Tag Archives: Contests

Contests and build challenges are often a great way to get creative juices flowing. Check out our coverage of new contests here, and congratulate the winners of contests that have finished.

The BRICKNADO building contest ends soon!

Builders! You now have just under a week to submit your entries for The Brothers Brick “BRICKNADO” building contest celebrating next week’s opening of Sharknado 2, SyFy’s hilarious sequel to the original Sharnado. Check the contest page for details. Oh, and if the sheer glory of winning isn’t enough incentive for you, there’s swag to be won too…

Never heard of Sharknado? No shark pieces? Just hate sharks, because they ate your grandfather? WE DON’T CARE! Just build something funny involving sharks. The sequel is set in New York, so extra props for working that into your build: Sharks driving yellow cabs, starring in musicals, imitating landmarks …surprise us!

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The Brothers Brick present BRICKNADO, a Sharknado building contest!

We at The Brothers Brick love predatory fish and extreme weather. So we’re huge fans of SyFy’s high-brow political thriller and romantic comedy Sharknado. But we also love ridiculous New York movie stereotypes, such as rude cabbies and the pointless destruction of famous landmarks. Not surprisingly then, we’re positively shark-static about the new follow-up movie Sharknado 2: The Second One which airs July 30th on the SyFy channel. We’ll be glued to our TV’s, popcorn in one hand, bucket of chum in the other, for 2 hours of deeply thought-provoking chainsaw-tastic aquatic mayhem.

SyFy is planning Sharknado Week in celebration of its new movie. But we felt that LEGO fans deserved to be a part of that experience too. Our solution…

The Rules of Bricknado

Build a LEGO model! It can feature sharks, nados, chainsaws, New York references, celebrity cameos, whatever you like! Anything goes, the funnier and sillier the better.

Then add one photo of your creation to the Bricknado group on Flickr. You are welcome to submit more than one creation, but The Brothers Brick reserve the right to BITE YOUR FACE OFF if you overdo it! No digital creations are allowed.

All entries must be submitted before July 28th.

Fabulous prizes to be won!

We will announce 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners on the 30th, right before the movie airs. Winners will get to choose (in winning order) from one of the following prizes:

• Rare San Diego Comic Con official Sharknado t-shirt, mens large [donated by Mariann Asanuma]
• “Ye Olde Bag-o-Sharks” [a dozen LEGO sharks, old variety]
• Sharknado pop vinyl figure
• Sharknado on Blu-Ray

You can also expect plenty of honorable mentions, and perhaps a mystery bonus prize or two!

Disclaimer

They’re sharks, they’re scary, and no-one wants to get eaten. But I’ve been eaten, and it takes a lot more than that to bring a good man down, and even more than that to bring a New Yorker down! This is the Big Apple… If something bites us, we bite back. So forget the umbrella, grab a chainsaw, and let’s kill some sharks!

Cooking up a storm

The Italian LEGO Users Group (ItLUG) recently held a kitchen-themed building contest, the prize for which was (appropriately) a copy of the Parisian Restaurant set. The contest had various rules, including one that each entry had to occupy no more than a 16 x 16 stud footprint.

Although not the ultimate winner, my personal favorite was Bye Bye Potato by Devid VII:

But victory went to Fabio Maiorana for this darkly humorous (and possibly rule-bending!) vignette entitled L’Apparenza Inganna (“Appearances Can Be Deceptive”):

Quiet Study at Naughtston Abby

Built for Classic-Castle’s seed part challenge, Brother Steven brings us this gorgeous little scene of study and meditation. Can you spot the seed part?

Seventy-five LUGNuts challenges, can you believe it?

More than six years ago, Lino Martins (Lino M) and Nathan Proudlove (Proudlove) started a flickr group for LEGO car lovers called LUGNuts. Over the years they’ve managed to draw in many of the best-known car builders in the online LEGO community. They’ve also enlisted the help of Tim Inman (Rabidnovaracer), Peter Blackert (Lego911) and myself as moderators. I’m pretty sure that many LEGO-related flickr groups fizzle in far less than six years, but LUGNuts is still going strong. The vast majority of cars blogged here are built by LUGNuts members (and not just because I look at the group’s photo pool for things to blog). The group is kept interesting by the monthly LUGNuts challenges. For these, members build something according to a particular theme, which is usually thought out by Lino. He also gives the challenges a snazzy name. We usually don’t pick winners and there are no prizes; the fun is all about participating, being creative and building a vehicle that you perhaps wouldn’t ordinarily build. Here are the challenges and some of the vehicles built for them last year.

‘Mad Motor Skills’: Harley Davidson by Bricksonwheels
‘Toyota Tacoma Time’: Toyota Tacoma by Rolic
‘Behind the iron curtain’: Fiat 125P Kombi by Raphy
‘May the Force be with you’: Naboo carfighter by NKubate
‘A Baker’s dozen’: Claas Harvester by Lego911
‘Summer of 69’: Mustang GT350 by Aaden H
‘Redo and redemption’: VW Dragbus by Lino M
‘Super 70’s Sensation!’: Unimog by Nolnet
‘LUGNuts Sixth Anniversary ‘: Green Goblin truck by Rabidnovaracer
‘Take it to the next level’: Brütal Legend Deuce by Proudlove
‘Diorama-rama’: Hamm road roller by Mad physicist
‘Freakin’ Balls-Out Sweet 75th LUGNuts Challenge Extravaganza!’: ?

We’re now running the 75th challenge, can you believe it? Lino has imaginatively called it the Freakin’ Balls-Out Sweet LUGNuts 75th Challenge Extravaganza!. This one is special. Every participant builds a car assigned to them by one of the other members and there are prizes for the best three builds (judged by the admins/ moderators). To add some extra fun, there are also prizes for the best three suggestions. If you’re into LEGO cars and ever wanted to build for a LUGNuts challenge, now would be the time to do it! The challenge runs until the end of the month.

Ærsceaft Brycg, Nædercynne

I admit it–I don’t have the foggiest idea on how to pronounce the title of this fabulous bridge. So I’m not going to try. James Pegrum (peggyjdb) probably can. Either way, this lovely little bridge tells a story of a town’s annual tradition of jumping off a bridge.

Great Library at Saltoro

Typically for castle builds we see…castles. Medieval villages and the like. Wandering bands of thieves and vagabonds, fearless knights, and the occasional dragon. There’s a handful of awe-inspiring cathedrals for diversity.

What we don’t often get are places of learning. Brian Corredor presents his Great Library at Saltoro, for your viewing and learning pleasure.

This fabulous library is an entry into Classic-Castle’s Colossal Castle Contest. You can head over there and check out the prizes and enter yourself!

BURN – E Comes to the Brick

Builder Nick V (Brickthing) is heating up his Iron Builder competition with Andrew Lee with this fantastic creation. The Pixar short that originated this little guy was hilarious (and directed by LEGO fan Angus MacLane). This LEGO rendition looks quite worthy of source material. Build on guys!

Colossal Castle Contest: Weekend Edition

Thanksgiving’s around the corner, and around these parts, that means Classic-Castle‘s annual Colossal Castle Contest is well underway. There are plenty of fantastic entries, and I want to highlight a few that caught my eye!

Justin M‘s Order of the Bull

Lego_Fan‘s Coast of Northern Lake

Gary^The^Procrastinator‘s Go Where No One Else Will Go

David Hensel‘s Crow’s Nest

The contest runs through December 31, 2013, so get building!

Announcing the 11th Annual Colossal Castle Contest!

For the eleventh straight year, the good folks over at Classic Castle are bringing you the biggest Castle event of the season! Prizes include vintage sets, custom items, books, new sets and a mystery prize. Check out the categories and show off your medieval building skills. Compete against the best for the title of Master Builder!

VW Camper Coolness

Apparently, there’s more than one contest involving the new small VW camper set going on right now. In addition to the Star Wars Contest mentioned by Tromas, it seems that Eurobricks is hosting a contest, too.

I was tipped off when I spotted this cool moon camper by Tyler Sky (Bricksky). The idea of a moon buggy hauling around little habitats really struck my fancy, and I had to post it here.

Lifestyles of the Brick and Famous (narrated by Robin Leach!) brought to you by BrickNerd

Today’s clearly a video-heavy day. Great way to break up the day. Who can say no to Iain‘s bricks of character coming to life? When it comes to characters, though, Tommy Williamson (GeekyTom) is certainly holding his own. He keeps making BrickNerd better and better every time.

This time, though, is very special.

On this episode, we take a look into the the Lifestyles of the Brick and Famous.

While you’re at it, check out Tommy’s contest (now through 9/30!) to Pimp your Nerdly. Instructions are available on his site!