About Bre Burns

After living in the LEGO mecca of Seattle for 9 years, Bre is now home in her native state of Oregon. She briefly worked for the LEGO Group as a Brick Specialist before she left to pursue her career in Zoology, and LEGO remains a huge part of her life. She and her partner Jessie are active members of SEALUG, SPSLUG, FabuLUG and SquatchLUG, and enjoy building creations big and small that span across many themes. Their build handle is Renegade Bricks. Both are also members of the Event Team for BrickCon, and Bre has previously been the Theme Coordinator for Technic/Mindstorms.

Posts by Bre Burns

Epic triple-decker pinball wizardry [Video]

We recently featured a pinball machine with a modular play field. I’m not sure why there is a sudden uptick in pinball builds, but I am totally on board! Bring them on, pin-wizards! I have to say, you may have a tough time competing with this one, created by Nachapon Lego. I’ve seen a few multi-tiered LEGO machines, but this is probably executed the best. The physics behind pinball can be complicated. The size of the field coupled with the size and weight of the ball, plus the angles of the obstacles, all make for a tricky design process. Then you bring LEGO into the mix and the constraints take on another level of difficulty.

The Star Wars theme will be popular for many of you, but if that’s not your thing, the builder made a sister-table. The obstacles are the same, but this one has a creative and colorful adventure motif as a tribute to the vast possibilities of LEGO. The game-play video below will have you wishing you could have a go at it yourself! I particularly like the ball-saving that can be done by kicking it back to the main level once it drains.

If you haven’t already, definitely take a peak at some of our other featured pinball articles! You’ll find my own Classic Space pinball machine, along with a few others that will get you excited about making one too!

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Modular pinball for all [Video]

Some of you may already know I’m a little obsessed with pinball. I just can’t help being enthralled with the awesome engineering that lies within a pinball machine. It’s like an obstacle course for your mind, but tangible. And nothing makes me more giddy than one made from LEGO. This little machine, built by Dawid Marasek, may look simple, but it has a great asset: it’s modular.

Click to watch the video of how it works!

Doggone adorable prairie dogs [Video]

These little LEGO fellers are cute as all heck! In true JK Brickworks fashion, builder duo Jason Allemann and Kristal give us not one, or two, but four critters with entirely different movements. It’s a bit maddening that they make it look so gosh darn easy. These simple mechanisms come together in a fun and unique display of kinetic magic.

Of course, standing still in the picture above doesn’t do them justice. But as soon as you see them move, you’ll be captivated. Click the link below to watch the full video!

Click to see how it works!

A pretty pair of parakeets

Ah, love is in the air! In India, it’s the tail end of the breeding season for the ring-necked parakeets. These sweet birds are busy raising this year’s youngsters, and looking good while doing it! Leave it to Felix Jaensch to immortalize a pair in LEGO. Many times over, we’ve seen gorgeous animals from Felix, but they continue to impress us. For me, I think I’m most appreciative of the fact that he can show us the same bird in twenty different poses, and they’ll all look great. The realism is exceptional.

While you’re here, I definitely recommend taking a look at Felix’s other animals. We’ve featured many of his creations, but in the spirit of this avian duo, how about some birds? To list a few, check out a magpie, a blue and gold macaw, a kestrel, and even another parrot with a baby (plus a toucan for good measure).

Pampered Panda

When you think about pandas, what characteristics come to mind? Cute, cuddly, fuzzy, playful, sleepy, chubby? If they could talk, what do think they would say? Seeing as they spend most of their waking hours eating, I’d say it’d involve food. And if a panda was able to operate a phone, he/she would almost certainly order vegetarian takeout ASAP. Ian Hou must feel the same because he built this adorable snacking panda out of LEGO for the world to enjoy. How could you not love that big round belly, sweet face, and adorable bow tie?

Click to see more builds by Ian (AKA DOGOD Brick Design).

“Oh, and keep an eye on the staircases. They like to change...”

While the Harry Potter books speak of the staircases changing, they don’t exactly explain how. Magic, obviously, but in what way is not entirely specified. It’s a little bit of interpretation and movie magic that created the incredible swiveling staircases that Percy Weasley refers to in the first film. I would guess that building one as a set prop was challenging. But it could very well be possible that this LEGO version, built by Sebeus I was just as difficult to engineer. At first glance, it looks like an ordinary build, but a turn of the crank brings the diorama to life.

We’ve been teased with a video of how the staircase shifts 90 degrees (made into a sped-up GIF below), but I’m dying to see the internal mechanics! It’s one thing to build a revolving platform. But to make the banisters change brings a whole new level of complexity!

Want to see more? We have plenty exciting builds from the magical world in our archives. You can also take a look at another stunning build by Sebeus. (Hint: it’s from a completely different movie!)

May the gods smile on your costly contribution

You may already know that the Aztecs (along with several other ancient civilizations) believed in human sacrifice. The thought of removing someone’s still-beating heart sounds pretty grizzly indeed. But these guys truly believed the world would end if they didn’t pay the gods, and evidence suggests many people saw it as an honor! Now, you may think the priests that carried out the sacrifice, like this rendered LEGO recreation by Steven Howard, were evil. But they had a pretty tough life. They had loads of official responsibilities, including being peacekeepers, teachers, doctors, mathematicians, and astronomers. They also had to advise the king, be fluent in the ancient languages, memorize all chants and prayers, perform regular rituals, take confession, and prove their worth by hunting dangerous animals. All this while also regularly fasting.

It’s probably fair to say some priests were a little psycho, and I bet many were terrifying. It takes a very complicated mind to be and do all those things. So perhaps this build isn’t far off the mark. I particularly like the scowl, and those mysterious, dark, and brooding eyes made with helmets. The colorful headdress and costume are instantly recognizable. I also like how the old skulls and more recent lantern elements were used on the knees and belt.

Very recently, we featured another, very different, set of builds from Steven. Take a look at these three epic mechs!

Sleep tight, and don’t let the bed bugs bite

If you don’t really think about it, the nursery rhyme is harmless enough. But if you stop for a second to ponder, or maybe say it in a less sweet, sing-song tone, it becomes the stuff of nightmares. What if they really did come to bite in the middle of the night? And perhaps, as is the case with this poor fellow built by Water Snap, what if the bite mutates you? We’re not talking Spiderman here! I’m thinking more along the lines of The Metamorphosis, which the builder confirms in his description quoting protagonist Gregor Samsa. Yikes… But I digress. This giant LEGO bug employs some nice parts usage, and shaping. I particularly like the way it looks as if it’s sitting up in the bed, observing its altered limbs for the first time.

If you’d like to see more crawly critters, check out our insect archives.

No hokey pokey, but maybe a little spikey salsa music

This little melocactus may have sleepy eyes, but he’s not entirely mellow! Check out those spines and muscular maraca-weilding arms! Carefully crafted in LEGO form, Jens Orndorf has shown how a part with seemingly few build possibilities could be transformed into something fun. What better way to use a marbled green sphere (2 11×11 hemispheres) than to wrap it in stem-covered ridged hose and make it a cactus? Even better: give it a mustache and the expression of a mariachi singer.

And now for some fun facts! The “melo” in melocactus refers to the melon shape of this cacti family. But the latin root of melo also means music, so this is meant to be! Another fun coincidence is that this type of cactus can be found in Cuba, the birthplace of salsa music!

If you would like to see more from Jens, check out these tiny elephants! Or maybe you’ll love this colorful little train!

The lovely lady in white

There’s just something about a clean monochrome LEGO sculputure that draws me in. This build by Aido K reminds me of an alabaster statue in my parents’ home. The purity and gracefulness of the white on black is beautiful, although I think it would be just as elegant if the color was reversed. It has to be difficult to create this kind of movement, especially with these angles. And it’s a little wild to consider that the head must be sitting on a single stud.

Want to see more monochrome creations? Check out our monochrome archives. We also have several more builds from Aido K.

Well established and always ready for customers

Do you ever find yourself looking at a shop and wondering how it’s still standing? How is it that among all the fancy branded stores, these little guys continue chugging along? It has to be the people like Hoang H Dang‘s grandfather who keep these small businesses alive. No matter what country, it’s little shops like these that are the lifeblood of communities. Even if the walls are cracked and the electricty is sketchy, the magic is in the connections shopkeepers share with their patrons. This LEGO build is a lovely tribute to the nostagia of that little Vietnamese store. And this article goes out to all the small businesses that are still chugging along, even through these rough times.

If you’d like to see more stuff by this builder, check out this fishing boat, and a Vietnamese home ready for the Lunar New Year.

A giant, lumbering herbivore [Video]

As soon as I saw this picture, I knew the build had to be from Dan Schlumpp. There are loads of dino nerds out there, and plenty LEGO dino nerds, but few have tackled movement so well. Dan has created several iterations of these prehistoric animatronic creatures. Each time he continues to perfect his skill. It’s not just the movement, it’s also the complexity of the specific dinosaur he’s trying to emulate. Wrapping organic-looking armored plating around a finite mechanical frame isn’t easy. But I’d have to say this heavy-footed Triceratops is my favorite thus far. That head is excellent!

Of course, you have to watch it walk to appreciate the build fully. The gaps in the body are necessary for the ability to create realistic movement. That movement is what makes the gaps forgivable, though, because that hip and tail swing is awesome! They really bring this creature to life.

We’ve had the pleasure of covering Dan’s previous iterations, including one of his initial dino skeletons, as well as more recent Stegosaurus.