Tag Archives: Rylie Howerter

Animal Crossing glow up takes you to new horizons

Someone’s been busy upgrading her Animal Crossing island! Rylie Howerter gives Nook’s Cranny an impressive glow up, and terraforms a pixel-perfect island landscape to go with it. Even the little gift balloon gets an HD upgrade. The grass, made from a mosaic of cheese slopes, is an especially nice touch that perfectly mimics the game franchise. Now that Animal Crossing minifigs are in the wild, I hope we’ll see many more original island creations. Excellent work, Rylie! I hope you make good use of all those Nook Miles. Now, can we interest you in a loan to expand your diorama?

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

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Quit whining. It’s fun to move to a new place. It’s an adventure.

Are you ready to be Spirited Away? Rylie Howerter is ready help to start the journey with this astounding recreation of the Red Gate. This is one of those builds that has you doing a triple take – but, yes, this all LEGO. Amazing photography adds great atmospheric depth of field , but the trees and other greenery in the foreground is what completely sells this neglected entrance to the unknown. There are even more detailed views at Ryan’s Instagram post, and I suggest you take a moment to explore those, too.

Spirited Away | Red Gate

If you like your Miyazaki inspired builds a little more animated, then check out this great Soot Sprite from our archives. And here’s to hoping that we’ll see even more Studio Ghibli creations there soon!

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Can you solve this? The LEGO Reverse Engineering challenge will have you scratching your head [News]

Most of us are staying home a lot more these days, and if you’re anything like me, you’ve probably already built all the LEGO sets laying around your house and have run out of ideas for your custom build. Our friend Rylie Howerter has just the thing to solve your brick doldrums and keep you flexing your LEGO muscles with a little brick workout. Introducing the Reverse Engineering Contest, a daily challenge wherein you, the viewer, are tasked with recreating a tiny but deceptively complex model with your own bricks. Rylie will be posting a new challenge to her Instagram every day from now until August, so you’ll have plenty to keep you busy.

Much like the crossword puzzle in the papers, there are no prizes to be won in this contest, just a victorious sense of accomplishment and expanded knowledge of your favorite highly sophisticated interlocking brick system.

Designed by Ryle and friends, each of these small creations uses only a handful of elements and looks pretty simple, but don’t be fooled: there’s more than meets the eye to these brain teasers. Here’s today’s challenge to get you started.

Some might be simple to you, but no matter what your skill level, others are sure to have you pulling your hair out and wondering if Rylie has invoked the Kragle. However, the only shenanigans that may be involved with building the models are weird pieces and outside-the-box thinking. Rylie says that none of the solutions include things like stickers, flex tubing, or rubber bands–and certainly no Kragle. Can’t find the right parts to make it work? Give it a try in a digital building program like Studio or Mecabricks.

And if you get stuck, Rylie will be posting the answers every Sunday to a Dropbox linked in her Instagram bio (so as to not accidentally spoil anyone). This is the fifth time Rylie has run a challenge like this, and I’ve had a blast puzzling out the devious intricacies of previous challenges and can’t wait to see what else is in store this time around.

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

An elegant room from a more civilized age

Any gentleman needs a place to do his paperwork and this fancy room built by Rylie Howerter looks just about pefrect. Though simple at first glance due to plain walls, a few seconds of looking at the creation reveals an incredibly intricate floor, which is at least 3, but probably 4 studs deep. It is made of brown bars set between sand green tiles stackedsideways, with dark green tiles in the middle.

Andrew Johnson

In the description, Rylie is not a fan of the minifigure per se, but was happy for any excuse to build appropriately scaled furniture – and the results are well-designed indeed! The chair is made out of plant elements, pneumatic tubing, and similar fine detail pieces, and the ink bottle on the table is an especially interesting part use, although on the border of purism – a carefully cut piece of a ribbed hose.

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.