It’s that time of year again! Nelson Yrizarry and I, the co-curators of the LUGNET.build.vignette newsgroup, are proud to present the Second Annual Halloween Vignette Contest. To win, simply build the best “Halloween-themed vignette” following the contest rules. This is a “winner take all” contest (although a second-place prize may be awarded if we receive 20 or more entries). If you have any questions regarding this contest, please reply to this post. Good luck!
This past weekend brought sad news about the death of Steve “Crocodile Hunter” Irwin. As Bruce blogged over on VignetteBricks, the LEGO world has responded with several fantastic tributes for this great conservationist, family man, and entertainer.
Melody Brown:
rogueyoda:
k-hatch:
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I love poetry more than I love LEGO (shock!), so it’s nice when I can blog a little poetry here on The Brothers Brick. Posting in the middle of the night while at BrickFest, Bill Ward gives me just such an opportunity with his set of six beautiful poetry vignettes. Here are my three favorites.
“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost:
“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Frost:
“Yonder See the Morning Blink” by A.E. Housman:
Be sure to check out his other great vignettes as well:
Darkness falls and the air becomes still. Old ladies fan themselves on balconies and small children run through empty lots catching fireflies. Neon signs and distant fireworks illuminate the night sky, but deep in a bamboo grove on the edge of town, only the full moon’s grey glow shines on the stone graves.
Other children, braver and older than those exclaiming over tiny lights in jars, edge out from the bamboo. They whisper, they shuffle forward. From behind a tomb, a ghostly figure emerges, cloaked in blue flames (vig by Izzo):
Scenes like this play out all over Japan throughout the summer. Well, maybe not with blue flames. Sort of like a haunted house outdoors, I have fond memories of going over to friends’ houses for kimodameshi (肝試し), or “test of courage.” We’d tell scary stories until it got dark, and then the parents and older siblings would disappear while we drank soda and ate candy. Once we were suitably, uh, energized, we’d head out into the dark, tittering with anticipation (vig by inago100):
Our destination wasn’t always a graveyard, but those were favorite places for kimodameshi. Surrounded by tombs in the dark, with nothing but a flashlight to light our way, we never knew what was around the corner. Inevitably, an adult or older brother would jump out from behind a tree, a grave, a wall, a bend in the path and scare us half to death (vig by Moko):
Silly “haunted houses” at the mall and in school gymnasiums here in the States pale in comparison to the fright of seeing a “real-live” (heh heh) ghost float out at you from behind a grave for the very first time. My own kids (when I have any) better watch out — I have a few tricks up my sleeve…
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Horace Cheng puts his Laputa minifigs and flappters to excellent use in his first vignette (via VignetteBricks):
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Sigh… Remember my posts about Nannan’s alien abduction? And osk’s aliens? I seem to have angered our All-Seeing Overlords. Well, at least they’re taking it out on this poor dude (vig by Moko):
Naturally, Moko has included light-up brain-sucking action:
Inevitably, this process leads to the sweet release of death:
Poor dude. Oh well.
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Some men call him a god. Other men name weeks after him. It is undeniable that Nelson Yrizarry stands above the rest when it comes to vignettes. One reason is the minifigs he includes. Here are my favorites from his latest vignette-building binge.
Sir Clark of Kent:
The Soup Nazi from Seinfeld:
Snoopy, Lucy, and Woodstock from Peanuts:
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Brickshelfer and FBTB member Nannan recently posted a cityscape that I didn’t really pay any attention to as I passed over it on Brickshelf. I’d seen cityscapes before:
Yeah, that’s a cute little UFO, but nothing special, right? WRONG!
Nannan has incorporated an Exo-Force light brick with a corresponding fiber-optic tube thingy. Extremely cool and very ingenious!
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Annie Preston rounds out her series of vignettes with three more 20th-century artists (via Vignette Bricks):
Mark Rothko:
Andy Warhol:
Jasper Johns:
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I recently blogged Japanese builder Turbo’s goldfish-catching scene over on Pan-Pacific Bricks (you may also have seen the post on VignetteBricks).
Since Turbo’s latest creation shouldn’t need any cultural explanation for those of us who’ve been swindled by “shooting gallery” games at carnivals, I’m posting it here on TBB instead. Here’s Turbo’s shooting-gallery scene:
As I blogged earlier this week, July 7th is Tanabata. Turbo and Inago100 join the summer festivities with two great scenes.
Here’s Inago100’s Tanabata vignette (the text says “July 7th is Tanabata”):
Another favorite summertime activity, generally at festivals, is trying to scoop up goldfish using only a paper “net.” Typical of carnival games everywhere, it’s rather difficult. You have to be quick but gentle, because the paper will get soggy and rip — especially if the goldfish is especially frisky and flops around after you catch it.
Turbo captures this scene perfectly with a goldfish-catching scene:
Brickshelfer Annie Preston has been posting art-inspired vignettes over the last week or so (via VignetteBricks):
Piet Mondrian:
Pablo Picasso:
Jackson Pollock:
