I watched Predator with the lights off late one night by myself when I was 14, terrified just as much that my parents would find me watching a hyper-violent R-rated movie as I was of the invisible alien antagonist. Cid Hsiao has built a Predator figure that uses the organic armor of Bionicle and Hero Factory to great effect. Placed on a stand built from regular LEGO bricks, I need this imposing fellow standing guard on my desk.
Slimes. What are they good for? Nothing. They’re purple and oozy and maybe a little bit cute, but they get into everything and multiply like there’s no tomorrow. Sometimes, you just have to take a the drastic option, and that means grabbing the biggest hammer you can find. SPLAT! Well, that’s one fewer slime to worry about. I feel like this hilarious little vignette by Letranger Absurde was inspired entirely by the purple splat piece, aka Toy Story Stretch’s octopus arms, and I don’t think I’ve seen a better use for that piece yet.
Larger than minifig scale, Miniland scale is a scale used in Legoland theme parks around the world, and it places a character about 5 inches tall. It’s become a popular scale for fan builders wanting to create brick-build characters. TBB Contributor Ralph often uses this scale to create iconic vehicles and their drivers, such as his recent Ghostbusters Ecto 1. Builder Casey McCoy used this great scale to build the cast of The Force Awakens, and he’s done a lovely job. I particularly love the details on Poe’s flight suit. Check out the flickr album for individual shots of the cast.
Eero Okkonen (Pate-Keetongu) continues his series of LEGO characters from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. This time round we’ve got an awesome rendition of Lu-Tze the fighting monk. Check out all the fabulous details in this model — the moustache and beard, the knot on the belt, the use of a snake as cigarette smoke, and the split-toe sandals. This is character-building at its absolute finest.
Although an imaginative builder has surely created one, I don’t recall having seen a well-built LEGO marionette before. This puppet of King Gustav I by Nicolas Picot is brilliant, with great articulation and a solid reproduction of the king’s dapper uniform, in particular the upside-down curve-topped fences which serve excellent duty as epaulet embroidery. The king’s steely gaze is also particularly well done, and the mustache seems surprisingly accurate for made of only two pieces.
I have no idea what the story is behind d’Qui Brick‘s Lone Druid creation. I don’t even know if that really is a dog, or some kind of sinister skeletal big-cat thing. But it doesn’t matter — this is a burly, beefy, terrifying beast of a model which makes excellent use of a mix of parts: Bionicle, Chima big-figs, and regular System bricks.
The face of the figure is particularly striking and I like the little touches of the hanging chains and skulls. The various spiky bits add an obvious menace, and the whole thing carries an unsettling sense of sinister heft. The only thing that doesn’t work for me is in the photography rather than the building itself — that black background might make for a moody setting, but it makes it difficult to see the details of the model.
If you’ve played BattleBlock Theater before, then you’ll definitely recognize this adorable cat guard built by Letranger Absurde. If you’ve haven’t played the game before, let me just say it’s pretty much exactly like soccer, except more like basketball, and nothing like soccer. Absurde perfectly captured the soulless gaze and boxy stature of the game’s heartless prison guards. I’d love to have this guy sitting on my desk at work. My productivity would likely triple under this little guy’s iron paw!
This post was brought to you by yarn. Yarn, it’s a ball!
Portal has been among the most mind-blowing games for me, and I couldn’t get enough of it in two episodes. While we wait for Valve Corporation to come up with a third, we should entertain ourselves with hiqh quality LEGO creations. Evan skillfully sculpted Chell and a sentry turret over a very Portal-esque base. Crispy photography and an Aperture Laboratories logo really show off the model. Still, some fans expect to see the Companion Cube and maybe a piece of cake to go along with Evan’s work. Perhaps we’ll see them some other time!
[Editor’s note: You might not notice this, but The Brothers Brick has contributors from all over the world — not just the US and Canada, but also the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Russia, South Africa, and Turkey. Tonight, our thoughts are with the author of this post, Ankara resident Cagri Yuz, his family and friends, and all his fellow citizens of Turkey during this tumultuous time. Stay safe, Cagri!]
Check out this beast of a biker by Serbian builder Djokson. The bike is fabulous, with some nice Bionicle parts use to create the fuel tank and wings at the rear, and a wonderfully-detailed engine nestling within the frame. But the hog rider is the main attraction — a great piece of character-scale building with an expressive face and good use of different colors to clearly suggest a biker jacket and jeans. Great stuff.
Excellent brickwork by LEGO 7 lends character to this brick-built portrait of Gargamel, the villain from The Smurfs. The face is great, but the posing of the arms and fingers give a real sense of the figure’s creeping motion…
Just exactly what Gargamel was going to do if he ever found the Smurf village was never entirely clear to me as a child. At various points I think he wanted to destroy them, eat them, or turn them into gold. His greatest achievement, of course, was the inadvertent creation of Smurfette — something for which I think the male Smurfs, previously starved of female company, should offer a vote of thanks.
LEGO 7 has also built Azrael, Gargamel’s long-suffering cat…
Link is the main protagonist in the best selling roleplaying-puzzle-action franchise The Legend of Zelda. This LEGO model of Link by Nathanael Kuipers accurately depicts him characteristically wearing a green tunic and pointed cap. The shaping is excellent, especially the facial features and his green tunic. Nathanael has also taken the time to build the details into Link’s shield and sword using bricks rather than any printed parts – nice attention to detail. It’s a perfect use of the Nexo Knights blade for Link’s sword in this build.
This links nicely on to another LEGO version of the same Zelda character. In this version Koen has rebuilt his previously featured Kirby, the eponymous character from another Nintendo videogame series. Kirby has the in-game ability to inhale enemies, thereby gaining characteristic abilities from them. Clearly by inhaling Link, Kirby has gained the ability to wield a huge sword and wear a green pointed hat without looking like one of Santa’s elves! A lovely fun build.
Here’s a pair of fantastic characters of the diabolical persuasion. Fresh from the brimstone lands, they’re sure to wreak havoc or worse upon anyone they meet. First up is the creepy hellspawn Lungorthin the Devil, by Leonid An. The shaping of the beast’s head is nothing short of brilliant, with so many intricate pieces flowing smoothly together to form a snarling visage.
And then we have chubbybots‘ Mazinkaiser, who hails from the anime of the same name and isn’t a hellion at all but rather a giant mech, though it does fight Dr. Hell.
