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

Socket to me

The Iron Builder contest traditionally involves a lot of smack talk from its competitors. But when the camaraderie is expressed through the builds themselves, things can get really interesting. Such is the case with the round currently in progress between Jimmy Fortel and Andrew Lee, which seems to have become part rap battle, part “punning bee”. And since our players are clearly not the physical type, they even crafted warrior women to do their fighting for them!

The “seed” parts for this round are the awesome new Mixels ball and socket joints. Check out the other entries in the contest to see some pretty inventive uses for these parts!

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“Airship, Airship, AIRSHIP!”

Continuing my Steampunk vibe from earlier in the week, here’s the mother of all LEGO airships by French builder Castor Troy…

Now a mothership is nothing without proper air and ground support. Fortunately, Castor has already thought of that. Say hello to Vampire Hunter …which incidentally sounds like the perfect premise for LEGO to use if they ever wanted to get into the Steampunk game!

Apparently these are part of a much larger Vampire Hunter project that will include a French chateau, haunted house, and plenty of hunters. Look out for that some time next year. In the meantime, keep your holy water and silver bullets handy. And wooden stakes. And garlic. Ok, did I forget anything? And hand mirrors. And crucifixes…

Horsemen of the post-apocalypse

Through the leaning pose of this futuristic rider, and the outstretched limbs of his steed, Hungarian builder and artist Kristof (legoalbert) manages to impart a beautiful sense of motion to this creation using relatively few bricks. It’s not hard to visualize the leaping gait of this long-legged robot as it efficiently navigates the obstacles of some other-worldly landscape.

But the poetic backstory to this figure really completes the piece and leaves me wanting to see more of the savage world in Kristof’s imagination:

“Dark cloaked shadow-men patrol the wilderness of the Afterworld, roaming around on their tall artificial mounts. Swiftly rushing trough the densest of the forests, zig-zagging on the streets of the dead cities, they’re only vulnerable to the Vultures of the Plain, out in the endless grassfields, where the Insectmen rule.”

To steam-finity and beyond!

I’ve seen a lotta great steampunk flying machines and airships built from LEGO. But this is the first time I recall seeing anyone build a steampunk starship! Here we see the USS Steambucket by Tim Schwalf reaching for the stars, in a wonderful brick-built cloud of steam.

LEGO steampunk fans should really check out Tim’s Flickr stream. While there may not be a huge number of builds up there (yet), every one of them is a keeper.

Chicago or bust

So many great builders are gonna be exhibiting at Brickworld this year, I almost don’t know who’s work I’m most excited to see! But a series of busts by Tyler Halliwell (The Deathly Halliwell) will probably be somewhere near the top of the list. Check out this latest addition to his collection, the Sandman, from the Neil Gaiman comics (er, I mean “graphic novels”) of the same name:

And this suitably bling-y bust of Anubis, jackal-headed Egyptian god of the afterlife:

Indistinguishable to the untrained eye

At first glance nothing seems out of the ordinary about this modern Japanese tram going about its business on the streets of Sapporo, Japan…

…until you realize it was built from LEGO! Flickr member 1103spa not only went the trouble of photographing the model “on site” in forced perspective, but also did a great job using stickers to complete the illusion. Here’s the reveal:

Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!

Finding LEGO builds of iconic spaceship Serenity is kind of like shooting fish in a barrel these days. And Evan B (Lego Junkie) admits the same is probably true of it’s diminutive companion, the UCS MF-813 Flying Mule land speeder. Which is why his idea of building it to Miniland scale and adding all the characters is pure genius!

And for Firefly fans who just really wanna see the vehicle, here you go, since I know we don’t cover space stuff on this blog very often…

Countdown to Brickworld Chicago 2014

In two weeks, AFOLs from around the world will be converging on the state of Illinois for Brickworld Chicago 2014 – the biggest, baddest, brickiest LEGO convention in the known universe!

The event takes place at the Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel and Convention Center in Schaumburg, Illinois. The private AFOL convention runs from June 11th – 15th, while the public exhibitions are on Saturday 14th (10am – 4pm) and Sunday 15th (10am – 3pm). Tickets can be purchased online or at the door. Kids 3 and under get in free.

For AFOLs attending the event, there is a wealth of fun and games lined up for you as always. But for those only visiting during public hours, don’t be downhearted, you’ll have access to tons of vendors ready to sell you all kinds of sweet LEGO-related goodies (custom parts, custom sets, the list is endless). Or while you’re in the Schaumburg area, pay a visit to the LEGOLAND Discovery Center.

Our good friends over at Beyond the Brick will be on site to film all the action, including builder interviews and a walkthrough of the entire display. If you’d like to get a copy of their DVD as a keepsake, and perhaps score some other one-of-a-kind goodies as well, go support their Kickstarter project right now! $20 is all it takes to secure your copy.

In fact, as a run-up to this year’s event, Joshua and Matthew recently interviewed Brickworld founder Bryan Bonahoom. Check out the episode below to find out about the amazing story behind how the Brickworld franchise got started, and how Bryan and his team pull off four conventions in four cities every year!

The Brothers Brick will also be in attendance at Brickworld Chicago this year. Brothers Chris, Simon, Carter and Iain (that’s me!) will be there to take your abuse. I will also be live tweeting all of the shenanigans and goings-on, for your amusement. And we’ll be giving away some swag! But to get it, you’ll have to find us first, and then say the secret pass phrase ;-)

Raiders of the Croft Ark

For no particular reason, here’s a second helping for today of some great character building from Russia. This time Dmitriy and Anna bring us this neat little model of every gamer’s favorite acerbic aristocratic adventurer, Lara Croft. And since the original game used third person perspective, it makes perfect sense that we get the reverse shot of Ms. Croft too, for old time’s sake.

Wings of justice... KAKAAAAW!!

Russian builder Fedin has taken a break from building collosal castles to try his hand at character building, with splendid results! Here’s his interpretation of Master Crane from the ever popular TV/movie franchise Kung Fu Panda…

Mr. Stay Puft’s okay! He’s a sailor, he’s in New York...

As excited as we all are to see the very cool Ghostbusters CUUSOO set finally hit the shelves, wouldn’t it be even cooler if it came with a street to drive down, or some ghosts to fight? Korean building team OliveSeon realized this, and they went and did something about it…

Wet and wild!

This weekend saw the grand opening of the Legends of Chima water park at LEGOLAND California. The layout and design of the park looks awesome. But instead of having to pore over a mere 2D map of the place, wouldn’t a brick-built 3D version be even more awesomer-rer? Well that’s what LEGOLAND master builder Joel Baker thought, so he designed one!

Joel was actually pool-side as he relayed some cool facts to us about the creation:

“This was built in one week by myself and four other master builders. It weighs 60 lbs and has roughly 55,000 pieces. It is currently part of a media tour and has made it’s way through several cities including New York, Boston, Texas, and Arizona. I hope it ends up in the park, as it would be our first brick built map – I believe the kiddos would enjoy figuring out where they are and where they want to go by pointing at LEGO instead of the usual (but still cool) paper!”