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

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The Lonesome Goatherd

When did rocks start becoming so cool? I remember back in 2012, I went to a rock building seminar at BrickCon, and it was about how to mix up your slopes to create ‘natural’ rocks… less than two years later that seems almost like silly approach… Tim Schwalf (One More Brick) has built this incredible scene ontop of some very nice rocks:

I almost can’t stop looking at the wonderful rocks Tim has done! There are lots of things to love in this build, the little roof, the goats and or even the inspired circular fence. But the ROCKS! I can’t stop raving about how well done the rocks are. Tim if you ever hold a rock building seminar, sign me up please.

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“Bound” trailer – the full length brickfilm

It has taken almost six years and about 43,200 pictures (give or take) but Gregory Tull‘s dream of a full length (give or take) LEGO stop motion movie has almost to come to fruition. They’re in post production now editing the roughly 50 minute long movie which is set to be released early 2015 – both online and hopefully limited theatrical release if they can find a distributor.

In the mean time check out the trailer:

I’ve seen a lot of brickfilms, but what sets this apart from the rest, besides the obvious length, is the attention to detail and big budget effects – like the rain scenes. The rain itself is easy, that’s just computer effects. But the wet surface – well that is as horribly painful to capture as you might think: they sprayed the set with water, took the image, dried off all the LEGO, and did it again…. for every frame … for 3 months … but it looks pretty darn cool.

The Northern Front – mecha in the snow

Fresh from his Friday Night Fight’s victory, Jonas (LEGOLIZE IT MAN) is back with this snow bound Mecha:

While the Mech itself is fantastic with its lovely colours and stickering, what really sets this apart for me is the addition of the beautiful micro trucks and outpost. I feel cold just looking at it.

VDNKh station from novel Metro 2033

Based on the novel Metro 2033 by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky about a post nuclear age in Russia, Fedin (Fianat) has recreated the Metro station which serves as main setting:

While I have not read the book, I love this build. I particularly liked the attention to detail with all the crumbly bits and the fantastic arched back which really creates a sense of being in an underground subway station.

Friday Night Fights – Big Batman

Welcome back fight fans, to Sin City Nevada for another round of Friday Night Fights. Tonight we go big with my favorite superhero: Batman! Coincidentally these two opponents both won the Batman 75th Anniversary contest for BrickFair VA and BrickWorld Chicago, but who will win in the Big Batman Showdown? Let’s go to the tale of the tape.

In the white we have Maddison Stapleton (SunlitEquinox) and her Adam West Batman:

In the black corner we have Tim Lydy (Julius No) with his life-size version of the villain Scarface:

As usual, constant reader, you are tasked with deciding, by way of comment, which of these Big Batman will win the battle. On the last edition of Friday Night Fights, Mini Mecha, Jonas won 10-2. Tune in next week for another action packed edition of Friday Night Fights!

Bionicle Star-Lord from Guardians of the Galaxy

While Tyler and Bruce’s Guardians of the Galaxy builds were pretty great, I think I would be remiss not to share this great take of Peter Quill by Micah Berkoff (Arkov):

Doubly impressive is the seamless integration of Bionoicle pieces and regular LEGO blocks.

Now I think I should go see the movie and see what all the fuss is about.

Mischievous Monkeys

Grant Davis gives us an interesting view in the life of monkeys in this delightful vignette:

We’re left up to our own imagination to explain what’s going on. And while we’re thinking up our story you start to realize all the wonderful details that Grant has put into the backdrop: the effective floor tiling, rockwork, complex walls, and even the doorway arch… there’s so much I love about this silly build.

Beyond the Horizon

As a group of pioneers roam the universe, they uncover secrets of their war-torn past.

With the right lighting conditions, a good camera angle, and a bit of photoshop magic, Cam M has created a fantastic futuristic relic. I think the extra time spent really turns this from a cool model into a really really cool model that is just begging to become my desktop background.

Friday Night Fights – Mini Mecha

Welcome back fight fans, to Sin City Nevada for another round of Friday Night Fights. After seeing some mighty Mecha last weekend, I felt the need to scale down to some nice mini mecha. These little guy pack the same awesome punch as some of the bigger boys that usually get all the attention. Let’s go to the tale of the tape.

In the dark red corner we have LEGOLIZE IT MAN with his Silurus mech:

In the white corner we have crowandrats and his SN-LRMC

As usual, constant reader, you are tasked with deciding, by way of comment, which of these Bionicle Brutes will win the battle. On the last edition of Friday Night Fights, Bionicle Brutes, Pate-keetongu won 4-1. Tune in next week for another action packed edition of Friday Night Fights!

The M:Tron base of our dreams: 4 years and 100,000 LEGO bricks

I remember getting a used M:Tron set as a kid and discovering how awesome magnetism is, and how I wanted to learn where magnets came from. Thanks to Blake Foster and his M:Tron Magnet Factory, I finally know the answer:

Not only has Blake created an inspired M:Tron base and stunning landscaped base, but he’s added a monorail and some really impressive movement which you can see in the following video:

I was able to see this incredible creation this past weekend at BrickFair Virginia, where it took the Best Space trophy (check out the time-lapse setup video). I sat down with Blake to get the details on his layout:

TBB: With all the classic LEGO space themes or even other pop culture references why did you choose M:Tron as a theme for your build?

BF: It’s part nostalgia and part obscurity. I loved M:Tron as a kid, and yet it doesn’t get all that much attention from the AFOL community. Compared to Neo-Blacktron or Neo-Classic-Space, M:Tron is a rarity. That obscurity can be a good thing, though, because there are more opportunities to do something original. I really wanted to make something unique, so M:Tron seemed like a good theme to do it in.

TBB: With something of this size, 4 x 6 baseplates (192 x 128 studs), how long did it take you to build?

BF: I started toying with ideas for this project 4-5 years ago. I was in grad school at the time, though, and didn’t have the budget to complete it. I started working in earnest two years ago. By my best guess, it took about 3,000 hours of building, 462 Bricklink orders and I would estimate 100,00 bricks. Here is an early work in progress image of the build:

LEGO Ideas Exo Suit out today [Review & Giveaway]

LEGO sent The Brothers Brick a copy of the new LEGO Ideas 21109 Exo Suit, which we’re going to give away to one of you out there reading this. Read the full review to find out how!

There have been a lot of great LEGO CUUSOO / LEGO Ideas sets that have come out, but before the Exo Suit they all had one thing in common: they were all based on someone else’s design (intellectual property or IP in licensing jargon). So it was a great to see Pete Reid‘s Exo Suit become the first original idea to be turned into a LEGO Ideas set.

The set comes in a typical small form LEGO Ideas box. I thought the designers did a great job on graphics and background art, which is very reminiscent of the classic space box art.

When you open up the set you’re presented with a fantastic instruction manual and 4 small bags of pieces, which include a total of 321 pieces. While it might not seem like a lot of pieces, the final build is surprisingly large.

The instruction booklet starts off with some info on Pete and Senior Set Designer Mark Stafford on how they collaborated on the set. It’s followed by a great background story that sets up the Exo Suit. I also liked how scattered throughout the instructions are little tid-bits of information about the Exo-Suit or the turtle, which just adds a bit of fun to the whole building.

Originally I had planned to go over the actual build process and point out interesting bits and details on the Exo Suit, but as I was actually building it, I decided not to ruin everyone’s fun — I would rather everyone experience it on their own. I will say that there are definitely some uncommon techniques that you would not find in your typical LEGO set. An example of which is placing a 1×1 round stud in the center of a 2×2 round plate (see picture).

The piece selection in this set is also a bit odd for a typical LEGO offering. There are a lot of ball-joint pieces that makes up the bulk of the frame, and a lot of tiny detailing elements that are attached to it, which makes up the rest of the set. But for a lot of builders this gives a great value: it is a small set with an incredible selection of specialized sci-fi “greeble” pieces.

But really, the stars of the set are the two Classic Space minifigures (with extra air tank) available in green for the first time:

The inclusion of these two figures, plus the low price point, and limited run will likely result in a very high demand set. Which is unfortunate as I would love to be able to buy a massive stockpile of these to get an army of Green Classic Space men, with enough left over pieces to build something really cool.

Read the review and enter for a chance to win this set →

Friday Night Fights – Bionicle Brutes

Welcome back fight fans, to Sin City Nevada for another round of Friday Night Fights. Tonight we take a break from System and dive into the wonder world of Bionicle. Let’s go to the tale of the tape.

In the red corner we have Eero Okkonen (Pate-keetongu) and his General Killjoy:

In the gold corner we have Alexander (VBBN)) with his Pallas:

As usual, constant reader, you are tasked with deciding, by way of comment, which of these Bionicle Brutes will win the battle. On the last edition of Friday Night Fights, Fire Trucks, Galaktek’s futuristic firetruck won 7-2. Tune in next week for another action packed edition of Friday Night Fights!