Looking like a Lovecraftian horror from Dark Souls or Bloodborne, “Lorpho the All-Seeing” from Jason Corlett is something you wouldn’t want to run into in an alley, regardless of the lighting conditions. The printed eye pieces from the LEGO Mixels product line have been a godsend for this type of model making, and it continues to be a theme which is adored for its selection of parts.
Builder nobu_tary pumping out awesome creations is no surprise, but the Internet fame that has been bestowed upon a relatively minor character in Star Wars: The Force Awakens is. Commonly referred to as TR-8R (pronounced ‘Traitor’) this was a Stormtrooper that had an ultimately tiny role and less than a minute of screen time. Yet the Internet has deemed him the darling character of the film and created (in addition to his unofficial name) an entire mythos around him.
While it has been postulated that the character of TR-8R has more colour in the novelisation of The Force Awakens, we have this LEGO version to gawk over until that is confirmed. It should be noted that this recreation is actually a heavily modified version of LEGO’s new First Order Stormtrooper action figure set. Nevertheless, the mods are a great improvement over the original. The builder even transformed the set into a Heavy Gunner:
All I have left to say is… WHAPPITYWHAPPITYWHAPPITYWHAPPITYWHAPPITYWHAPPITY!
The January 2016 LEGO sets continue to arrive on our doorstep, so we continue our flurry of new set reviews with 75139 Battle on Takodana. This new set from The Force Awakens was released on January 1st and retails for $59.99.
As I did when reviewing 75140 Resistance Troop Transporter and other recent LEGO Star Wars sets, I’ll bury the full review under the jump, but I WILL be referencing spoilers in this review. If you’re reading a LEGO Star Wars set review about a set from The Force Awakens nearly three weeks after the movie was released, I think it’s safe to assume you’ve seen the move.
If not, SPOILERS AHEAD! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
Click through for the full review!
You’d be mistaken for not hearing of WeDo, LEGO’s education-focused robotics kits, that is basically MINDSTORMS for a younger audience. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, LEGO recently showed off its new line of WeDo 2.0 kits that can already be purchased on their US store, with the core kit costing $159.95. If you’re outside that store’s coverage area, you’ll probably need to track down the LEGO Education reseller in your country if you want to get your hands on a kit.
Other interesting news to come out of this announcement is that the WeDo programming app (which is already available on PC, Mac, iOS and Android) is coming to Chromebook in the second half of 2016.
British builder Tim Goddard (aka Rogue Bantha) is well-known for building Space-themed creations, and his newest build is an eye-catching lime spaceship. The ‘classic space’ colours of grey, blue and transparent yellow have been shunned to create this sublime spaceship. This is another of Tim’s own explorations to broaden his use of colour within the Space theme; we previously blogged his white, tan and azure microscale spacecraft.
Tim’s curved ship is beautifully shaped and vaguely reminiscent of a lime wedge in my mind. There are some lovely little details including discrete use of official LEGO stickers. I am definitely a fan of Tim’s ‘greebles’, whose positioning suggests a hugely complex spaceship by showing a ‘teaser’ surface view. The ship’s hull is suitably futuristic with just the right amounts of lime balanced by white and light blueish grey.
The somewhat garish lime colouring and abundance of probes suggests this is more of a scientific exploration vessel, unless it has a cloaking mechanism…
W. Navarre ended the year with a flurry of activity aimed at the 13th Colossal Castle Contest and might have a shot at the Master Builder prize with the breadth and variety of his entries. My personal favorite is one of his last, this foreboding fortress built into a cliff that appears to be spewing lava!
In addition to the fearsome skull on the front, the fortress has an interior. Behind the door is a working portcullis.
Dane Erland proves below that you don’t have to use color to build a creation that catches the eye. This tip-toeing beast is named Ghoulspine and I imagine he slinks up to his prey silently but for the gentle sound of a cooling fan or two. Is that sleek tail used for balancing, swimming, or something else? I’m not sure, but it’s lovely nonetheless. Also, check out those ingenious shields sported by the Ghoulspine’s two handlers.
…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.
LEGO has announced the finalists for the third and last 2015 review round from their crowdsourcing platform, LEGO IDEAS. To qualify, each project had to garner 10,000 votes on the IDEAS website. Being a finalist means LEGO will take a serious look at turning the project into an official LEGO set. It does not, however, guarantee that the project will definitely be created into a set. Generally LEGO selects a single project to move forward to set design, though sometimes none of the finalists make the cut. The IDEAS platform has brought us a wide variety of sets, from The Big Bang Theory, to Birds, to the recently released Doctor Who set.
2015’s second review round is still pending, though an announcement is expected early this year.
