Tag Archives: Custom

This is not the page for LEGO purists. From heavily customized minifigures to LEGO pieces chopped, painted, and stickered to within an inch of their little plastic lives, this is where you’ll find some of the most creative uses — and abuses — of LEGO anywhere.

Keith Goldman and Brickforge get podcasted

Once again James Wadsworth from LAML has done a fabulous job in releasing two more great podcast interviews. Listen to the talk with master diorama builder Keith Goldman, who recently stirred up some action both at NWBC and in hosting a contest. Here’s his interview. As for plugging in a photo of my hero Keith, this smug portrait is the best one I found.

Also, check out the interview with Kyle Peterson (aka armothe), who’s known for his amazing customized minifigs and the popular customs minifig accessory store Brickforge.

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Los Campesinos! Live! by Christoph!

Christoph! presents Los Campesinos! live and in concert.

First look at new BrickArms weapons [News]

Those of us who attended BrickCon 2007 last weekend learned that Will Chapman of BrickArms is working on some new weapons. Will generously gave me some early prototypes to show off to everyone out there interested in custom accessories for their minifigs.

The first two weapons should be familiar to fans of a certain trilogy of popular video games:

Will is also working on some real-world weapons, including the M1 Garand rifle:

In a session on Sunday morning, Will also described his development process, including how he uses test molds to create small batches of prototypes before committing to a final design. I thought the test molds were really cool, so he lent me an early version he used to design the M1 Garand:

Will asked me to remind everyone that he’s just experimenting at this point, and he can’t guarantee that any of these will make it into production. I personally think these are very cool, and can’t wait to see the final versions.

BrickForge Barnyard Animals [Review]

Josh’s post earlier today reminded me that I hadn’t gotten around to posting a review of the new animals from BrickForge. Let’s get started.

Three animals are available from BrickForge:

Cow (in screen-printed Holstein and black varieties): $5.00
Pig (in pink, black, and white): $3.00
Sheep (in white and black): $3.00

You can also buy white horns for $0.50 a pair, and pink udders for $0.50 each. (The brick and plate on the Holstein and the saddle on the steer are from my own collection.)

The Cows
BrickForge cows are comparable in size to official horses, but with shorter legs. Like LEGO horses, there’s a slot on the back where you can put a saddle (rodeo!), a hitch, or bricks to fill in the space. Unfortunately, you can’t put a barding on a cow. I tried.

The head, which is articulated, includes two holes where you can put any standard rod-sized element, such as Viking horns — and the BrickForge horns fit in holes of the same size on official elements:

The Holstein and the black cow integrate well with official LEGO, though they both feel a little lighter than a LEGO element of equivalent size. Without horns, the holes for horns look a little weird on the side of the head, but I’d rather have holes in my cows’ heads than no way to put horns on them! I think the Holstein looks great with an udder (which I haven’t tried removing, so I don’t know how easy that is), and the black cow looks great with a saddle or hitch.

Pigs and Sheep
BrickForge pigs and sheep are about the same size as LEGO dogs. Like dogs, they don’t have any articulation, but their feet fit on any sequence of 1×3 studs (or any pair of studs one stud apart). They look and feel very much like LEGO. I especially like the pink pig, and all the pigs’ curly tails:

Summary
The same fundamental criterion I used in my review of BrickForge weapons applies to these animals: “How well do these custom elements fit into my existing LEGO collection?”

My life would still be complete without historically accurate weapons or modern guns (though I think both BrickForge and BrickArms make some amazingly cool stuff), but I’ve been wanting more animals from LEGO for many years. Not only do they fit in well with my collection, these latest additions to the BrickForge product catalog fill a real gap in what’s been released so far by The LEGO Company. I wholeheartedly recommend them.

Finally, be sure to check out Mark Larson’s review on BrickZone.net, the discussion on Classic-Castle.com, and Martin Jaspers’ review on Brickshelf. Martin’s review includes color comparisons I couldn’t do in the poor lighting I’m stuck with at the moment:

Look closer...

I noticed this in one of my Flickr feeds last month but thought that someone had just mis-tagged it “LEGO” (as sometimes happens). But then I saw it again in nnenn‘s photostream when I was blogging a couple of his recent microscale creations a few minutes ago. Knowing that nnenn only posts LEGO creations (well, mostly LEGO), I did a double-take. Yes, in fact, it is LEGO:

This is by far the best TIE fighter I’ve ever seen built from LEGO. Notice especially the detail between the upper and lower wings and the hinges used to angle the border around each wing. (According to nnenn’s description, the only non-LEGO is a few pieces of black tape to cover Technic holes and to create the stripes on the cockpit.)

News: Barnyard animals from BrickForge

I wrote in my review last week that BrickForge would soon be selling livestock. Well, that “soon” has arrived!

The $5 cows come in solid black and Holstein white, the $3 pigs are currently available in black and pink (with white coming soon), and the $3 sheep are available in black and white. You can further customize the cows with udders — no, I’m not kidding — and horns that are sold separately ($0.50 for a pair of horns, $0.50 per udder).

BrickForge Minifig Accessories [Review]

Reminded by the pictures of their upcoming livestock shown during BrickWorld, I recently ordered a rather substantial number of weapons and accessories from BrickForge.

I wrote a review here on The Brothers Brick of modern weapons from BrickArms last February, so I thought I’d do the same with my new collection of BrickForge products. BrickForge primarily sells historical and fantasy accessories, including Greek, medieval, and “Elven” armor, as well as unique hair and beards.

The Photos
First up, Greek Hoplites and Norse warriors:

Next, a bunch of knights and dwarfs (or “dwarves,” if you prefer):

A wizard and Robin Hood:

Finally, “The Mysterious M” and some partially LEGO Nazis:

Click the individual pictures for descriptions that include which BrickForge products I used, and check out the full photoset, where I’ll be adding some minifigs I didn’t get to when I wrote this review.

My Review

As with the BrickArms weapons I’d bought before, the test for any “LEGO-compatible” accessories is how well they integrate with official LEGO elements. (And it’s going to be difficult not to compare BrickForge with BrickArms, since that’s my only other point of reference.) For me, this has to do with several factors:

How well the colors match (or are distinct from) LEGO colors.
How the custom pieces [i]feel[/i] to the touch.
How well the custom pieces photograph alongside LEGO.
The durability of the custom pieces.

BrickArms solves most of these challenges by using ABS (the same plastic as most LEGO) and only selling its products in black, the easiest color to match. A major difference about BrickForge is that it has far more products in many more colors. BrickForge accessories are durable, feel pretty much like “real” LEGO, and photograph well (as proven by Armothe, Kaminoan, and other customizers).

The only remaining potential problem, then, is their color. Here’s what I observed about the BrickForge colors when compared with LEGO colors:

Black: 100% match with black LEGO.
Bronze: Color unique to BrickForge, so no clashing issues. Really a beautiful color for the Greek accessories.
Brown: Matches “old” brown nicely.
Dark Gray: Good match with old dark gray, but slightly lighter.
Dark Orange: Matches the dark orange LEGO hair color nicely. (Only available in beards.)
Light Gray: Forgot to order an accessory in this color. :oops:
Red: Good match with red LEGO (and red is apparently a hard color to match).
Tan: 100% match to tan LEGO.
Silver: Color unique to BrickForge, but close enough to some pearl silver colors (with a slight blue tinge) that you might not want to use both in the same minifig.
White: 100% match to white LEGO.

So, in nearly every case, BrickForge produces accessories that match official LEGO elements well, and therefore BrickForge weapons do indeed meet all of my criteria for great “LEGO-compatible” products.

My one qualm is that some of the colors don’t seem 100% appropriate for the accessories that they’re available in (though perhaps I’m not thinking creatively enough). That’s just a matter of choice when you buy them, so a “problem” that’s easy enough to solve from the buyer side.

Ultimately, I think what makes BrickForge products so great is how they enable builders to extend LEGO in ways that using only official parts can’t (“Duh,” all the customizers say). The prime example of this is their Greek set. For $3.00, you get a helmet with a plume, a javelin, and a big round shield. Many builders have approximated these with the dragon helmets, regular spears, and other round shields, but the effect isn’t the same, and the BrickForge versions are so much more authentic.

Another of my favorite accessories is the beards. Available in 10 colors and two lengths, they’re much more realistic than the long white and gray (and non-production black) official beards. Perhaps we’ll see some new colors with the upcoming 7036 Dwarfs Mining set, but I doubt we’ll get new, shorter beard molds. BrickForge beards are the perfect solution.

Overall, I’m very happy with the selection and quality of BrickForge accessories, and I can’t wait to see what they’ll come up with next. Oh yeah, we already know: Livestock! :D

Fully functional Guitar Hero controller built from LEGO, by David McNeely

UPDATE: Thanks to the magic of our contact form, we now know who built this and where to go for more pictures! I’ve updated the image, name, and links appropriately. Thanks David McNeely! Excellent work!

Here’s what builder David McNeely said on TechEBlog:

This is a custom guitar controller for the game Guitar Hero, modeled after a Gibson Explorer guitar, with an extra large scratch-plate for style. I gutted the real controller and put the electronic boards in the lego case, so it actually works, too.

Thanks for the tip, readers Peter and Paul!

Wake up and smell the ashes...

That’s Gordon Freeman from Half Life by Minifig Customization Network member Viking Maniac. The torso and legs are stickered, and the gun is by BrickArms. Read more in the MCN.

Pulp Sci-Fi Hero by Zook

Nice work on the mini-jetpack, Zook! (The weapon is from Little Armory Toys.)

Memorial Day Minifigs

Today is Memorial Day here in the United States — a holiday that honors the men and women who have died in military service to this country. As a pacifist myself, I hope that someday our leaders will stop increasing the number of people we remember on this day each year.

But as a pragmatist, I also know that there are truly unique times in history when the world must come together to stand against evil. I believe that the Allied effort during World War II (against Nazism in particular) was one such time. With that in mind, I built a squad of WW2 U.S. Army minifigs:

Here’s a WW2-era U.S. Marine:

(With M1 helmets and Thompson submachine guns from BrickArms.)

Diving Crew by Simon Jackson

Simon Jackson has been working on an old-style diving crew as a gift for his dad. Following his work on FBTB reveals some interesting customization techniques. Anyway, here’s the completed crew: