About Iain

Iain Heath is an avid builder specializing in the "Bricks of Character" style, which he helped define. He has been using LEGO to parody popular culture since 2007, when he created the now infamous Stephen Hawking model. He is a SeaLUG member and regular theme coordinator at BrickCon. For five years he also ran a blog called The Living Brick, that showcased the best character-based LEGO creations from around the world. You can find his irreverent body of work on Flickr.

Posts by Iain

“Tiny Adventure” tells a huge story

Many builds featured here are stand-alone creations, frequently based on pre-existing material. So we were truly impressed to discover Tiny Adventure by Korean builder Yosool. Not only does this eclectic collection of brick-built characters incorporate a ton of play features, but each one also has a fully fleshed out backstory, woven into an overarching theme with a very specific goal: To help children appreciate the global ecological problem of adventive animals (aka invasive species).

To find out more about the fascinating world of Tiny Adventure, you can check out the full album of character photos, discover their backstories on Yosool’s website, watch the numerous play feature videos on his YouTube channel, and you can even support the project on LEGO Ideas.

In the builder’s own words: The story starts at a peaceful town of swamp. One day, adventive species suddenly appear, and turn the small town into a huge chaos. These predators are always hungry, and they devour every native species they can find. Extinction is only a matter of time. Tiny and Tale, green frog brothers native to the swamp town, put their heads together to solve the serious problem.”

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Fowl play

Since we first featured his masterful sculptures of an ape and rat, newcomer Felix Jaensch has been busy churning out many more creations inspired by exotic animals. Brothers Brick prediction: This is one to watch! Amongst the latest batch of bestial beauties are these colorful birds…

U CAN HAZ MEMES

Ignoring for a moment that the word “meme” was actually invented to mean something rather different (grrrr, Internet), memes seem to have become the mode of self-expression for our age. So if you’re gonna meme about LEGO, it makes sense to do it with LEGO, right? To help you out, I have created uncaptioned LEGO replicas of some well-known meme templates. Grumpy Cat and Y-U-NO you may already know, but say hello to Doge, Cuteness Overload and Success Kid!

I’m making these images completely public domain. That means you are free to share them, edit them, upload them to your favorite meme generator website, or crack out the old Impact font and caption these to express your opinion on all things LEGO. And as an added bonus, The 2 Awesome Guys have also offered up an uncaptioned version of their excellent LEGO Spiderman meme:

Once you’ve finished spamming all your Facebook friends and favorite Sub-Reddits with your masterpieces, make sure to post them in the LEGO Memes Flickr group too. We’ll be keeping an eye out for the best ones, and featuring them in coming weeks.

Simon says

Readers under the age of 40 are probably looking at this creation by Flickr member jtheels right now and thinking either (a) “Nice spaceship, dude!”, or (b) “Worst Chrome logo ever”. In fact, this is a life size recreation of Simon, an electronic game that first appeared in 1978 and became ridiculously popular at the time. By a complete coincidence, we have a Simon here at The Brothers Brick, who is also ridiculously popular, and has various buttons that we enjoy pushing on a daily basis!

“Holy interplanetary yardsticks, Batman!”

Movie-centric builder SPARKART! has put together a pretty thorough LEGO history of the Batmobile, from 1966 to the present day. The mandatory tumblers are in there of course. But being an old fart, my favorite has to be the original TV version! I like the scale chosen for these, and also the inclusion of matching figurines. (Hey LEGO company, *this* is what that exclusive Comic Con batmobile set should have looked like!)

TBB cover photo: October 2015

With the release of LEGO’s franchise-tastic Dimensions product line, it seems fitting to make this month’s cover photo a flashback to the fan-designed Portal set that came within a hair’s breadth of becoming an official set two years ago this month. Photo courtesy of Evan the Lego Junkie.

Wanna see your creation featured across TBB social medial for a month? Then submit a photo of it today! But PLEASE don’t submit three-quarter shots, or vertical images. The lemur cannot digest these types of images, and we’re tired of cleaning up the “consequences”!

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BrickCon 2015 happens in Seattle this weekend! [News]

My feed today is overflowing with photographs of sunny downtown Seattle posted by fellow LEGO builders arriving in town. I guess that means BrickCon must be happening! On Thursday morning, builders from all four corners of the globe will begin setup of the 30,000 square foot space for this 14th incarnation of the longest running LEGO fan convention on the planet.

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS for the public exhibition. That way you won’t have to stay in line as long when you get there. And when you’re done enjoying all the creations and have blown your wad at the vendor stalls, remember that the Seattle Center is at your disposal for fun and frolicking.

The public exhibition runs from 10-4 Saturday, 9-3 Sunday. BrickCon is the home convention of the Brothers Brick, so most of us will there for the festivities (we’re the dweebs in the green shirts!). Will the lemur be there too? Who can say ;-)

As always, I will be LIVE TWEETING photos from all four days of the event, including sneak peeks at all the secret fun and games that go on outside public hours. You have been warned!

Another brick in the wall

This beautiful section of medieval wall is part of a much larger display put together by the folks over at THE BRICK TIME for the SteineWahn LEGO exhibition in Berlin earlier this month. As much as I enjoy the ‘tumble-down’ style of castle building that is very popular right now, it is kind of refreshing to stumble across a crisp piece of German engineering like this! The texturing and color palette are to die for:

No sprinkles! For every sprinkle I find, I shall kill you...

Described by his creator Seth MacFarlane as an “evil Rex Harrison”, this ~~psychopathic matricidal infant genius~~ adorable little rascal from TV’s Family Guy probably needs no introduction. But the question of whether the other characters in the show can actually hear him talking remains a topic of endless debate! TBB regular Jimmy Fortel has put together this great little palm-sized version Stewie for our enjoyment:

Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle...

…the rabbit jumped over the moon? Maybe the cow was on a break. Last night’s Super Mega Blood Death Moon was preceded by a wave of moon-themed LEGO builds and here is the first of them, from Taiwanese builder James Zhan. I have absolutely no idea as to the significance of the rocket-powered bunnie in this mosaic! Perhaps someone can fill me in?

Stay Fresh!

As Nintendo’s ink-em-up Splatoon continues to slowly take over the entire planet, we’re seeing more LEGO builds based on the hit game. Here is an inkling girl by Djordje, and the squid sisters Callie & Marie by Anton Sundström. I’m hoping someone steps up soon and builds an entire level!

I can’t cedar wood fur the trees

In order to create all the amazing stuff you see here every day, LEGO builders have to do what all artists do: (a) learn a variety of strange techniques, and (b) endlessly steal from one another. And now fans of Microscale dioramas have a chance to kill two birds with one stone! Serbian builder Milan Sekiz has used a relatively new sloped piece (lovingly nicknamed the baby bow) to come up with three different microscale tree designs. Change the colors of the bows to represent different seasons.