While I’m obligated every time I highlight graffiti to say that I don’t condone vandalism, I love to see great street art. This photo by clockity shows the artist’s progress as he squeezes Wolverine in between some larger pieces.
Have any of our readers in Brighton seen this in person? Know who the artist is?
One benefit of getting together with other LEGO fans at local club meetings is that you get to hear the thought process that goes into their LEGO models. Shawn Snyder (Flickr) has been building fantastic character sculptures for years — remember his amazing Predator bust? — and lately he’s been bringing his figures to SEALUG meetings long before he posts them online.
One of his recent figures is the villainous Venom, here taking down Spider-Man. Venom’s brick-built spider logo and teeth are particularly nice.
What’s fascinating about Shawn’s building style is that he says he never starts with a particular scale in mind. He always starts by working at building a head until it looks right, and then he works his way down (or not, in the case of his large-scale busts). Shawn’s characters are also nearly always articulated, and he incorporates structural support to enable dynamic posing. My brain just doesn’t work like that.
Since it looks like we missed it when he posted it after Emerald City Comic Con last year, here’s Shawn’s awesome Altaïr from the original Assassin’s Creed.
I can’t wait to see what he’ll bring to the SEALUG display at ECCC this year, in just a couple of weeks.
I really miss the heyday of Japanese LEGO mecha builders a few years ago, where it seemed like a stellar new mech appeared online almost constantly. Growing up with Gundam and Macross on TV in Japan (well, when I was allowed to watch TV by my missionary parents…), giant robots piloted by impossibly chiseled youth still hold a special place in my heart.
Thankfully, I can still get my Japanese LEGO mecha fix from builders like LEGOROBO (legorobo:waka on Flickr). His AFA-8 Cynomys walker is full of crazy angles and believable details whose purpose I can only imagine. Just check out those toes!
Amazon.com has discounted 3189 Heartlake Stables
Amazon also has 21011 Brandenburg Gate
This Build-On Brick Mug seems well suited to hold your caffeinated beverage for those late-night building sprees.
There’s a reason pretty much everything Mark Stafford (lego_nabii) builds is blogworthy. After all, he’s talented enough to design sets for LEGO. Thankfully, he doesn’t keep all that talent hidden behind closed doors, and continues to post his own LEGO models. His latest is a wonderful starfighter with an interesting color contrast between the front and back, with great greebles in between.
Here’s a great Hobbit diorama for you. This scene by Legopard depicts the tricky situation Thorin’s company find themselves in, as they’re backed to the edge of a precipice before being rescued by eagles, which is also the subject of the official set Attack of the Wargs. Legopard’s eagle is a true standout here, with some really terrific sculpting, and the whole diorama conveys the film’s scene excellently.
We’ll get to the annual Toy Fair trade show in New York at some point, but in the meantime, FBTB continues to provide great coverage of all the upcoming LEGO sets we can expect in 2013.
Show highlights include new LEGO Lord of the Rings sets, the usual Star Wars assortment, and the first official unveiling of the Lone Ranger sets based on the upcoming movie.
Before you dive into the pictures, one important note: LEGO sets and packaging displayed at toy industry trade shows are often (but not always) prototypes. This can be particularly noticeable on the minifigs, which may have stickers on their torsos instead of printing, and accessories may even be milled or 3D-printed rather than injection-molded. Enjoy the preview, but save your “quality” commentary until official photos or the sets themselves have been released later.
It looks like there will be six sets to accompany the new Disney version of The Lone Ranger starring Johnny Depp as Tonto. LEGO designer Marcos Bessa has shared one official photo of 79111 Constitution Train Chase, so I’ll include that here alongside FBTB’s pictures.
Here’s the full list of LEGO Lone Ranger sets (revealing movie spoilers, in case you care):
After a holiday season full of new LEGO Hobbit sets, Lord of the Rings returns with a fresh batch of four sets due out in June, including 79006 The Council Of Elrond:
The full list (spoilers only if you’ve been living in a cave for the past 50 years):
Ace and his crew have also posted a few videos, starting with a preview of Battle at the Black Gate:
Here’s Pirate Ship Ambush:
Tatooine has always been my favorite planet in the Star Wars universe, so I’ve been enjoying the recent focus on that planet for sets from the Classic Trilogy, such as the updated 75020 Jabba’s Sail Barge, complete with Max Rebo:
New 2013 LEGO Star Wars sets unveiled at Toy Fair this year include:
Other lines with new sets unveiled at Toy Fair this past weekend include more Galaxy Squad, Technic, board games, and a new LEGO Castle theme due out in August:
This week’s builder should be well known to constant readers of TBB for his outstanding genre-spanning models. Whether you know him as Alex Jones or Orion Pax, you are probably familiar with his many eye-catching builds often based on popular media. From Transformers to The Munsters to Breaking Bad, the one constant is quality. I met up with Alex in Berlin, the the most “bombed” city in Europe, where he took me on an early morning tour of the city’s important pieces by Alias, Bimer and El Bocho. We talked about 99 Luftballons, Frederick 1 Barbosa vs. Frederick 1 of Prussia and which of our nations is ultimately responsible for David Hasselhoff
KG: Talk about your experience as a contributor to the book Constructed Styles, from first contact to print. There is a great shot of you posing with Kjeld and Jørgen, how was this connected to the book, and did you guys talk about bombing? It is difficult to imagine those two suits being down with that type of artistic expression, even if it is in LEGO.
AJ: My experience with LEGO regarding the book, my work with the company (projects/concepts) has left me with different feelings. For sure the whole thing was a big hit in the beginning. In 2009 when i started with LEGO as a concept designer for concept lab, was about the same time that Cole Blaq and I met for the first time. We spent hours on thinking what we could build that is new and never seen before. Since we both have a graffiti background the decission to try and build a graffiti with LEGO came very soon. After my collegue Henk Holsheimer who is also the main author of the book came across these styles he saw something new in it and wanted to push it a bit further. The first exhibition was the Constructed Styles event in Munich 2009. The book is all about that exhibition and the artists that were part of it. The picture with the two “suits” was taken in Nürnberg at Toyfair 2010. It was my 30th birthday and LEGO has a “LEGO people only” aftershow party where they usually present the new product lines. On that event we had the chance to present the models we built for the exhibition to the guys from TLG. Also you can see in the book that I gave two different LEGO graffitis to Kjield and Jörn. It seems they still have them in their office, I have been told… When LEGO started to approach the big market with the LEGO art thing, they opened up a gallery in Berlin where I was first invited to present my stuff. But when the opening event was taking place I was no longer invited. A berlin company worked together with TLG for the LEGO art box and thought my stuff was to much street art related and wouldn´t sell anyway. That was about the time my contract with LEGO ended after two years as a freelancer with them and i decided it was time to move on.
Read the full interview after the jump!
Captain Eugene brings to life a WWII era light armoured reconnaissance vehicle used by the Germans in Western Europe, the Eastern Front and North Africa. This particular variant is an SdKfz. 222 used by the Deutsche Afrika-Korps, built in 1:35 scale. Enjoy tonight’s serving of military history from a talented builder.
Bart De Dobbelaer has built a classic “baddie”, the Cacodemon, from the iconic and controversial video game “DOOM“. It is so perfect (and adorable) I need one…or three.
EDIT: I had originally written that the Cacodemon was introduced in DOOM 2, but I was in error. Many thanks to Peter Morris for the correction!
