About Chris

Chris Malloy (porschecm2) has been a LEGO fan nearly all his life, having started with System bricks at age 3. He is the co-author of Ultimate LEGO Star Wars, and his creations have been featured in several books and The LEGO Movie. He also helped develop the first LEGO Minecraft set, 21102 Minecraft Micro World: The Forest, which has gone on to inspire a whole theme of sets. He's been active in the online community since 2002, and regularly attends LEGO fan conventions such as BrickCon and BrickCan. He enjoys building in a wide range of themes, but keeps returning to Castle, Space, and Pirates. Check out his LEGO creations and photography here.

Posts by Chris

Lego Minecraft Project Reaches 10,000 Votes on Cuusoo

Here’s the official press release from Lego:

BILLUND, Denmark – A project backed by Minecraft developer Mojang has become the first user-sponsored project to reach the 10,000 vote threshold on the new global version of LEGO® CUUSOO, opening the way for a LEGO set featuring Minecraft to become a reality.

It took the project only 48 hours to gather votes from 10,000 fans of the project from around the world.

“We’re really excited to see the fantastic enthusiasm of the Minecraft community. This is what LEGO CUUSOO is all about, connecting people’s passion to the LEGO brick,” says Paal Smith-Meyer, Head of the LEGO New Business Group. “It is still too early to say whether a Minecraft play set will become a LEGO product as it still needs to go through a review and approval process to ensure it meets our usual LEGO standards, but it is certainly a lot closer.”

A go/no-go decision should be reached within the next few weeks. Assuming it is given a “go,” then development on any new sets will begin. During this time, LEGO model designers refine the product, while packaging, instructions, and marketing are developed ready for a production run. This will take several months.

LEGO CUUSOO is an idea collection system that asks the Danish toy manufacturers’ consumers to submit and vote for their favourite ideas for new LEGO products. It can be found at http://lego.cuusoo.com . The site is currently in “open beta” and has been well received by fans and niche interest groups eager to see their ideas become official LEGO products.

CUUSOO, which means ‘imagination’ or sometimes ‘wish’ in Japanese, has been developed with CUUSOO SYSTEM, a subsidiary of Japan-based Elephant Design that has worked with open innovation and crowd sourcing for more than 10 years.
The LEGO Group has worked with CUUSOO since 2008 on a Japanese site that has attracted hundreds of ideas and seen thousands of votes cast by a 35,000-strong community. Now the time has come to test the concept internationally.

The first Japanese product, the Shinkai 6500 submersible, went on sale in Japan in February 2011. The next Japanese LEGO CUUSOO model will be the Hayabusa unmanned spacecraft launched in the first quarter of next year.

It took the Shinkai 6500, 420 days to reach 1,000 votes in Japan. Hayabusa took 57 days to 1,000. With the launch of the LEGO CUUSOO worldwide site the threshold was raised to 10,000 to reflect the larger audience.

On LEGO CUUSOO, ideas that are supported by enough votes will be examined by a LEGO jury that will check that the models meet LEGO standards of safety and playability and support the LEGO brand. Consumers who have their ideas chosen for production will earn 1% of the total net sales of the product.

In the case of the Minecraft project, Mojang and the collaborators have offered the 1% CUUSOO royalty to a charity of Mojang’s choice.

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Black Knights’ Castle: Simple Elegance

The Black Knights’ Castle may not be the biggest, but it is gorgeous. Using relatively subtle ornamentation, Franko Komljenovic has crafted a quite suitable stronghold for this classic faction. The black walls with grey engaged columns lend the castle depth, and combined with the narrow crenelations, help belie the size of the fortress.

Tardisblue’s Edgy Solar Strafer

Nick Trotta’s (aka Tardisblue) newest ship combines a superb color-scheme with incredible angles and a Vic Viper flourish to help finish out Novvember. The integration of the stripes into the wings and tail is wonderfully done, and the sawtooth edges on the forward struts give this ship a particularly aggressive look. Be sure to check out some of his other sweet ships, too.

He lives in an oak-wood and has a great wooden house...

…and was known as Beorn to Gandalf, Bilbo, and their many dwarven companions in The Hobbit; and this charming scene by Blake Baer (Blake’s Baericks) captures his home quite nicely. There are many fantastic details, but Blake has particularly done an excellent job at portraying the dense grass, weeds, and flowers surrounding the paths.

There Might Be More Than Rats Down There...

In fact, I was sewer I heard a noise that sounded reptilian. In Gabriel’s (aka Lego.Skrytsson) newest vignette, a hapless chap finds his shower invaded by that old Batman villain, Croc. Gabriel’s vignette packs in a wonderful amount of detail, from the tiled shower walls to the ingenious sewer tunnel technique.

Minecraft in Lego: Blocks to Bricks

What’s the first thing everyone says when they try Minecraft? “It’s like building with Lego!” And to me, Minecraft really is the perfect Lego-esque game. So, it was natural to combine two of my favorite things, which already seemed destined to be together. Some of you may have seen this at Brickcon 2011 back in October where I displayed it, but now it’s finally online just in time for the official game release date tomorrow!

Cole Blaq Pushes the Boundaries of Lego

Cole Bl♠q routinely challenges the conceptions of how we use the Lego medium. Continuing his on-going theme of spray cans is his latest sculpture, a viscerally organic interpretation. It is striking and beautiful, in a way not often seen in Lego. It’s not purist–that is, the effect is not achieved with 100% unmodified Lego pieces–but the result is no less spectacular.

Titolian’s Glass Fighter Shows Off

Théo’s (aka Titolian) newest fighter is encased entirely in transparent pieces, and the effect is stunning. In rebellion to conventional Lego Spacer protocol, Théo has thrown all the greeblies in the interior of his spaceship, but only because he’s found an immensely clever way of still showing them off.

Minifig Scale Supercar: It Curves Nicely

Looking like it’s straight off the track at Nürburgring, this elegant supercar by flickr user L@go is a wonderful example of the beauty that can be achieved in minifig scale.

It’s a Party

Inspired by classic Dungeons and Dragons archetypes, Guy Himber’s (aka V&A Steamworks) roving party of adventurers look like they will make quick work of any trouble they encounter. Built in Guy’s unique “Shakespeare” scale, the figures allow for plenty of detail and pose-ability. Thus far, the characters include a stalwart and stocky Dwarven King, a charismatic golden plate-mailed Paladin, and a dexterous dragon-helmeted Archer, with Guy promising more to come, including a Lich King.

Hellow Lego Kitty

Jose Fernandez (aka Lego-man-at-arms) has fabricated a fantastic Lego version of that ubiquitously cute cat, Hello Kitty. The semblance is spot-on, and Jose has made great use of the limited palette of pink pieces.

A Two Horsepower Train

Taking the train medium back to the days of yore, this lovely creation by Matt and Anita Henry (aka Matt_Henry_Aus and tikitikitembo, respectively) makes excellent use of train motors and tracks in a medieval pastoral setting. It’s great to see Castle fans branch out and add motorized bits to their creations.