Nerdy About The Bricks
When asked about the worst LEGO themes of all time, many afols will bring up Jack Stone. I think that this is because they have forced themselves to forget that Galidor ever existed. But of course; this is the LEGO community and nothing is useless: the aptly self-titled Prince Galidor presents us with a SHIPtember entry this year built entirely from Galidor parts. The result is a beautiful mess of purple, red, orange and various shades of gray.
One of my favorite LEGO themes growing up was the Wild West line. I always felt it was a very underrated theme. Sergeant Chipmunk's MOC gave me those old fuzzy feelings of pitting bandits against cowboys on my bedroom floor. Love the use of colors in this MOC (some purists may balk at mixing new gray and old gray, but I think it's utilized really well here). Now I wanna make a Wild West brickfilm!
I'm a big comics fan. I'm currently making my way through Jeff Smith's masterpiece Bone, so when I saw this excellent MOC by Grantmasters pop up on my Flicker feed, I was delighted. Fone Bone and Phoney Bone are instantly recognizable, and I love the usage of the hot dog bun piece for the cow's head.
Jonas Kramm has built this wonderful little MOC of Carl Fredricksens flying house from the 2009 PIXAR movie UP! Jonas explains he has a very limited amount of the right colored LEGO bricks so this was his solution - to build at a smaller scale. There's a lot to admire here, the vibrant use of colors, the snot work, the wonderful lattice work on the porch and those cleverly mounted window frames. Another classic from Jonas, it certainly lifted my spirits UP!
M.C. Escher has always been one of my favorite artists. AFOLs have been recreating his work for a long time, but I don't think I've ever seen a motorized Escher MOC until now: Jarren Harkema has assembled a beautiful display inspired by Escher's Waterfall which must look remarkable in person. You can see it in motion in this video.
Although it's widely reviled (and understandably so), I don't outright hate The Phantom Menace. I saw it in theaters when I was 10, so I was just excited to see a new Star Wars movie. Love, hate, or just barely tolerate it, you can't deny it had really nice art direction. This awesome Otoh Gunga Plasma Farm by Inthert, although not seen in the movie, looks like it could be just off screen. There's always a bigger fish...
Pixel Fox continues his great series of LEGO offroad vehicles, this time with focusing on the Land Rover Series 1. Really love the use of sand in this vignette; the desert theme brings to mind the Adventurers theme from the early 2000's (which was one of my favorite themes ever).
Eero Okkonen has a long history of building what are effectively elaborate action figures, like these two wonderfully expressive warriors - but everybody knows that action figures are the most fun when they're being played with. His newest scene pits a Samurai against a Shogunate on a serene bridge. The whole model is stunning, from the color scheme to the poses to the small details, like the snakes used as detailing on a sheath.
My Little Pony is one cartoon I never got around to watching, but that won't stop me from being in awe of this character model. Andrew Harvey has done a remarkable job creating a perfectly organic figure of Rainbow Dash. If you squint, it almost looks like a frame of animation. Just look at all the layers of jumper plates in that eye! It's amazing.
Well this is a nice coincidence! This morning I was building while listening to the new, remastered version of Radiohead's classic album OK Computer (which turns 20 this year!) I check Flickr and Anthony Wilson has remade the iconic album cover in bricks. And he totally nailed it. Great MOC, great album.
The Portal series is one of my favorite videogame series of all time. It was a very pleasant surprise when LEGO made an official Portal pack for Dimensions. Anthony Wilson made a pretty stellar moc based on the games. I love the brick-built digital readouts above the door (which sports a great custom decal), and I much prefer these Turret designs over the LEGO Dimensions version.
Breaking Bad was one of my all-time favorite shows (and the spin-off Better Call Saul is pretty darn great, too). Barry has recreated the infamous Los Pollos Hermanos restaurant from the shows in microscale, and it's perfect. The custom decals are well-done, and I really dig the little parking spaces. Now I want some fried chicken...
Jigsawjo continues to amaze with this clever vignette, aptly titled Christiansen Park. The most striking thing here is of course the rubber band trees and bushes which look surprisingly realistic - a very NPU style that I expect to see often in the future. I could imagine a much larger park inside of a microscale layout still looking great in this style.
Aido K has built a really striking scene of a cloaked man leading his horse through some chilly terrain. So many details in this I love: the brick-built horse, the traveler's feet creating a path in the snow bank, the flowing cape, and the little pieces of snow ontop the plants. But what makes it for me is the dynamic posing of the characters. It really brings the scene to life.
That 4x4x13 Curved Panel seems like a natural fit for space, looking at it now. Grant Davis' new entry to Iron Builder puts the part to great use in a sleek-yet-feral spaceship - a departure from the themes in which he normally builds. I wonder how often he gets the chance to use those dark orange Bionicle blades?
Ah, Iron Builder. No event draws out such a selection of high quality builds so quickly as a round of Iron Builder - and a new one has just begun! This month's challenger Grant Davis has just posted his first build with the "balloon" pieces; a lovely, serene scene of a lily-pad on a pond. This is only the first of what I'm sure will be plenty of great builds posted over the next month, and I can't wait to see what else Grant and his opponent come up with as the competition heats up!
Just following the release of the wonderful Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Tyler Clites has posted a great model of the Milano. I'm still fond of the set released along the original film, but this one is undoubtedly more well-fit to minifigure scale, and it's got some lovely shaping on the edges. To top that all off, Tyler has also made a video sharing some extra details and techniques which went into this build, be sure to check it out!
One of the best things about the LEGO community is that we can learn from one another. Here at BrickNerd, we like to share techniques that we see from builders all around the world. . .
Josephine Monterosso has put together a tutorial for some neat robot hands. Some might call it an illegal technique, but I think bending back handcuffs as joints is quite a clever technique, and it makes it easy to fit four fingers organically into such a small space.
(FLAVIO)'s orange mech, WIFFY-2k17, is a masterpiece of NPU. From the minifig torsos and vests used for legs, to the harpoon gun arms, to the tire feet, to a half-dozen or so other parts I don't even recognize, there's a lot of creativity going on here and it's both menacing and cute. Take a closer look and you're sure to notice some more neat details.
Well, one destroyer anyway. But it sure is a pretty one: ToaLeewan has done a great job capturing their shape at the scale of the Star Wars Ultrabuild sets. Say what you will about the prequels but I have loads of nostalgia for Droidekas; mainly from playing as them in LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga as a kid.
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