Death Cab for Cutie are one of my favorite bands, and I’ve enjoyed seeing them live (including opening for the Seattle Mariners a couple year ago).
L D M has recently been posting DCFC album art recreated in LEGO. His rendition of Narrow Stairs
Though it’s a less-sophisticated LEGO build, I also like his version of Transatlanticism
Though we missed it when he posted it back in September, Plans
The combination of exotic colors and shapes from nature in Dita Svelte‘s modular bank makes this a standout build among fan-made modular buildings. The different gradients of green and earth tones add a complex layer of texture on top of that formed by the bricks.
The Brothers Brick recently purchased several sets from the LEGO Friends line in order to give our readers a feel for the new line. My 11 year old daughter and I reviewed the following sets and I let my nieces (6 and 8 years old) play with the sets for an afternoon. Nannan has already done one review from a parts perspective and Caylin has done one from the perspective of an adult female fan. Hopefully this review, from a father and daughter view, will be just as useful.
This was my favorite set of the four that we built. It’s a well-designed set with lots of play value. The exterior is a rather simple build but the interior is packed with some pretty cool details, such as an X-ray machine, scale, and examination table. It includes a stall for the horse and lots of new accessories, which are only slightly over-sized when held by traditional minifigs. It also includes the new flowers, which I liked. The new animals are cool, but I was pretty disappointed in the horse. It has no moving parts and the new mini-dolls can’t sit on it or interact with it in any way, except to stand on its back. So unless you’re going to build a horse-vaulting arena with it, the horse is pretty useless. I liked the mini-dolls more than I expected but they’re nowhere near as versatile as regular minifigs. The biggest drawbacks are that the legs can’t move individually and the almost total lack of connectivity.
This set has the most interesting exterior of the sets we reviewed. But the interior is really good as well. It has a display case w/register, booth for customers and small kitchen area. The forks and knives will be useful and the mixer has some interesting connection points that I’m sure will enable it to take a place among its greeblish brethern. My main complaint with the set was the new cupcake pieces. They’re designed to hold a 1×1 round plate/stud but there’s really no “connection” as the 1×1 just sits in it. A tighter connection would have made this piece much more versatile.
The tree house is a fun little set with some interesting animals. The tree design is really nothing new but it is sturdy and stands up under play very well. The set comes with the new flowers in red but also includes some of the old flowers. Having the two together in a set makes it immediately obvious that they two don’t go well together. They each have their place but together looks rather off.
This was the smallest set we got and I’m not sure that it is a good buy for what you get. There are unique printed pieces in the set (ipod, anyone?) but there were no interesting design features.
Josh’s Daughter:
To start with, I think that one of the biggest drawbacks is that the girls feet can’t separate and they can’t sit on studs. Also the horse in the Vet set can’t pose very well because the head does not move up or down.
Their hair is pretty neat because it can be switched with a different mini-doll or regular mini-fig. I also really like the three sets of silverware in the Cafe set. They are cool because the mini-dolls can hold it and it looks more real when they eat. Also in the Cafe set there are cupcakes that a single stud can sit in. I like those because it adds another food.
I like the pastel colors but I think there needs to be more dark colors in the sets. Also having only five mini-dolls could get boring because you can’t switch them around as much as you can with mini-figs. Having all the new animals and food is really nice. My dad had the cat chasing the bird. The new flowers, butterflies and Ladybugs add some more detail to the sets. Also, since every new animal I’ve seen has a hole in their heads, you can put bows and things on them all. The girls also have the holes so you can put bows and ribbons on their heads. The Vet set has a little hat for the veterinarian to wear. She also has an icepack that fits into the hole on the animals heads.
Out of all the sets that we built, the Vet is my favorite. All the new animals are cool and the hedgehog is my favorite.
My two nieces both enjoyed the sets, but the 8 year old liked them the best. She already likes LEGO and she loved the new mini-dolls. Her favorite set was the vet because of the animals. My six year old niece is normally bored with LEGO as she prefers Playmobil. But she played with them for a couple of hours and specifically commented on “the pretty colors”. After I had put the sets away, she came up to me and asked if she could get those “Playmobil Lego sets” out again.
If you have any questions about these sets, please feel free to ask them in the comments. Here is a link to my entire gallery of Friends pictures. I hope this review was helpful to you!
Alex P. (Sirens-of-Titan) built this gorgeous bridge to accompany a fantasy story he wrote. The jagged rocks along the water contrast beautifully with the smooth lines of the stone bridge.
See more pics and read the story on MOCPages.
I first noticed Carson Hart‘s LEGO models over the holidays, but was offline at the appropriate times to blog his Christmas-themed creations. Thankfully, he’s followed it up with some other great models, including this diorama of Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom in Hogwart’s Castle.
This microscale version of The Burrow is also nice, complete with a micro-magical Ford Anglia.
Bruce Lowell has been building some real-life objects recently, and the products are comparable to the uncannily accurate things that the Arvo Brothers made. You can see more in Bruce’s Flickr photostream.
If you’ve wondered what the Friends mini-dolls look like with other LEGO headgear, then L D M has what you’re looking for:
Australian LEGO Certified Professional Ryan McNaught recently built what is likely the first and only minifig-scale Saturn V rocket, complete with gantry. At 5.76 meters (nearly 19 feet) tall and clocking in at 120,000 bricks, it’s certainly huge. But I love the details that Ryan has built into the rocket, including liquid fuel tanks and the NASA Astrovan.
You can see more photos of this monster in Ryan’s Flickr album.
Thanks to everyone who sent us the link!
I’ve been sick this week. Though nothing life-threatening, I’ve kept my sniffling and sneezing to myself here at home. Between naps and sipping green tea while curled up on the couch to watch whatever’s on the National Geographic Channel, I’ve built a few things (including 10214 Tower Bridge).
My U.E.F. Ship Recovery Vessel was inspired by equal parts Chris Foss and pseudoephedrine.
As eye-bleedingly garish as it is, I like the idea behind it:
The U.E.F. Kudu-class SRV enters battle zones to recover and transport damaged or disabled combat vessels.
Aboard their unarmed and lightly armored ships, SRV crews have a motto: “Jump In, Jump Out.” SRVs have the highest-precision FTL jump computers in the U.E.F. fleet, able to jump in behind the disabled ship, extend a shield for temporary protection, secure the ship for transport, and jump out of the system in under 90 seconds.
For less dangerous cargo than that carried by my Pit Viper fuel tanker, I built this Octan “multitanker”.
Finally, I revisited the idea behind the cargo container ship I’d built nearly five years ago, resulting in this interplanetary transport.
I can’t wait to feel better, but it’s been nice having something to distract myself from feeling miserable in the meantime.
Now in week 3 of our collaboration with Advance, we are happy to bring you three more commercials from the days of yore. The lineup this week features ZNAP, Pirates and DUPLO. Did any of you actually buy ZNAP? I picked up some at a second-hand store once upon a time but that was about it. Regardless of the success of the line (or lack thereof), this commercial is pretty cool. The Pirates commercial has a great classic feel to it and the DUPLO ad is simply adorable. Now I want to build a giant Noah’s Ark out of DUPLO myself.
LEGO ZNAP Virus 1998
LEGO went right up against K’nex with the new Znap system featuring bricks
that could come together in all directions. LEGO were a bit worried and were
trying to redefine the brand as a cooler and up-to-date toy.
LEGO Pirates – The Islanders 1994
We shot all of this on a built set — there’s no blue-screen or compositing. The island set was pretty big and constructed out of polystyrene and joint filler. And the water was a giant glass plate. The shot at 0.14 when the pirate lands in the small rowboat had to be shot quite a few times before he landed right!
LEGO DUPLO – Noah’s Ark 1995
We shot this in the States in 1995. The house was completely built up from scratch. To me it has a very ‘ 80´s advertising’ feel — it’s got a kind of Southern warmth about it.
The Supreme Court of Canada building was designed by architect Ernest Cormier and opened in 1946, after Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother) laid the cornerstone in 1939. For Christmas 2011, -greenglo- built a LEGO version of this important Canadian building for his wife, who works for the Department of Justice. The LEGO model now decorates her office.
Jean-Phillippe Lajoie Dorval (zwiti) was inspired to build this can by the comic book “Les cercles du pouvoir,” which also inspired the film, The Fifth Element. It looks like they didn’t change the style much for the movie, because this is a great likeness of the cabs in the movie. It looks accurate right down to a door with a hinge on top.
