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

A whale of an opportunity at the Pick-a-Brick wall

If you have ever visited a LEGO store you probably would have noticed the formidable floor-to-ceiling Pick-a-Brick wall. One bin may contain thousands of flower stems and another may have a crap-ton of these pointy bits (metric crap-ton if you’re Canadian). There’s no telling what you’ll find there and you can take this stuff home by the cup loads. For me, I’m like a kid in…some kind of store. While loading cups full of LEGO bricks can be exciting, building something cohesive exclusively with what you found at the Pick-a-Brick wall can be a tricky endeavor, but Mansur Soeleman clearly saw…a whale of an opportunity.

I see plenty of white 2×2 corner plates, lots of 2×2 plates in light bluish gray and plenty of clips make up the baleen. The end result is a pretty good facsimile of a blue whale. You can say Mansur had…a whale of a good time with this. You see, brilliant puns like that is why I am the highest paid Brothers Brick contributor ever. At least that’s what they told me…or at least that’s what I understood when they said “voluntary”. Wait, what does “conditional trial period” mean?

And if you liked this cetacean built from a limited palette of bricks as much as you enjoyed my puns, we’re sure you’ll also enjoy André Pinto’s bonsai tree, also built from nothing but Pick-a-Brick parts.

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Won’t you be my neigbor?

While kids don’t have deadlines to worry about or bills to pay, childhood can still be stressful at times. Watching “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood,” for me and other kids, was a nice way to leave our troubles behind and visit a sweet, gentle, understanding soul, even for just a little while. Matt De Lanoy has rekindled some of my fondest childhood memories with this Neighborhood of Make-Believe layout. Far left we see Grander Tiger and his granddaughter Collette at the Eiffel Tower while Mr. McFeely makes a speedy delivery to King Friday the XIIIth and Queen Sara Saturday. About middle and to the right we see Lady Elaine Fairchild tending to her Museum Go-Round while to the right of her in the background is none other than Mr. Fred Rogers himself waving to his friends in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe.

See more of this LEGO Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood scene

Meet Anna. She’s not your average dinosaur.

Meet Anna the Ankyloceratops, she is not your average dinosaur. A builder who goes by the name of Victor got it into his reptile brain to construct a hybrid between a triceratops and an ankylosaurus. The end result makes her a fierce defender of all the grass and stream she has here. Her armor is comprised of plenty of radar dishes and these pointy bits. Her shaping, coloring, even the well-crafted landscape conveys Mesozoic goodness. Anna just might be the best thing I’ve seen all day and I’ve seen a video featuring a basket full of wiener dog puppies.

A heavy assault mech for all your heavy assault shenanigans

Have you ever wondered what those S.W.A.T. team hand signals mean as they gather outside your house? I believe a fist hoisted straight up and down in the air means “hurry up” while a hand covering the mouth means “gas”. The rest was sort of lost in a fiery frantic blur but no matter the hand signals, a S.W.A.T. team outside means you’re pretty much screwed. While going out in a blaze of glory does have its appeal, you might instead want to employ the help of of this Heavy Assault Mech built by Mishima to tilt the odds in your favor. Trust me, a light assault mech or even a moderate assault mech will not help in this situation. You will need some seriously huge guns–so huge you wonder how it’s still standing upright.

A shoulder-mounted Gatling gun and a missile launcher rounds out the arsenal, the latter making excellent use of the “nexagon” part. While doing time in the Big House you might want to check out this builder’s other nifty mechs and bots or follow his Youtube channel for an instructional video on how to build this one. In the meantime, all this mechanized firepower ought to hold you over right up until they send in the attack dogs. Good luck!

Which one of youse ordered the shark fin soup?

Beware shark fin soup enthusiasts. It’s not so much my thing but in China shark fin soup is considered a delicacy served at traditional weddings and banquets.The practice has been condemned by the Humane Society International as millions of sharks are killed each year for their fins and it sort of upsets the order and sustainability of other things in the ocean. Enter James Zhan and his toothy Nightmare Amalgam-Z. This creature can walk up on land, politely tap you on the shoulder with this Bionicle part while you’re dining, then maybe proceed to chomp on your face. You don’t want that, do you? We all gotta eat, I know, but driving a certain species to near extinction isn’t cool. So let’s be cool, otherwise you get this guy and we’ve already established what he does. So are we cool? Good!

Set sail on this stunning Imperial Trading Ship

I can say with certainty that once the sea gets in your blood, you may spend a lifetime yearning to return to it. I often desire to smell the salt air, to hear the roar of the surf and to feel the unique sensation of being onboard a ship that rocks beneath my feet. Like re-learning to ride a bicycle, once you’ve returned you regain your “sea legs” (ability to walk and work in a forever rocking environment) no matter how old and creaky your bones may get and no matter how far you have traversed from the sea. A builder who goes by the name of Sebeus I likely knows what I mean, as evidenced by this small imperial trading ship. The color scheme follows the sloop from the Imperial Trading Post 6277 set from 1992.

Stay tuned to his photostream as he tells us this is merely one small craft that will inhabit an entire island town.

This UCS scale Resistance X-Wing is chock full of nostalgia

In 2015 the trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens offered us a first glimpse of a somewhat familiar X-Wing doing unfamiliar things — skimming across water and even leaving a rooster tail in its wake. This was exciting stuff! Spine tingling, even. If the prequel movies lacked nostalgia and thus failed to rope in adult Star Wars fans, the newer set of films made up for it in spades with upgraded designs that changed things up enough to keep us interested but still stayed true to its inspiration. The trailer and later the movie had us all clamoring to buy the Resistance X-Wing LEGO set but a builder who goes by the name of Aniomylone had a different idea.

Enter the roughly 2000-piece, UCS-scale T-70 Resistance X-Wing Fighter. One obvious difference from the classic X-wing design is the light gray and blue color scheme that has me wondering if any of the designers at Star Wars were fans of LEGO Classic Space. The streamlined intakes are captured nicely using curved windscreens and seems to be the logical progression from the old design. In closed mode the wings boast a slim, one stud wide, leading edge but in “X” mode it is made clear that the Resistance X-Wing differs from its predecessor by splitting the wing in half, rather than stacking two wings atop one another.

If detailed UCS scale models of Star Wars craft is your thing, then I would strongly advise a perusal of the rest of this builder’s material. Go ahead, I’ll wait. See what I mean?

Devilman fights evil with even more evil

How many of you have had that dream where you’re a muscular and shirtless demon-lord clad in black leather pants and sitting atop a throne of skulls of all the souls you have vanquished? You know….the one where you’re in a hellish, burning landscape and the sky rains kerosene while Motorhead or Mastodon blares at ear-splitting volume from some unknown source. Wait, none of you? Wow, you people are weird! That is like my most recurring dream, besides the one where I’m taking final exams only to find that everyone else is naked except me. I’m sure Cid Hsiao likely knows what I’m talking about as evidenced by this recent creation.

Devilman is a Japanese manga series, first written and illustrated by Go Nagai in 1972. The dark storyline made it stand apart from other manga of the time. Here we see Akira/Devilman stepping on the skull of a three-eyed hell-beast. There are multiple horns and sets of bat wings adorning this model but the most impressive by far are the dark red folding dragon wings found only in the Hobbit LEGO set 79018 The Lonely Mountain. While Cid’s days may or may not be fueled by heavy metal music, you should check out the rest of his creations as they are still worthy of my darkest and weirdest dreams.

A perfect pair of Porsches

Legendary car builder George Panteleon tells us that one of the most iconic and beautiful generation of Porsche 911 is the 1973 Carrera RSR. I consulted the records of all things beautiful and iconic and that statement checks out. He started with the yellow one about a year ago but has not photographed it until recently. Later he wanted another with a more striking color scheme so he went with the white with blue and red racing stripes.

Each consists of 779 pieces and features a fully detailed interior and opening trunk, hood and doors.

George’s prowess with car building doesn’t end with this perfect pair of Porsches so be sure to check out his other automotive wonders on his photostream. If you are inclined to build a few dream cars of your own, his book How to Build Dream Cars with LEGO Bricks may help with that.

The kids aren’t alright

Stranger Things is a show where, thanks to absentee parenting, children spend more quality time with horrific Demogorgons than their own parents. (That’s the 80s for you!) As a result, the kids often have to take matters into their own hands. Case in point; that one time Eleven had to flip a van with her magical nosebleed powers. See, their parents are so absent, she doesn’t even have a normal name like Jessica or Brittany. Still, that doesn’t stop her from being an absolute badass and the kind of kid I would have totally hung out with in my youth. Builder Hachiroku24 replicated this scene nicely with a brick-built bicycle and a neat effect that makes the van seem as if it were levitating.

Speaking from experience, brick-built text on a smallish surface can be a tricky endeavor but this builder did a great job with the fictional town name blazoned across the side of the van. This creation is enough to turn anyone’s frown upside-down. See what I did there? If that didn’t make you smile, maybe our review of set 75810 The Upside Down will!

Stop! Hammer Time!

Hammerhead sharks (Sphyrnidaeare) are found worldwide in warmer waters along coastlines and continental shelves. They are aggressive hunters who feed on smaller fish, octopuses, rays, squid, crustaceans and even other sharks. However, this particular hammerhead shark, rendered by Dallen Powell, would rather help you install new cabinets in your kitchen or build a deck out back. He’s the type of shark that knows which nails work best with joist hangers and which ones are best for baseboard molding. With this shark, it is always hammer time. The expression on his toothy face says that he gets the pun too. You should nail down the rest of Dallen’s content as he is no stranger to pun-filled renders. Now, who has that one song stuck their head? You know the one. Sing it with me. “Y’all gonna make me lose my mind, up in here, up in here!”

Leave your troubles behind with this UCS-scale version of Han Solo’s Mobquet M-68 Landspeeder

We all love a good origin tale, and Solo: A Star Wars Story–particularly the exhilarating scene involving a Mobquet M-68 Landspeeder–establishes a handsome young Han Solo as a daring risk-taker, an adrenaline junkie, a gambler, and a hotshot driver. LEGO has given us an official set of the now iconic landspeeder, but a builder going by the name of Barneius Industries has taken it to a whole other level. A level involving 853 pieces, to be precise. Everything from the speeder’s asymmetrical design to its greebly bits to its striking color scheme and even Han Solo’s lucky dice are replicated nicely in this 1:16 scale model. It is no accident that this supercharged speeder resembles a classic muscle car; in fact, the original design team states that it borrows cues from the Dodge Charger and the Chevrolet Malibu.

If detailed and accurate models of Star Wars craft are your thing, then I highly recommend checking out this builder’s other content. This speeder got a young Han Solo out of trouble but then immediately into some more trouble. There was more trouble after that and even more later on. We would learn that trouble followed Han Solo throughout his entire life but that is why we love him. And he knows it.