About Rod

Rod likes building stuff, particularly steampunk and microscale. He's built for a number of the Dorling Kindersley LEGO books, including LEGO Play and the Awesome Ideas book. When he's not building, he writes, and has published a trilogy of old-fashioned adventure stories. To pay the bills he works in innovation and marketing for one of the world's biggest brewers, inventing new beers and ciders. This is clearly the best job in the world.

Posts by Rod

Zombie dance off is a real thriller

It’s close to midnight, and something evil’s lurking in the dark. It’s LEGO Zombie Michael Jackson, who definitely appears to have the soul for getting down. I spotted one of those red hinges in a brick box and thought it looked a little like a leg. An hour’s building later and Michael appeared, strutting his zombie stuff. It’s a simple model, but I was pleased with the chunky cartoony vibe he’s giving off…

And just in case you missed it previously, Hallowe’en seems like the perfect excuse to remind you about LEGO 7‘s amazing Zombie Michael — a model considerably more complicated than mine! The face and hair are excellent, and I love the overall poseability. Don’t miss that single white glove too — a nice touch (although not strictly correct if we’re being geeks about Thriller-outfit accuracy).

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‘Cos I ain’t got no body

Here comes Duncan The Dancing Skeleton — a LEGO creation for Hallowe’en that’s equal parts cooky and spooky. Great work on those bones by Logey Bear. I particularly like the ribcage fashioned from Bionicle claws, the Belville spoon as a nose, and the use of pith helmets for eye sockets. However, it’s the jauntily-angled hat and cane which lend the model its fabulous sense of character.

Padishah’s plush palace

LEGO builder Greg Dlx continues to explore large-scale recreations of exotic architecture. Following from last year’s desert fortress, here’s a beautiful Persian Palace. The white and gold domes grab all the immediate attention, but it’s the arches with their fabulous purple touches and the surrounding greenery which draw you in further. The vines snaking across the elaborate facade are well done, and there’s lots of nice tilework on the floors. The surrounding gardens look beautiful and Greg has filled the grounds with a veritable menagerie of animal life. However, it’s perhaps a shame there aren’t some appropriate minifigures lending a little more action to the scene.

LEGO Space builders take over the moon [Interview]

This year’s season of LEGO shows in the UK saw a massive collaborative moonbase display, from some of the UK’s best-known and most talented builders. The model was absolutely enormous, 2.5m square, featuring a huge tower and multiple compartments. It was built with more than 50,000 bricks…

The moonbase plays host to an impressive collection of landing pads, with Neo-Classic spaceships and rovers of all shapes and sizes…

But below the lunar surface, there is even more action going on, with dozens of cutaway compartments and corridors, stuffed with lighting effects, motorised elements, and cool building techniques…

Brothers Brick caught up with Jason Briscoe, one of the collaboration’s organisers, to find out more…
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A hell of a good character

Hellboy has long-been a favourite subject for builders. We’ve featured our fair of LEGO Hellboy creations in the past. But this version by LEGO 7 is an absolute cracker. Built at a premium action figure scale, this has poseability to match the fine sculpting. Hellboy’s horn stumps and massive right fist are perhaps the defining features of the character, but this model faithfully captures other elements of Mike Mignola’s creation — the coat with its long tails, the defined abs, and the Samaritan pistol. I particularly like the beard and sideburns, something hard to recreate at this scale. This is LEGO character building at its finest.

Jump up and get down

We like when LEGO builders take on the task of trying to recreate famous artworks, or reimagine the styles of well-known artists through the medium of brick. Grantmasters takes on Keith Haring’s iconic cartoon pop-art in this cool little creation. I had to take a closer look to scope out the selection of curved black pieces Grant used to provide the signature outline to the red character — nicely done. The stripped-back colour schemes of Haring’s work obviously lend themselves well to the LEGO palette, and the collection of black “motion marks” are perfectly-placed to echo Haring’s style.

Volvo – they’re blocky but they’re good

70s Sweden. What do you think of? If you didn’t say ABBA, there’s something wrong with you. But here’s a fabulous LEGO diorama from LegoJalex which manages to capture the era perfectly without a hint of the Scandi-SuperTroupers. We’ve got an excellent orange Volvo 242 in the driveway, but for me, it’s the surrounding scenery and attention to detail which make this model pop. I love the textures of the different walls, the use of forced perspective to create the buildings and factories in the distance, and the little touches like the pail and the abandoned football in the grass.

The car itself is a smart model in its own right, well worth a closer look…

Tintin’s tiny adventures

A mysterious meteorite floating in the Arctic, a giant mushroom, a massive spider, and… a seaplane made of bananas? All these elements feature in Sad Brick‘s brilliant LEGO microscale version of a classic Tintin comic book cover. The stormy sea looks great, the iconic mushroom is immediately recognisable, and be sure you don’t miss the tiny Tintin and Snowy figures on the shore. But the star of this show is surely that little seaplane — beautifully put together from a handful of well-chosen pieces.

I remember reading and enjoying The Shooting Star as a child, but it’s worth pointing out that it hasn’t aged as well as some of Herge’s other works. The book is now regarded as something of a blot on Herge’s reputation with its questionable anti-Semitic depiction of the main villain.

If one could only capture a little time

Whilst we tend to like our LEGO purist here at Brothers Brick, who doesn’t like to see a bell jar put to imaginative use? Peter Ilmrud does exactly that with a lovely steampunk chronograph packed into a small footprint inside a glass display cabinet. The clock’s design fits perfectly with the jar — both in size and shape, and in its neo-Victorian aesthetic.

Whilst the model is remarkable for the integration of the glass jar, the resulting reflections in the photo do get a little in the way of seeing the details within. Don’t miss this shot of the beautiful brass-effect scrollwork Peter has included around the clock face…

Living in a giant candle, winking at God

Lighthouses are surely the most romantic of buildings — often remote, surrounded by bleak rocks and crashing waves, and dedicated to seeing mariners safely home. Tim Schwalfenberg captures the haunting, desolate beauty of a lonely lighthouse in this fabulous LEGO creation. The almost monochrome colour-scheme creates a melancholy tone, only enhanced by the singular figure on the observation deck, staring out into the night. The subtle splash of yellow in the lamp, and the suggestion of a beam lancing out into the fog are lovely touches. The construction of the lighthouse itself is excellent, with a sense of textured brickwork not often achieved in a single colour, and a beautifully tapered cone.

A fine study in fine study furniture

Well here’s a fine collection of vintage furniture, perfect for adorning the study of any LEGO professor. I’m assuming spacecolonel intended these for an academic’s office because of the crystal skull on display atop the bookcase — seems like the sort of thing a historian or antiquarian might have lying around. Whilst the models are fairly simple, there’s a couple of nice techniques on show here — I particularly liked the window shutter at the base of the grandfather clock, and the depth of detail provided by the brown ice-cream scoop parts used in the coat stand.

If you fancy getting your hands on these fine pieces of furniture, and helping a good cause at the same time, they’re for sale as part of this year’s Creations For Charity event.

Good coffee is like good building – it’s all in the technique

Sometimes the use of interesting techniques, or a lot of clever parts usage, can overwhelm a LEGO model — distracting from the creation as a whole, interfering with the design intent. However, this
café model by César Soares manages to create an attractive and cohesive scene whilst being packed to the hilt with ultra-smart building techniques. The brick-built signage and the lovely brick-built furniture might catch the eye first, but don’t miss all the surrounding textures. It’s worth zooming in to check out the tile roofs built of air tanks and ingots, the uneven stone paving, and those walls — the red brick facade is constructed from plates and bars, and the lower grey wall is built out of briefcases!

About Rod

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