…and all players are utterly creative combinations of pieces. Letranger Absurde’s vignette depicting a theatre stage blows my mind with its extremely unsual usage of a regular frog animal piece: once for the actress’ hairdo and several more as seats in the hall. When I saw this little masterpiece for the first time it took me a moment to decide what astounded me more — the fact that I can distinguish the emotions of these tiny little microfigures or the rats in the background…
Kylo Ren is my new favorite villain. He clomps around menacingly, has an eerie, almost mechanical, baritone voice, and just the right amount of that famous Skywalker immaturity. Though we recently also featured torokimasa’s chibi Kylo Ren here on TBB, Kevin Ryhal‘s brick-built Kylo was too good to pass up. Kevin perfectly captured Kylo’s distinctive flowing robes (no easy feat with brick) and the unstable blade of his vented lightsaber. Also, the battle-stance pose is spot on.
We don’t often feature brick films on Brothers Brick; partly because that’s not where our interests lie, and partly because it’s a lot more time consuming to discover new content. Sometimes though, a brick film jumps out as worthwhile. Such is the case with A Fixed System by Aaron Fisher.
We find here the tale of an Everyman awash in a rote life as a brick factory worker, who would have fit right in with Emmett during the beginning of The LEGO Movie. I won’t spoil what happens when he decides to look for more in life, but I will say it provides an interesting subject upon which to muse. And like much good art, it provides a platform upon which the viewer’s own beliefs and worldview are highlighted and questioned.
The animation is strong in this 10-minute movie (a frequent failing of brick films) and the facial expressions and soundtrack tell the story excellently in this silent film.
I wish I’d had one of these guys when I was studying for high school anatomy and physiology! While he may not be one-hundred percent anatomically correct, this marvelous skeleton by umamen comes pretty darn close (actually, I can’t imagine getting much closer with LEGO). He’s got everything that counts including knobby knees, boney phalanges and neck vertebrae, protruding clavicles, a healthy set of lungs, and even a complete digestive tract. And he appears to be extremely poseable. His rib cage even opens for a closer look!
Check out more photos on Flickr.
What the 2010 movie sequel TRON: Legacy lacked in terms of story, character development, and avoiding the Uncanny Valley, it more than made up for visually – thanks to the design sense of architecturally-trained director Joseph Kosinski. And while we have seen plenty of LEGO interpretations of the iconic vehicles and characters from both TRON movies, Joe Perez has created the most curve-licious LEGO light cycle to date, at a scale I would never have imagined possible. Breathtaking…
OK, so Disney’s Zootopia isn’t out yet, but the trailer is hilarious and makes this movie a must-see for me. Jordan Schwartz, a fan of all things Disney, gone ahead and made a fantastic sculpt of Nick Wilde, one of the film’s new protagonists, and it looks spot on. The sly look Nick is giving us is too perfect.
You never know where you’re going to find your inspiration. How about your favorite manufacturer of MIDI controlers? Yep, perig perig devoted his latest spacecraft model to Livid Instruments – a small company which produces computer music equipment. We can only guess how exactly the overall design was influenced by the author’s musical experince, but the result is gorgeous as usual. The color scheme is what impressed me the most; together blue and olive pieces work miracles.
The Castle theme has a long history within the LEGO community, and builders all over the world have produced magnificent creations in every size, shape, and color. Luke Hutchinson (Derfel Cadarn) is one of the originators of the now-common “ramshackle” style, characterized by the odd angles and an organic approach to the scene. His beautiful creations inspired me to start building with LEGO and posting my creations online many years ago.
So, naturally I was very excited to see a glimpse of his latest creation in a teaser pic a few months back. He continues to improve his own building style, pushing his creations further and further, influencing many other builders in this theme.
We had a chance to talk to Luke more about his creation and his approach.
The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools is a private school affiliated with its namesake. Donors recently provided funding for a new arts wing designed by architects FGM and Valerio Dewalt Train. As a thank you gift to the donors (Mellody Hobson and her husband George Lucas), the school commissioned alumnus and faculty member Dave Kaleta to build a LEGO replica of the new facility.
Since the gift was planned to coincide with completion of the building, Dave was given access to blueprints and even the building site itself. Even though the gift was intended for the Lucas household, Dave tells me that he resisted requests to include a minifig Yoda somewhere in the display, since the donors themselves had insisted that the new building be named in honor of American photographer Gordon Parks (1912-2006).
See more photos in Dave’s album on Flickr, along with his build notes and description of key architectural details.
LEGO themes come and go, but some of them stay in our hearts forever. Korean builder bigcrown85 makes us shed some tears with a beautiful remake of some old Model Team sets.
Experienced readers might recognize these legendary vehicles. The jeep on the left is based on the awesome 5510 Off-Road 4×4 from 1986, and the truck on the right is a remake of the B-model from 5571 Giant Truck, which was released in 1996.
The builder has refurbished both cars, making them black and red, improving the chassis and upgrading the interiors with all new pieces (he even placed a coffee machine right behind the seats in the driver’s cab!). And the title “Black cat rally team” refers to the giant truck’s alternative set name. A crouching cat was used as a radiator cap, and you can find one on the hood of the jeep as well. What a lovely touch!
All in all, both cars offer a nice representation of how present-day Model Team sets could possibly look: massive, stunning and handsome.
Gregory St doesn’t post Flickr images often, but this Batman mech caught my eye. I think it does well at being chunky and slightly menacing, but still fun and comic-book like. I could see this leaping off the page of a classic-era Batman comic, rather than stalking the gloomy streets of the po-faced movie version of Gotham. This is what Batman should be about – a sense of menace and impending violence, accompanied by a faint whiff of camp ridiculousness…
Looking back through their Flickr stream, I’ve enjoyed seeing how the builder has posted different designs all based on the same mech frame. It’s interesting to see how color choices and changes in little details can create a totally different feel from the same base structure. In particular, I liked their interpretation of Lord Business from the LEGO Movie a while back…
I’d like to see more of these builds. Maybe some other comic book heroes?
In addition to 21028 New York City (which I reviewed here a couple of weeks ago), LEGO has also just released 21027 Berlin and 21026 Venice as part of a trio of new city skyline sets.
In contrast to the $60 price tag for NYC, both Berlin and Venice retail for $29.99, and I’ll be reviewing these two smaller sets together today.
Read the full review after the jump!