"It was our last, best hope for humanity"

For my fellow Sci-fi fans, this artifact (recreated in Lego by the sadly nameless legokol2011) really needs no introduction. We all fondly remember the many occasions on which Mister Garibaldi would use it to search for Psi Corp operatives lurking in the Down Below, or Command Ivanova would use it to track the source of Vorlon ships arriving through the Jump Gate...




 

You know, for... (oh what's the point) "IT'S A TRAP, probably"

This Ackbar moment brought to you by Pedro Vezini.
 

Beauty is in the giant unblinking staring eye of the beholder

While each one of these characters by Pēteris Sproģis is completely individual, I love the overall consistency of style, with their Picasso-like features, odd pairings, bizarre names, and occasional retro "90's wallpaper generator" backgrounds.

And of course, there's that signature GAZE. Is it the deep contemplation of whether you might be drinking too much Starbucks? Or the gradual realization that you may have accidentally left the cat in the dryer? Or the sudden shock of wandering into an octagenerian nude cyclist rally? You decide...


Talky-talkies


Father and son


Color dreamers


Cepums & Mr. Zhuk


Parkly & Barkly


Triple team


Crackhead & Honey bag Man

 

Buzz off!

Well, if I'm going to post one spaceship MOC this year, it might as well be this wasp-like wonder by Nick Trotta. It's called the Viridian Comet and imho it's stunning!


 

You know, for... AAAAAKKGH! <slump>

Fellow SeaLUG member Shawn Snyder is known for his spectacularly detailed and 'meaty' adapations of characters from movies and videogames (some of you may recall the Predator bust and Kratos figure that he displayed at the Bricks of Character table at BrickCon last year).

Well if you liked that stuff, then his latest couple of creations will not disappoint! First up is Altair from Assassin's Creed. Make sure to check the detailed images to see all of his fine weaponry.



And next up is some super hero or other that I'm pretty sure no-one has heard of or will even recognize. This one is actually fully articulated and has self-contained chest light.



Now, all this fan boy stuff is fine and dandy, but personally I'm just holding out for the day that Shawn falls in love with shojo anime! :-)
 

By the light of the silvery moon

My friends Dave & John Xandegar have put together this neat diorama for BrickWorld. Hopefully the scene it depicts is pretty self-explanatory!



It's impossible to appreciate all the great details on this piece (including the lighting effects) from just a single angle, so they also put together a short video tour...



Dave and John are dedicating this model to the children of our friend and fellow LEGO fan Heather, who recently passed away. The thoughts of the entire LEGO community are with Heather's family at this very difficult time.
 

Hair today, gone tomorrow

Even when several builders cover the same subject, the end results can still be unique and interesting. A while ago I covered this version of the Japanese "synthetic celebrity" Hatsune Miku.

Well here is another take on this character by none other than Moko, in his current "LEGOBLOID" chibi style...



And here's yet another interpretation, this time by Torokimasa, as part of his "My-Dot-box-characters" collection...


 

"It's like, a pun or something"

Robert Blok reminds us that we should, like, totally take care of the planet or something. Or like, some bad stuff is gonna happen I guess.



Far out. Wow, now I'm like, totally bummed dude!
 

Happy Easter!

Hoping that you all manage to escape the inexplicably four-eared pneumatic robo-bunny of te-rr-or by Philipp (aka Brucewaynelego-Toyshansolo). Before it hunts you down and tries to wear your face - as a face!


 

One fish, two fish, April fool-ish

I certainly hope my readers (both of you) appreciated the humor behind my two most recent blog posts, both of which were of course APRIL FOOLS JOKES.

Thanks go out to others that helped make this possible... Andrew Becraft, for graciously re-posting my ATARI CUUSOO PROJECT story on TBB. Joe Meno and Brandon Griffith, who were the real geniuses behind the BRICKCHICKS CALENDAR concept. And especially Victoria Lara (website) for the model photography (I guess that's "model" in both senses of the word!). It was nice to have stuff to run this year that was on a par with my Becraft interview gag.

Sadly, I feel unable to wring any further entertainment value out of this topic, due to currently developing events amonst the Seattle LEGO community, that are best covered by the experts (link).

:-(
 

Brickchicks 2013 calendar: Sneak peek!

For many years Lego's marketing department has tried to actively discourage girls from using their products. Who can forget that infamous "Not for girls!" ad campaign of the 1980's, or the very short-lived range of "Man Town" sets depicting a variety of unspeakable gender stereotypes.



In reality, many females of all ages enjoy building with Lego, just as much as their male counterparts (when they're not engaged in more important activities such as shopping, ironing or childbirth). And our hobby is all the richer for it!



Which is why I've been a long-time supporter of the BrickChicks calendars. In production for about five years now, these calendars bring female Lego fans to the spotlight, and are a great inspiration for the younger generation too I assume I mean how could they not be.



Part of next year's issue was recently leaked online and it looks great. Tons of stirring role models. All the images shown in this post are (apparently) from the 2013 edition! Very pleased to see Amber back in the game after that unfortunate Mindstorms incident.



Preview the entire calendar here. Or visit the www.brickchicks.com web site for back issues. More images can also be found on my photostream.


 

Atari project reels in large followers overnight on Lego site

As a product of the same era that spawned this, I cannot tell you what joy it gave me to see these Lego renderings of my all time favorite Atari 2600 game "ADVENTURE" by atarifan401. They brought back happy blocky memories of a simpler time for videogaming. Ok, I'll admit it, I'm just too old to handle anything more sophisticated than Doom!



So imagine my further delight when - literally overnight - the Atari fan community rallied around this idea and got the necessary 10,000 votes on Lego's CUUSOO website to make this an actual real Lego set (...8-bit squeeee!). In fact, they totally blew past that number, levelling out nearer the 20k mark.



The Lego company didn't waste any time putting out a press release...

BILLUND Denmark - The gaming community does it again!

Barely three months after game developer Mojang inspired the Minecraft gaming community to provide the 10,000 votes needed to make a Minecraft LEGO set reality, another very different community of videogame enthusiasts has accomplished the same feat.

This time, it is a project inspired by the classic (and equally 'blocky') Atari 2600 game ADVENTURE that has become the second LEGO(r) CUUSOO project to qualify for product review since the site went global in 2011.

"Through an amazing grass-roots effort, members of the classic videogame fan site AtariAge.com were able to amass over twice the votes in half the time. We were totally taken by surprise. This is a pretty stunning achievment given that, unlike the Minecraft crowd, Atari fans are typically a much older demographic. We heard rumors of Atari fans visiting local retirement homes to try and track down anyone that could still remember this ground-breaking 1979 console game", says Narret Fisk, newly appointed head of LEGO's New Business Group. "Apparently a flurry of telegrams and faxes over the weekend tipped the balance, when one was read out on stage by mistake in front of several thousand attendees at a Buick owners convention. After that, we started seeing pretty heavy traffic on both our web servers and our new phone-based voting system. We had to call most of the CUUSOO staff back early from their Spring Break celebrations in Miami, which as you can imagine didn't go down too well!"

The cartridge-based Atari 2600 game console was launched in 1977 and gave rise to the very first generation of home videogamers. With limited processing power and only 4K of memory, games had to favor smart gameplay over flashy sound and graphics. The 2600 is widely regarded as the grandfather of modern consoles such as the XBox or Wii, while ADVENTURE is considered to have been the template for the immersive role-playing games of today, like Skyrim and Halo. At it's peak, ADVENTURE spawned a billion-dollar merchandising industry and even a 1982 blockbuster Hollywood movie, starring Jack Palance as The Hero.

Below is a screen cap taken by the set's creator shortly before heavy traffic temporarily took down the site. Big retro kudos to atarifan401 for coming up with such a great concept for a CuuSoo set. The detailing is spot on, and the colors are totally faithful to the original. I shall certainly be "inserting coins" into my local Lego store when this one comes out!