ONE WEEK TO STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS! Okay, phew. Breathe, Andrew, breathe… For our daily dose of Star Wars, here’s a lovely pair of lightsaber hilts by Will Galbraith. One of the more unique weapons we’ve seen so far in trailers is Kylo Ren’s red three-bladed lightsaber — that’s the black one in the photos below.
Click to see more photos of Kylo Ren’s lightsaber!
These sublime bas-relief LEGO sculptures are the work of mysterious new builder Bricks Noir. The skill and ingenuity behind these is so remarkable that we here at TBB are pretty sure this is an established builder working under a pseudonym. (…and we have our theories as to who!)
Don’t be fooled by the apparent simplicity of these pieces – the sophistication behind the builds is considerable. For example, take a closer look at the brickwork in the familiar “mudflap girl” above. Not only does the builder capture the outlines of the figures very effectively at such very small scale, with curved bricks facing in all directions, but he/she also manages to keep everything attached together and even secured to the background! I can’t wait to see what this builder does next, or how long it takes for imitators to emerge.
Click below the fold to see another great sculpture by this builder!
The traditional fairy tales my parents read me and some of the old Basic LEGO sets are probably the biggest impressions of my childhood. And when these two things meet, it really touches my heart. As did this simple illustration of a traditional Russian fairy tale Emelya and the Pike by Dwalin Forkbeard. The story tells of an ordinary fellow named Emelya who was notorious for his indolence. Once he was lucky enough to catch a fairy pike who made all of his wishes come true. My favorite episode of this tale is Emelya riding his self-driving stove around his village. And here is the traditional stove exactly how I imagined it as a kid! Bricks with masonry profile work just perfectly for this kind of build, not to mention smart use of handcuffs as a shoulder yoke.
TBB’s virtual LEGO Advent Calendar continues apace on Day 9 with more mini-kits from LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Friends.
We’ll be unveiling the mini-kits or minifigs from each Advent Calendar around this time every day, and we won’t ruin the surprise — you’ll need to click through to reveal the LEGO behind the tiny doors.
Click to see the Day 9 mini-kits!
One interesting thing about the LEGO castle theme is that the characters and factions always seem to be at odds with one another; fortifications and weapons come as second nature to the minifigs of the darker ages. So it quite refreshing to see this diorama from durazno_33, which features a whole bunch of castle minifigs from different factions getting together and celebrating without their swords drawn!
Clearly, this is no ordinary stuffy political treaty signing. It seems like an entire festival has sprung from this single event.
I really like how there are minifigs from almost every year and theme LEGO has created for their long-running castle set lines. Plus, those altBricks leaves give the scene a lively look that would certainly be lacking otherwise. Be sure to check out all the pictures in the builder’s Flickr album.
It’s just over one week to the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens (a bunch of the TBB crew are seeing it Thursday night), so expect another spike in LEGO Star Wars creations here over the next while. Daniel Stoeffler has built C-3PO, R2-D2, and BB-8 from The Force Awakens to the same scale. This size lets Daniel show off a wealth of details, such as the actuators on Threepio’s neck.
As a bonus mashup, here’s the Star Wars trio with another pair of robots with winning personalities, Wall-E and EVE.
Jimmy Fortel continues to knock it out of the park using the fencing foil seed part from the current round of Iron Builder. Jimmy’s latest creation is an antique Singer sewing machine that uses the foil as the sewing needle. But let’s be honest — what stands out in this model is less the use of the seed part than the beautiful shaping of the overall sewing machine, along with all the excellent details like the spool and balance wheel.
Tired of decorating your Christmas cookies by hand? Jason Allemann of JK Brickworks is back to prove that any problem can be solved with LEGO. Jason has built this super cool LEGO Mindstorms EV3 robot to decorate cookies at the push of a button, and he’s even included instructions on how to build one yourself. Watch the video below to see it in action.
We’re on Day 8 of TBB’s virtual LEGO Advent Calendar series. Today’s installment, Day 8, brings us another set of mini-kits from both LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Friends.
We’ll be unveiling the mini-kits or minifigs from each Advent Calendar around this time every day, and we won’t ruin the surprise — you’ll need to click through to reveal the LEGO behind the tiny doors.
Click to see the Day 8 mini-kits!
The Palace of Westminster, known to most as the Houses of Parliament, has been built in 1:650 scale by Rocco Buttliere. The model is making its debut at BRICK 2015, which takes place at the London Excel, December 11th-13th.
Rocco Buttliere is a fourth-year student in the College of Architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology and his amazing 1:650 scale builds, depicting famous skyscrapers and landmarks, have been the main focus of attention. His collection includes models from eleven global cities including Chicago, New York City, Dubai, Paris, Los Angeles, Toronto, Shanghai, Dallas and of course, London.
Following a successful Kickstarter campaign all 43 of Rocco’s models are making their way to London and will be on display at BRICK 2015. You can find out more about Rocco and his models, including digital downloads of his work, on MOCpages.
