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.
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!
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)
To celebrate his birthday recently, Ed Diment showed off this massive structure — the CN Tower — he built at age six back in 1978:
It somehow seems appropriate that Ed grew up to build HMS Hood.
Anybody else out there have photos of themselves with LEGO from twenty years ago? Thirty? More? I posted mine from 1978 a couple years ago.
Do share. :D
Our three-part interview with LEGO Designer Mark Stafford is now available in French on the FreeLUG website.
If you missed it the first time around in English, check it out:
The Brothers Brick releases all of our original content under a CreativeCommons license, and we’re happy to work with other LEGO fan sites and organizations to deliver our content in a variety of ways (like the mecha news feed on Mecha Hub). If you’re interested in using any of the content here on The Brothers Brick, just let us know.
And please let me know if I got the French in the headline wrong! ;-)
Hi all,
As Andrew’s TOS post makes clear there have been some recent comments on TBB that have made editing it a little less pleasant than it otherwise would be. This does not mean that the content in some of those posts wasn’t somewhat valid, particularly one issue which I do somewhat agree with. So, without further ado:
How can I improve my model coverage on TBB? I’m going to leave the question open but will point out a couple of things which are relavent.
1) We (as a site) like to use a lot of links here. This makes writing a post more difficult and writing a post about someone new even more difficult while we track down their online details.
2) Photography standards are important here. When I show my AFOL friends links I will post poorly photographed but good MOCs. I would not usually post them here.
Unfortunately I’m going to be gone to Brickvention for a few days so any response will be patchy but I’m more interested in hearing your thoughts on this anyway.
And please note this is coming from me and me alone. It is not a broad editorial issue and should not be treated as such. I’d like to know how I can improve my coverage (without taking more time).
Cheers,
Tim
Gary McIntire was featured on CNN today, talking about his work on the Miniland version of Barack Obama’s upcoming Presidential Inauguration at LEGOLAND California. Here’s the video:
Also check out the photo gallery from the San Diego Union-Tribune.
(Hat tip to my brother in San Diego for the photo link and to Daniel Brown for the CNN link.)