Tag Archives: Paint

Get ready to paint the town red

What’s gray and white and red all over? This build by Mark van Der Maarel. The dramatic simplicity of its colors is striking enough, but the red house nevertheless also contains a variety of textures that keep it interesting: flippers mounted on walls for little architectural flourishes, Technic pins protruding from walls, and 1×2 ribbed bricks stacked atop each other, to name a few. The bright color and details of the building contrast starkly with the blank gray figure painting it. It begs the question: what happens when the creation is more vivid than its creator? Ponder on that the next time you build.

Paint it red!

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Dabs of lively color

Brothers Brick contributor Benjamin Stenlund has been braving the Iron Forge lately, and this artistic build make uses of the seed part of a LEGO banana. And that’s cool and all, but there are other keen details to enjoy. If you look closely you’ll spot some wildlife hanging out in those colorful puddles of paint. And I really do enjoy when a frog shows up unexpectedly as creative part usage. And somehow that rat is even more perfect, with the curve of its tail suggesting a squiggle of paint.

Getting ready for the masterpiece

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Just a little messy

LEGO bricks are used to make stuff, sure. But when LEGO bricks are used to make stuff that makes stuff…that’s a different level of meta. SephiMoc FF7 has created some painting supplies that do indeed look ready to be applied to canvas. I like how they’ve used different building methods to show the pooling paint, but it’s the brushes that make me smile most. We’ve seen minifigure brooms and plumes as brush tips before, but this may be the first time I’ve seen both a banana and carrot in play as well. I do kind of feel bad for the table, though. That’s a lot of messy spillage to clean up.

Lego paint

If you’d like to see a different design for paint tubes, I found a gem in our archives.

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Rendering the Peregrine invisible

Anyone who’s seen The LEGO Movie knows LEGO is a highly sophisticated interlocking brick system. But it’s more than that, and sometimes we LEGO fans have a tendency to get caught up in what is and isn’t allowable when playing with our favorite plastic toys. Then along comes someone like Stijn van der Laan to shake up our expectations with a brilliant model like this that defies the normal bounds of what’s appropriate to do with LEGO. Stijn has transformed his excellent Peregrine drone model that we covered a few years ago by giving it a camouflage paint job.

CFX-7 PEREGRINE

Stijn actually recreated the design first using all red elements. Then he gave it a base coat of grey, and then carefully masked and airbrushed the modern camouflage design onto the model, as if it were a traditional cut-and-glue model kit. The result is fantastic, highlighting the striking design of the drone even more than Stijn’s original color scheme.

CFX-7 PEREGRINE

Now, you’re not likely to find me airbrushing my own LEGO creations anytime soon, but I admire the craft that goes into designing this, and it’s good to have our minds expanded a bit from time to time on just what is possible with this brick system we all use.

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Tube or not tube

As usual, the good folks over at New Elementary are up to hijinks related to new and interesting LEGO pieces, with a stable of talented builders exploring some of the ways fans can use the parts. One such recent exploration was undertaken by Pistash and involved a variety of new coral-colored elements. He’s taken the color exploration quite literally, turning the bubblegum-colored bits into a squirt of paint, complete with a cool mosaic on the side of the container. Fittingly, the splash at the bottom is a large 14-tooth splat gear.

Coral tube

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I see a row of cabinets and they’re all painted white.

Do-it-yourself projects are more fun in LEGO-form, such as this detailed painting-themed render by _spacehopper_. The cabinetry, refrigerator, and sink look attractive in this kitchen, complete with a mouth-watering turkey. (Who makes a turkey and paints the kitchen at the same time?) Someone has been busy painting but is noticeably absent. A ladder sits to the side, and the fan is running to help with ventilation. Meanwhile, the paint roller sits abandoned on the counter top, dripping white paint on the floor. No drop cloths or trays are there to catch anything. Perhaps our missing painter is a novice, realized he was in-over-his-head, and drove to the hardware store for the missing supplies.

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The art of painting with bricks

I love how LEGO bricks can be used to express and build subjects other than the usual way we see 3-dimensional stacks of bricks. Sheo pulls this off very well with a portrait entitled “Evelyn.” When I first had a look at this, it reminded me of an art form that’s so very familiar yet I still can’t put my finger on it — elegant and polished with clever use of tiny accessories or parts that seem to just blend in like that cutlass forming the bridge of her nose.

While the portrait of Evelyn enchants, the Trickster featured below hints at an evil, mysterious character.

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In space no-one can hear you rust

One of the more notable Maschin Krieger inspired builds from this year’s Ma.Ktober fest is probably the Baumeister Spinnentier, a “construction arachnid” style zero-G hardsuit, created by Canadian builder Josh Derksen.

Clearly the break-out technique Josh has used here is the application of paint to give the model a rusted look (…yes it rains in space, deal with it!). Using paint to artificially ‘weather’ LEGO is something I’ve wanted to do myself for a long time, but have not yet been man enough to attempt. But Josh totally nails it with this creation. Check out his full breakdown to get a look at all of its finer details and play features (which include poseable arms and pincers, and an openable cockpit).

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