoted that ladies were welcome while a sun or star signified a loo for the gentlemen. Having two separate outhouses often proved to be impractical and difficult to maintain, so many properties went with only one and the traditional moon shape remained. And now you are (ahem)…privy to information you may not have had before. Aren’t you glad you dropped by? You ought to celebrate your new-found knowledge by lighting a match before you leave.

Nevertheless, Warsaw persisted

It’s safe to say that Warsaw was a dangerous place to be in 1944. Already oppressed for five years by both Soviet and Nazi forces, the Warsaw Uprising was the resistance movement led by the Home Army (Armia Krajowa) to liberate the Polish city from German occupation. This Home Army mostly consisted of volunteer civilians and a faction called “the Gray Ranks” who were merely the Polish equivalent of young Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. Despite being severely outgunned and outnumbered, the Home Army fought like the damned and while eventually obliterating 85% of the city’s structures, Nazi forces didn’t quite establish a comfortable foothold there. What I find particularly intriguing about this build by H2brick is instead of a sprawling World War II layout, he offers just a well configured slice of what it must have been like to be in Warsaw at that time.

The wide black band flanked by two rows of 1×2 Medium Dark Flesh plates establishes a solid stand for the scene and I rather like how some of the 1×1 bricks and tiles along the stairs and wall are not quite clicked into place, thus offering a more broken, haphazard texture to the terrain. The advancing Nazi forces clearly outnumber the fighting citizens in this diorama, and the one officer without a helmet; his blonde hair offers a striking visual contrast to everything else and somehow implies that he is the one in charge. As foreboding as this scene is, the builder (maybe knowingly) offers just a glimmer of hope for both the Home Army and the viewer. The solitary tree, with its roots exposed, is a life form that may hang on despite the tragedy surrounding it. The bit of graffiti on the wall, while not entirely intact, is the Polish flag and serves as a symbolic reminder of what the citizens are fighting for. While things didn’t go entirely well for the Home Army, their efforts were not for naught. The nation of Poland still stands long after what was supposed to be a “Thousand Year Reich” was wiped from the Earth.

We all float down here, Georgie

With their exaggerated features and over-the-top antics, clowns can inadvertently scare children and more than a few adults, rather than entertain them. Couple this with the notion that, prone to depression, alcoholism and criminal misconduct, real-life clowns can sometimes be an unsavory lot. If that doesn’t give you just a touch of Coulrophobia already then leave it to Stephen King to hammer that fear into the rest of us when he wrote It in 1986. Tim Curry first frightened television viewers in 1990 when he gave Pennywise the Clown a savage, sneering malevolence and a Bronx accent in ABC’s two-part miniseries. In 2017 a new generation of moviegoers were scared out of their wits when Bill Skarsgård portrayed a redesigned Pennywise with a childlike curiosity and a seething maliciousness. Now, just in time for It: Chapter 2, City Son recreates Pennywise’s likeness in LEGO.

His signature red balloon and string seems to be the only non-LEGO elements here, but red puff balls adorn his Shakespearean outfit while what we commonly call “cheese slopes” comprise his Elizabethan ruffle collar. The whole getup sort of implies he’s been doing this evil clown gig far longer than any of us has been alive. A closer look at his mug shows that a hot dog makes up his sinister smile while several horns in red and white and a flower denote his make-up design.

If you haven’t seen the movies or read the book, I don’t want to spoil much for you, but you can file this next bit under good general advice and not so much a spoiled plot point: if a clown tries to lure you into a sewer with him, it is probably best you don’t go. And now you know.

Get your motor running, head out on the highway

Having built a car or two(hundred) myself, I get a kick out of it when someone else does this good a job showing the automobile some love. This one may be unique because we might be dealing with a young builder here, or at least someone with a cool, supportive mom. Carrie Kokoska is not the builder, however, she just created a new Flickr account to showcase these photos on behalf of her oldest son. “The Bend City Auto Garage” gets its inspiration from an old pharmacy in their local town. We are looking at a builder who is passionate about LEGO and working at his grandpa’s garage, where he restores vintage cars. The posters and stickers both inside and out were designed by the builder’s mom, making this truly a family project.

See more of this highly detailed garage and vintage car

My art supplies never looked so neat

When I saw this image I thought, “Now, why am I seeing ads for neat art supply boxes when the ad algorithms should already know I like to keep my art supplies scattered haphazardly in a six-drawer rolling cabinet?” Then it occurred to me, this wasn’t an ad but rather a LEGO render by a builder called Vant. There’s a certain danger to building this realistically and that is that a finely crafted creation like this one could be passed up by writers like us thinking it may be an ad or some other non-LEGO related thing. Upon closer inspection, what looked like silver corner tiles clued me in that what I was looking at was LEGO.

The whole shebang folds neatly into this handsome “wooden” case. The clasps, handle, even the round silver “feet” are particularly inspired. While this is a render, Vant tells us he is currently building this in actual brick and is part of a larger project that will be…unfolding (See what I did there?) in his Flickr photostream soon. When I see these in the store, I marvel at how neat and tidy other artists, who are not me, might be.

Zinnia Superfuzz cranks the awesomeness up to 11.

It should come as a surprise to no one that I am an expert bassist. And by expert I mean I can play that one riff from “7 Nation Army”. Over and over again. For like nine hours at a time if you request it, and I sincerely hope that you do someday. An array of cool petals would only make the experience that much sweeter because variety is the spice of life, after all. As enriching as that would be for all of us, despite my best intentions, I don’t think I could look as cool as Zinnia Superfuzz while doing it. She’s a new creation by Eero Okkonen and everything from her stance to her rocking flower power clothing and awesome yellow bass says she’s going to take expert to a whole new level that would put me to shame, I’m sure.

Still, if you care to be dazzled, I am also fairly proficient at that one intro riff from “Smoke on the Water.” Just putting that out there.

Dad was a murderous dwarven berserker

Sometimes you got to take a break from cracking rib cages and crushing skulls to stop and marvel at the beautiful miracle of life. That is the scene that Eero Okkonen has presented us today with a piece he calls “Munburr, the proud father”. With armor still on and the left side of his face covered in what might be blood or warpaint, this murderous dwarven beserker takes pride in the tender little life he had helped bring into this world. While a proud papa, Munburr, like many new dads, appears rather perplexed at the bundle of joy in his gauntlet covered arms. His expression seems to say, “If you can’t kill it and you can’t eat it, then what the heck can you do with it?” They’ll figure it out over time as the baby will likely grow up to be a murderous dwarven beserker just like his dad and they’ll go off on dwarven beserker adventures together, the cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon and all that. Isn’t the Circle of Life grand?

A trio of big Boeing planes by BigPlanes

Sometimes a builder’s chosen name fits perfectly with what they like to build. My case in point, these three big Boeing 7-series passenger jets built by someone who goes by the name of…well, BigPlanes. On the far left we have a Lufthansa 737-500. Next to it in the center is a now bygone Pan Am 707-120. Finally, on the far right is my favorite, a Southwest Airlines 727-200. So far this builder has stayed true to his name but may have to change it to “Big-Planes-And-Also-Some-Other-Stuff” if he chooses to diversivy.

Here is a photo of the Pan-Am 707 with three minifigs to help appreciate just how big these big planes actually are.

Thinking inside the cube

With skull rings and a long pointed goatee, I wouldn’t be what you’d call a “square”, yet whether it be a Borg Cube or a transforming Rubik’s cube, I get a kick out of things designed with a cube shape. It should come to no surprise then that this White Cube Bot built by Anthony Séjourné fits squarely into the things I totally dig. A white object on a white background can be difficult to photograph but with good lighting, a great camera and just enough light gray details to make it pop, Anthony has done an excellent job here. I can just imagine it zipping around on its wheels doing whatever it is cube robots are assigned to do with their time.

An iBird before you go

Are you here for massive castles, mechs and spaceships? Well hang on there, Sonny Jim, you’ll still get plenty of that. But sometimes you have to stop to appreciate the smaller things, like this iBird built by Dicky Laban. This tiny fellow is comprised of under 30 pieces and is a robotic bird inspired by the cassowary, which is a dinosaur-like bird that lives in the tropical forests of New Guinea, East Nusa Tenggara, the Maluku Islands, and Northeastern Australia. See, we have robots, dinosaurs and birds in one post; all three can be just as cool as castles, mechs, and spaceships any day. Aren’t you glad you stopped in? We now return to your regularly scheduled programming.