Rocko reveals another LEGO creation he’ll be bringing to BrickCon in a couple of months. This modular building is Rocko’s contribution to our LEGO Zombie Apocafest:
Don’t miss Rocko’s Brickshelf gallery for lots more details.
Tag Archives: Town
An incredible hot air balloon
Karwik (Noddy) took a sharp turn in his noggin and built this amazing hot air balloon model using 100% LEGO products. While I see that rubber bands from LEGO sets were used to secure the string pieces, I have no idea where that transparent ball with the LEGO logo came from. Nevertheless, it’s amazing and I love every bit of it.
Vipers, ChiefLUG, the LEGO Zombie Apocafest, and Brickcon 2008
Update: Zombie Apocafest 2008 went off smashingly at BrickCon 2008, October 2-5. Don’t miss our full coverage here on The Brothers Brick:
The pre-registration price for BrickCon 2008 goes up from $40 to $50 next Tuesday, August 5th. If you’re still thinking about joining Nannan, Josh, Keith, me, and lots of other Brothers Brick readers in Seattle this October, now’s the time to register!
If you’re still on the fence, here are a couple building challenges and contests to whet your appetite.
ChiefLUG Initiation
ChiefLUG will be extending initiation to anybody who builds a LEGO Viper from Battlestar Galactica. Here’s what ChiefLUG founding member Ryan “Chief” Wood has to say:
ChiefLUG is a superrad group of Lego fans dedicated to veggie platters, crazy group builds, being awesome, and pretending to be half as cool as KeithLUG. You might be familiar with our work.
To join ChiefLUG, you just have to build and bring a Viper, like the one above designed by Andrew Lee (more photos). Creative color variations are encouraged.
The Brothers Brick LEGO Zombie Apocafest
Not to be outdone by some upstart KeithLUG wannabe, KeithLUG itself, or a bunch of reasonably well-adjusted Train/Town builders, we at The Brothers Brick are sponsoring the first ever large-scale LEGO Zombie Apocalypse. Think Shaun of the Dead. Imagine Max Brooks’ World War Z in LEGO.
Naturally, we’ve recruited some of our favorite twisted LEGO minds to contribute, including Rocko™ and Justin Pratt:
There will be free swag for participants, of course, including prizes in various categories (such as Best Building, Best Vehicle, or Best Minifig) the quality and quantity of which will be determined at our whim between now and October.
To make the display easy to integrate, we’re asking participants to follow the modular building standards exemplified by Cafe Corner, Green Grocer, and Market Street. Well, basically anything featured on Brick Town Talk — with a zombie twist, of course.
Since I can’t find any documentation on what the “Cafe Corner standard” is, here’s my take:
- Building stands on one or two Baseplate 16 x 32 with Square Corners.
- Two connectors on each side of the building: Technic Brick 1 x 2 with Hole placed on studs #10-11 and #22-23 (from the front of the baseplate).
- Floors can be any height (though 9 bricks high appears to be the standard).
- Curb at edge of baseplate built from 1 x n light gray tiles, and sidewalk built from dark gray tiles, seven studs from the curb to the building (curb + sidewalk = 8 studs).
- Building can be any size (though 16 x 16 or 16 x 32 appears to be the standard), built eight studs back from the front of the baseplate with an eight-stud “alley.”
(Please correct my description of the standard as necessary, and I’ll update this. I can post the standard separately too, if there’s interest.)
We’re talking about the apocalypse here, dear readers, so variations are certainly allowed. We’ll also do our best to integrate larger structures (like Justin’s bombed-out office building). We respect zombie diversity, certainly, but I really love the old Harry Potter troll as the basis for my own zombie horde.
And don’t forget survivors. And their multifarious modes of transportation.
So, if you’re coming to BrickCon, we’d love to include your contributions to The Brothers Brick LEGO Zombie Apocafest. Bring whole buildings, or partially destroyed buildings. Bring a truck. Bring just one zombie. Whatever. There’s room for one and all at the Zombie Apocafest!
Izzo goes to town
Izzo admits that of the hundreds of LEGO creations he’s posted over the last few years, only a handful haven’t been mecha. As much as we love Izzo’s amazing robots, it’s nice to see him change things up.
His latest batch of creations includes a trio of modular buildings. My favorite is this gray building with a green roof:
Here’s Izzo’s full lineup of buildings so far:
Four scooter shops by Jamie
Jamie “Morgan19” Spencer enters the Scoot-a-bration contest with four great scooter shops.
Catch Up and the South Hovel:
Roamin’ Holiday and the Silver Lining:
Check out more pictures of all four scooter shops in Jamie’s Brickshelf gallery.
Noddy’s CRAB crawler takes the load
Karwik (Noddy) presents a motorized crawler carrier with remote controlled steering and other cool features shown in the video. This creation marks another triumphant fusion of form and funtion into a LEGO creation, showing that something beautiful can also actively haul your load through the pits.
Fanging it on two wheels
Well birthdays are lovely and all but we do have a blog to run here and pretty LEGO models to show. I spotted this beauty on Brickshelf today and was highly impressed by Camine’s fine work. There have been a bunch of good motorcycles for minifigs posted before but this is the best Japanese style bike I can remember seeing.
More LEGO Sport City details and behind-the-scenes photos from HKLUG
We recently highlighted HKLUG’s LEGO Sport City display, with huge models of the venues we’ll be seeing in the Beijing Olympics next month.
Thanks to LEGO Ambassador and HKLUG member Tsang Yiu Keung (better known as Chiukeung), we have lots more information on the models, including behind-the-scenes photos.
Chiukeung gives a sense of just how large the display is:
Venues recreated in LEGO include the National Stadium (nicknamed “The Bird’s Nest”), National Aquatics Center (“Swimming Cube”), and Olympic Village.
The finished display is certainly impressive, but the behind-the-scenes photos reveal the true scale and impressive techniques that went into the LEGO Sport City.
The iconic National Stadium was designed by Ming, an architect by trade. It took him over 100 hours to complete, and is 128×154 studs in size (that’s about 40″ x 48″). The outer shell includes thousands of hinge plates.
The National Aquatics Center was built by Vincent Cheung over the course of 120 hours, and has a three-tier design with a cell-like structure in the transparent blue walls.
The Swimming Cube is illuminated with a fluorescent lamp inside, and measures 148 by 148 studs, or 46″ on each side.
Chiukeung built the Olympic Village, which is 160 x 224 studs (50″ x 70″). Chiukeung spent 100 hours on the project.
There’s lots more to see (56 pictures in all) in the HKLUG LEGO Sport City photoset on Flickr, including the Equestrian stadium by Hudson, Greek temple by Wai Kee, and various Chinese and European buildings by Andy. The mosaic was built by Hot, who also coordinated the entire project.
If you’re in Hong Kong, you can see this LEGO display for yourself at Grand Century Place between now and August 31, 2008.
Thanks again to HKLUG and Chiukeung for the behind-the-scenes info and photos!
Hradek restaurant
What a gorgeous and peaceful creation tacvud from Brickshelf has made! It is based off a restaurant in the Czech city Varnsdorf called Hradek. The photography setting of this creation in outdoors with real life scenery for the backdrop contrasts well with the yellow color of the building and creates a complete and relaxed scene – just what I need.
HKLUG present LEGO Sports City
UPDATE: We’ve gotten lots of additional photos and behind-the-scenes details about HKLUG’s LEGO Sport City display from HKLUG.
HKLUG kick off an Olympic themed exhibition featuring some creative models of Olympic landmarks. Read more about it in their blog entry. The “Birdsnest” and water cube are highlights.
Langeoog Island
Every so often I’m absolutely dumbfounded by a LEGO model. In this particular case German builders Andreas and Kai Böker do it by presenting what I consider to be the best non-urban train layout I’ve ever seen. While looking at the details is exciting enough the panorama shot is a must in order to absorb the true brilliance of this layout. I could spend hours looking at this.
If Alta-Vista has translated correctly this layout is presently on display on the actual island of Langeoog so if you’re in the neighbourhood check it out. And if any of our German readers can help me out with information I’d be forever grateful.
Smart Cars
LEGO Certified Professional Sean Kenney sculpts much accuracy into these Smart Car models. He has made five copies that are fully glued, which can be purchased for $475, which is quite a luxury to afford.
