Set in the collaborative fantasy LEGO world of Guilds of Historica, this ancient lighthouse with middle-eastern features was created by Gideon_83. I like the inclusion of fire and smoke in this build, which is further enhanced by the use of lighting bricks. It looked very nice at Brickworld last week during the traditional “Festival of Lights”!
Have you ever been to a convention and you forgot or needed a piece? It happens to all of us, and in June it happened to Mark Larson. He realized that you could probably get any piece you needed at a convention, if you had something worth trading for it. That’s when he remembered the story about the Red Paper Clip Game and thought it would be cruel to make me play it.
Giving me a modest 2×4 red brick, he set me out on an adventure…
With my little brick in hand, I basically went up to every single person still in the convention hall pleading to trade for something – anything – to keep the game moving. For those that were there late Saturday night you would have been treated to a sales pitch that would rival most telemarketers.
Originally the plan was to see what I could get by end of night and trade it for some food or refreshments, or if it was really neat I’d just keep it. But after finding my sales pitch lacking that emotional connection I decided I needed to a new end game:
Whatever I had at the end of the convention would be donated to the Esther Walner Memorial Charity Auction at BW2014.
Auction Item #1 Dave Sterling’s Steam Punk Rifle
This changed everything. It went from amusement of my futility by the attendees to a communal effort to see what we could trade up to. People suddenly was far more generous – often trading items orders of magnitude more valuable, people started making suggestions on who I needed to ask and talk to, people offered money and pure donations to the pot (though that would be against the rules) and it became a bit of an event where people would routinely check in to see what I had traded up to.
I’m often surprised by the generosity in the community, and you would think I would have grown to expect such things, but I was not prepared for when people were trading their MOCs, or would trade a brand new UCS set that they had just bought at auction. Sure it was always a hope that I could get something valuable to auction, but this was was crazy!
In the final trading stages I had to choose pieces that would (I hope) sell well, not to mention be something that people could feasibly take home.
And after 14 trades I got not one, but two, fantastic MOCs for this year’s auction.
Auction Item #2 Isaac Mazer’s Dark Side of the Moon
So bring your pennies to Brickworld Chicago, you’ll need them if you want to outbid me.
And a special thanks to all the generous people who traded: Mark Larson, Chris Rozek, Lee Jones, Heath Flor, Roy T Cook, Adam Myers, Isaac Mazer, Adam Tucker, Bill Bartley, Sean Jensen, Alex Taylor, Chris Rozek again, Dave Sterling, and Isaac Mazer again! You guys rock.
In two weeks, AFOLs from around the world will be converging on the state of Illinois for Brickworld Chicago 2014 – the biggest, baddest, brickiest LEGO convention in the known universe!
The event takes place at the Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel and Convention Center in Schaumburg, Illinois. The private AFOL convention runs from June 11th – 15th, while the public exhibitions are on Saturday 14th (10am – 4pm) and Sunday 15th (10am – 3pm). Tickets can be purchased online or at the door. Kids 3 and under get in free.
For AFOLs attending the event, there is a wealth of fun and games lined up for you as always. But for those only visiting during public hours, don’t be downhearted, you’ll have access to tons of vendors ready to sell you all kinds of sweet LEGO-related goodies (custom parts, custom sets, the list is endless). Or while you’re in the Schaumburg area, pay a visit to the LEGOLAND Discovery Center.
Our good friends over at Beyond the Brick will be on site to film all the action, including builder interviews and a walkthrough of the entire display. If you’d like to get a copy of their DVD as a keepsake, and perhaps score some other one-of-a-kind goodies as well, go support their Kickstarter project right now! $20 is all it takes to secure your copy.
In fact, as a run-up to this year’s event, Joshua and Matthew recently interviewed Brickworld founder Bryan Bonahoom. Check out the episode below to find out about the amazing story behind how the Brickworld franchise got started, and how Bryan and his team pull off four conventions in four cities every year!
The Brothers Brick will also be in attendance at Brickworld Chicago this year. Brothers Chris, Simon, Carter and Iain (that’s me!) will be there to take your abuse. I will also be live tweeting all of the shenanigans and goings-on, for your amusement. And we’ll be giving away some swag! But to get it, you’ll have to find us first, and then say the secret pass phrase ;-)
VirtuaLUG collaborated on a mammoth Wizard of Oz layout for BrickWorld this year. I posted the wizard’s hot-air balloon earlier but the entire diorama definitely deserves its own post. They worked together on a large number of dioramas depicting crucial scenes throughout the story. Each of the sections is an incredible piece alone. Together they form something truly incredible. Every time I go through the pictures I find more details that I didn’t notice before. I especially love how the early scenes were built in tan, black and greys to depict the black-and-white scenes in the movies and the motorized cyclone with mini farmhouse. The vibrancy and technique in the later dioramas is breath-taking. I didn’t make it to BrickWorld but I wish I had seen this in person. Incredible!
The entrance to the Emerald City:
Uncle Henry and Aunt Em’s Farm:
The Dark Forest:
For those who weren’t at Brickworld two weeks ago, there are two walkthrough videos of the convention by Paul Vermeesch and Josh Hanlon. The video by Paul features two narrators, Max Pointner and Ian Spacek, in an edited coverage of the exhibit hall. The other video by Josh features himself and Matthew Kay as the commentators in an in-depth look at many of the creations on display. Sit back, grab a snack, and enjoy the best MOCs that Brickworld has to offer!
I lost big-time in TBB’s high stakes craps-game to decide how to divvy-up the slew of bloggable action from Brickworld 2013. Or did I? While the other Brothers were fighting over Oz, Cyber City and Simon Liu’s spacecraft, I let it all ride on Angles of Light by ROOK.
Pro Tip – next time you find your yourself at a craps table, consider this: “Proposition bets” are settled with a single roll of the dice with the odds located at the center of the craps table. You should avoid this bet because dealers are trained to tempt players into placing Proposition bets because of the overwhelming house advantage.
This past weekend was Brickworld 2013 in Schaumberg, Illinois, and Chris and I attended. I attended for the first time; it was fun being a “newbie” for once, despite this being my 11th LEGO convention. This was my first event outside of the Pacific Northwest! Though really, Chicago, the tornados were a bit much. Really. No need for that.
All weather and terrible airline travel aside, the event was a blast. This was the first year in the new location and by all accounts, it was a fabulous decision to move and improved the convention-going experience greatly. Unlike last year, all the creations this year were housed in the same MASSIVE space.
Over the next few days, pictures of some of the amazing creations will pop online. I want to highlight a few of my favorites:
This was really fantastic. We’ve blogged the warehouse previously; now he’s added the shooting location for the Moon Landing, a Stargate, and a number of other fantastic references!
There were two bits of news which we already reported: the reveal of 10234 Sydney Opera House and announcing the Curiosity Rover.
For me, the value of any convention comes from the memories; I attend just as much, if not more, for the people as I do the brick. I saw people I haven’t seen in years, met new friends, and made enough memories and paper planes to last a lifetime. Or at least until BrickCon.
If you are planning to attend Brickworld Chicago from June 12-16 but have not yet registered, you have until May 13 to do so before registration closes. Visit their website for registration info and important deadlines for attendees.
Josh Hanlon from Beyond The Brick posted videos of displays and interviews at Brickworld Ft. Wayne, which took place about a month ago. Check out the YouTube playlist for all the videos from the event.
Josh from A Look at Lego posted several videos on YouTube containing interviews and builders talking about their creations. Below is one that showcases the larger displays at the convention. Check out the entire YouTube playlist to see what else is featured.
This past Sunday concluded this year’s Chicago Brickworld, and I’ve finally recovered and rested up a bit from the trip (and subsequent cold). This was only my second Lego convention, and I think it’s safe to say I’m hooked. The convention space at the Westin hotel was enormous. I’m sure many of you will have already seen the video walk-through that Nannan and I did of the three display rooms, which runs over 45 minutes and still isn’t comprehensive. Evidently they’re looking at moving to an even larger space next year that can accommodate all of the displays in a single room, which would be quite something. Unlike Brickcon, the other convention I’ve attended, the majority of the displays are arranged by builder, and not theme. I think there’s a lot of merit to both ways–while it’s awesome seeing huge tables full of sci-fi MOCs, it’s also quite fun to see all the different sorts of things a single person builds.
It was great fun getting to meet the people behind the avatars of so many great builders, such as fellow TBB’er Nannan and his counterpart in perpetrating unusually large dioramas Tyler Clites, LDM, and Si-MOCs, among many, many others. One of the highlights for me was a Saturday night unscheduled M-Tron building competition (generously organized and judged by a great guy whose name escapes me currently). After looking at so many terrific MOCs for three days straight, I was itching to build, and with 90 minutes and a large and hilariously haphazard collection of pieces, about a dozen of us sat down and pounded some mean MOCs out.
There were too many fantastic MOCs (including the one featured in the previous post) to possibly highlight them all, so I’ll just conclude by saying that you should definitely check out the Brickworld flickr pool, and even better, attend next year and meet lots of other great LEGO fans and see the stuff in person.
For those who couldn’t make it to Brickworld in Chicago this past weekend, Chris and I shot a video of us walking through the entire exhibit and highlighting some MOCs. Our goal was to bring you as close to the convention as we could, and we welcome your feedback to improve our future coverage of the events. Grab some snacks and enjoy!
