Wow, just wow. This is one of the biggest and most impressive LEGO builds I’ve seen in a long time. Ryan McNaught (aka The Brickman) has put together roughly 100,000 LEGO bricks into an ELVIS, Erikson Air-Crane. Look at all that orange! It took him just over a month to design it and put it together, and he mentions that the strange shape made it difficult to put together – not much of it touches the ground! It was built for Brickvention in Australia, which is happening right now. Really amazing! Check out more images below. Read more…
I’m a big fan of YouTube user Akiyuki’s work. His complex and elaborate LEGO machinery are always a treat to see, and trying to figure out how he built the crazy contraption is brain-tickling fun. His latest project is an axle sorter, which organizes all those Technic axle rods you might have laying around. Depending on how big your LEGO collection is, this machine might look very enticing! Now we just need one that sorts all LEGO bricks, not just the axles. Sure that might be time consuming… but you know what to do, Akiyuki! Read more…
Have you seen this amazing Back to the Future LEGO set? No? Well look at it, take it all in. It looks amazing. And the submission on LEGO’s CUUSOO web page had gotten enough votes by the public to be considered by LEGO for an official set. And guess what? It was approved! LEGO got the necessary rights with Universal Studios and the DeLorean will be coming out in the near future. There’s not a final model yet, so the end result might look a bit different from these pictures. But still: a LEGO Back to the Future set. Awesome! LEGO also mentions they’re next looking at the Mars Curiosity Rover, UCS Sandcrawler, and Portal 2 LEGO CUUSOO projects. I would kill for some Portal LEGO sets, so I’m rooting for that one! Check out more images and the video below. Read more…
Brotherhood Workshop is back to their old tricks again, creating excellent LEGO stop-animations featuring Lord of the Rings characters duking it out or engaging in other silliness. Their latest work is recreating the battle of Helm’s Deep for the Machinima Interactive Film Festival – except there might be a few little changes along the way. Legolas certainly does his best to help out Gimli so he can see over the wall, that’s for sure. Also keep an eye out for Chewbacca… he’s hiding in a few places in there! Read more…
Merry and Pippin are always playing jokes and, obviously, always getting into trouble. This cute video from Brotherhood Workshop does an excellent job of bringing the LEGO Lord of the Rings sets to life in stop-motion. The two reckless Hobbits attempt to scare Frodo and Sam and end up getting burnt in the process – although what else would you expect? I’m continually impressed by the quality of these animations, especially with how smooth they are. I know CGI is being used for most of LEGO’s commercial work now, but some classic stop-motion would look even better if done like this! Read more…
I think I can safely title this that, right? Carlyle Livingston and Wayne Hussey, two intrepid LEGO fans, took nearly 400 hours each over three months to build the most impressive Batcave I’ve ever seen. It has all the important details, and even the not-so-important details. All those angled bricks for the cave surface look amazing, and I love the little exits for the various Bat-vehicles. Carlyle and Wayne have been taking the Batcave around to various conventions, so you may have caught it at Brickcon or Emerald City ComiCon. Absolutely insane! Read more…
With New York Comic-con in full swing, we’re getting some cool announcements out of the convention. One cool bit of news was LEGO’s announcement of a new license added to their already huge list: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Technically, it’s based off of the recent Nickelodeon version of the characters, but still! This is a great property and the minifigures look great, but that van is a little on the borish side. Hopefully we’ll see some neat sets come out. Best part: LEGO teased the announcement the day before by sending out LEGO pizza slices to press. If that’s not awesome, I don’t know what is. Read more…
YouTube user Insomniac has been making some amazing LEGO videos for a while now, but his latest music video featuring Foster the People and their song Houdini is probably my favorite. I’m really amazed at how much time he spent working on it, getting all the camera angles correct and making the lighting really work – it’s incredibly good. And fluid, too! Hopefully he’ll post a video on his site soon showing off the behind-the-scenes work done on it. Till then, click through the break to see an awesome music video featuring cute plastic yellow people jamming out. Read more…
Remember those wonder ball contraptions, shuttling marbles or other small round objects around various mechanical means of transportation? Well a Japanese LEGO fan recently uploaded a video of his most expansive Great Ball Contraption yet, and it’s mighty impressive. Useless? Yes. But still impressive. There are lots of great details included in it, and astute LEGO fans will pick out lots of clever brick usage. I really love the mechancial arms that poke in quickly and yank the balls into the next stage – very fun to watch. Beware of watching the “Suggested Videos,” you might not return! Read more…
Flickr user _Tiler has been getting some attention recently, and rightly so: his small LEGO models, while made of only a few parts, have a striking amount of detail and character! Ranging in subjects from The Dark Knight Rises, Blade Runner, and The Fifth Element, I’d hope LEGO would take note of these, as they’d make great sets, especially as stocking stuffers or the like. Click through for a mini-gallery! Read more…
How much do you like your cool and unique art installations? What if they’re LEGO-inspired? As part of LEGO’s Festival of Play event, the brick-building company has been bringing life-size LEGO trees and flowers to various locations around Australia to give people the experience of living in a LEGO world. The latest stop, early this month, was in Broken Hills and suffice to say, it offered up some great photographs! I hope LEGO expands this to other areas of the world as well, as this is a very cool idea. Read more…
Just look at that beautiful image up there. That’s a new LEGO set due this holiday season based on Bag End, from the Hobbit. And it’s amazing. I doubt there is a more perfect LEGO set on the market right now. Like I said, you’ll have to wait till Christmas to grab it, but San Diego Comic-Con has brought us this first look. We’ve also got some Star Wars LEGOs and Kenner Alien figures after the jump! Read more…
You know I have to wonder what H.P. Lovecraft would have thought if he could see his beloved mythical creation Cthulhu recreated in Lego? Imagine Rigney did a smashing job of bring this scene to life — I really love the level of detail that was put into this project: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 11, 2012 in Star Trek
Growing up as a child one of my prized possessions was my AMT Star Trek Exploration Set — a full scale model kit which included a tricorder, phaser and a communicator. Fanboy Tommy Williamson has done amazing job of recreating this set in LEGO! I really love how the Tricorder has moving parts: Read more…
Ex-lawyer, and renown brick artist Nathan Sawaya will be in town for San Diego Comic-Con this year. Apparently Nathan plans on teaming up with artist Jim Lee for a special live exhibition where he’ll recreate one of Jim’s Batman portraits using standard LEGO bricks. As part of the larger Darkness & Light: Art Inspired by Heroes & Villains, Hope & Heroism exhibition that’s currently on display, the live event will take place on Friday, July 13th from 11 am to 4 pm at Michael J. Wolf Fine Art Gallery. Read more…
Posted by Ben Huber on Jun 15, 2012 in Cinema, Fandom
After watching this video, I really want some Inception LEGO sets. Especially if you could rotate the famous hallway around to best replicate the bizarre gravity changes? You know you’d buy it. Or an exploding snow hospital building. Ok, I shouldn’t get carried away. This CGI LEGO trailer for Inception made by a cool bunch of people at VFX is pretty fun, and it has a few clever LEGO jokes in there too. I’m enjoying this recent resurgence in LEGO-themed videos because it really gets my creative juices going!
The video game we all knew was coming has now got a trailer, thanks to the massive E3 week about to roll through. Plastic Gandalf faces off against the Balrog, Frodo carries the hilariously-oversized One Ring, and Boromir once again laments the presence of a cave troll. The use of voice clips from the movie works for a trailer, but I wonder how the characters will be voiced in-game, if they’re voiced at all? Anyway, the LEGO games have been solid so far (if a bit too numerous to count), so I’m sure this will be another great addition to the collection. LEGO Lord of the Rings will arrive in October this year, just in time for the Hobbit marketing blitz.
LEGO CUUSOO, where were you my whole life? I may not get the chance to build that many LEGO sets these days, but I can always count on others to provide innovative new designs worth checking out. Recently, a LEGO CUUSOO user Sheepo submitted this slick design for a fully functional remote-controlled LEGO Land Rover Defender 110. It’s got everything you’d expect — doors that open and close, full suspension, working motor, and even a removable chassis. I cant imagine how much they’d charge for the set if it were to actually be approved for full production, but if the model strikes you fancy, head over to LEGO CUUSOO and let them know. The sooner it hits 10,000 supporters, the sooner LEGO will actually consider licensing it.
I’m not entirely sure I’m responsible enough to own any real firearms, but I think I could settle for LEGO replicas. Introducing LEGO Heavy Weapons: Build Working Replicas of Four of the World’s Most Impressive Guns. Its17-year-oldauthor, Jack Streat, delivers a complete guide to building 1:1 scale replicas of several well-known firearms, such as a SPAS shotgun, or Desert Eagle handgun with realistic built-in blow-back. Despite the subtitle’s claim of allowing you to build “working” replicas, I seriously doubt you’ll ever get one of these to fire live ammunition. At least, I hope so. Also, isn’t it terrifying to know there’s a 17-year-old kid out there who can design a replica AKS-74U assault rifle using LEGO bricks?
This is really impressive: to help promote The Phantom Menace’s 3D re-release in Germany, LEGO model creators Rene Hoffmeister and Lorenz Lnggrtnr made something amazing. An enormous diorama featuring 4 Star Wars settings (Hoth, Tatooine, Naboo, and the Death Star) and then hooked it up to a keyboard. The highest bricks rotate around the barrel and bump little sensors that then hit the correct key on the keyboard, thus playing the Main Theme of Star Wars. Watch the video above to see it in action! Read more…
The LEGO CUUSOO site has been a big focus of the internet recently. The ability to vote up neat ideas to become official LEGO sets is too cool to pass up for many, so we’ve seen an explosion of popularity, especially with the recent Minecraft set. So what’s the latest? Shaun of the Dead! It’s a great model of the Winchester from the zombie film, in ‘Modular’ form which is LEGO’s line of buildings aimed at adult collectors. It needs 10,000 supporters for LEGO to begin the process to make it a set (it has around 8200 currently), so get on over to the CUUSOO site and sign up! Read more…
Now this is an awesome LEGO MOC (My Own Creation). Julius von Brunk recently created this delightfully clever Game Boy Transformer – and wow is it detailed. First, it actually transforms. Second, the game cartridge transforms too. Third, he even made batteries for it that integrate into the “battle” mode! Now if only it could get submitted and approved on LEGO CUUSOO… Read more…
Here’s an interesting bit of news for you LEGO collectors out there — Sideshow Collectibles will start stocking sets in the near future. The online retailer is known for having exclusive, limited edition pieces while offering special incentives to repeat shoppers. In fact, they even offer flexible payment plans, though I’ve always been a little weary of purchasing anything I couldn’t already afford, but with the price of most LEGO sets these days, its nice to have options. Unfortunately, Sideshow hasn’t revealed any further information. Whether or not they’ll carry every product line, or if they’re planning to release exclusive sets remains to be seen, but you can keep informed by signing up for their LEGO newsletter here.
