Details: At this year's DesignerCon, there will be a Comic Bricks art show. The whole Comic Bricks Flickr Pool is worth checking out, but my personal favorite is this Star Wars cover. I always prefer a mosaic background when one can be done, and it's particularly effective in this case, allowing brick-built lettering to pop and the fiery effect around the Death Star to show up properly. Having the round sections of the Death Star itself be one stud out from the background makes it possible to use actual curved elements too, which really makes the roundness more obvious in a situation like this where parts of the "circle" are obscured. Then there are the characters - Luke's outfit comes across perfectly and there's no mistaking the plate hinge making an appearance as his nose.
As a sidenote, the builder of this particular model is Tommy Williamson of BrickNerd fame. Word on the street is that he's doing this model-blogging thing better than we are these days, but please, don't leave us, we still love you! It's alright - most of us LEGO bloggers actually get along in person (I'd show photos of our secretive cabal's last meeting, but what happens at BrickCon stays at BrickCon, and besides, no one looks good in photos of secretive cabals meeting in a basement under the cover of darkness), and longtime readers will remember I've raved about his builds before.
DesignerCon is at the Pasadena Convention Center in Pasadena, California (USA) this Saturday, November 8th, from 9 AM to 6 PM, and Sunday, November 9th, from 10 AM to 5 PM. Tickets are $7 per day at the door.
Details: On his way back from Comic Con, BrickJournal magazine editor Joe Meno went to LEGOLAND California and took some photos. Highlights include several large swaths of miniland and some of the sculptures around the park (I'd get more specific like I usually do, but for some reason flickr photos aren't loading smoothly on my end today - with any luck they'll load better when you look through these photos).
There are 102 photos in the first flickr set and 28 in the second.
Details: This gorgeous microscale rendition of the Gamble house in Pasadena, California, USA is fantastic. While the source material is an exciting bit of architecture, this LEGO version actually looks even better - the brighter shades of tan and reddish brown really pop, and the dark green here looks phenomenal. The balance of techniques is just right - the windows are flashy enough to stand out but still fairly faithful to the source material. When trying to capture a landmark in microscale, you sometimes need to make a bit of a caricature by emphasizing certain features. In this case, I think that the details where picked out as well as can be at this scale.
Please check out the builder's flickr photostream for additional photos of this model and other spectacular microscale models of real buildings. I tried to add the tag "Gamble House" to all of these photos to make them easier to see here, but for some reason that option wasn't available on a few photos of this model - including one of the better overview shots and the photo showing how the roof sections line up.
From the builder:
Built: 1908 Architects: Brothers Henry & Charles Greene Pasadena, CA
I hope that this has captured the look and feel of the Gamble House.
The Gambles considered selling it, but soon changed their minds when prospective buyers spoke of painting the interior teak and mahogany woodwork white! The Gambles realized the artistic importance of the house and it remained in the Gamble family until 1966, when it was deeded to the city of Pasadena and University. Enjoy!
Details: We interrupt your regular model-specific blogging for this delicious serving of miniland goodness. Miniland is the name for the special scale and style used for the miniature scenes at LEGOLAND parks. The larger, more consistent scale makes it possible to build people as carefully posed characters with a wide variety of motions instead of just the ones that minifigures can achieve. Buildings become more parts-intensive (a non-issue for the LEGO employees who build these models), but can be far more detailed than buildings recreated at minifig scale. These 45 photos from LEGOLAND California are mostly detail shots (which we apparently cannot zoom in on) of some of the interesting scenes in miniland.
In the interest of not duplicating photos, I've tried to skip mentioning flickr sets of photos that are accounted for in the Bricks By the Bay Flickr pool. Feel free to send any links I've missed in to legomodeloftheday@gmail.com
Continuing on my thoughts from last week, here's another blog I think you should be reading in addition to this one: Mariann Asanuma's Model Building Secrets. Mariann is a former LEGO Master Model Designer who wrote the book "Building Secrets from the Masters volume 1: How to Build a Round Ball with Square Bricks!" - but lately, we've gotten to know her through privately commissioned LEGO work, her spectacular blogging and engagement with the LEGO fan community, and her contributions to BrickJournal magazine. Her unique perspective and knowledge of parts and techniques makes her a must-read. These past few days, however, she's been a great source for news on Comic-Con (you know, that huge comic fan convention LEGO was at last year that I should have mentioned here by now). She's still writing more posts about the event, but for now, check out her Bionicle mosaic built on-site, her Giant Comic-Con logo mosaic and her recap of the LEGO, BrickJournal, and WB booths. It's been a big event (and one I probably should have covered here over the weekend), but Mariann's got it covered.
You can also view her other website, where she promotes her book and her skills as a LEGO artist for hire.
...and if you want more San Diego Comic Con (perhaps you're not just a LEGO fan), you can check out Joe Meno's flickr photostream for more photos than you'll know what to do with.
Details: I hope the video of this cake's unveiling is visible for everyone, but if it doesn't work, you can still use the links above to get to photos.
I still remember when I first heard about LEGOLAND California's 1999 opening, and it's hard to believe it's been 10 years already. This cake is an excellent tribute to the park - various layers show various attractions and popular themes from the past ten years. The bottom even has spinning hypno-discs (which are, in the LEGO world, what make time travel possible)! It's hard to pick a favorite part of this masterpiece - there's just too much going on.
This fantastic animatronic cake sculpture commemorates 10 years of LEGOLAND California and will be on display this weekend at BrickFest in Portland, Oregon, USA. BrickFest is a convention for Adult Fans Of LEGO (or AFOL's), and there is an "expo" day open to the public on Sunday, March 29th, 2009 from 11am – 4pm ($7 per person - $25 max per family). If you do make it out there, send us a link to your photos - we'd love to see what's going on there, or even just more photos of the cake!
I know it's "cheating" for me to not pick just one model here, but today I'm just linking to a nice flickr photoset of LEGOLAND California photos instead. I love seeing good pictures of the exhibits in the parks, and the master builders who work at the parks make a point to add new items seasonally and over the years to make each visit unique. This photo, for example, shows one of the famous scenes at the park partially decorated for Christmas. These photos are from December 12th, so I'd take it that the seasonal bits popping up are still there and likely will be for another week or two. They may be adding more each day - you never know. At LEGOLAND Windsor, they got into the habit of updating the Doctor Who miniland characters each time a new episode aired - so apparently weekly in-jokes are nothing out-of-the-orindary to the builders of the LEGOLAND parks. Did I miss anything surprising this time around?
Details: OK, so it's not just one model and I generally try to avoid getting into stuff from the parks. Get a look at these photos, though - hi-res shots of large swaths of Miniland. Lots of people take photos at LEGOLAND California, but most people just do it for novelty - they don't actually get pictures that are good enough that you could try using the scale and techniques in your own models. These photos, on the other hand, are excellent, cover a large variety of Miniland models, and are clear enough that you can zoom in and see how things are done. Of course, there are some other photos of LEGOLAND here too, but the Miniland shots are most of the highlights. Besides, there are over 400 photos here - you probably couldn't look at all the rides and sculptures in the same sitting as the Miniland anyway.
Sorry about the late post - this had been picked out last week but I apparently never got around to writing about it in advance. I'm rushing it up now (Sunday around noon EST) but will be adding to it later today.
At this year's DesignerCon, there will be a Comic Bricks art show. The whole Comic Bricks Flickr Pool is worth checking out, but my personal favorite is this Star Wars cover. I always prefer a mosaic background when one can be done, and it's particularly effective in this case, allowing brick-built lettering to pop and the fiery effect around the Death Star to show up properly. Having the round sections of the Death Star itself be one stud out from the background makes it possible to use actual curved elements too, which really makes the roundness more obvious in a situation like this where parts of the "circle" are obscured. Then there are the characters - Luke's outfit comes across perfectly and there's no mistaking the plate hinge making an appearance as his nose.
