Of the many patterns by Katie Walker (eilonwy77), her offset square patterns are my favorites because they create the illusion of boxes flying out of the page.
The color variations in this one below create the illusion of height. Very clever.
Karwik (Noddy) made a nice setup of an old and run-down part of some city. Using the basic studs-up technique with varied colored plates and 1X1 rounds, he is able to achieve a believable texture on the walls. The dark blue also works surprisingly well.
Having a consistent system for sorting and storing your LEGO collection makes your pieces much more accessible while building. Most LEGO builders eventually figure out a system that works for them. In fact, it’s something we discuss at length among ourselves, both at conventions and on the web. Most people seem to sort by element rather than by color, for example.
What I don’t hear a lot of talk about is actually how to go about sorting one’s LEGO — other than sustained frustration about its necessity. At what point do you know you need to sort? When do you sort? How long do you spend sorting at one sitting? Where do you do it — in a dedicated LEGO space, sitting on the couch, at the dining room table? Do you have anybody to help you?
As I mentioned earlier this week, I’m going through a major sorting phase, largely because my collection had outgrown the system I’d been using, and any creation not based entirely on a pre-sorted Bricklink order became painfully time-consuming.
Well, I started by taking apart the LEGO sets (and any models I don’t want to keep) that I’d built but never disassembled over the past three or four years, and dumped it all in bins. Next, my wife and visiting mother-in-law kindly volunteered to pre-sort what I’d taken apart into bricks (“Aren’t they all bricks?”), plates (“flat bits”), slopes (“slopey bits”), and “everything else.” (World Cup soccer and Seattle Mariners baseball have been good background entertainment for all of us.) When we had enough of each of these, I then “sub-sorted” into finer categories, like regular, inverted, and curved slopes.
The two major lessons I’ve learned so far from my ongoing sorting are that every extra pair of hands helps, and that the pre-sort/sub-sort approach gets pretty much everything but the “fiddly bits” where they belong fairly quickly. It’s also clear that you can never have enough clear storage bins…
So, dear readers, how have you overcome that mountain of unsorted LEGO?
Just so you know, we don’t feature action figures on the blog. What you’re looking at is another brilliant Lego creation by Brian Kescenovitz (mondayn00dle). The wings are made from Technic links, which seem to have more uses than being stuck to the bottom of a tank.
Regular readers will likely have noticed a bit of a decrease in the frequency of our posts the last little while. That’s because summer has arrived — at least for the 86% of us who are here in the Northern Hemisphere — and that means less TV shows to distract, good natural lighting for pictures, and a whole bunch of LEGO conventions to attend.
In other words, the bloggers at The Brothers Brick are feverishly building rather than blogging.
So, bear with us over the next little while as we try to keep pace with all the great LEGO creations people are posting for the same reasons that we’re building ourselves.
We’ll still keep things fresh (or not), but if you’re itching to see a great LEGO creation that deserves to get blogged here on The Brothers Brick, get out your LEGO and build something awesome!
Personally, I’m starting the summer with a bit of sorting…
Since it’s totally lacking a description of any kind I can’t say much about Bryce McGlone’s plans for this volcano. But what ever they are (if they are) I feel certain they’re going to be great.
Bryce dropped me an email explaining a bit more about this excellent MOC. It’s actually a collaboration between him and Brandon Griffith (icgetaway) and was made for the Sarah Connor Chronicles (“It is on screen for about 2 min right at the start of Season 2, Episode 20(I hope)”). So not only is it awesome, it’s also famous.
I’ve never seen this type of landscaping before but I’ll certainly be copying it.
These adorable little canines by Moritz are too cute for words. From now on, whenever I see these pieces actually used as fenders, I’ll wonder why they crammed doggie heads in there….
The builder gives proper credit to Teik Joon for using a fender as an animal head.
It’s rare I get to use the ‘Technic’ category but when good technical design appears on a train even Technic-challenged me can appreciate it. Esben Kolind gives his commuter train a whole lot more fun with working doors and, as though that wasn’t impressive enough, a sliding step. And he does all this on a well detailed six-wide train. Incredible only begins to describe my feelings.
Thanks to Tim David for the link.
It’s always enjoyable to be able to lift a title straight from flickr. Alex Eylar (Profound Whatever) is the inventor (or maybe discoverer) of the adorably cute WarholBots.
EDIT: Alex has just made it easier to see his collection of artbots.
jdarlack serves up a special serving with this little “tablescrap”. Brilliant use of the pig there. This is one of those creations that get me wondering “Why didn’t I think of that?”.
Patrick (Jason son) has given us an excellent rendition of Mad Max’s car. I’m not certain of how common this car ever was as a police interceptor in Australia, but I like to think that they’re running around all over the place. Remember, two men enter, one man leaves.
