Matt De Lanoy has made this wonderful mosaic of the protagonists from one of my favorite webcomics, The Order of the Stick. He’s portrayed the characters perfectly, even capturing a bit of the humor, with poor halfling Belkar being almost out of frame. Just seeing this mosaic makes me want to go read more OOTS. If you’re not familiar with The Order of the Stick, I highly recommend checking it out.
via Mosaic Bricks.
Marvel has revealed the first pictures of some of the upcoming Lego Avengers sets. The sets and minifigs look good except for Iron Man, who must have been modeled after a bobblehead version :)
Via Brickset
Rod Gillies built this great TV to showcase his new LEGO Superman minifig. The TV cabinet is lovely, and the background includes excellent details like little puffy clouds and microscale, forced-perspective buildings.
But it gets even better. The background behind Superman scrolls!
2012 Batman and Superman sets are out a couple weeks early from LEGO Shop online. The new sets include 6864 The Batmobile and the Two-Face Chase,
which goes for $50 and includes five minifigs.
So far, the Man of Steel is only available in 6862 Superman vs. Power Armor Lex, which also includes Lex Luthor and Wonder Woman.
(And no, I haven’t forgotten about our giveaway of the SDCC 2011 exclusive minifigs. It’s just taken forever to scrub the comment data so I can properly — and fairly — randomize the entries. Apologies for the delay, especially now that you can buy your own Batman, but the person who wins him will still be getting the minifig on a card that was exclusive to Comic-Con, so hope you can forgive me…)
Remember, free shipping is now available for orders of $49, with guaranteed delivery by Christmas on all orders placed before December 18.
LEGO was kind enough to send us a pair of the LEGO Super Hero minifigs distributed exclusively at Comic-Con in San Diego earlier this year, and we’re going to give them away to two TBB readers. One reader gets Superman Batman, and another gets Green Lantern!
To enter this raffle, just leave a comment on this post (tips on registering and commenting). In two weeks, on Monday, November 28, we’ll randomly select two people who left comments before 11:59 PM PST November 27.
Fine print: The raffle is open to TBB readers worldwide 18 years old and older. We’ll add to the fine print as people ask questions, but let’s keep it simple for now.
If you’d like to win all the 2012 LEGO Super Heroes: DC Universe sets, LEGO is also hosting a contest on LEGOSuperheroes.com:
Enter the LEGO Super Heroes Challenge for a chance to win the Grand Prize, a trip to California to tour Warner Bros. Studios, WB Animation, and LEGOLAND California, and the complete 2012 LEGO Super Heroes: DC Universe collection. Plus get your work displayed online for other LEGO Super Heroes fans to admire.
Check out the website for more details.
German builder Thorsten Bonsch has been building daily for the past 2 months on this action-packed diorama for LEGO’s Superhero contest. A lot of custom decals add details and realism such as in this close-up shot. Check out the full backstory of this creation on MOCPages showing all of the action, as well as work-in-progress and design pictures.
![](https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/media.brothers-brick.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/6340521465_6da7df11a6_z.jpg")
I’m quite willing to make the call that George Panteleon’s (ZetoVince) The Batman’s Tumbler from Dark Knight is the best I’ve ever seen at minifig scale.
This is simply incredible. I passed it over several times because I thought it was a drawing. People are always saying that some build or other doesn’t look like LEGO. Well, this one really doesn’t. This build is nothing short of outstanding. Mark Anderson built it. Obviously, he is awesome.
Mr. Xenomurphy‘s scene of the battle between Spider-Man and Sandman justly portrays this somewhat obscure villain. The building, despite being the backdrop, is also another highlight of the scene. The usage of 1X2 bricks and tiles mimics the realistic look of the buildings.
As readers will have noticed in our LEGO News feed last week, custom minifig accessory vendor BrickForge has just released a new batch of items, including a new “Shock Trooper” armor. We ordered a couple batches, and I managed to find enough sunshine in the Seattle “summer” to take a few pictures.
The armor comes in a sort of steel color that’s rather lovely, along with black that has a similar metallic sheen. Neither color really matches typical colors available for minifig legs and torsos, but they combine reasonably well with neutral colors like bley and black. BrickForge also offers two printed variants, with an eagle on the gray and a flaming skull on the black. I’ll be interested to see how other customizers use these helmets and armor, but I focused on their inevitable use as ODSTs from Halo. Armor for a squad of six will run you a bit over $20.
One of the few areas in which BrickForge and BrickArms overlap is in items inspired (a safe assumption, I think) by the Halo universe, so minifig customizers have a bit more choice in this area. I like to mix and match custom parts from everybody, and I have to admit that I personally prefer the BrickArms versions of these sci-fi weapons (including the previously reviewed BrickArms minigun). I think the combination of the BrickForge armor and BrickArms weapons is undeniably awesome — “better together,” as I always say.
I cracked myself up by putting one of the troopers on a BrickForge scooter, which my wife dubbed the UNSC “Shrew”. I was amused enough that I would like to share this little masterpiece with the world. You’re welcome.
As fun as a couple squads of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers might be, I had the most fun putting together the Avengers — inspired by the blue helmet with an A and the big American shield that begged themselves to be equipped on a classic Captain America. Wolverine (with BrickForge “Savage Mask”) and Thor (BrickForge hammer) quickly followed, supplemented by a HAZEL-helmeted Iron Man, official Spider-Man, and my old Hulk.
The ODSTs and Avengers were distracting enough that I didn’t get a chance to do much with the test tubes, bottles, martini glasses, and other new glassware BrickForge has just released. Briefly, they complement official LEGO items nicely, and I’m highly entertained by the idea of minifigs squaring off against each other in tiny bar fights with broken bottles.
It’s always nice to see our little hobby get some broader exposure, so it was great to see Nathan Sawaya‘s sculpture of Conan O’Brian‘s superhero alter ego “The Flaming C” on the show the other night, but Andy Richter deserved his own LEGO homage, too. Hilarity ensues.
Comic-Con was crowded. The biggest pop culture celebration in the world happened in San Diego from July 20 to 24. Over 125,000 crashed my Downtown where I work and eat. Infernal interlopers. Seriously, it was great hectic fun as always. It’s nice to live in the city where there’s an annual shopping, people watching and pop culture extravaganza of epic proportions.
I wasn’t lucky enough to get 4 day passes with preview night or scoop everyone on the biggest LEGO related news from Comic-Con, but others in the LEGO and Comics fan worlds were on it, and we were able to pass it on to you last week: LEGO negotiated DC and Marvel Comics licenses. DC sets are scheduled for set releases in January 2012 and Marvel in summer of 2012.
I went back on Sunday and got some slightly better pictures of prototype minifigures of Wonder Woman (with very invisible plane), Super Man, Hulk, Batman, Cat Woman, Poison Ivy, Thor, Iron Man and Wolverine.
There was also a display with four Hero Factory tie in figures: Green Lantern, Batman (no, I don’t know what’s attached to his back), Iron Man and The Hulk.
Both the minifigs and Hero Factory characters are official, but keep in mind they’re prototypes so they’re likely to be a bit rough and have changes before final release.
Unfortunately, the only LEGO panel this year was a Star Wars panel on Friday morning, which I missed. D’oh!
The other great highlight is running into all kinds of people. People in costumes, friends and even friends in costume. The only LEGO related costume I saw this year was a sexy red number sported by Michael “Bruno” Todd, an excellent human being, cat rescuer and force of nature. He dressed up just like an extremely rare vintage LEGO promotional figure that he somehow managed to snag late last year. Really, he looks just like the doll.
I was also amused by a woman dressed as Poison Ivy standing right next minfig Poison Ivy. My wife also dragged me over the LEGO free build area to see a strong contender for my personal Cutest Hobbit Child Dressed as Yoda Prize. Very prestigious.
Another great highlight of at Comic-Con is all the inspiration for LEGO building. Several weeks ago I searched all over the internet to find good concept art for the Numereji 2421 display at BrickCon and found some good stuff, but nobody quite had what I was looking for. It was a pleasant surprise to run across Robh Ruppel’s book, Aspect Ratio, and the great concept art sketches on his website. Not too militarized, not too idealized. Hit my personal sweet spot.
That’s it. Great weekend of geeky frolicking.
