About Simon

Simon could write a really good bio, but he's too busy building.

Posts by Simon

Iridium Dawn – a Starfighter for a new age.

I can’t think of a more prominent Starfighter builder than Nick Trotta (tardisblue), he has possibly the highest blog rate of any builder I can think of… and Nick’s latest build does not disappoint, based on Geoffrey Ernault’s concept art, he gives us another mind blowing creation:

What really sets Nick apart (aside form the clearly impressive creation), is his patience and iteration on his builds, behind the scenes he works and reworks the build until it hits this unbelievably impressive state. Don’t believe me? Check out the behind work in progress shots:

And for a bonus, for those that may have missed it back in Novvember, here’s Nick’s ever present and jaw dropping contribution to the VicViper build month:

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Wolverine Snikt!

Wolverine and his claws, for some reason is a very popular Iron Builder Subject. I’m not sure why, maybe he’s the rough and tumble guy we all love, or more likely we all made the SNIKT! sounds as kids with knives in our hands. And in true Iron Builder form Letranger Absurde (vitreolum) brings us another iconic Wolverine build:

In particular the hair is masterfully done, particularly the iconic sideburns and pointy tips.

Iron Man high-five

We’ve seen quite a few Iron Man builds here on TBB: his head; his heart; his entire body; in mosaic form; and perhaps most amusingly: the custom Hulkbuster minifig (in LEGO Hulk scale).

But what we haven’t seen is a build of Iron Man’s repulsor glove. So give Jonas (Legopard) a hand for, well… his Iron Man hand:

Oh, and dear reader you are absolutely right, it does light up:

Young LEGO Fan shows incredible generosity [News]

The Brothers Brick alumni Paul Lee shares with us the following heartwarming story:

Like most boys his age, Zachary Rogers, age 9, is a huge LEGO fan and a huge Minecraft fan. So when LEGO started a Minecraft line, you can be certain he was excited. According to his mom, Jill, he had been saving up for some time to buy the largest set in the Minecraft line, 21118 The Mine. He had saved $120 in total, which would have been more than enough.

But then, earlier this week, the school held an assembly for Pennies for Patients (http://www.penniesforpatients.org/). Pennies for Patients is a youth program from the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society in which students are encouraged to collect spare change to help their mission to ”cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease and myeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families.”

This hit particularly close to home because, in the last year, his friend, Jordan Williams, a fellow LEGO mega fan, lost his life to leukemia. So, on his own, in an incredible act of generosity for a 9 year old, Zack donated the entire $120 he saved to Pennies for Patients. His mom says, “I love that he decided to help kids instead of spending money on himself.”

It’s good to know there are really amazing kids with good hearts out there like Zack. If you want to help, you too can donate to Pennies for Patients.

Oh, and what about little Zachary and his dream of a LEGO Minecraft set? Our friends at Bricknerd will have a special review from him. Though Tommy is tight lipped on what set he’ll review…

Countdown to MocAthalon: 2015

With just over a week and a half left in February, builders from around the world are gearing up for the annual MocAthalon competition, where teams of 5 attempt to tackle 30 different build categories in a span of the month of March.

I competed in this contest in 2013 and it was certainly one of the more fun and challenging events I’ve done – there was a lot of great comradery among my team and animosity towards other teams that still exists to this day, and I would recommend people try it to flex their so called building muscles and build in some zany categories.

You can find out more details here and there’s still plenty of time to form a team, just head over to here if you’re looking for a few teammates.

Micro Choo-choo Train

I’m not the train expert here on TBB, but I do know a few things about micro and setting up small scale micro dioramas, and this build by Galaktek is simply divine:

I love the use of the raised track and the nice 45 degree angle. But what really steals the show for me is the amazing train. The engine is what microscale is all about – using existing pieces in completely different fashion. In this case using the familiar spring loaded cannon base for the little blue engine that could.

TBB Chibi Micro Contest Winners!

The TBB Chibi Micro-Fighter Contest wrapped up with a bang with 242 entries. WOW. Nothing micro about that!

Thanks so much for everyone that entered. It was incredible seeing what everyone came with chibi-ing some of our favorite vehicles and LEGO sets.

Our first place winner, and the soon to be recipient of the exclusive Fan Expo Ghost Starship with Kannan Jarrus #460 and full set of Star Wars microfighters: Letranger Absurde (Vitreolum) with his Chibi Serenity:

In Second place, and winner of 4 Star Wars MicroFighter sets: Kyler Wilson and his Chibi Ecto 1:

And lastly Third place, and winner of 2 Star Wars MicroFighter sets: John Kupitz (Phuonom) with his Chibi Earth Defense HQ 1:

We had a hard time choosing from so many that we had to do several rounds of judging to narrow down the eventual winners… And there were so many that we really liked and deserve special mentioning (in no particular order):
Rod Gillies’ Jurassic Park
Letranger Absurde’s Chibi Mutt Cutts (again!)
Bentbricks’s Borg Cube
Jacob Unterreiner Now This is Chibi racing

Thanks again to all the builders and stay tuned for our next contest!

Teslord Chase

Does this look a bit familiar to you? I knew there was something about it when I saw it, like I’ve seen this build before. That’s when I realized Dead Frog inc built a steam punk version of Inferno Interception:

There’s some really great techniques in here and there’s just enough great steampunk conversion while paying tribute to the original source material. And you might notice a few other steampunk builds floating around this month, that’s because when Rod Gillies isn’t off building an amazing steampunk metropolis, he’s running the Agents of the Imperial Crown – Steampunk Competition.

Smaug in Dwarven runes

Smaug! Using some pretty great techniques, Finn Tegotash has recreated the head of everyone’s favorite gold hoarder: Smaug the Magnificent.

I particularly love the use of seats for scales, the horse saddle for the nose and a window for the lower jaw. But what really impressed me was the the Dwarven runes he created using LEGO string:

Spoiler alert! The above translates to the first word in this post.

LEGO Nutella Jar

This makes me so incredibly happy:

While it’s common for me to get super excited about Nutella, I think it’s a testament to this simple, but well executed build by Brucewaynelego, who manages to capture all my warm fuzzy feeling in this super recognizable model.

Chibi Micro LEGO sets

There’s still one lazy Sunday left to enter the TBB Chibi Micro Contest! We’ve seen tons of fantastic ‘Chibi Micro Fighter’ versions of lots of planes, trains and automobiles from all over the film, television and videogame properties. But don’t forget, you can also rebuild your favorite LEGO sets too!

Here’s a round up of some of my favorite LEGO sets, now in Chibi form:

A Classic Space set the 6989 Mega Core Magnetizer by Andrew Lee (onosendai2600):

One the newer Space sets: 7066 Earth Defense HQ by John Kupitz (Phuonom):

And last but not least, 9446 Destiny’s Bounty by Robert4168

So break out those bricks! You have one more day to build something. Full rules and entries can be found in the Chibi Micro Flickr group.

Bender TV time

I don’t know about our readers, but I spent a good amount of holidays catching up on TV and video games. Sean and Steph Mayo (Siercon and Coral) has basically captured it in this simple yet, awesome build:

While I’m not actually Bender from Futurama, I wish I was.