The latest edition of Hispabrick Magazine is now available.
Hispabrick Magazine 004 includes:
Check out Hispabrick Magazine 004 on HispabrickMagazine.com today!
| In a feat of LEGO naval engineering rivaled only by Malle Hawking’s USS Harry S Truman and Ed Diment’s HMS Hood, Jumpei Mitsui (JunLEGO) completed his World War II battleship Yamato today. |
LEGO battleship Yamato has some very impressive specifications:
Jumpei’s LEGO version is based on the way Yamato appeared immediately prior to the fateful Operation Ten-Go in 1945.
Jumpei built LEGO Yamato to answer the question he posed to himself all the way back in elementary school: “How big would Yamato be from a LEGO minifig’s perspective?” A third-year college student today, Jumpei can now demonstrate exactly what that would look like!
Breaking through the language barrier, Jumpei pioneered the use of Bricklink among Japanese LEGO fans to source the two hundred thousand LEGO elements necessary to build Yamato.
Yamato includes wonderful details like the Imperial chrysanthemum emblem on the bow and a brick-built Japanese navy flag flying from the bridge. The superstructure is especially impressive.
See more photos of this amazing LEGO creation on Jumpei Mitsui’s website and in his LEGO Battleship Yamato gallery on Brickshelf (when moderated).
Not to be confused with the fictional Space battleship Yamato, the real Japanese battleship Yamato was launched in 1941, and remains the largest battleship ever constructed by any navy.
Having fired her guns against Allied forces only once during the Pacific War, Yamato was sunk in 1945, taking nearly 2,500 of her 2,700 crew to their deaths.
Six years in the making, Jumpei Mitsui’s LEGO battleship Yamato is major news in the LEGO fan community. The Brothers Brick will get in touch with Jumpei and try to arrange an interview for our English-speaking readers. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy the pictures.
Every once in a while, a master builder joins the online LEGO community from out of the blue and brings along a slew of eye-opening creations. In my recent perusal of Flickr, I came across a new member who prefers to be addressed humbly as Donut. On the other hand, his creations are nothing of the modest kind – they are the works of a master. In my curiosity to press for the truth, I initiated a conversation with the builder that ultimately bore the fruit of this insightful and inspirational interview.
TBB: Tell us about yourself, how long have you been building?
Donut: I believe I was a kid when I got my first LEGO set, it had those cool minifigs in red, blue, and yellow that wore round hats and flew around in planes of all kinds of shapes. I feel like it’s been thirty years. I’ve been building since then until the LEGO sets themselves told me that I was too old. I was no longer 6-12 years old and that meant I can’t have no more bricks anymore. I was so overwhelmed with sadness when I gave away all my LEGO to my thirty-year old neighbor who said he had a son who loves LEGO, though I’ve never seen him. I felt so alone in the world without my bricks.
TBB: How did you get back into building?
Donut: I couldn’t bear to live a life without LEGO, so I rummaged the house and scavenged a handful of leftover bricks in all nooks and crannies. I secretly built in the closet in the basement every moment I can spare. I thought that if I’d been caught, it’d be worse than having cheated on my girlfriend. Eventually, I engineered a secret compartment in my house to store my bricks.
TBB: When did you decide to publicaly reveal your hobby and what inspired you to do so?
Donut: Well, not to sound gay or anything, but I came out of the closet just recently. I have to admit that the story was pretty embarrasing now that I think about it. I had been at work one day 
and was experiencing the most boring day of my life. Since the economy went bad, we were getting less and less customers to invest in our Margaritaville-brand magarita mixer. I was sitting in front of my computer thinking nothing but LEGO. All the while I wanted to search for LEGO on the internet. I thought that if I’d been caught, it’d be worse than having downloaded pr0n. In the end I caved in temptation, so I googled for LEGO. Lo and behold, there were all sorts of websites with adults and LEGO, it was like everyone was doing it back in the Sixties!
TBB: How did you feel afterwards?
Donut: Man, that was the best day of my life! When I came home I took out all my bricks and built for more than 48 hours non-stop. I wanted to share my creations with the world and see what everyone else is building. It was a shame I never took photos of my creations. I can say with certainty that there had been thousands of MOCs in my years of behind the scenes building. Although I’ve only built less than a dozen new creations this week, they’re all uploaded onto my new Flickr account.
TBB: In our last question to wrap up the interview, what have you concluded from your unusual experience with LEGO?
Donut: If Yu-Gi-Oh was a minifig, he’d be saying “never stop believing in the heart of the bricks!” Phrases like that catch on when you have kids who watch cartoons. But in addition to that, I also want to say to never believe the age markings on the LEGO boxes, because you can never be too old to build. That’s what I love about these bricks, man: I get older, they stay the same shape. I love the smell of bricks in the morning. It smells like victory. Recently someone saw my LEGO room and told me that this is madness, but I screamed to his face “this is LEGOland!” and kicked him into the nearest uncovered manhole on the streets. From above I told him my momma always said “life is like a tub of LEGO bricks. You never know what you’re gonna get”. So until then, hasta la vista, baby.
Our friends at the Jørgen Vig Knudstorp blog always finds ways to parody our favorite chief executive officer of LEGO. For the April Fools bonus, we get an extra dose of Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen along with Jørgen at no extra charge! Enjoy this special comic made by John of Brickspace.org. Speaking of which, you should definitely check out his regularly updated blog.
Contrary to what you see of me as a LEGO builder, blogger, seller, collector, and ambassador, I actually run a double life as a high ranking member of the mafia, and I work the night shift to clean up the streets and run various errands. Of course, you know this can’t be true, or can it? In either case, I can’t tell you too much of what I do. I’ll leave it to you to judge the authenticity of this picture that speaks a thousand words.
Well-placed sources in the United States government have recently revealed that LEGO blogger and alleged poet Andrew Becraft is in fact the same person as international super-spy and beloved raconteur Steven Andrew Ogilvy.
Leaked technical specifications reveal that the LEGO minifig, or so-called sigfig, that Becraft carries with him on his travels contains a 3D micro-camera, long-range stereo microphone, 2-terabyte flash drive, and spring-loaded poison darts.
This and other as-yet-undisclosed technology has enabled Becraft — codenamed “Dunechaser” — to surveil high-profile locations such as the UK Houses of Parliament with impunity. An anonymous MI5 agent is quoted as saying, “The unprecedented access Becraft was able to obtain using a few pieces of heavily customized Legos [sic] is astounding.”
Motives behind the exposure of “Steven Andrew Ogilvy” remain as unclear as the value of the intelligence Becraft was able to gather on his “business trips” to Great Britain, the Republic of Ireland, and New Zealand.
Fellow agents interviewed for this article (speaking on condition of anonymity) assert, “Everybody at the CIA already knew that the British Museum has lots of Egyptian statues, and that there’s a bust of James Joyce on St. Stephen’s Green. Oh, can you edit out the part where I mention the CIA?”
Others suspect that Becraft’s promotion of Danish toy maker LEGO’s Agents series may have run afoul of protectionist elements in the American government.
The big news from BrickFest 2009 may be more details about 10194 Emerald Night, but there’s more to come in the next few days. ;-)
In the meantime, attendees have begun uploading photos of displays and events.
Bill Ward already has 160+ photos online, while Mark Neumann and PurirideVry have uploaded quite a few as well.
The BrickFest pool is also getting refreshed with this year’s photos, so be sure to check it out — and add your photos if you haven’t!
March is may be winding down, but the level of creations being posted for the LEGO Neo-Classic-Space project sure aren’t. Some really spectacular stuff has been posted lately. There’s a really cool research base by Ben Jarvis, shown below. Not to mention Adrian Drake’s massive updated rendition of the 6950 Mobile Rocket Transport (which is the huge truck with rocket, at right). I also cannot get enough of the LL-301 Falcon (below, spaceship) by Stuart Crawhaw. Stuart used old train rail pieces to make the wings, which came out beautifully. I’m also really excited, because I’m finally going to be able to post my own creation tonight, after more than a month of keeping it secret.
Troy Cobb worked with the model builders at LEGOLAND California to arrange a special sign on the Eiffel Tower (part of the Miniland Las Vegas display), asking his girlfriend Lacey Williams if she’d marry him.
Troy and Lacey are both LEGO fans who took a special trip to LEGOLAND California to celebrate Valentine’s Day and Lacey’s birthday. Naturally, Lacey said yes, and they plan to have LEGO cake-toppers at their wedding.
Read the full story on coloradoan.com. Thanks to everyone who sent us the link!
Long time spacer, turned sculptor, turned non-builder, Felix Greco has returned to the brick, and now he’s building castle creations. He’s built a cute little cottage, with some stone work that I think adds a nice touch of realism. I’m also a fan of the way he made the lattice windows on the first floor. The fact that it’s home to the “ice cream knocker over-er” just adds to my delight.
This modified sphere by wnc.thomas is a great tribute to Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Kind of made me sad….I still miss Douglas Adams.
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.
