Though the new 2010 LEGO Atlantis sets were briefly revealed at a LEGO fan event in Russia, we didn’t have high-resolution pictures until now.
Dano has the full set, but here are a few highlights.
The minifigs are especially intriguing, with new aqua helmets for humans and intriguing creatures who live in the deep.
Zombie Apocafest 2009 has come and gone. The undead have been blown up, shot up, and mulched to oblivion. The humans stand victorious among the ruins of their civilization. Fortunately, that civilization was, by good fortune, built from LEGO, and it can be rebuilt, brick by little plastic brick.
Check out the full gallery of Zombie Apocafest 2009 photos in Thanel’s photostream on Flickr.
The display this year was more than double the size of last year’s, with 17 tables covered in all manner of buildings and vehicles, ranging from little mini-tanks to a fig-scale tanker. Once again, we had the organizational genius of LEGOLAND Master Model Maker Gary McIntire laying out the city, with major contributions from other LEGOLAND staffers, including Ryan Wood (Port ChiefLUG) and Joel Baker (awesome zombie head).
As announced before BrickCon, we had four prize categories. Here are the winners:
A huge “Thank you!” to BrickArms for their awesome contributor’s weapons packs, and to Valve for a batch of wicked Left 4 Dead 2 T-shirts!
So, how do these things work? What does it take to pull together a collaborative LEGO layout that covers a couple hundred square feet of display space? What have we learned after running a display at a LEGO convention for two years? Off we go…
Soliciting “cornerstone” LEGO creations, recruiting lots of good builders, and working with sponsors and partners is hard work. Similarly, planning for enough space with convention organizers takes time.
Despite my rather chirpy online persona, I have a subversive streak a mile wide. This manifests itself in my political vignettes and the occasional snarky comment. Before BrickCon 2008, a large-scale collaborative display of undead LEGO minifigs overrunning a Cafe Corner city, built by the adults who read The Brothers Brick, seemed like a reasonably subversive idea. I think last year’s display worked so well because that’s precisely what it was.
As cool as I think this year’s display turned out to be, it was a little spread out, and it was rather heavy on the small vehicles with spikes and ladders. The world really needs to be a nicer place than the purely ironic perspective some espouse, but really, some measure of self-referential irony would’ve been welcome.
I’m not a parent, and I don’t judge others’ parenting styles (okay, I do, but only a little bit). But it’s hard for me to imagine encouraging interest in the hyper-violent world of flesh-eating zombies and brain-smashing survivors. The subversive and ironic aspects of a zombie apocalypse built out of LEGO are likely lost on the 11-14 set.
Let’s be honest: The kiddies like the BrickArms, and will do just about anything for prototypes.
We’re big fans of the high-quality custom accessories produced by Will Chapman and his team, and can’t believe how generous they are. Will donated 35 packs of weapons for contributors, including hand-produced cricket bats at our request. Wow.
Nevertheless, we’ve all seen the “wil U trad wit me? kthxby” mentality on display in recent months, and I have to admit that the display this year seemed to attract a bit more interest from the 11-14 set than I’d anticipated.
In fact, there were at least two kids who leaned over the barricades during the public hours, asked to put one minifig on the display and asked for a contributor’s pack. Seriously, kids? The answer to both questions was — and will remain — a firm “No.” (I did let them take a picture of their figs on the display. I’m not a total jerk.)
Overall, I’m happy about how things went with Zombie Apocafest 2009, but it will be the last Zombie Apocafest, and I don’t plan for us to repeat themes from year to year. I’m even happier to report that we’re changing things up for next year. We’ve run our BrickCon 2010 display idea by a few attendees, and we’ll be announcing next year’s theme shortly. Plans are already underway…
LEGO are inviting people to help contribute ideas to their KIDS Tech Conference in Northern Spring next year. Read more on the two pages linked to below.
NB. The title is a little misleading. It is for adults to submit ideas for Kids Tech, not kids to submit ideas for Tech.
Links taken from lego-adam.
DK’s new LEGO book LEGO Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary
The book is 96 pages long and includes an exclusive Luke Skywalker minifig in ceremonial garb from the end of A New Hope.
(And by the way, it’s only $12.86 from Amazon.)
Like years past, BrickCon 2009 was both exhausting and exhilarating. Bear with us as we travel home, sort through photos, and put our thoughts in writing. I’ll update this post over the next couple of days, along with a full write-up of Zombie Apocafest 2009.
In the meantime, please enjoy the photos we’ve all been uploading. I dropped my camera on its lens first thing this morning (Khaaan!), so Thanel has kindly given me permission to upload a few of the photos we took together of the zombie layout.
Thanel acted as The Brothers Brick’s official photographer for the weekend, and has pictures of just about everything.
The BrickCon pool on Flickr is the best way to find all our event pics in one place.
As much fun as running the zombie layout was, the highlight of the weekend for me was winning “Best of Microscale” for my micro Battlestar Galactica hangar. My look of surprise was both genuine and absolutely ridiculous.
Here’s a quick roundup of BrickCon follow-ups from around the Web:
UPDATE: As of January 1, 2010, 10210 Imperial Flagship is now available from the LEGO Shop online.
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A new LEGO Shop exclusive set, LEGO Pirates 10210 Imperial Flagship, was announced at BrickCon 2009 earlier this evening.
Here’s the full announcement from LEGO:
10210 Imperial Flagship
Ages 14+. 1,664 pieces.
US $179.99 CA $229.99 UK £ 139.99 DE € 149.99Build an incredible classic sailing ship!
All hands on deck! This amazingly detailed and realistic historical ship has three removable sections. The main hull contains 4 firing cannons, ammunition crates, muskets, torches, cannonballs, a prison with a rat, a fully-equipped ship’s kitchen, working anchor, moving rudder and a saw shark figurehead. The front deck has an opening door to the inside of the ship and sails with masts and rigging. The back house deck has opening doors to the captain’s chambers containing a map, poison bottle, organ and a treasure chest full of jewels and gold. The Imperial Flagship has 6 opening windows, a telescope and sextant and 3 deck lanterns. Includes 9 minifigures: the ship’s captain, his daughter, a pirate captain prisoner with shackles, the ship’s cook, a lieutenant, and 4 soldiers. Measures 29.5” (75 cm) long and 23.6” (60 cm) tall. Ages 14+. 1,664 pieces
- Includes 9 minifigures: the ship’s captain, his daughter, a pirate captain prisoner with shackles, the ship’s cook, a lieutenant, and 4 soldiers!
- Amazingly detailed and realistic ship features 3 removable sections!
- Main hull contains 4 firing cannons, ammunition crates, muskets, torches, cannonballs, prison with a rat, saw shark figurehead, a moving rudder and a fully-equipped ship’s kitchen with fish, turkey legs and a carrot!
- Raise and lower the working anchor!
- Open the front deck’s working doors and play inside!
- Imperial Flagship is equipped with masts and rigging!
- Open the back house deck’s doors to reveal the captain’s chambers complete with a map, poison bottle, organ and even a treasure chest filled with jewels and gold!
- Features 6 opening windows, a telescope and sextant as well as 3 deck lanterns!
- Measures 29.5” (75 cm) long and 23.6” (60 cm) tall!
I’ve uploaded a full gallery of high-res photos to Flickr.
With much relief, I’m pleased to announce that 10199 Winter Toy Shop is now available from the LEGO Shop online.
For $60, you get 7 minifigs and 815 pieces. The set also has some great microscale detailing inside the shop.
No luck yet on 6299 LEGO Pirates Advent Calendar, but rest assured we’ll be talking to the team from LEGO about this at BrickCon this weekend.
Andrew, Thanel, Caylin, Dan, and myself are all heading to BrickCon. Therefore, you probably won’t hear us much over the next couple of days, other than brief updates.
Have fun and we will be thinking of you!
Last year, we posted an offer to connect people coming in by air based on their arrival times, enabling people to share transportation. That was before Seattle built a light rail line that’ll get you from the airport to Seattle Center for less than five bucks. Oh, and you get to ride a monorail along the way.
Mark Sandlin‘s Infothingy has the details:
For the graphically challenged (and to help people find this from the interwebs):
Be sure to click through the graphic to a great discussion of other useful ways to get to BrickCon for cheap — more money for bricks!
Why yes, that is a BrickArms Cricket Bat and M1 Carbine.
Thanks to the generous folks at BrickArms, we’ll be giving away a bunch of these to those of you who contribute to Zombie Apocafest 2009 at BrickCon 2009 later this week. Each Zombie Defense Pack will include a prototype cricket bat and M1 carbine, along with other great stuff that remains Top Secret.
The cricket bats in particular will be in short supply outside these packs, and there will be a limited number of packs, so be sure to build something awesome.
It’s not so much that this was a slow news week, but that most of us have been too busy with last-minute preparations for a certain LEGO convention happening in just a few days to blog everything. Anyway, here we go.
The house that May built: James May’s LEGO house has been destroyed. Worse, a LEGO version of May’s cat Fusker built by a LEGO fan was stolen from the house.Well, if we haven’t convinced you to attend BrickCon next week, you’re pretty much stuck following along at home, so we’re moving on without you. For those of you who’ll be joining us at Seattle Center a week from today, this post includes a bunch of important information — especially for first-time attendees.
Past attendees will also notice that this is largely an update of last year’s post. Please forgive the repetition.
MOC cards identify your LEGO creations for fellow attendees and the general public. They also help theme organizers like Josh and me plan for how much space is needed.
Fill out your MOC cards on BrickCon.org by September 28 to ensure that they’re printed on the nice card stock that will help them stand up next to your amazing LEGO creations.
Remember, only “registered” LEGO creations (ones with MOC cards) will be eligible for the various awards given out by BrickCon.
By the way, unless you want to spend the public hours explaining what “SNOT” and “MOC” are to kids and their parents, avoid “AFOL-speak” in your descriptions. Seriously.
Drafting a LEGO set allows you to get parts in large quantities that you might otherwise have to buy individually (from, say, Bricklink). Read more about how the draft works on SEALUG.org. If you want to participate, the draft set for BrickCon 2009 is 5972 Space Truck Getaway
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Dirty Brickster is a LEGO “white elephant” gift exchange. Bring something that would be worth $10-20 to the recipient, wrapped.
Before you stuff your LEGO into your carry-on luggage, consider reading the LUGNET post by Duane Hess and the Classic-Castle.com article by Lenny Hoffman about packing and shipping LEGO.
Wouldn’t you rather spend your time socializing and integrating your pristine creations into the display instead of rebuilding them?
You should soon be receiving a message from BrickCon organizers with details on when, where, and how to unload your LEGO creations at Seattle Center. Last year, the loading dock was only available during the following times (we’ll update this as the 2009 times are finalized):
Given the limited space (it’s a tunnel), please only use the loading dock if you have massive amounts to unload.
One of the most interesting things about LEGO User Group (LUG) meetings is getting to see another LEGO fan’s building space.
If you’d like to share what your LEGO room looks like with fellow BrickCon attendees, bring a few good photos on a thumb drive for projection during the con.
With a week left, you still have time to build something and bring it for one of the many collaborative displays. Here’s a list of the various themes planned for this year’s convention:
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See you next week!
