Hot Diggity Dog

Fun fact: When I was a kid my parents started a hotdog restaurant. Starting restaurants was something they did, some of them are still going strong (Tom's Burgers in Lompoc anyone?). While "The Dog House" was only reasonably successful, I did have the satisfaction of having a dog named after me. The "Tommy" was a simple dog with ketchup, very popular. My brother's dog, the "Paul" had sauerkraut, and didn't sell nearly as well, much to my brother's chagrin. I have no qualms whatsoever admitting that seeing this clever MOC by nobu_tary has me craving hotdogs, I think I'll be having some soon.

Batman

Batman didn't get to be the most popular super hero by having super strength, or super speed, or  alien technology, or any super power. And he certainly didn't get there for the ability to talk to fish. He got there by being super scrappy, super well trained and let's face it, super rich. But no one will dispute the absolute badassery of bats, and this bust by Carson Hart captures said badassery perfectly.

Boating In Style

Finely crafted wooden boats are just about the most beautiful things on the water. Sure there are some more sculpted forms made from more exotic materials, but they can't rival the beauty and warmth of good old fashioned wood in the hands of a skilled boat maker. And in the hands of a skilled builder like redfern1950s, LEGO can mimic this look to surprising effect. This classic Riva looks ready for some maritime action.

Futuristic Bags Of Air

So the future is actually the past. What do I mean? Well, take Airships, they had a moment in the past and according to Terry Pratchet and Stephen Baxter they have a moment in the future, many futures. This small but perfectly formed Airship (SciFi Flying boat) by MiniGray! ticks a lot of design boxes. Its small but has many cool curves and features. The all over white colour scheme makes it quite clinical and functional.

Bienvenue À Paris!

Love me some macro creations - it requires a specific kind of skill of simplicity that is very difficult for some of us builders. We are eager to fill spaces with as much detail as possible and the beauty of micro/macro building is that ability to pull back and focus on only the minimum. LegoJalex treats us to this neat scene of the Eiffel Tower, using a minifigure hand for the famous landmark. 

Fun fact about the Eiffel Tower: The tower is repainted every 7 years by hand. The weight of the paint alone weights as much as 10 elephants. 

PATA-PATA-PATA-PON

I'm a gamer that likes anything artistic and/or cute so you would think that Patapon would be my jam right? THINK NOT. Don't let these cute little guys deceive you, they are menacing and vicious as long as you can keep rhythm...unfortunately for them there is not a single rhythmic bone in my body. 

This creation by Leonid An is so darn cute that I may just swallow my frustration and attempt to pick up Patapon again. Whats so neat about this build is that the game is 2-dimensional, so creating a character in this shaping and dimension is quite impressive! 

Electric Light Orchestral Manoeuvres In Space

The mixture of Space and Rock Music has been around for many years but it seemed to come to a head in the 1970's. One of the most iconic album covers featuring a spacey theme was Out Of The Blue, released by the Electric Light Orchestra in October 1977. The multi coloured space ship always reminded me of a jukebox. This MOC by grobie captures the look well. I am pleased its small as an actual mini fig version would be the size of a foot all field! Check out the rest of the Rock band Space Ships on his feed. "Hey there you with the pretty face, welcome to the human race"

I Can Hardly Contain Myself

Space. More specifically shipping stuff around in Space. These beautiful containers by Matt Rowntree just ooze class. I think they have a truly universal (see what I did there!) feel, easily at home in the gritty realm of Aliens or Star Wars, as well as the clinical world of 2001. Gonna have a go at some of these myself.

Take A Lok At This Loco!

You may or may not know that I love trains. Big trains, little trains and Lego trains And most of all I love Lego trains in larger scales. This 750mm Narrow Gauge Locomotive from grubaluk described as a Lok 24 of the Jagsttalbahn is just lovely. Built in the old Home Maker scale and full of great detailing, especially around the boiler and the pistons, I would happily give this a home on my railway. I hope that this inspires train builders to create in larger scales!

Mascot Bricks!

AFOL and all around swell Guy (see what I did there?) Guy Himber and Crazy Bricks are back on Kickstarter with another fantastic round of custom LEGO minifigure accessories. This time it's mascots, and as you can see from the picture they're pretty awesome. The campaign kicked off yesterday so there's still plenty of time to get in on the ground floor of this and score some extremely nifty accessories.

Play Ball!

I'm not a baseball fan (or any sports for that matter) but that doesn't diminish my appreciation of this fantastic micro scale baseball stadium by builder ericlego321. You can practically smell the grass, hear the crowd, feel the unforgiving seat under your butt and taste the overpriced but strangely satisfying hotdogs.

Nerdvember 2016 Is Here!

Yes it's here again, Nerdvember! What's Nerdvember you ask? It's that time of year we want you to reimagine our mascot Nerdly. This year the theme is Disney, and we're totally excited for it. You can find instructions for Nerdly under the Build tab, or just follow this link. If you need a little inspiration check out the MOCs from 2014 and 2015, then get building, you have until the end of the month. Three winners will be chosen, you could be one!

We have some excellent prizes from our awesome sponsors including books from No Starch Press, a subscription to BrickJournal, custom printed bricks from EclipseGRAFX and customBRICKS, stickers from Cooper Works, lighting products from Brickstuff and surprises from our pals at FBTB and Brick Loot. Oh, and some BrickNerd swag will be included as well. 

We're also super excited to share that all three winners will receive a complete set of all 18 Disney Pixar Collectible Minifigures courtesy of LEGO!

You have until 11:59 pm PST on November 30th to enter. Just build, shoot, upload to Flickr, add your photo to the official group and you're in! So what are you waiting for? Build on and nerd out!

Rules:
Must submit to Flickr group no later than Nov 30th 11:59pm PST
Enter as many times as you like
Please submit no more than two pictures per MOC
Tag your pictures with "Nerdvember"
Must be physically built, no digital models please
No age limit, but if you’re under 18 please ask your parents
No scale limit, build as big or small as you like
No knockoff brands (Kre-o, Mega, etc.) but third party accessories are OK (Brickforge, Brickarms, Brickstuff, etc.)
Stickers are allowed
    
The theme is Disney, but you don't have to follow it if you don't want to, build whatever you want, just make it nerdy.
    
Download instructions for Nerdly at bricknerd.com/diy-fanart or this link
    
Prizes:
Winners will be featured on BrickNerd and there will be three prize packages of various levels of awesome, first second and third. No special categories or funny business, just 1 2 3. Some prizes will be shipped directly from the sponsors. Judging will be done by a small secret committee, their word is final.

Content Warning: Too Much Awesome

Paul is one of those builders that make you question whether you should continue to build anything cool with LEGO. He's already built the most amazing things ever, so why bother anymore right? 

Last week he posted this beautiful Steamy-punky goodness, and I needed to recover for a few days. Too much awesome in one day can really mess with your brain. 

The amount of detail in this creation is just amazing, check out his profile for some close up shots and a bit of story. 

Then after I recovered, he goes and posts ANOTHER mind blowing creation based on Day of the Dead:

Color choices, and the patterns are my favorite with these creations. The symmetry is something too to admire. 

PAUL WINS GUYS, LET'S JUST ALL GO HOME 

Happy Halloween!

One of the best things about Halloween (besides candy, scaring children and the rare but always satisfying Slave Leia of course) is how spooky my Flickr feed gets. This is just a few of the load of wonderful and creepy Halloween inspired MOCs recently uploaded by builders all over the world. Happy Halloween from BrickNerd!

Creepy Crawler

Builder Lino M is getting into the spooky spirit of Halloween with this chillingly awesome and absolutely slammed 1967 Cadillac Coupe DeVille appropriately named Creepy Crawler. Of course it has opening doors, trunk and hood, as well as a detailed engine compartment. But my favorite detail has to be the Crazy Bricks skull hood ornament.

Captain Underpants

There were a number of book series my boys got into. We were captivated by a Series of Unfortunate Events, creeped out by Goosebumps and entertained by Harry Potter. But a stand out series has to be Captain Underpants, just for it's unabashed embracing of the absolutely silly. The MOC by builder Deus "Big D." Otiosus embraces that spirit as well.

Art

To me, LEGO is an art medium. Like clay, metal, plastic, paper, stone and all other materials, it is potential, it is waiting. All it takes is the skill and passion of an artist to transform them from essentially nothing into something. Art can amuse, compel, intrigue, disgust and evoke, raw materials can't do that. These pieces from Brixe63 would be right at home in MOMA, that's the power of this incredibly flexible yet constrained medium known as LEGO bricks.

Taste The Feeling

This made me smile, because it's the real thing, a brick built Coca-Cola bottle. You can't beat the feeling of opening happiness in your Flickr feed. Ok, enough slogan puns, check out this excellent Coke bottle MOC from nobu_tary. It is a joy to behold, and 100% less likely to give you type 1 diabetes. Enjoy!

Bricks in Costumes!

BOO!

  Chris Maddison has been doing some, as he calls it, "Brick or Treating" this October.  It appears that some of his LEGO bricks have gotten all dressed up for the occasion!  Maybe they stopped at Party City?  My favorite costume represented here is the vampire on the right, though I do admit that I wish it had a bigger collar.  A very unique build, Chris!  Happy Halloween to you!

Puzzling Cube

Is this a simple or complex MOC? I mean it assembles into a perfect cube, but it's a single color. It's a simple shape, but built of complex shapes. I've always been drawn to puzzles, it's my curious nature and problem solving mentality, and I find myself drawn to this. Some might dismiss it as way too simple, but I think it's genius. Nice work HummingDuke.