Inspired by the abundance of awesome sci-fi vehicles in James Cameron’s Avatar, Marius Herrmann constructed the AT-99 “Scorpion” Gunship from the film. The whole build looks as true to the film’s AT-99 as can be built from LEGO; from the massive iconic rotors, to the fuselage shape, and even the overkill payload.
The gunship model appears menacing from all angles; see more shots of the AT-99 here.
…not the catchphrase of Dr. Lazarus, Hans Gruber, the Sheriff of Nottingham or Severus Snape, but words spoken by the singular actor with the nasal tone and sardonic expression who portrayed all of them over the course of his stellar 25 year movie career. Beloved British actor Alan Rickman passed away today at the age of 69 (strangely mirroring the very recent passing of British music icon David Bowie). Hong Kong builder Alanboar Cheung whipped together this quick tribute to one of the more recent – and arguably most popular – of Rickman’s characters, the complicated Professor of Potions from the Harry Potter film series.
Guillermo del Toro’s latest film, Crimson Peak, is hauntingly beautiful and more than a bit freaky. The movie is awash in bold contrasting tones of black, white, and red, and none moreso than the palpably creepy specter of Lady Sharp. Tyler Halliwell’s terrific bust stays true to the apparition’s viscerally gruesome crimson visage.
I was a big fan of the first Ice Age movie when it came out several years ago. My favorite character was this prehistoric squirrel-thing that was constantly causing tectonic plate shifts with his prized acorn. The crazy proportions of “Scrat” would make it seem like an impossibility to recreate him effectively in LEGO (though Bruce Lowell built a LEGO Scrat a few years ago). But captainsmog seems to have captured the frenzied and furry essence flawlessly. Yet another epic use of the Mixel eyes!
Get ready to party like it’s 2009, because LEGO has finally revealed details of its April lineup of sets tied to the forthcoming Angry Birds movie. Their new LEGO Angry Birds website includes set names, box art, close-ups and breakdowns of all the play features.
The sets are as follows:
Click here to see all the entire pig-bliterating lineup!
Builder nobu_tary pumping out awesome creations is no surprise, but the Internet fame that has been bestowed upon a relatively minor character in Star Wars: The Force Awakens is. Commonly referred to as TR-8R (pronounced ‘Traitor’) this was a Stormtrooper that had an ultimately tiny role and less than a minute of screen time. Yet the Internet has deemed him the darling character of the film and created (in addition to his unofficial name) an entire mythos around him.
While it has been postulated that the character of TR-8R has more colour in the novelisation of The Force Awakens, we have this LEGO version to gawk over until that is confirmed. It should be noted that this recreation is actually a heavily modified version of LEGO’s new First Order Stormtrooper action figure set. Nevertheless, the mods are a great improvement over the original. The builder even transformed the set into a Heavy Gunner:
All I have left to say is… WHAPPITYWHAPPITYWHAPPITYWHAPPITYWHAPPITYWHAPPITY!
We don’t often feature brick films on Brothers Brick; partly because that’s not where our interests lie, and partly because it’s a lot more time consuming to discover new content. Sometimes though, a brick film jumps out as worthwhile. Such is the case with A Fixed System by Aaron Fisher.
We find here the tale of an Everyman awash in a rote life as a brick factory worker, who would have fit right in with Emmett during the beginning of The LEGO Movie. I won’t spoil what happens when he decides to look for more in life, but I will say it provides an interesting subject upon which to muse. And like much good art, it provides a platform upon which the viewer’s own beliefs and worldview are highlighted and questioned.
The animation is strong in this 10-minute movie (a frequent failing of brick films) and the facial expressions and soundtrack tell the story excellently in this silent film.
What the 2010 movie sequel TRON: Legacy lacked in terms of story, character development, and avoiding the Uncanny Valley, it more than made up for visually – thanks to the design sense of architecturally-trained director Joseph Kosinski. And while we have seen plenty of LEGO interpretations of the iconic vehicles and characters from both TRON movies, Joe Perez has created the most curve-licious LEGO light cycle to date, at a scale I would never have imagined possible. Breathtaking…
I was determined to stay away from the Star Wars stuff for a while following the glut of excellent models prompted by the release of The Force Awakens. Yet these figures from Luc Byard are simply too cool not to post…
Immediately recognizable, the Princess and her beau have never looked cuter. The shaping is excellent, avoiding some of the blockiness which can come with chibi builds, and the attention to detail is impressive whilst staying with the chibi-aesthetic – those blasters in particular are spot-on.
Luc has also had a crack at Darth Vader in this building style. It’s good, but for me it hasn’t quite hit the sweet spot between recognisable, fun, and cute which really set the Han and Leia figures apart. I hope Luc keeps going though, more figures in this style would make me very happy indeed.
Inspired by the blade construction in the recently featured replica of Darth Vader’s lightsaber, and by my three viewings of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I constructed a LEGO prop replica of Kylo Ren’s crossguard lightsaber. Measuring 41″ long (30″ blade), and built in four days (4-5 hours building time), the LEGO saber can be swung and slashed around without breaking.
The unstable, crackling blade effect was important for me to capture, as it is a unique detail to Kylo Ren’s lightsaber as much as the haphazard hilt construction and the crossguard. The best way I thought to achieve the blade effect was the texture of 1×2 grill tiles in translucent red.
Ren’s lightsaber would make a fine addition to my collection!
Apologies if you were hoping to avoid a Star Wars related post but there is a tenuous link to castles and towers, I promise. TBB regular Simply Bricking It, has built our favourite Star Wars droid, R2-D2.
The builder uses a mix of round and regular parts to allow a slight offset position, resulting in the curved shape. The use of alternate round and regular bricks is a technique that has been used frequently in the past for curved ‘tower’ structures (eg. castles, windmills, lighthouses and even spaceships). But I believe this is the first droid I have seen built using this particular technique.
I can’t finish this post without mentioning the vintage tap parts used for R2D2’s leg detailing — a ‘splash’ of inspiration there.
I am not quite old enough to have seen the first Star Wars movie in the cinema and remember it, have yet to see the latest instalment and, if I had to choose would prefer Star Trek (before J.J. Abrams ruined it), but I too jump on a bandwagon every once in a while. I’ve had a Landspeeder in my collection of movie vehicles for more than a year now and last weekend decided to add a Speeder Bike.
“Where are the twists?” you may wonder. Well, Andrew has been virtually twisting my arm to blog them, to show that the contributors to this blog are builders (and to avoid an embarrassing repeat of the “Optimus Prime fiasco” when everybody and his uncle got around to blogging one of my models before I did). The more interesting twist, however, is their scale. At a first glance you could be forgiven for thinking that these are not that much different from LEGO’s own sets and, in terms of size, they indeed aren’t. Yet, I build my vehicles to a scale of 1/22, which is intended for brick-built figures roughly twice the size of minifigs. I particularly enjoyed building the Scout Trooper for the Speeder Bike. Looking into the specs and pictures of the props taken on the set, it turns out that they really are quite small; a Landspeeder should not be the size of Ecto-1, but more that of Mr. Bean’s Mini and a Scout Trooper on a Speeder Bike really should look like somebody riding a legless horse.