If you’re a minifigure customizer or just interested in making your own custom minifigs, BrickJournal is presenting a book on minifigure customization to be released in May 11. Written by Jared Burks (Kaminoan), the 84-page full-color book is available for $8.46 if you pre-order it from the publisher. Meanwhile, you can download a preview of the book.
Frederic (Shamisenfred) has a fairly unusual take on LEGO spaceships for his Andromedan Empire series. His latest ‘Chimere’ prototype fits the series perfectly with the mixture of heavy curves and nautical shapes.
With this lovely airport, Rakanishu1024 has built one of the most substantial LEGO models I’ve seen that uses the Micropolis standard, complete with landing lights on the runway.
Via MicroBricks.
With our announcement of Numereji 2421, it’s clear the convention season is upon us, but the collaborative display that we’re organizing is hardly the only group build at BrickCon this fall. Iain Heath has just announced PythonScape, a Miniland-scale homage to the wonder and beauty of Monty Python.
I’ve already called dibs on the Black Knight, but there are still plenty of funny characters and scenes open for contributions. Following the success of Bricks of Character, I’m sure this is going to be awesome.
The Pirates of the Caribbean LEGO sets released today reminded me that we’re starting to get footage of the upcoming LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean
I don’t quite recall who recommended China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station
Where my other favorite authors of speculative fiction — unoriginally Bradbury, Clarke, and Asimov — may have One Big Idea that drives the plot of any one novel, Mieville’s writing overflows with such originality that a Big Idea on the scale of those that drive the work of the Grand Masters of Science Fiction might just be a background detail for this up-and-coming master of the “New Weird.”
Wait, wrong blog! Here’s a lovely steampunk gentleman by Pascal reminiscent of the Remade in Perdido Street Station. Awesome!
My lovely wife pre-ordered Valve’s Portal 2
EDIT: Of course, these are so timely and cool that we blogged them twice. Well, at least you can watch the video in my post:
Portal 2
As a bonus, check out the multi-colored turrets by Ryan (L D M) inspired by this trailer.
In time for the movie’s release next month, the new LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean sets are now available from the LEGO Shop online.
4195 Queen Anne’s Revenge has 1,094 pieces and comes with 7 minifigs, including Blackbeard, Jack Sparrow, and Angelica.
It looks like a great pirate ship, but I’m most excited by a lot of the smaller sets, such as 4191 Zombie Pirates and4192 Fountain of Youth.
It’s nice that the Pirates of the Caribbean sets aren’t all vehicles, but 4193 The London Escape does have a couple of cute carriages.
Click the image below to check out the full line:
I know nought about Iron Man but Alex Schranz (“Orion Pax”) was obviously a fan of the comic and has dedicated 55cm worth of ABS to recreating this armoured superhero. His dedication to recreating the ‘muscles’ on the figure really lend it a drawn air. And as an added bonus the light in the chest actually works. Superb building.
The keen-eyed will notice a slight difference between the most recent four shots and the rest.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of human space flight, as we celebrate Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin‘s historic orbit on April 12, 1961. This year also marks the start of a new but attenuated space age — one without NASA’s Space Shuttle program. In a sense, humanity stands at a fork in the road of our collective existence. Do we fold back in on ourselves and continue eking out a day-to-day existence on a planet with fewer and fewer resources, or do we adapt to our changing world and find new ways of living — both here at home and possibly beyond?
These are serious questions with philosophical, scientific, and political import. But they’re also pretty cool inspiration for building with LEGO! The collaborative display for readers of The Brothers Brick at BrickCon 2011 later this year is titled Numereji 2421.
For hundreds of years humans traveled through space like locusts, jumping from one planet to the next as they exhausted each home in turn. An outbound emigrant ship suffered a navigational and power failure that led to crash landing on Numereji, a terrestrial planet with a breathable atmosphere. Although the colonists crashed in an arid part of the planet, there may be a broad variety of environments beyond the horizon.
They settled into their home and built the town of New Howland. They held little hope of response to their distress signal, and for thirty years they survived off the remains of their ship, struggling to live alongside the alien flora and fauna. In time, they built a thriving, sustainable community.
Things changed five years ago when rescuers unexpectedly arrived and tenuous links were established with Outworld communities. Waves of immigrants have begun to arrive, and New Howland has become the main spaceport. Will Numerians follow the old pattern or take the new path blazed by the pioneering crash survivors?
The theme of BrickCon 2011 is “Building a Community.”
Applying this theme to the collaborative display we’ll all build together, in what direction will your contribution take our fragile colony? Will you build a wind farm or a smuggler’s base? A cyber-library or Terran Expeditionary Marines recruiting office? Our future rests in your hands. The choice is yours.
We don’t currently have any particular standards in mind for the display, though we are returning to minifig-scale. The inevitable mix of technologies, terrains, and building styles provides lots of opportunities for a diversity of contributions.
Sources of inspiration for this display include:
“The Lady of the Lake” by Brandon Bannerman (Catsy) combines innovative lighting, forced perspective, and a little software wizardry to create a gorgeous Arthurian scene.
Don’t miss Brandon’s setup shot for more info on how he achieved this photo.
Of course, everyone knows that strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
