No Starch Humble Bundle

Those fine folks at Humble Bundle and No Starch Press are having "pay what you want" sale and you can score some amazing deals on ebook versions of a load of LEGO inspired titles. Check out this lineup!

Pay any amount to receive ebooks of:
Beautiful LEGO
The LEGO Adventure Book, Vol. 1
Medieval LEGO
The LEGO Build-It Book, Vol. 1

Pay more than $8 to receive all of the above, plus:
The Cult of LEGO
Incredible LEGO Technic
The LEGO Build-It Book, Vol. 2
Forbidden LEGO
LEGO Space
The LEGO Technic Idea Book: Fantastic Contraptions

Pay more than $15 to receive all of the above, plus:
The LEGO Architect
The LEGO Christmas Ornaments Book
The LEGO Neighborhood Book
The LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 Discovery Book
The LEGO Power Functions Idea Book, Vol. 1
Steampunk LEGO

It's $323 in books that you can have for as little as $15, and it supports charity! What are you waiting for? The sale ends Nov 23rd so get going! 

Eve

Character design and animation at Pixar is pretty amazing. If you saw a sketch of Eve from Wall-E before you saw the movie, you would scarcely suspect she was capable of the range of emotions required for the film, but she was. You might also have suspected she would be pretty much impossible to build with LEGO, but thanks to builder LuisPG2015 you can see it's not

A Circle Within A Circle Within A Circle Within...

Every once in a while a MOC comes along that makes you go "wait...what?" This motorized gimbal by builder Sheo stopped me cold this morning, and I love that. It seems impossible at first (even for someone with a background in mechanical contraptions) but then you look more carefully and it makes sense. And in motion it's as beautiful as it is confounding.

Nerdvember continues

As you may have noticed there's a counter at the top of the page, that's how long you have left to build and enter your Disney inspired Nerdly MOC for Nerdvember 2016. The official Flickr group is already filling up with marvelous MOCs, like this adorable Mickey by Ronnie. So what are you waiting for? Build on and nerd out!

Get Your Kicks

Builder Norton74 is back with another top-notch automobile MOC. This one is based on a real car and it's interesting history (click through for the whole story), starting right here in California and ending in Oslo of all places. It's a true piece of custom hotrod Americana. The backdrop of Route 66 is also an iconic part of American car culture.

The Dude

Those wonderful makers of awesome shirts at Tee Fury have a treat for all you Big Lebowski fans out there. Todays shirt (and today only) features everyone's favorite layabout, the Dude. So act quick, much quicker than the dude would for sure, and get yours today.

Catbus

It was just the other day I blogged about a My Neighbor Totoro MOC, and now another great one has appeared! This creation by CK Tsang is based on the magical Catbus creature from the film. The use of the eyes from the Doctor Strange set is fantastic, and the Catbus' (slightly unsettling) expression is captured perfectly.

If We Join Together, No Forces Can Stop Us.

Last night Mrs. BrickNerd and I had the distinct honor and privilege to attend the wedding of one of my best pals in the AFOL community, Brandon Griffith. These brilliant little clapboards served as our place cards and told us where we were seated (yes, I squee'd). The ceremony and reception were truly a joyous occasion and a great time was had by all. I can think of no two people more perfect together and I'm so happy you found each other. Congratulations Brandon and Daphne, live long and prosper.

Saboteur 67 Ultra Wave Equalizer

If you're not familiar with Dr. Grordbort, you need to acquaint yourself. It's a rabbit hole of much steampunk goodness "where science meets violence". This pistol by Grantmasters was inspired by the Saboteur 66, one of a great many whimsical and wonderful steampunk weapons featured. It's small, much smaller than you would first think, but t's powerful. 

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.