The 1988 sci-fi Japanese animated film Akira gave life to one of the most iconic bikes that remains entrenched in pop-culture 30 years later. Making an appearance again in the recent movie Ready Player One by Steven Spielberg only further reinforces that legacy. We have Jerry Builds Bricks to thank for sharing a quick build of this amazing bike. There’s no better way to honour this favourite by building your very own miniature version of it.
Click to see the video for the build
If there really was a theme park with cloned dinosaurs, who do you think would own and operate it? Considering Walt Disney Parks is the world’s largest theme park company and Disney has a history of purchasing competitors, it’s not a huge stretch to imagine a T-Rex sporting Mickey Mouse ears. Paul Hollingsworth and his team at Digital Wizards Studios explore this hypothetical scenario in their clever brickfilm, Jurassic Disney World.
Paul and team have done a great job integrating official sets such as Cinderella’s Castle and the Jurassic World gyrospheres with custom builds like Jurassic Park jeeps and a bubblegum tank for Minnie Mouse. Every scene is densely packed with clever gags, impressive animation, and easter eggs (such as a brief cameo by a mutant dinosaur from the short-lived Dino Attack theme). Be sure to watch it twice to appreciate the finer details.
Sheep by Maxime Marion is a cute brickfilm about being true to yourself instead of following the flock. It is also a joyous celebration of the 1×1 round eye tile and its siblings the eyelash tile and the stink eye tile. Maxime creates a wide variety of emotions and expressions using various combinations of these three simple pieces.
I would argue that these eye tiles are some of the most important parts added to the LEGO palette in the last decade. Just as the introduction of the minifigure led to a major shift in the scale of vehicles and buildings, the introduction of the eye tile has led to a huge increase in character-focused creations, both in official sets and in fan creations. I hope more brickfilmers follow Maxime’s award-winning example and start incorporating brick-built characters into their films. Watch Sheep below.
First announced as a forthcoming set nearly a year ago, LEGO is finally taking the wraps off its newest crowd-sourced kit, 21311 Voltron. Based on both the iconic 1980s animated television show of the same name and its subsequent modern-day reboot by DreamWorks, the set will feature five robotic lions who can combine into the super robot Voltron. With 2,321 pieces, the massive mech will be the largest Ideas set to date, easily outpacing the Old Fishing Store and NASA Apollo Saturn V. The set will be on sale briefly at San Diego Comic-Con next month, then will be available to LEGO VIP members beginning July 23, before being widely available August 1. Voltron will retail for $179.99 USD.
Wreck-It Ralph was one of those movies that did pretty well and I thought was a great story but somehow wasn’t very memorable in the long run, for me at least. Seeing YOS Brick’s build certainly jogged my mind indeed and reignited some of the memories of Ralph going rogue (aka gone Turbo!) and with the new sequel coming up, we get two of the main characters in BrickHeadz form: Vanellope and Ralph. Well, Ralph isn’t strictly a BrickHeadz; he’s more the appropriate extended form, or to coin a new phrase: a Big Brickheadz, perhaps?
Two best buddies from the mystery-lovin’ gang in Scooby Doo takes shape in the ever-growing line of custom LEGO Brickheadz figures. Instructions for the duo are provided by Dave from Brick 101 in a video form.
It’s great to see a non-human taking shape as a BrickHeadz character instead of the typical figures we usually get. Scooby Doo is a breath of fresh air indeed and that piece of beard on Shaggy is an absolute delight!
Click here to get the video instructions
The U.S.S. Planet Express Ship is the delivery vehicle for Planet Express Delivery Service in the animated TV series Futurama. In keeping with the creator’s other animated characters, the space ship has a distinctive ‘Matt Groening overbite’. Aido K has managed to make an instantly recognisable LEGO version of the ship using a mix of System and Duplo parts. The key part that captures the shape of the ship is the large Duplo airplane fuselage, and the builder has managed to add in all the other features using LEGO bricks to make this fantastic creation.
If you know your Duplo parts, then you may be confused about the build above – the upper fuselage part is only available in red. Aido explains the magical appearance of his ship – the build is actually red with a blue stripe and and blue lights and he altered the colour hues in the photograph to achieve a green and red ship! Thanks to Aido for sending the original image as it is a beautiful build in red, let alone after some photo-manipulation to re-colour in green.
Recently, Dave Pickett from the YouTube channel Brick 101 created a video for the Argonne National Laboratory called “Chicago Pile-1: A Brick History”. The final product turned out great. Coming in at 2 minutes and 51 seconds, the animation is full of all sorts of thoughtful touches. From the composition of the scenes to the LEGO buildings found within, this is absolutely the work of a maestro.
But how exactly did he make it? David’s behind the scenes video gives some insight.
Watch the behind-the-scenes video and learn more about how LEGO stop-motion movies are made
If you’ve ever tried to create stop-motion animation using LEGO bricks before, you’ll know it takes a lot of effort. Before you check out the latest YouTube video by BrickBrosProductions (no relation to The Brothers Brick), take a moment to appreciate that it took three days and 1,500 pictures to film their 2-minute animation!
Inspired by PESfilm’s stop-motion animations, “Lego In Real Life” is a really cool short film about a boy with a LEGO Movie T-Shirt making his breakfast using LEGO-built ingredients, and the result is fantastic. Keep an eye out for the minifig fridge magnet, the bread turning into toast, and my personal favorite, the butter melting into liquid and bubbling in the frying pan.
Princesses Elsa and Anna from the 2013 animated movie Frozen have now been immortalised in LEGO by YOS Lego, with a host of ingenious parts used in bringing them to life. The builder has managed to capture those impossibly perfect hourglass figures in their flowing dresses and narrow-waisted bodices using a combination of slopes, wedges and (of course) curves. The red-headed Anna figure is fitted out in a beautifully detailed green dress, an amazing likeness to the animated Anna’s green coronation dress.
Elsa’s signature windswept, voluminous yellow hair is very cleverly made with bananas and Hero factory masks. The cheeky little bit of leg showing at the bottom of Elsa’s dress, and the more innocent posing of her younger sister, are very fitting. The characters are fantastic, but my only slight concern is that these two princess have either been drinking too much stimulant energy drinks or perhaps Olaf has given them a fright …those eyes are certainly wide and piercing!
It’s not often we get to present LEGO animation! If you’re looking for a peaceful way to spend some time this afternoon, I invite you to watch Jim Wright‘s animated Ninth Symphony, composed by Ludwig van Beethoven.
Click here to experience Beethoven’s 9th Symphony
Hobbestimus may well be giving away his status as a child of the 80s with this fantastic set of the three main vehicles from the Mobile Armored Strike Kommand. M.A.S.K. was an animated television series that screened in the mid-80s and spawned all sorts of goodies like action figures, comics, videogames and so on. From the left we have Rhino — a large truck, Thunderhawk — the red Chevrolet Camaro that could also fly, and Condor — a stealth motorcycle that could cunningly turn into a helicopter for those moments when high speed chases needed a little extra lift…
Not only was Rhino a huge truck, but it also formed a mobile defense unit with cannons, a battering-ram bumper, and a missile launcher. The builder has managed to capture all these great additions in his LEGO version.
Hobbestimus has a few other M.A.S.K builds and closer views of these vehicles in his Flickr M.A.S.K. album.
