Tim Schwalfenberg has just come back from the subjugated provinces and hung up his Roman Legionnaire’s battle gear, which looks stunning displayed in all its glory.
Tim’s been busy in his Iron Builder competition against Matt De Lanoy, and has been rolling out top-notch models left and right. Here are a few of my favorites, but be sure to check his flickr stream for the rest.
Kosmas Santosa of the Indonesian LEGO club Bhinneka LUG is one of my favorite builders, working across numerous LEGO themes with excellent techniques and beautiful presentation. For the club’s first public display earlier this summer, they built famous landmarks and buildings in the nation’s capital. Kosmas contributed several iconic landmarks and vehicles, but my favorite is this gorgeous, incredibly detailed Hindu temple, the largest in Jakarta.
As a bonus, here’s one of the great vehicles Kosmas also built — a three-wheeled auto rickshaw called a bajaj. It’s actually quite hard to build small with LEGO, and Kosmas does it very well.
The best sleuth in the business is back at it, in brick form this time, thanks to the handiwork of Hacim Bricks and UmmWho. This particular iteration is, of course, from the popular and much lauded BBC series Sherlock.
Our friends over at Beyond the Brick also did a short video on it when it was recently displayed at BrickFair Virginia.
Anyone who saw this year’s Mad Max: Fury Road will instantly recognize this model by Matt De Lanoy as the most metal truck ever to appear on screen. The Doof Wagon, as it’s known in the Mad Max universe, carries the hortator for Immortan Joe’s crazed army of raiders, blasting out an insane rock ballad while the truck screams across the desert in the middle of pitched combat.
Here’s your first look at the latest set in the popular Winter Village series, 10249 Winter Toy Shop. Now, some of you may be scratching your heads, wondering why this looks so familiar: this set is a re-release of 2009’s 10199 Winter Toy Shop. This time around LEGO has swapped out a few colors, and added a few pieces, bringing this version to 898 versus the original’s 815, which is apparently enough to justify a $20 price bump. It will retail for $79.99 USD, available beginning in October.
It is disappointing that LEGO won’t be releasing an all-new Winter Village set this year, but should make folks happy who missed out on the Toy Shop the first time around. Let us know in the comments if you think a re-release like this is great for fans, or just disappointing. Don’t forget to pick up the last several Winter Village sets, which are still available: 10235 Winter Village Market, and 10245 Santa’s Workshop.
Full press release below, and the full gallery on flickr.
10249 Winter Toy Shop
Ages 12+. 898 pieces.
US $79.99 – CA $99.99 – DE 69.99€ – UK £59.99 – DK 599.00 DKKEnjoy the holiday season with the Winter Toy Shop!
Welcome to the Winter Toy Shop! The holiday season has arrived and the toymaker is busy finishing off his latest creations! Outside, children ski and snowboard, and a freshly built snowman sparkles in the light that shines from the toyshop tower. Help decorate the huge tree that stands at the center of the square, play with the curious kitten on the cozy wooden bench or join in with the carolers beneath the ornate streetlamp. This charming set also features a ladder, trees in various sizes, jack-in-the-box, a toy biplane, helicopter, rocket, train, race car, truck, robot, tugboat, teddy bear and a wrapped gift. Have fun building this enchanting winter wonderland! Includes a snowman and 8 minifigures with assorted accessories: a male caroler, female caroler, a woman, 2 men, 2 boys and a girl.
• Includes 8 minifigures with assorted accessories: a male caroler, female caroler, a woman, 2 men, 2 boys and a girl
• Features a toyshop, large Christmas tree with decorations, ladder, bench, ornate streetlight, carrot-nosed snowman and a cat
• Toyshop features a LEGO® light brick, cash register, clock, chair, table, tools and a ladder
• Accessories include a wrapped gift, snowboard, skis, 5 wreaths, 2 sets of strings lights, 2 top hats, 2 carol songbooks and 10 toys, including a jack-in-the-box, a toy biplane, helicopter, rocket, train, race car, truck, robot, tugboat and a teddy bear element
• Also includes trees in various sizes and snow elements
• Light up the toyshop tower with the LEGO® light brick!
• Decorate the Christmas tree!
• Enjoy the holiday season with this fun, festive model!
• Winter Toy Shop measures over 6” (17cm) high, 7” (19cm) wide and 3” (10cm) deep
• Christmas tree measures over 5” (15cm) high, 4” (11cm) wide and 4” (11cm) deep
Brick Wheels: Amazing Air, Land & Sea Machines to Build from Lego
This is a substantial book, with 258 pages. It is crisply printed on sturdy semi-glossy paper and it has a flexible cover. It looks and feels like a quality product, which, given the low price point of just £12.99 in the UK, is pleasantly surprising. The US edition, called Brick Vehicles, costs only $13.
The book consists of five chapters. The introductory chapter covers such topics as names for parts, where to buy LEGO, on-line resources and sorting. This is probably mainly useful for builders who are just discovering that there are more people like them out there or as a guide for parents whose children are getting into building. The other four chapters deal with, respectively, road vehicles, trains, ships and flying vehicles. This is where things get more interesting, with pictures of inspirational models built by Warren himself and by friends of his, including about a dozen by yours truly, interspersed with pages of instructions for mostly smaller models that readers can build themselves.
Great Ball Contraptions (GBCs) are a staple of most LEGO conventions, the idea is simple create: a mechanical device to move balls from point A to point B, with a certain set standard. Then sit back and watch a) balls go flying b) kids be mesmerized for hours. It’s a challenging feet of engineering to create a mechanism that can withstand hours of continuous operation, typically the most prized honour for a GBC builder is the ‘Most Reliable’ award (or some variant). Unlike a lot of LEGO builds we see on The Brothers Bricks, aesthetics is not primary goal.
But sometimes, someone steps forward and combines all the above, and makes it beautiful, just cause. For example, Benjamin Corey (Bricktech) built this gorgeous GBC at BFVA this year:
You can watch it in action here:
You can also check out the whole GBC video from our friends at Beyond the Brick.
When I first saw The Phantom Menance, the most memorable moment was when R2-D2 made his heroic entrance – the entire audience cheered! I have no idea if Artoo is planning a similar reprieve in The Force Awakens, but I think he’s going to have a hard time upstaging his even more adorable replacement, BB-8. Not even if he shows off all his bells and whistles, as builder Takamichi Irie imagines him doing here:
In the overall robot pecking order, I suspect a gyroscopically self-balancing sphere probably beats a metal drum with a guy inside. Who knows, maybe this’ll become a divisive issue for Star Wars fans? Of course, if they met on screen, it certainly would be a touching moment. Although I’d worry about half the audience spontaniously losing bladder control.
After blogging old Han & Leia, I remembered that I hadn’t highlighted this classic scene from Star Wars: A New Hope. Even though your eye is drawn to the two stock minifigs, the real stars of this scene by Andrew JN are the backdrop, lighting, and photo editing. I can hear the buzz of those lightsabers now!
Via BrickNerd.
We’re starting to see a lot more LEGO Star Wars creations as we ramp up toward the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens LEGO sets — or maybe as I get excited myself, I’m just noticing them more. Either way, this little Miniland scene by Matt De Lanoy had me laughing uproariously. I realize it’s not a new joke, but Matt’s LEGO build is very well executed, with instantly recognizable characters, innovative parts usage (more on that below), and very cool lighting.
Matt built this as part of the current Iron Builder challenge, with the barbell accessory piece as the seed part. Expect to see a lot of posts over the coming days featuring this piece…
Koen (Swan Dutchman) recreates the lovable characters Lumière and Cogsworth from Beauty and the Beast out of Lego, and he uses clever techniques to capture each ones expression. Take a look at the use of black sausages for the eyebrows and using an upside-down arch with curved slopes to make Cogsworth’s smile.
As regular readers of the blog may know, Nick Kappatos and I build a joint display every year for BrickFair. This year, we wanted to contrast between organic and mechanical, as well as high-tech sci-fi and low-tech creations. We also just really wanted to build a bustling bazaar. It was also high time to work some motion into the display, even it it was simple. While the motion isn’t terribly complex, I have to say that I think Nick’s rotating ring has a perfectly sci-fi feel to it that I love (and can’t take credit for). I also tried my wobbly hand at a fly-through video… with an iphone.
