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.

Holy SHIP!

For those of you just crazy enough to try and build an entire SHIP in 30 days, may be interested in checking out this little contest/challenge that Simon Liu has organized.

Here is a brief synopsis of the challenge at hand:

SHIPtember
One Month.
One SHIP.
One Hundred (plus) studs.

Rules:
Build SHIP must be 100 studs or longer between September 1st and October 1st. That’s it!

How do I enter?
Simple! Start building your SHIP starting on Sept 1st, and start posting WIP shots as you go so everyone can all praise your guts for building a SHIP in a month!
WIP and your final glory shots should be posted in the LEGO SHIP group:
www.flickr.com/groups/the-shipyard (HERE!)

What about [insert standard ship critiera]?
We don’t care, as long as it’s a 100+ studs and you build it all in SHIPtember we’ll be happy…
Though there will be Trophies for people that build a really good SHIP… ;)

Trophies?!?!
Yup. Trophies. There will be a number of custom trophies that will be awarded in various categories. Categories will be Judged by a cabal of SHIPists who are not participating in the building (or will not be eligible for trophies/prizes). And there will also be a limited of Engraved/Printed Badges for participants

Engraved/Printed Badges!?!?
Yup, we got those covered too. What’s a trophy without a nice engraved brick? And we got some extras for SHIP Builders, and maybe a few for non builders.

Wait? why are non builders getting prizes too?
The way I see it, SHIP building doesn’t have to be a solitary affair. It seems to be one of the few builds that people typically post WIP shots leading up to the final completed SHIP. Furthermore comments and critiques offered by the larger community may actually be incorporated into the final SHIP. So I’m hoping all builders and those that can’t build will help encourage the courageous few who will be attempting to build a really cool SHIP in a month.

For further information and discussion head on over to the contest thread in the SHIPs: WIPs & Discussion flickr group.

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The Art of Violence

No, it’s not the subtitle of the latest Jason Statham movie or a poorly translated version of Sun Tzu’s classic text, it is a building contest sponsored by the new-age musical duo Siercon and Coral. I will let Sean and Steph explain the concept:

This is a stylized ‘Violence’ Contest. This is all about art. This is NOT a contest in which we primarily want to see hacked limbs and excessive amounts of blood. A more artistic and graceful scene will score far higher than any simple depiction of slaughter.

However, make it meaningful, sober, deadly, and more importantly… artistic. Many Asian movies have done this exceedingly well. ‘Hero’ is one of these movies in our opinion. (Please use discretion if you intend to watch, as there are some questionable scenes). Artistically speaking, however, it is one of our favorite movies.

Here are three of the best early entries to inspire and motivate you, if the custom trophy provided by Sean and Steph isn’t enough motivation. For the rest of the boilerplate (details, restrictions and minutia) head over to the Art of Violence thread on the Lego Contest Network Flickr Group.

First up is “The Last Stand” by TBB favorite Mark of Falworth.

The middle-man is Ru Corder and his “Fall like a thunderbolt“.

The triad is complete with .Bricko’s ode to Pat Benatar, “Love is a Battlefield“.

I have to admit that I was a little disappointed that the last entry had nothing to do with dancing pimps and working girls. My advice to you, constant reader, should you enter the fray, is to avoid the color red…it seems to be dominating the early entries. Good luck to everyone involved with the contest!

Announcing the 2013 Lego Military Build Competition

I am sure many of you will be looking forward to the annual Lego Military Build Competition. I know I am. I was a participant in 2008 and 2009 (with some success) and helped organise and judge it in the last few years. This year it is being run by Magnus Lauglo, D-Town Cracka, -Mainman- and Aleksander Stein, all of whom will be familiar to military builders and to long-term readers of this blog.

If you are interested, you should make your way to the special contest group on flickr for more information. The contest starts today and runs until July 10th. In previous years, the quality of many of the entries in this competition was excellent and I am eagerly looking forward to seeing the results this year.

Announcing the Wrath of the Titans Contest

Are you already getting tired of the MocAthalon? Then I’ve got good news for you. Simon Pickard and James Pegrum, both active members of the Greco-Roman LEGO group, are organising a contest that strikes me as new and original. No, it’s not about wrestling; the aim is to create a LEGO scene that depicts an event involving the titans of ancient Greece.

If this has made you curious, see the contest rules on flickr and let’s get ready to rumble!

TBB Cover Photo “Contest”

How would you like to have your photo featured on either our Facebook or Twitter page for an entire month? We’ve created a Flickr group called TBB Cover Photos to give you that chance.

It’s simple: Just add a high-quality picture of your LEGO model to the group. Once each month, we’ll select two photos for our cover pages, one for Facebook and one for Twitter. You then get bragging rights for a whole month!

Tips for success & glory:

Landscape photos work better than portrait photos for cover photos. We’re most likely to pick photos that have lots of detail across a wide part of the picture.
Regular readers will be familiar with our high standards for presentation. As the “face” of TBB for a whole month, the photos you submit should be something we might blog — even if we haven’t yet.

Here are some examples of the aspect ratios to keep in mind:

Legalese: Please keep in mind that by joining and submitting a photo to the group, you are granting permission to The Brothers Brick, Facebook, and Twitter to use the photo (with full credit to you, of course).

Tough Competition

I couldn’t decide which I liked better. I really couldn’t. The heat is on between Andrew Lee and Simon Liu with this most recent Iron Builder. I (along with many other girls my age) really find Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine easy on the eyes, so there’s a point there. But the GRID is just so stunning.

Andrew’s Wolverine:

Simon’s GRID:

I don’t envy the judges.

The Colossal Castle Contest X Winners have been Announced!

The tenth year of the CCC was a big one! We had over 400 entries and many of the honorable-mentions would have been winners in previous years. Check out winners and enjoy some Castle-Greatness!

Here are some of my favorites among the winners:

Best Castle – Ras al Jabar by Fianat

Best Winter Scene – And the Band Played On by SlyOwl

Best Misc. – Visit by LolinoLL

The Master Builder will announced as soon as we can figure out who wins. It is an extremely close race.

2013 MocAthalon begins in March

The fourth annual MocAthalon will once again take place throughout the entire month of March on MOCpages. This is a competition where teams of 5 build up to 30 creations from 30 unique and whimsical categories announced at the start of the contest. Visit the contest group on MOCpages for rules and to sign up and form a team. You can check out last year’s MocAthalon to see what it was like.

Monolithic Builds: Giant Sushi and a Robot Uprising

This latest Iron Builder contest has provided an incredible slew of fascinating models from the uuber talented contestants. Sean and Steph Mayo pull out all the stops with this monstrous sushi roll fit for a giant.

And Bart De Dobbelaer fires back with this super cool Monolith. I don’t even pretend to know what’s going on here, but I’m imagining some sort of robot sentience emergence, ala 2001.

Shrink-O-Matic Naboo Starfighter

The Palpatine’s Shrink-O-Matic contest over at FBTB comes to a close at midnight PST tonight. One of my favourite entries that I have stumbled across is this Naboo Starfighter by Bartosz Sasiński (bartosza6m (War-C)). The construction of the cockpit is absolutely brilliant, and the sleek shaping is spot on. Plus the display stand really adds a nice final polish.

Freighter over Ice Planet Biodome

Eurobricks is holding a Micro Sci-Fi Contest this month (the trophies themselves are noteworthy examples of the genre), and at mid-month we’re already starting to see some really nice entries.

Ryan H. (eldeeem) enters the fray with this gorgeous biodome on an ice planet, complete with a resupply ship hovering above.

Notice the Modulex bits attached to the side of the freighter as containers. LEGO produced Modulex as a tool for architects in the 60’s until they spun off the company in 1965. Early Modulex bricks even have the LEGO logo on the studs, just like System bricks.

Over the years, LEGO builders have figured out various connections between the two systems (officially not compatible with each other), and Ryan has collected all of the ones he’s aware of in the following photo:

Post-LEGO Modulex with an M logo continued to be available until fairly recently (the company is a successful signage company today), and it’s always interesting to see what new ways LEGO builders incorporate them into their models.

Like a Boss contest results

The Like a Boss contest sponsored by The Brothers Brick to build a video game boss recently concluded with some spectacular entries. The winners received their share of a $500 prize pool donated by our blog. Check out who won and see all the entries on Flickr.

First place: zane_houston‘s Mecha Bowser

Second place: 2 Much Caffeine‘s Ganondorf

Third place: cmaddison‘s Quick Man

Thanks to everyone who participated and congrats to all the winners!