Tag Archives: BrickCon

BrickCon happens the first weekend in October every year in Seattle. BrickCon is the longest continuously running LEGO fan convention in the world, and it’s also our favorite LEGO con! Learn more (and consider attending yourself) at BrickCon.org.

Fire or Renewal: A History of the CSS Howland Survivors on Numereji

As we head into the summer building and convention season, we’re pleased to bring you a genuine, original science-fiction short story and concept art to serve as inspiration for Numereji 2421, written and illustrated by Brandon “Catsy” Bannerman.

We’re keeping “building standards” pretty loose right now, with the exception of tan as the primary background color for the landscape and white for salvaged ship sections. Follow the discussion in the dedicated group on Flickr. In the meantime, happy reading!

“See the stars,” said the recruitment holos, brimming with high-saturation images of well-fed colonists farming an expansive homestead under a sky with multiple moons. “Find a new life in the Stellar Diaspora.” To the inhabitants of Old Earth, it was a compelling argument — Sol 3 was, in the parlance of the time, a “dump”. Two centuries of industrial civilization and a population of billions staggering inexorably towards a Malthusian terminal scenario had turned the planet into a concrete and steel wasteland of cityscapes — a place where a gallon of clean water cost more than a day in a simsense VR pod, solitary living quarters were an expensive luxury, and blue sky was a thing of old twenty-first century threedys. Day-to-day life on Earth was defined by escaping from it as much as possible — and space was the ultimate escape.

Thus began the Stellar Diaspora: mankind’s search for a new home worthy of the name. It began with the generation ships, colossal megastructures the size of a spacescraper intended to support hundreds of families at sublight speeds on the long journey to the nearest extrasolar planets with hydrogen in their spectral lines. But with the invention of the Cheyden faster-than-light drive, the number of worlds with the potential for colonization went from less than ten to more than a hundred virtually overnight.

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BrickCon 2011 open for registration [News]

Photo by Adam Hally

Registration is now open for BrickCon 2011! In many ways, BrickCon is the “home convention” for several of our contributors, and this is just one reason why, for a third year, we at The Brothers Brick are proud to be sponsors of BrickCon.

This year the convention theme is Building a Community and there are plenty of collaborative builds to which you can add your efforts. There are all the normal themes, such as Space, Castle, and Train, along with many new ideas and plans.

Some of the collaborations include:
Great Ball Contraptions
Pythonscape
Bling your AT-AT
The Dark Side
Pirates
War Beasts
World Architecture.

Also The Brothers Brick will be hosting our own theme and collaborative build entitled Numereji!

Keep checking the BrickCon “Themes and Collaborative Builds” page as the information will be updated when new information is available.

See you at the Con!

Announcing PythonScape at BrickCon 2011 [News]

With our announcement of Numereji 2421, it’s clear the convention season is upon us, but the collaborative display that we’re organizing is hardly the only group build at BrickCon this fall. Iain Heath has just announced PythonScape, a Miniland-scale homage to the wonder and beauty of Monty Python.

I’ve already called dibs on the Black Knight, but there are still plenty of funny characters and scenes open for contributions. Following the success of Bricks of Character, I’m sure this is going to be awesome.

Announcing “Numereji 2421” at BrickCon 2011 [News]

This year marks the 50th anniversary of human space flight, as we celebrate Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin‘s historic orbit on April 12, 1961. This year also marks the start of a new but attenuated space age — one without NASA’s Space Shuttle program. In a sense, humanity stands at a fork in the road of our collective existence. Do we fold back in on ourselves and continue eking out a day-to-day existence on a planet with fewer and fewer resources, or do we adapt to our changing world and find new ways of living — both here at home and possibly beyond?

These are serious questions with philosophical, scientific, and political import. But they’re also pretty cool inspiration for building with LEGO! The collaborative display for readers of The Brothers Brick at BrickCon 2011 later this year is titled Numereji 2421.

For hundreds of years humans traveled through space like locusts, jumping from one planet to the next as they exhausted each home in turn. An outbound emigrant ship suffered a navigational and power failure that led to crash landing on Numereji, a terrestrial planet with a breathable atmosphere. Although the colonists crashed in an arid part of the planet, there may be a broad variety of environments beyond the horizon.

They settled into their home and built the town of New Howland. They held little hope of response to their distress signal, and for thirty years they survived off the remains of their ship, struggling to live alongside the alien flora and fauna. In time, they built a thriving, sustainable community.

Things changed five years ago when rescuers unexpectedly arrived and tenuous links were established with Outworld communities. Waves of immigrants have begun to arrive, and New Howland has become the main spaceport. Will Numerians follow the old pattern or take the new path blazed by the pioneering crash survivors?

The theme of BrickCon 2011 is “Building a Community.”

NASA Mars colony concept art Applying this theme to the collaborative display we’ll all build together, in what direction will your contribution take our fragile colony? Will you build a wind farm or a smuggler’s base? A cyber-library or Terran Expeditionary Marines recruiting office? Our future rests in your hands. The choice is yours.

We don’t currently have any particular standards in mind for the display, though we are returning to minifig-scale. The inevitable mix of technologies, terrains, and building styles provides lots of opportunities for a diversity of contributions.

Sources of inspiration for this display include:

Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia
NASA and Russian/Soviet Space Agency concept art, particularly from the 60’s through 80’s
Concept Ships and affiliated blogs

It’s a Virus!

Hillel Cooperman gave us his take on the collectible minifigs earlier this month at BrickCon and I have to say that he expressed my feelings perfectly! Watch the video and tell me what you think. Just one word of warning, there is “adult” language in this video. So cover the ears of any kiddies who might be underfoot.

Many thanks to Nicole Snyder, of Dynamic Video Creations, who did the official videography at BrickCon and posted this video.

BrickCon 2010 so far

For those of you wondering what we’ve been up to at BrickCon…

Fradel takes a nap while I survive on caffeine and adrenaline.

Photos are showing up in the BrickCon group. Check ’em out.

Brickforge makes Brickcon Castle packs! [News]

The Castle layout at BrickCon is going all out this year! In support of that effort, Brickforge is contributing exclusive packs for contributors to the Castle section at the Con. Gotta love those gold helms…

Quantities are limited, so if you have something medieval, let me know about it. We can always use more Castle goodness.

BrickCon 2010: Last-minute logistics

BrickCon 2010 starts this Thursday (with the public exhibition on Saturday and Sunday). If you’re not ready yet — I know I’m not — you don’t have a whole lot of time left!

First, today and tomorrow are your last chance to register your MOC cards. Remember, only registered LEGO creations are eligible to win prizes.

At this point, your main concerns should probably be packing and traveling. (See our BrickCon 2009 logistics post for links to suggestions on how to pack your LEGO so it travels safely.)

As for getting to the convention location for less than five bucks, Mark Sandlin has updated his Infothingy™ to reflect the fact that our light rail now goes all the way from Sea-Tac Airport to Westlake Center. Throw in a bonus monorail ride to take you the rest of the way, and it’s not only inexpensive but down right awesome:

With nearly 400 registered attendees, BrickCon 2010 is shaping up to be the biggest yet. See you all there later this week!

Collaborative displays at BrickCon 2010 – info, planning, & discussion

In addition to the large-scale, theme-specific collaborate displays that BrickCon has become known for throughout the LEGO fan community — from sweeping Castle landscapes to Great Ball Contraptions that would make Rube Goldberg envious — BrickCon 2010 will also feature several new and returning favorites.

If you’re still thinking about attending, you only have a few days left to register and guarantee custom-engraved bricks in your registration packet. If you have registered, don’t forget to also register your LEGO creations by filling out MOC cards. MOC cards help theme organizers plan for the necessary space, and more importantly make your creations eligible to win convention prizes.

Each of BrickCon’s group builds is designed to be accessible to every registered attendee (sorry, no contributions during Public Hours), regardless of how big or small your LEGO collection is, and whether or not you’ve even started building yet!

Big in Japan

Zombies are so last year (and the year before)… The Brothers Brick’s official collaborative display this year takes its inspiration from the history, mythology, and pop culture of Japan. In keeping with the organic way we’ve put together layouts in years past, we’re not asking you to follow any particular standard, timeline, or even scale. We’ll have life-size ninja weapons, a minifig-scale rendition of the village from Seven Samurai, Ochre Jelly’s wonderfully unique homage to Hayao Miyazaki, the return of Mecha Godzilla, and whatever else inspires you to build something that’s … Big in Japan.

If you’re trying to think of an easy way to contribute something, consider building small for Big in Japan.

A Micropolis module isn’t parts or time intensive, and it’ll bring me one step closer to my dream of a microscale LEGO map of the entire Japanese archipelago. (I’ve built seven more modules after posting Micro Tokyo there on the right.)

Please sound off in the comments with what you’re planning to bring for Big in Japan, just so we don’t end up with three Mount Fujis.

Bricks of Character

Debuted at Bricks by the Bay earlier this year, Bricks of Character is “a Lego building theme featuring brick-built models of well known characters from film, television, literature, history, politics, or even just your imagination. Anything so long as it has personality, and isn’t just posed mini-figs” (*ahem* not that there’s anything wrong with posing minifigs).

Read more about Bricks of Character in the official announcement post on The Living Brick.

Nnenn Memorial Vic Viper Fly-in

Nnenn brick BrickCon 2010 is sure to be a lot of fun, but it’s also going to be bittersweet for many of us.

Following fly-ins at BrickWorld and BrickFair, the Vic Viper Fly-in at BrickCon will be the last fly-in to memorialize the influence and legacy of Nate Nielson, who died in a car accident earlier this year.

Though Nate lived here in the Pacific Northwest, nobody in the LEGO fan community had ever met him in person (or even knew his real name), but we all said that this was the year we were going to convince him to attend BrickCon. That can’t happen now, but members of Nate’s family will be in attendance, taking in our tribute to this legendary builder.

I’ll be coordinating the fly-in, but Keith Goldman — who was so instrumental in organizing the earlier tributes to Nate — will also be attending BrickCon, and I’m sure I’ll be leaning heavily on his experience.

Operation Bricklord: Europe at War

I’ve personally invested a great deal of my own building energies lately in preparing an invasion force for Operation Bricklord: Europe at War.

“The setting is a battle-torn town with a canal running through it – much like the fictional town of Ramelle at the end of Saving Private Ryan, for those of you who are familiar with that film – in mid-late 1944, almost immediately post D-Day. Therefore, little details like planes with invasion stripes and such would be extra accurate!”

What’s next?

Register for BrickCon, if you haven’t already.
Register your LEGO creations too, by filling out MOC cards.
Sound off in the comments if you’re bringing something for Big in Japan, and ask any questions here about the Vic Viper Fly-in.
Stop reading and go build some more!

BrickCon Film Festival Returns [News]

Photograph by Adam Hally

BrickCon is a scant thirty-five days away–but who’s counting? Not me, I assure you. As time for BrickCon (and the close of registration!) draws near, I wanted to point out one of the latest additions to the BrickCon line-up:

We are pleased to announce the return of the BrickCon Film Festival.

Awards and prizes will be given for the best films submitted, and the claim to fame till next year.

Films will be shown to attendees and voted on to determine the best.

They will also be shown during public hours exhibition if possible.

Submission guidelines:

1. BrickCon Film Festival reserves the right accept or not accept film submissions at its sole descretion.
2. Films must be your own original work.
3. You must be registered as an attendee to submit an entry.
4. 1-4 minutes is a good length, longer films may be rejected unless they are incredibly awesome.
5. Recommended file types are *.mov or *.mp4
6. The last day we can receive your submission is September 23, ~~2008~~ 2010.
7. Contact Dave Ingraham (pull down) on our Contact Us page for information on how to submit your film.
8. You must be present to win prize (else prize will go to film with the next most votes).

Filmmakers agree that their film and/or clips from it and all other material related to their project may be used and/or published in the event program, the BrickCon Film Festival screening, the BrickCon website, rescreened at BrickCon and for any promotional purposes which the BrickCon Film Festival deems appropriate.

Submission of your film confirms that you have read, understand, and agree to the BrickCon Film Festival Submission Guidelines as stated above.

Good luck and happy filming!

I know there are some great filmmakers out there, and I’m pretty sure at least some of you are attending BrickCon. So show us your stuff!

Time is running out to register for BrickCon 2010! [News]

Photograph by Adam Hally

We are getting excited about BrickCon 2010 here and, while we were busy getting our bricks in a row, we received the following press release from the BrickCon staff.

Now is the time to register for BrickCon 2010, September 30th through October 3rd. This year’s Theme is “Tales of the Brick!” Build your Tale and tell (and show) it to the world!

We return to the Seattle Center Exhibition Hall and have added the Rainier Room (Northwest Rooms) to our venue space. We’ll be using the Rainier Room (6,000 sq ft) for all of our Convention Activities including the Thursday Meet and Greet and our General Assemblies, seminars and contests.

Registering now will guarantee you’ll receive a customized engraved name badge you can wear proudly to the entire three day (four if you count Thursday – and we do!) event. Included with your registration will be a great Goody Bag, a Free Luncheon on Friday. And, if you’re old enough, you can attend our Thursday Meet and Greet get together where mixed drinks, beer and wine will be available ($4 per drink – cash only) along with free Mexican fare (snacks).

If you procrastinate too long, September 15th is the “deadline”, we cannot guarantee the terrific Goody Bag and custom badge. Registration will close September 28th. Then registration will only be at the door at the Exhibition Hall.

Visit www.brickcon.org now for details and Register Now!

Prices:

Adult Registration (21+) $65
Young Adult Registration (18-21) $60
Under 18 (Teen) Registration (must include an Adult (21+) as a package) $60
T-Shirts $15 – $17.50
Convention Model $20

Wayne Hussey
BrickCon

So get your rear in gear and be there! By the way, if you are attending, and you see some of us, make sure you say ‘hi’. See you there!

Registration for BrickCon 2010 now open [News]

Registration for BrickCon 2010 is now open!

I highly recommend attending on principle, but you’ll need to register in order to participate in some of the community builds — including Big in Japan and the Vic-Viper Fly-in.

For those new to conventions, BrickCon 2010 will be in Seattle, Washington September 30-October 3. The Event Schedule is available online, as well as a list of nearby hotels. This year’s preferred hotel is The Maxwell Hotel — information on booking is available here.

If you need directions from Sea-Tac Airport to the convention site, Mark Sandlin has a fantastic write-up on how to make the trip for $4.50. That’s cheaper than gas to and from the airport.

Thanks to Adam Hally for the photo!

Here’s the full announcement:

BrickCon 2010 is now officially open for registration.

The private convention begins on September 30 and runs through October 3, with public exhibition hours on Saturday and Sunday.

This year’s theme is “Tales of the Brick!”, so build your story in LEGO and bring it to the convention.

The organizers have been working hard to make the entire experience at BrickCon even better for everyone who attends.

The two biggest additions for registered attendees are a Thursday-night Meet and Greet with a no-host bar available for all attendees over the age of 21, and a Friday Luncheon for everyone to get together during the day.

For LEGO fans joining us during the public exhibition hours on Saturday and Sunday, we’ve fixed the long lines outside the venue, where people have had to wait just to buy a ticket to get in. You can now buy BrickCon tickets online beforehand through BrickCon.org, which means more time looking at the LEGO models and less time waiting.

Finally, registered attendees can hang out in a new 6000 square foot space away from the main hall — plenty of room to chill out without all the crowd noise or awkward moments after bumping your elbow into someone’s carefully arranged LEGO creation.

The newest collaborative builds this year are Big in Japan, a Vic Viper Missing Man Formation homage to Nate “Nnenn” Nielson, and Bricks of Character. Battle Bugs return for more chitinous combat, along with longtime favorites Space, Castle (encompassing all things medieval), and Town/Train.

Whether you join us for the full four days or just drop in during the public hours, we hope to see you in Seattle in less than three months!

Watch this space in the coming days for more info on other details, like hotel discounts and how to participate in the various collaborative displays.