Tag Archives: Isaac Snyder

You may have a massive drilling rover, but nothing beats a decent ice-scraper

What’s something seasonal to build at this time of year? It’s February, and it’s cold in the northern hemisphere… Aha! Isaac Snyder knows what to do. He’s dipped into the Ice Planet 2002 theme with a seriously cool rover for Febrovery. At least, it’s cool on the outside, as evidenced by the chunky wheels and clever cockpit construction. Hopefully it’s warm on the inside, and equipped with good de-misters. I’m speaking from experience here, not because I’ve been to Krysto, but because my old car used to fog up like crazy. In winter, it would freeze overnight when the temperature dropped low enough (and in Finland, that happens a lot). These Ice Planet folks may have all sorts of fancy neon-orange chainsaws and the like, but trust me, some de-icer fluid and an ice scraper are just as indispensable in these conditions!

Frost Driller

Have a cup of joe at this down-to-earth coffee house

This LEGO coffee house build comes to us from Isaac Snyder for this year’s Eurobricks event. The task? Building a house with significance to the builder. In this case, Isaac draws inspiration from a local coffee shop. Let’s take a closer look at the house, starting with the outdoor furniture. Check out the chairs with the tables! Some nice usage of brackets for the chairs’ seats and back, paired nicely with those plates with shafts. That’s something I really adore with builds of this scale–the parts usage ends up being really creative to imply/represent what the builder wants for the model. There are more techniques at work here too, like the brickwork. Using those half curved 1×1 tiles throughout the textured and plain bricks gives more depth and shaping to what would be flat walls otherwise. Excellent build all around from mine eyes.

Terra Cotta Coffee House

A warm winter retreat

LEGO builders John and Isaac Snyder collaborated to bring us this magnificent winter tavern. It’s packed to the top of its steep roof peaks with great detail, and you can just feel the inn standing as a bulwark against the blustery winter winds. I particularly love the snowy forest surrounding the tavern, which makes it feel much more immersive than a stark building on a bare setting. You could (and should) spend some time poring over the intricate parts usages through the build, but take note especially of the Thor’s hammers surrounding the door; I’ve seen them used as stonework before, but they fit so well here.

The Wayfarers' Den

There’s nothing banal about this canal

Ah, Venice: a city of romance. This may not be Venice, but there’s still a lot to love about this canal-side town by Isaac Snyder! Perhaps that wonderful bridge is what made me think of Venice. The architecture in general is beautiful, with the so-called bow plate getting a lot of good use in crenellations and roof design. And how about the foliage! The brick-built lilypads were the first to catch my eye, but my favourite is behind the old white-bearded gentleman. It’s a vine made up of a whip, drawn around some plant elements. A simple yet effective solution that looks great in this setting!

Exploring Cedrica

Everdell Chapel in the brick

Next to LEGO I am a huge board game nerd, and I love it when hobbies collide. Isaac and John Snyder drew inspiration from one of my favourite board games. Everdell is a worker placement game in which you build the homes of the many forest critters that inhabit the forest of Everdell. The artwork was done by Andrew Bosley and Dann May. The playing cards depict forest locations but also its inhabitants. The illustrations on the cards look truly as if they came straight out of a fairy tale. I can surely see why Isaac and John would draw inspiration from it. In this creation we see the Everdell chapel which is built on a rock in a foggy lake. A grey Belville tower roof has been incorporated in the landscaping and to me it is mind boggling that this large piece blends in with the scenery so well.

Everdell Chapel

The resemblance to the source material is really amazing. The Tudor style is done exceptionally well, and including yellowed and damaged white bricks to depict the decay of the building is really clever. On the playing card there are no animals included but it is nice to get some forest critters in there to make the scene appear more alive. They even get cute custom outfits made out of capes and rubber bands. I am curious to see if these two will keep drawing inspiration from this lovely board game. One thing is for sure, I wouldn’t mind!

A pair of roving rovers running rampant

February is one of my favorite LEGO months, Because it comes before Marhikoma, and for Febrovery, when builders from around the world create rovers inspired by the classic space car. This pair of rovers by Isaac Snyder are a perfect blend of nostalgia and modern sci-fi, with smooth large wheels and an open cargo bay, the big rover reminds me of the ground vehicle from the Mass Effect video game franchise, and while I know this only shows how old I am, a bit of the classic arcade game Moon Patrol. The smaller one looks like it rolled over the hill from the lunar lander from NASA. My only question is, will the small one fit on the cargo bed. Judging by the hinged tailgate, I’m guessing it does.

Whitetron UCT-6 and SOV

Another day in Allanar

For many of us, our first LEGO collaborations are with our siblings. Brother builders Isaac and John Snyder know that life gets away from us as time goes on, but thankfully they managed to get another session in that gave us some great results. After knocking out the Everdell castle they took a little trip to the countryside of Alnya to show us a day in the life of a Dwelf. Lush with wildlife and foliage, this little cottage on the edge of Allnar forest is full of interesting parts usage and plenty of character. That purple door certainly makes a statement, but I love the buckets on the chimney or chainlinks around the well.

Life in Allanar

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Cute forest animals abound at the Everdell Castle

I love how hobbies or interests are able to bring people together. I am quite the LEGO nerd and thanks to LEGO and its community, I’ve met so many lovely people. My partner on the other hand is quite the board game geek and thanks to him I got sucked into the community that comes with the dice. What never stops to amaze me is the amount of love that goes into designing board games. John Snyder and Isaac Snyder drew inspiration from the game ‘Everdell’. The game is filled with cute forest critters and almost magical surroundings. For their latest build, they decided to give the ‘Castle’ card the LEGO treatment.

Everdell Castle

The castle wall looks really organic and irregular at the top due to a fine selection of pieces. We can find dinosaur tails, spider legs and plant limbs used for the wooden castle gate. Each wooden beam gets adorned with a white horn, claw, cone, lever base, or a bulb to represent fresh snow. The main tower has a crazy angle to it and I can’t figure out how the bricks are connected at the place of the angle. My guess is flex tubing but I might be wrong. It may as well be friction and gravity. There are cattle horns used in brown as architectural details. We get flags made out of pentagonal tiles with a little crown attached to it with a rubber band, which looks like a little layer of fresh snow on the top of the flag. The inhabitants of the castle are LEGO animals, which makes this build less than minifigure scale, which allows for parts to be used in a very original way. The skis used for doors look massive and add a sense of grandeur to the castle. Have you spotted the brave little blue hamster defending the castle?

Coming Soon

Battle cruiser ready for deployment

With the end of September comes the completed SHIPtember LEGO models created by expert builders from around the world. Builder Isaac Snyder is one of those, who shared his battle cruiser with The Brothers Brick.

Comierre Battle Cruiser

The Commiere Battle Cruiser is ready for battle. In fact, it’s fresh out of the drydock, built during the annual SHIPtember event. This model has a ton of repeated parts but it’s built in a way that doesn’t give off repetition. I love the use of tan, orange, and dark sand-green. These colors contrast so well with the dark grey, especially around the engines.

Comierre Battle Cruiser

I’m also impressed at the pieces used that aren’t just standard bricks. The engines, for example, are made in part of brown Bionicle torsos. The pointed orange pieces in between the dark sand-green are feet from the Hero Factory figures. It’s a true SHIPtember starship!

What a beautiful portrait. Wait, it’s made out of LEGO!? Even better!

This gorgeous build is a collaboration between brothers, Isaac Snyder and John Snyder. Together, they have produced this visually stunning piece, demonstrating the inventive ways in which LEGO can be used to form shapes. The model mainly relies on flexible tubes to portray the outline of the horse, with claw pieces creating the pointed hair ends of the horse’s wavy mane. In order to maintain the bends of the tubes, rods have been inserted in just the right places to create curves in the rubber. It is an elegant creation that may require a second glance from the average person before they realise that the portrait is actually made out of LEGO.

Horse Line Art

The pieces are rare, the build is well done.

One of the joys of the online LEGO community is getting to see what other people build, but sometimes it’s just as fun to get to see what other people build with. That’s why this spaceship from Isaac Snyder caught my eye so quickly. I couldn’t immediately place the red fins that contribute to this ship’s retro-futurism aesthetic.

SUROS Bolt

The tapering curve looks like something from a rocket designed in the 1950s. But what sets are those pieces from? Thankfully, Isaac shared the answer. Turns out they’re part of the Znap theme that LEGO launched back in the late 90s. A relic of another time that I had completely forgotten about. And Isaac has put them to perfect use in this swooshable starfighter.

SUROS Bolt

LEGO elements have been in production for decades, and it’s unlikely that any builder has a collection that contains every part from every era. Let us know your favorite obscure element from outside the main LEGO themes that you like to build with.

Can’t tell up from down

This slick little racer by Isaac Snyder is disguising a secret; flip it over and it’ll keep right on going. I’ve seen some RC cars in the toy aisle that have similar features, but I don’t recall seeing a LEGO racer that does it before. The front wheels are actually pairs of 6×6 radar dishes from a Monkie Kid set, which add a flash of teal to really make the bright color scheme sing. The best part? The whole model clocks in at just 101 pieces.

Switchblade Flare