It looks like Niel’s box fighter, which I just blogged earlier today is already inspiring some imitations. Nathan Proudlove and Mark Sandlin have each already built copies. I always seem to miss out on these new group building trends and memes. I think I’m going to try to get in on the ground floor on this one and head to the LEGO room and whip up one of my own.
Nathan Proudlove has given The Matrix some renewed attention with his new sentinel creation. He took pains to make it simple enough that it can be built by almost anyone and from parts that are in most collections. He even took extra time to post some instructions so that we could each build our own.
Niels Bugge has built a very interesting creation for SciLug’s small starfighter contest. The contest requires the starfighter to fit within a small box when landed. Many entrants tried to deal with this restriction by making a craft with folding wings or a rotating engines, but Niels pushed these techniques to a new level. His craft folds into a box shape which barely fits into the space limitation, but when unfolded, you would never know that it had been a box. This creation is an excellent starfighter, regardless of its ability to fold into a small space. Better, still, Niels has provided some instructions, which can be found on his instructions page, here.
Hi everyone, Dan Rubin here, and I’d like to introduce myself as the newest member of The Brothers Brick team. I’m thirty-ish years old, married, and an attorney. I live in the Washington, D.C. area, where I’ve been helping organize local LEGO conventions for the past several years.
The spacers among you may recognize me as the main admin of the forums at classic-space.com. Others may know me as the creator of the Galactic Inquisition space sub-theme. I’ve been active in the online LEGO community since I joined LUGNet in 2003, which is also the first year that I attended a LEGO Convention.
I’ll mostly be blogging about space and mecha creations, as that’s where my own skills lie, and also what I see the most, because of where I browse online. That doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate a quality creation in any theme, though. I’ll leave you with a photo of my most recent creation, and a promise to start blogging about cool stuff as soon as possible.
I’m very pleased to announce that Daniel Rubin is joining The Brothers Brick as a contributor.
We’ve featured Dan pretty regularly over the years (the yellow beauty to the right was the first, way back in 2006), and Dan has contributed enormously to the LEGO fan community — particularly as a CSF Admin and LEGO Ambassador.
I’ve also had the pleasure of hanging out with Dan at LEGO conventions, and he’s just as much of a great guy in person as he is online.
Without any further prattling from me, here’s Dan in his own words. Take it away, Dan!
Lunchtime conversation today turned to the various bats my coworkers and I have had in our houses. It didn’t occur to us that having Ozzy Osbourne around might’ve helped.
Rock on, Mr. Spielbrick.
Moko’s latest hair technique gives me an excuse to post his beautiful girl in a kimono (something we haven’t featured before):
Via The Living Brick, Ochre Jelly’s new LEGO sculpture blog.
That last post deserves an Arvo chaser.
Not only do the Brothers Arvo create a Citroën DS, they also add a funny little detail — a wheel clamp, or “boot” — that makes sure their gorgeous car can’t get away. Time to pay your parking tickets!
In news sure to disappoint unsupervised tweens everywhere, knock-off construction toy company Mega Bloks announced that they’ve won the license to produce toys based on the Halo video game universe.
DRIVEN magazine has a roundup of the reaction from around the gamer community, but what does this mean to LEGO fans? What effect will this have on BrickForge (and their “Space Marine” armor) and BrickArms (with their sci-fi weapons)?
What do you think? Sound off in the comments (here or over on DRIVEN, if you like). Thanks for the tip, Eric Grant!
Next up in our series of Admin interviews is a conversation we had with Dan Rubin, one of the Admins at Classic Space Forums.
TBB: How long has Classic Space been in existence?
Dan: The forums on classic-space.com (CSF) were publicly announced on December 19, 2004, so we’re just a couple of months from our Fourth anniversary. The site was founded by Chris Giddens, with help from some other members of the space community. A year or so ago, family and work pressures convinced Chris that he needed to step down, and he handed over CSF to me.
TBB: What is purpose of CSF?
Dan: Simply put, the purpose is the discussion of space and LEGO. It’s a place to hang out, and to discuss MOCs, and get criticism (constructive I hope) from other builders who build in these themes.
TBB: What does classic space include? More specifically, does it exclude Star Wars?
Dan: Classic-space really includes any sort of science fiction. This is not limited to purely space born creations, we also embrace steampunk, mecha, apocalego, and pretty much any other sci-fi genres you can think of. That means that we definitely don’t exclude Star Wars. However, Star Wars can be a bit of a sticky subject, as while it is welcome, it’s not our specialization. Many of the members of CSF have gotten tired of seeing new X-wing mocs, and can be a bit snippy about that, if they don’t see anything special or new about the latest post.
TBB: What is your vision for the future of CS?
Dan: My vision is for CSF to continue to grow and evolve as a place for discussion of scif-fi and sci-fi MOCs. I’m a huge believer in free speech, and I like to think that encourages frank and open exchange of ideas on the forum. Sometimes it also means that people can get carried away, but I like to think that we’re all enriched. The style of MOC critique on CSF is sometimes harsh, and while some people don’t like it when the kid gloves are off, others appreciate hearing a response other than “OMG! That’s awesome!”
TBB: How would you describe your members?
Dan: Our membership is constantly changing. Many of our members have been a part of the online LEGO community for five years or more, but we’re constantly growing. I think that, generally, our members are LEGO fans (be they AHOL or THOL) who are into sci-fi.
TBB: What issues are you dealing with as CS grows?
Dan: We’ve had various growing pains. We’ve had our fair share of flame wars and maturity issues among some of the members. I think this is common for pretty much any online forum, though. We’ve also had bandwidth issues. Steve Runnels hosts the forums and website on his own server, and foots the bill to keep the site online himself. Recently, I moved our concept art gallery – which is used to inspire sci-fi creations, even by LEGO designers – over to flickr.com in order to save some bandwidth.
TBB: What is the biggest reason that people should join CS?
Dan: If you want to see and discuss some great sci-fi MOCs, CSF is the place for you. We also have a lot of user-generated articles to help teach techniques for building sci-fi. It’s a great place to help hone your own space skills.
Thank you, Dan!
(see our interview with Eurobricks admin, Mark Larson, as well)
Shannon Sproule (Ocean) plays with Giovanni Seynhaeve’s mish-mash Aquastlenauts theme and makes one of the coolest creatures I’ve ever seen in LEGO. There is just so much character in this entire scene.
The complete series of early 2009 LEGO City Farm sets are now available from the LEGO Shop online.
7637 Farm includes two black-and-white cows, tan fedora, tractor, and more:
7634 Tractor and 7636 Combine Harvester
add critical vehicles to your agribusiness:
A hearty “Moo!” to reader kastlekid for the tip.