About Tromas

LEGOmaniac for life, TR has never forgotten the joy that playing with LEGO brings. With three young sons it is just further reason to never stop playing. Typically a SPACE! builder, but has been known to dabble in TOWN! as well. Has to yet to try CASTLE! in any meaningful amount. So please feel free to check out his flickr account if you are up for some SPACE!, the occassional TOWN! and very little, if any CASTLE!

Posts by Tromas

Astro Kitty & Angry Kitty

Simon is playing shy and not wanting to blog his own stellar creations it appears. So I will be more than happy to post this in his stead. Here’s Simon’s interpretation of Unikitty dressed in Classic Space garb from the upcoming LEGO Movie.

Astro Kitty

Edit:
I appear to have missed the fact that Simon based his Astro Kitty on Evan’s Angry Kitty. Which, no offence to Simon, is even more awesome.

Angry Uni-kitty.

I have yet to see the movie, but am anxiously awaiting the release date in my home town (despite my local theatre being old and smelly). In the meantime I will just continue to enjoy all the fan built creations inspired by what appears to be a hit in the making.

LEGO Space: Building the Future [Book Review]

We had previously mentioned the release of Peter Reid & Tim Goddard’s book, LEGO Space: Building the Future, published by No Starch Press. Well it has been a few months since the book was released, and I finally got around to finish reading it with my son and felt it was time for a review.

Lego Space: Building the Future

Let me start by saying that this has to be the highest quality fan-created LEGO book I have yet to lay my geeky hands on. From cover to cover, the quality of photography and overall style is absolutely top notch. You really can tell that this was a labour of love for everyone involved.

I actually had pre-ordered the book on Amazonso received it as soon as it was available, however, I purchased it to give to my 6 year old son for Christmas. I didn’t want to read through it before he got a chance so reluctantly put it away for almost 2 months. I think I was just as excited as he was about opening it up Christmas morning. For the week or so following Christmas, I would find Tate flipping through the book quite often. He is reading now on his own, but the amount of text in the book was a bit overwhelming for him. However, that certainly didn’t stop him from staring in wonder at all the beautiful photographs. He even promptly built his own turtle from the instructions provided (and added some spacemen with laser snowboards for good measure).

Untitled

The thing that sets this book apart for me is that it reads as a fantastic story throughout the history of space travel, and far into the future. It’s a science fiction novel illustrated with rockin’ LEGO models. Throughout the telling of the book, photographs of LEGO spaceships, alien landscapes, and space stations illustrate the story. And instructions are included for many of the models so the reader can build their own. I found it incredibly entertaining and inspiring to read through, and Tate even more so. As a family of LEGO spacers, I know this book will be read and re-read for years to come. The pictures on their own would inspire any right minded LEGO maniac to build SPACE!, but when coupled with the fantastic story it kicks that inspiration to a whole other level.

So needless to say I highly recommend this book whether you are a 30 something man-child like myself, or need a fantastic and inspiring gift for a child in your life.

Also check out this brilliant Trailer by Chris Salt.

Please follow the links below to buy your own copy and help The Brothers Brick at the same time:

Kickin’ It Old School with Paul B. Hartzog [Classic]

All right, time for another oldie but goodie. This time, it’s a ship that I’ve been trying to find for years. This was always one of my favourites from my time back on Classic Space Forums. However, over the years I had forgotten who had made it and therefore could not find it anywhere. All I really remembered was the vertically mounted x-pod lids on the sides of the ship, and the little communications array on the top using the minifig jackhammer. But wouldn’t you know it, I was browsing through Paul B. Hartzog’s back catalogue this morning and there it was in all its classic gloriousness.

So enough of my blabbing…I present the Salvage Seeker:

S6300554.JPG

S6300746.JPG

You simply must be sure to click through the entire photoset that I linked to above…this thing is a classic in all senses of the word and despite being 7 years old can easily hold it’s own against anything being produced today. Now that I have finally found it, I am certainly going to study the photoset and be making notes. I mean, just look at that striping! And the greebs!

They just don’t make ’em like this anymore!

Whiskers...on a starfighter.

Whiskers in a sci-fi context always make me think of Seaquest DSV. Now granted this funky little starfighter by Jacob Unterreiner (4estFeller) doesn’t really look like a submarine, but then again maybe it does kind of look like some sort of alien catfish. Anyways, I digress…this ship is cool, and the integration of the antenna elements is pretty expertly done. It has plenty of fresh style that is just fun to look at.

Peterios

…remember Darwin the dolphin? He was awesome!

70708 Hive Crawler – Power Functions Upgrade

I was lucky enough to receive the awesome Hive Crawler set for Christmas from my sons. The thing is simply too much fun to push around with the creepy leg action and hilariously fun catapult. Nannan had done a review of the set back when it first came out.

Well Moritz (nolnet) has kicked up the cool factor big time. He integrated full remote control capability with power functions. Seeing this thing drive around is pure brilliance. Then when I saw the functional catapult action…yep, I totally giggled like a school girl. Check out the video below.

Remote Controlled Hive Crawler

M-Tron M.U.L.E (personal portage bot)

Shannon Sproule (Shannon Ocean) says he was inspired by Petman and other mildly cute, yet creepy bipedal robots. Normally you would see this sort of build with a near-future military vibe, and that just makes me appreciate the M-Tron theme all the more.

M-Tron M.U.L.E. (personal portage bot)

…because even the most adventurous space explorer deserves to have his hands free to enjoy an official M-Tron icy pole.

I’m a recovering Sortophobe. [Editorial]

I have always been the first one to admit that I have an intense fear of sorting LEGO elements. Spiders? Confined spaces? Heights? HA! I laugh in their faces!! But you set a big ol’ pile of random ABS in front of me with some empty drawer units and I start to hyperventilate, my palms start sweating and I get all twitchy.

Well, ok maybe I am just a lazy procrastinator who would rather play with LEGO than organize it, but I am still going to play the sortophobia card.

But there is light at the end of this cluttered tunnel…yesterday I took my first steps on the road to my sorted recovery. But before I get into that, I will give you a bit of a background.

When my wife and I moved into our house, I attempted for the first time to sort my LEGO. But like the rookie that I was I made a crucial mistake and sorted my entire collection by colour. It was hard enough to find a yellow headlight brick in a giant bin of bricks, let alone trying to find one in the bottom of a drawer that only contained yellow elements. So basically my three or four weeks of sorting were wasted and I started re-sorting it all into part type to better fit my style of building. Well that was 8 years ago and I haven’t really stopped sorting since. I would say that about 2 years ago I was approximately 85-90% fully sorted and organized. And I have been on a steady decline since.

Fast forward to 2013 and things got really bad. I hit my rock bottom. Readers may remember my AFOL’s guide to having a newborn. In particular point #1. I have learned over the preceding 10 months, that #1 is #1 for a very good reason! I didn’t really slow down the level of production of my builds, but my efficiency with build time had certainly been affected. Then I just became really lazy and made zero effort to stay organized. My LEGO collection basically became an un-useable mess of cluttered drawers and overflowing shelves. It took ages to build a simple model and believe it or not, it even started to take the fun out of building.

Well 2014 is a new year, and I intend to get my butt organized! Not only to increase the ease of building, but also for my wife’s sanity. We now have three, going on 4, LEGO maniacs in our house and I can only see this getting worse if I don’t nip it in the bud now. So that is where my steps on the road to recovery come in. What were they you ask? Simple. I dumped everything into a big ass tub.

And I have to say, it felt really good to do that. For the first time in 8 years, I am actually looking forward to sorting. It’s a brand new year and my future is looking bright and organized!

26.5 kg (58.5 lbs.) of un-sorted LEGO never looked so good!

2014 - Year of the Big Sort [Day 1]

Crawler Trawler

Continuing with our tracked theme for today, I present the hilariousness that is Karf Oolhu’s Crawler Trawler. As Fedde explains, “Impractical, but once I thought of the name, I had to build it.”

The Crawler Trawler

I am glad you did Fedde, because this sort of absurd cuteness is just the ticket to kick us into the weekend.

Wall-E’s angry older brother?

Although not nearly as cute as Wall-E, I did have to chuckle to myself when I saw what Simon had just posted. Despite the similarities, I think The Murdertrain by Exxtrooper would look more at home as a level boss in Contra than rolling around a desolate Earth in everyone’s favourite Pixar flick.

The Murdertrain

TBB presents an Oldie But Goodie – Peregrine

We at The Brothers Brick were recently talking about whether there should be a statute of limitations on blogging a model. We obviously want to keep the majority of our posts fresh and new, but we all agreed that there are a lot of models in people’s back catalogues that deserve the spot light. Whether you have been around the community since LUGNET or are new this year, we think everyone will appreciate seeing these again or for the first time.

I will start us off with this classic by The Grandpappy, the Peregrine Multi-Role Starfighter. This has long been one of my favourite starfighters of all time. The combination of space superiority fighter and mecha will make any geek giddy. I also love the idea of treating the mecha frame as a weapons component as opposed to a permanent part of the design.

Peregrine - Multi-Role Starfighter

Peregrine - Multi-Role Starfighter

And I am always a giant sucker for an ordnance loadout shot:

Peregrine - Multi-Role Starfighter

So keep your eyes peeled for further OBG posts from time to time and join us in a trip down memory lane.

Brute – Bionicle and System never looked so good.

Seamlessly integrating System elements with Bionicle/Hero Factory elements is something I have been struggling to master for quite a while. This is apparently not such a struggle for Ian Barreto (~Ian) as evidenced by his Brute.

Brute

Ian says this was inspired by the Igor suit from Iron Man 3, which is apparent…but I prefer Ian’s.

LEGO Trooper Zoid

My 6 year old self would have loved to play with this Trooper Zoid by Sioka Sculpting…oh, who am I kidding, my 32 year old self would love to play with it!

I think the best descriptor of such a creation is simple: FUN!

trooper zoid 2

trooper zoid 3