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

What this day needs is butterfly dragons

Tired of the same household chores? Are you sick of your job? Is the drudgery in the news bringing you down? Do you like butterflies? How about dragons? Then you’re about to turn that frown upside-down because Chris Yu has something special for you. Enter the butterfly dragons. I didn’t see that coming either yet I can’t help but smile. Despite being the size of a Brachiosaurus and having six massive legs these sweet dragons seem to have the playful, carefree gait of a puppy. I can’t even properly name all these colors in terms of what LEGO officially calls them but turquoise, lavender, light yellow, azure, butterscotch, magenta, salmon pink and others all work together to please the senses. In this bright and serene backdrop, I can just imagine their butterfly wings (or maybe ears) fluttering as they run. See, aren’t you feeling just a bit better now?

It turns out this is not the first time Chris has delighted us. Pack your bags for adventures in outer space and check out his transformable Classic Space luggage.

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Have you had enough water today?

Dehydration is serious business. It can cause headaches, fatigue, blurred vision, brain fog, dizzy spells, seizures, bladder stones-or even cause you to totally become a sun-bleached desert skeleton like this poor animal here. While the condition is unfortunate, the execution of this piece presented by Toa Aparu is totally awesome. Nearly equal measures of Bionicle and system parts meld together to create a neat cattle skull and the sandy terrain is an excellent touch. The whole composition acts as a stark reminder to always make sure you drink plenty of water, dear readers. Also a daily dose of The Brothers Brick couldn’t hurt either.

This old-timey racer has moxie, see!

Builder Joe Maruschak has got something to put a smile on your gigglemug, something to really blow your wig over. Everyone from wisenheimers to anklebiters can appreciate the swagger of this vintage race car with its inline 4 engine and old square pistons. You’d have to spend a bit of happy cabbage to get these macaroni pieces in black. And my favorite bit, a pond hopper as a hood ornament, is a gas. Be sure to peep this moving picture to see and hear the ratta-tat-tat of the engine. A hayburner like this is sure to take the egg at the racetrack. Now if you’ll pardon me, I got to twenty-three skidoo and see a man about a dog.

It’s the little things that cause the biggest problems

When running a Super Star Destroyer it is often easy to overlook the smaller nuisances that could cause potential turmoil. Trip hazard in compartment 4412 on deck 206, that one toilet that won’t flush by the aft galley, that doohickey shaped like a cowboy hat that keeps buzzing for some reason; all can spell tragedy when left unchecked. The imposing sight of the Star Dreadnought Executor alone was enough to frighten an entire star system into submission, so it was easy to dismiss a lone one-man rebel A-Wing as a laughable insignificant detail. Ben Cossy recreates the scene in Return of the Jedi when one such laughable insignificant detail crashed into the Executor’s command bridge, thus sending the flagship hurtling into the Death Star II. (The first also destroyed by small, laughable rebel spacecraft.)

He calls it “Arvel Crynyd’s Sacrifice” and excellent details abound, including making use of spring shooter darts and antenna as part of the explosive effect. Meanwhile, a myriad of minifig headpieces create texture for the black smoke. The minifig officers run like the dickens as the hapless crew members do…whatever it is they do with those switches and knobs. Crynyd was posthumously awarded the New Republic Medal of Bravery for turning the battle tides in the rebel’s favor, and we can’t help but root for the underdog. If you too like the notion that the little guy can take down a vast oppressive empire, you should check out this previously featured instrument of death that was ultimately crushed by “teddy bears.”

In search of...unsolved mysteries

The only things I could readily glean from Cameron’s write-up was that this was built from plenty of Bionicle parts and it was inspired by the moon. The rest of the description, even the title, is written in some crazy moon-language. But is it Morse code, Hexadecimal, Dewey Decimal, or the ravings of some crazed lunatic? The world may never know. Add to this mystery the fact that this seems to be the first thing he has built since 2016 and you have a quandary that proposes more questions than answers. Was he replaced by a robot? Is he some sort of patron weirdo saint? Has he been affected by the tides or some monolithic alien presence? Your guess is as good as mine. Will the readers at home have better luck deciphering this mystery? If not, here’s some video instructions on how to build your own doggie desk buddy.

Keep out, nothing to see here, go away!

If the small “keep out” sign to the left doesn’t get the message across, then maybe the two hanging dead pirates will. Greg Dix built a scene inspired by Pirates of the Caribbean and has made it clear that he doesn’t want you to mess with whatever is beyond this natural arching structure. It looks like a nice clean wall that he probably doesn’t want your grubby fingerprints on. We will stick around just long enough to admire the clever build techniques that make up the slanted, rugged arch, that was surely no easy feat. Greg tells us this will be his last build for awhile as he is moving out of country, so soak it in, dear readers, but don’t get too close. In fact, you should check out his previously featured Island Fortress instead as it is much more inviting. Now go away. Scram! Git!

We haven’t seen the last of Darth Maul just yet

I had such high hopes for Darth Maul. Everything from his double lightsaber, to his black hooded cloak, to his red and black tattooed face, exuded seething menace. However, just as quickly as he was introduced, he was sliced in half at the waist by Obi-Wan. He was fighting like a boss right up to that point but then it was like he forgot his super-jitsu skills for a minute there. Just like Boba Fett’s unceremonious demise, I was rather disappointed in how Darth Maul went down and imagined him piecing himself together again to seek unholy revenge on those Jedi do-gooders (and it seems those running Lucasfilm/Disney agreed). Apparently Jarema had a similar notion for the fallen Sith Lord that takes an even more menacing stance.

Here we see a shirtless Darth Maul flexing his Deltoids, his snarling face like some kind of voodoo tomato. His bottom half is a horrific mechanical six-legged spider body with each leg terminating in a sword blade. A complex network of chains seem to fuse his upper and lower body together. The end result is madness, which incidentally is what the builder calls this piece.

Have carrots, will travel

Sometimes something so different comes along that you can’t help but smile. Oliver Becker calls this “The Wandering Temple of the Last Flame” but I call it the coolest mode of transportation ever. Speed, performance, practicality, safety; all are unimportant when you’re riding in this much style. This viney bit and this other leafy bit make for excellent gold filigree while the sloping roof and red and black color scheme embodies an exotic Asian feel to the traveling temple.

The pièce de ré·sis·tance, however, has to be the tortoise’s head which utilizes a Euripides Galidor torso. See, we all chuckled when the infamous Galidor sets came out but who is chuckling now? Still us, but for different reasons.

It turns out, this is far from the first time Oliver has made us smile or even chuckle. Be sure to check out his previously featured Donald Duck roadster and fabled stork creations for more whimsy and wonder.

Mr. Potato Head butters our nostalgic appetites

Things that entertained kids in the ’50s were simpler. The original Mr. Potato Head came with accessories but no plastic potato body. Since potatoes were a staple of the American diet back then it was assumed each household had scores of actual potatoes you could pin plastic eyes, noses and ears into. Complaints of rotting vegetables and stricter food safety regulations put a kibosh on all of that and so Hasbro began including the plastic potato body within the toy set starting in 1964. Modern diets have changed, and thanks to my ever-expanding, aging waistline, I have not had a heavy starch in my house in maybe years. Mr. Quinoa Head or Mr. Tofu Head just doesn’t have the same ring to it but thankfully Elijah Bormann buttered our nostalgic appetites with this LEGO version of the iconic toy.

If you liked this you should check out Elijah’s other stuff as he tends to tickle one’s nostalgic fancy. Mr. Potato Head’s silly face takes me back to a simpler more care-free time when…whether fried in oil, baked with butter and chives or roasted and seasoned with salt and rosemary, I could eat potatoes with impunity. Man, I miss potatoes!

Two tapirs to tickle your fancy

Animals always makes my day just a little brighter. My case in point, Marco Gan has built this pair of endangered Malayan Tapirs (Tapirus indicus) and I am tickled pink…or tickled black and white as it were. The adult looks dashing with its striking black and white piebald pattern but the baby steals my heart away with its horizontal stripes. The artist palette in green make for excellent lily pads while a nearly hidden pushbroom and paddle heads adds neat textures to the jungle flora. Marco tells us that in the Malay language, the tapir is commonly referred to as cipan, tenuk or badak tampung. No matter what you call it, this duo just might be the best thing I’ve seen all day, and I’ve seen a guy in an inflated dinosaur costume bouncing on a pogo stick.

This constellation leads straight to Uranus

Uranus stinks. No, seriously, it does. According to scientists, the ice giant’s atmosphere is comprised mostly of hydrogen and helium but also large quantities of ammonia and methane, which are highly volatile in terms of “those who smelt it dealt it” schoolyard logic. If you’d like to head there anyway, you might want to take a gander (or a whiff) at this Night Sky Colossus built by the mysteriously named [VB]. It is a depiction of the dubious sky-god Uranus as an avatar of the night sky. His black form is augmented with a constellation design that utilizes these claw bits in white as well as 1×1 tiles in azure. His head reverses the color scheme for a truly stellar effect. The only other bit of info this builder offers is this; “And Heaven rejoiced in his evil doing.” In other words, this is probably why we can’t have nice things.

This builder is fairly new to us but surely one to be on the lookout for. Be sure to check out this heart that we previously featured.

Hammer of the Gods

We’re seeing a lot of planetary themed builds lately and I couldn’t be more pleased. This time builder Jayfa takes on Pluto, deemed a planet in 1930, then shunned into the cold abyss of non-planetary status in the early aughts and then (depending on which publications you read) has been recategorized as a planet. Maybe. Wait, is Pluto a planet again this week? No matter what its official status, you can’t help but give some love to the distant little dwarf. Here Pluto has been embodied as a hammer-wielding dwarven cyclopian blacksmith with icy claw bits for a mustache and even his fists are an icy blue. Massive Viking wheels and trans-light blue webbed radar dishes make up the hammer. The photography, with its light and dark elements, is nothing short of magic. The end result is a blacksmith who makes weapons and armor fitting of the gods.

If you enjoyed this tribute to distant Pluto, be sure to check out Jayfa’s haunting huntsman mech and ferocious flower.