The Eurobricks Architecture contest seems to be drawing out quite a few fantastic entries, including this notable depiction by Spencer R of one of the world’s most high-class hotels, the Burj Al Arab. With a design inspired by a ship’s billowing sails, the seventy floor Burj Al Arab is located in Dubai, which is also home to the real-life counterpart of an official LEGO Architecture set, the Burj Khalifa.
Hans Dendauw (Tigmon74) built this excellent pair of buildings for a VirtuaLUG collaboration at Bricks by the Bay 2012.
Replicating graffiti in LEGO is tough enough, but Hans has LEGO-ized one of the most recognizable designs by one of the most recognized graffiti artists on the planet.
The Banksy wall certainly caught my eye, but Hans’s corner building is the real artistic triumph.
Via Brick Town Talk.
Mike Yoder has his own corporate entity reminiscent of Black Mesa from the Half-Life universe and Weyland-Yutani from the Alien franchise. North Central Positronics is a shadowy, semi-military organization with heavily defended bases on earth and a full-fledged fleet in space. Mike’s latest addition includes a pair of cargo barges, a pilot ship, and several heavy fighters.
When I visited Deir el-Bahari, our Egyptian guide told us an easy way to remember the name of the pharaoh who had the colonnaded temple built for herself near the Valley of the Kings and Luxor. “Hot sheep suit,” he said. “You know, hot, like the sun, with a suit made from sheep.” The weather forecast placard in the hotel lobby had informed us it was going to be 45° C (113° F) that day. Standing there in the blazing desert sun, it was hard to imagine wearing a wool suit. And today, it’s hard to forget how to pronounce Queen Hatshepsut’s name.
Similarly unforgettable was her mortuary temple, here recreated wonderfully in LEGO by Harald P. (HP Mohnroth).
See many other wonderful LEGO models of historical structures in Harald’s LEGO Architecture set on Flickr.
Via GodBricks, so you can’t blame me for necro-posting — which is sorta appropriate for an Egyptian model, I guess.
The deadline for Forbidden Cove‘s Jolly Roger Contest is quickly approaching. Head on over to see the Prizes, Categories, and Contest Rules.
The deadline is April 30. Just as a reminder, in order to enter, you must be a member of Forbidden Cove, and you do need to be at least 16.
Since The Brothers Brick contributors can’t be everywhere all the time, we’re going to try being more consistent about bringing you coverage of important LEGO events from guest contributors. To start things off, here’s Carl Merriam to cover the recent Bricks by the Bay!
It’s been a little over a week since the doors closed at Bricks By the Bay 2012. It feels so much longer. Getting back into the flow of real life is always difficult after such a fun and rewarding convention. This year BBtB had more floor space, full use of the convention center theater and breakout rooms and quite a few more attendees and visiting public.
At the opening ceremonies we enjoyed some playful banter from LEGO Company representatives Kevin Hinkle, Jim Foulds, Steven Canvin, and Jenn Wagner. Hinkle also unveiled the new R2-D2 UCS set. I played with it myself and it does have some very nifty features, including folding computer interface and buzzsaw arms, as well as a “retractable third leg”.
There were plenty of great MOCs. Some of my favorites included The Last March of the Ents by The OneLUG, Bill Ward’s Rainbow Connection: Kermit the Frog with Banjo, Benjamin Newitt’s fully transforming Megatron, Tim Inman’s Heron Building, Kevin Smith’s T.A.R.D.I.S., Bruce Lowell’s prolific replicas, Remi’s Technic Dinosaurs, Norbert Labuguen’s Hero Factory Octopus (made from 10 of the new Joker sets), Chad Mealey’s pair of zoetropes, Brandon Griffith’s simply perfect Soylent Green, and, of course, my own miniland scale Pier.
On Saturday night the fire alarm in the hotel went off and everyone had to leave the exhibit hall. Most groups of people would have been frustrated. We took it as kind of an impromptu meet and greet. Talking about all things LEGO and getting to know the new people who were nearby, the time passed quickly. It turns out that the fire alarms were malfunctioning.
Attendees may have noticed BLARE Media running around all over the convention, filming scenes for the upcoming feature film Brick Madness. Justin McAleece, the film’s director, was kind enough to put together this brand new mashup of some scenes shot at BBtB 2012 for us to enjoy:
BBTB 2012/ Brick MADNESS clips from Justin McAleece on Vimeo.
My only complaints about this year’s BBtB were the absence of both the Bricks of Character category (Iain, you know LEGO is more important than that work nonsense you’re always going on about) and the Nova Albion steampunk convention that we all so enjoyed cross-pollinating with last year. However, their absence was totally circumstantial and not controlled by BBtB. I wore my commemorative bricks for both all weekend in memorandum.
The Local ABC affiliate did its own wrap-up:
Photos of everything can be seen here:
I recently finished these two mosaics and was able to display them at Emerald City Comic Con this last weekend. They are my first mosaics but won’t be my last, as they were much more fun than I was expecting. I guess there is something to be said for building outside your comfort zone, eh?
I was also able to meet Rob Paulsen and Maurice LaMarche, the voice talent behind Pinky & The Brain, and get them to sign the mosaic. Unfortunately, Christopher Lloyd had to cancel or I would have snagged his autograph too. Oh well…you can’t win them all!
Flickr user lisqr has built this wonderful microscale model of one of the most impressive architectural feats in mankind’s history, the Great Wall of China. While the real Great Wall was several thousand miles long, lisqr employs a nifty series of connected vignettes to capture the wall’s serpentine path.
The best trick to make a mecha model look really great, is to ensure it’s got as close to ‘human’ movement as is possible. Nate Descatro has achieved this in a very compact and very stylish design. It looks highly adaptable too.
While I usually don’t blog LDraw part updates, I’m making an exception for the latest one since, as far as I can tell, it’s the biggest yet, with 601 new parts on offer. In addition to an increase in the number of new parts available, the library of 12V train system parts is almost complete. Many thanks must go out to all parts authors and reviewers, especially those who’ve recently started, and to Chris Dee (the Parts Library Administrator), Phillipe Hurbain and Steffen for the huge work they’ve put in to this latest release.
And to those who’ve never heard of LDraw, or are interested in checking it out, please visit the forums.
LEGO Marvel sets are coming out shortly (watch this space, as they say), as is The Avengers in movie theaters. LEGO has recreated the poster for the movie with the minifigs from the upcoming sets, plus some that aren’t currently scheduled for any sets.
I’m still not sold on Tony Stark’s Iron Man helmet/mask, which looks a bit huge in the photos I’ve seen, but it does look great here.
Via FBTB.
While Iain Heath and I were geeking out this weekend at a comic book convention, something strange happened.
Flickr user atarifan401 managed to marshall the powers of vintage Atari video game fandom to follow in the footsteps of LEGO Minecraft and LEGO Shaun of the Dead to reach 10,000 votes on LEGO CUUSOO.
To be honest, I think these designs are, well, not that great. It’ll be interesting to see what transformation they undergo as LEGO works through the design process with “atarifan401”.