Details: Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner. This is the most adorable thing you will see this Valentine's Day. The characters here are Fabuland figures - but here, the original Elton Elephant and Bonnie Bunny are only used as "gifts" that the larger, sculpted versions of the characters are giving each other.
As cute as Elton and Bonnie are, the details of this model only make it more captivating. Note that the arms get thicker further away from the body to capture the curvature correctly - the "top" of each arm (actually built sideways) is made from rows of headlight bricks with 1 x 1 tiles connected to their fronts. The curved effect this creates is subtle, but an excellent use of the half-plate-thick offset you can get from a headlight brick. Clip plates hold the bunny's eyes in place and also form her eyelashes. Plates with rails fill some (roughly) half-stud-wide spaces that otherwise wouldn't look as round. The elephant's ears even achieve the difficult "cupped" effect by carefully weaving plates together in different directions - and I still can't tell how his eyes are attached. Bonnie's mouth is exquisite - a minifig cap sits on top of a precise jumper plate construction that conceals part of a set of whiskers built as a studs-up mosaic.
Schneider Chung hadn't posted on Flickr for a while before this, but he remains one of the best at building in his signature studs-not-on-top style. I highly recommend that you explore the rest of his photostream. We've previouslyfeatured a few of his adorable Easter-themed animals.
Details: The "Blind Build" is a popular game at LEGO conventions, but it doesn't truly capture the experience of a blind person building a LEGO set. Being blind doesn't mean only not being able to see the parts - it also means that you can't see the box or the instructions. Depending on how long someone has been without sight, it might even mean never having seen a LEGO piece. While bricks and plates are very tactile elements, most of us who experiment with a "Blind Build" as a game are very familiar with what the parts look like, and we're usually looking right at the instructions while we build. A blind person attempting to build even a fairly simple kit will need to be able to interact with all of the parts - and the instructions - without ever seeing them.
This challenge has been met by an exciting website launched recently called "Lego for the Blind". Matthew Shifrin has compiled a series of written instructions in English for a variety of popular LEGO sets (19 of them as of this writing). These instructions can then be read aloud by screen reading software. Some preparation is required (besides acquiring a set listed on the site) - a sighted person needs to sort the parts first. I suspect that that step could be skipped for a set that doesn't include the same part in multiple colors, but so far the sets the site has instructions for lean towards the larger size. Then again, having to feel through 2000+ parts to find the right shape would bring back the "goofy convention challenge" aspect...
The biggest reason this blog got quieter in 2016 isn't actually personal issues getting in the way. It's the difficulty with figuring out how to write this post. We lost many notable figures in the LEGO fan community this past year. I'm not even talking about Carrie Fisher (Star Wars' Princess Leia) or any of the other "celebrities" the rest of the world knows. I'm saying we've lost many of our friends, our inspirations, and predecessors.
Not knowing how to grapple with that made it difficult to say something right away. Over time, I quickly started to think that more fitting and thorough tributes were required to properly eulogize and remember why these people were important. Then the terrifying realizations started settling in: people will want you to say something more meaningful now that you've taken longer to say anything. More people have died and it's not fair to any of them to compress them all into one post. Nobody else is saying anything. Wait, really? None of the big AFOL blogs noticed Seymour Papert died? Or Ed Boxer? Or Robin Werner? What kind of community are we? How little do we know about our history, or care about people who are active in different parts of the country than we are in? How many more important AFOLs has our community lost that I don't know about? What does it say about us "LEGO news blogs" in the "AFOL community" that when we lose someone important in our community, we don't say or do ANYTHING to honor the departed? Can we really claim to be a community if we don't do anything in these situations?
The guilt set in. I knew I had to write something about it, but anything I said would be too little, too late. We've disrespected our elders too much already, and even focusing on what's wrong with us as a community instead of what we loved about those we've lost is unfair to their memory. I just can't win, and it feels like most of our "community" doesn't even realize that we should be fighting to preserve our community.
Without further ado; here is too little, too late (in roughly chronological order):
Seymour Papert
A giant in a few different worlds, Seymour Papert is probably best known to LEGO fans for his role in creating the LEGO Mindstorms range. He's not just a major figure in bringing LEGO into the classroom, though - he's also the major figure in bringing computers into the classroom. Before Mindstorms, he was instrumental in developing the LOGO language, he spoke at one of the earliest LEGO fan events, and he did much of the research underpinning the bringing both play and programming into education. Like I said - I can't do him justice in a short blurb.
Ed Boxer
If you're a "real AFOL" (tm), you know about Ed Boxer's LEGO Castle. It was impossible to miss in the late 90s, especially after it was recognized as the first "Cool LEGO Site of the Week" (he was later featured twomore times). Admittedly, he had been quiet in the community for some years before he passed last summer, but he will still be missed.
Robin Werner
Robin Werner spent was active in the AFOL community for a longer time than most, but he primarily focused on town and train layouts in his home state of Florida. He was a founder of both the Greater Florida LEGO User Group (GFLUG) and the Greater Florida LEGO Train Club (GFLTC) - and in many ways, he was the indispensable man keeping GFLUG rolling. Best known for his stunningly ambitious downtown Tampa layout, he passed very suddenly just after returning from a month-long tour of three AFOL events.
Further reading: GFLUG.org (as of this writing, still frozen in time with reports of events from before Robin's last outing) GFLTC history (a summary of 1996-2004, which shows how important Robin was in establishing his state's LEGO scene) GFLTC on Brickshelf Cool LEGO Site of the Week : Site #120 was "Robin's LEGO® Zone", which seems to be lost to history (if you can find it, let us know).
Paul Quigley
Barely a month after Robin's passing, GFLUG was still reeling from the news when we found out that Paul Quigley was gone as well. While he didn't have the travel itinerary of others on this list, I knew him as a passionate builder, friendly vendor, and devoted family man. He was a constant, active force in a LUG that badly needed the support, and it's unclear how the LUG will continue after losing two of its most active members.
Durrell Reichley
A fixture at AFOL events in recent years, Durrell Reichley was a key person in running ColonialLUG, the first recognized LEGO User Group aimed primarily at teenagers. Part of a rare family of FOLs, he was often more of a supporting player for his wife (Mary) and two sons (Zane and Nathaniel), who remain active in the hobby.
Details: This year, Santa's got a new ride. Someone ought to make a movie about this model and use that as the tagline.
There's lots to love in this modernized interpretation of Santa's sleigh and reindeer, but even with all the space-y greebles and twists, it's still faithful to the sleigh-and-reindeer formula. Santa's throttles (in place of reins) round out his one-seater carrying a bag of toys - which also seems to have a thruster of its own beyond the reindeer pulling it. At this scale, a few long Star Wars blasters make for great antlers, and a pair of pearl gold 1 x 1 round plates with holes mounted on what looks like minifig handlebars make for excellent eyes.
Other great details include the use of wheels as hooves, a white Technic wheel to represent the fur around the neck, a minifig ski for the top of the reindeer's head (not to be confused with the larger skis used for the front of the sleigh), and a plate with a tooth for the gold trim on Santa's sleigh. Make sure to check out all of the photos - the Reindeer Mech can be posed in a surprising amount of ways (probably more than are shown).
It's never too early to start planning builds to donate for next year's Creations For Charity - we expect next year's fundraiser to be larger than ever before.
Details: Duncan "donuts_ftw" Lindbo recently came across the Buzz Lightyear wing element from the Disney series of Collectible Minifigures and built this beauty. This microscale version of the X-Wing Fighter (from Star Wars, now also owned by Disney) also makes great use of the new Flat Tile 1X1 ½ Circle, White element (found in a few Mixels sets) to get the shaping of the wings right at this scale. There's also some clever studs-not-on-top (SNOT) work - note the lime clip ring plate in the cockpit to connect the two 1x1 plate with tooth elements on the sides. Notice that (although I'm not sure how he did it - perhaps white clip ring plates attached to either side of the lime one?) the bottom set of wings is attached upside-down relative to the cockpit and top set of wings - a nice bit of symmetry that keeps the handle bar plates from marring the shape of the spaceship.
Details: Our friends at BZPower recently posted video of the BrickUniverse Raleigh 2016 LEGO Online Community Panel. LMOTD contributors Dan and Matthew were both on the panel - myself (Dan) representing this blog and Matthew representing Beyond the Brick. Also featured on the panel were Scott Barnick (contributor at New Elementary), Andrew Bulthaupt (admin at BZPower), George Barnick of Brickipedia, and Stephen Forthofer from The Brick Show. We discussed a number of aspects of the online LEGO fan community, focusing on how each of our outlets within the community uses various sites and platforms that are a part of our ever-growing community. You may find interesting the parts where the history and future direction of this blog are covered, but much of the conversation was about the sheer size of the fan community today - which is more interesting for those of us who are willing to jump on panels but are shy about the whole self-promotion thing.
We will (eventually) be covering BrickUniverse Raleigh 2016 in more detail.
Details: Why yes, I'm actually using the name of a model as a post title. This hits the perfect sweet spot for me - it uses great techniques and rare colors to combine two now-classic official LEGO themes. Perhaps you have to had been young in the 1990's to appreciate this; people much older than that tend to think of both Bionicle and Rock Raiders as childish and overly-juniorized themes (on a related note, we really need to have a better summary of what "juniorization" is). A quick check of Ryan's color chart shows that most of the important colors in the Rock Raiders theme's color scheme have been discontinued - teal (Bright Bluish Green [TLG]/Dark Turquoise [BL]) was last in a new set in 2005, and the "great color change" means that we haven't seen old brown (Earth Orange [TLG]/Brown [BL]), old dark grey (Dark Grey [TLG]/Dark Gray [BL]), or old light grey (Grey [TLG]/Light Gray [BL]) in a new set since 2006. Metalized Silver [TLG]/Chrome silver [BL] hasn't exactly been a common color over the years, either, even if it hasn't been discontinued yet.
The colors aren't the only thing to love here - there are also some clever joints and details. Bionicle balljoints are used on the knees to allow two sockets to form a joint together. The same joints are also used in a more traditional (although non-geared) way on the standard Toa torso element (which I'm just now realizing hasn't actually been in a set since 2004) and with a rare black Technic axle towball connected to a Mixel socket to create a very flexible wrist on one hand. Some extra color and body is given to areas that otherwise might look spindly, thanks to the Transparent Fluorescent Green [TLG]/Trans-Neon Green [BL] 1 x 1 round plates pushed into Technic pinholes. The best detail, though, may just be the chainsaw blades coming out of the feet.
Details: takamichi irie (legomichiiiiii) recently built this awesome little dragon - it's short enough for a minifig to pet, but definitely fearsome enough to terrorize a microscale kingdom. The head may look a little familiar - it seems to take after an awesome build of Nessie that Sean and Steph Mayo built last year (which I probably should have blogged at the time), but that horns and binoculars technique still works very well. The torso really speaks to me - it's a brilliant use of the thick-pin skeleton torso, with a lightsaber hilt for the neck, four skeleton legs for the legs, and the gargoyle collectible minifigure wings as the dragon's wings. The wings don't look to be swooshable to me (minifig neck accessories tend to have looser connections), but that'd be easy enough to fix with a 1x1 round brick (that's how I'd do it, anyway, but it probably looks better the way it is).
The head and tail demonstrate another technique - using clips in askew connections that are sturdy, but wouldn't be considered "legal" in an official set or LEGO Digital Designer. I think I spy a minifig hand holding that tail in place, with the end that normally connects to a minifig's arm crammed into the skeleton torso (another "illegal" but very useful connection).
Details: While I (Dan) continue to be largely absent due to personal issues (I'm now moving to a new state again), I have still kept building and kept attending events. At one such recent event (this year's BrickFair Alabama), I was interviewed by our friends at Beyond the Brick about my Super Mario Bros.Piranha Plant. While the mechanism still doesn't run smoothly enough for me to be completely happy with it, it's worked well enough to take to shows - but I've been avoiding documenting it online until I've had a chance to make it work better (in this clip, it's already lurching along at a slower speed and sticking a little). I'd like to revise it further to fix the motion problems and to try to capture more of a world from Super Mario Bros. - perhaps with a few more moving characters.
This model debuted at last year's Maker Faire Orlando, which coincided with the 30th anniversary of the original release of Super Mario Bros. It also works out nicely that Piranha Plants were actually green back then (as compared to the red that's currently more common). Not that colors showed up on my classic Game Boy, anyway...
Making things out of LEGO that "move" is a wonderful thing. Creating something out of LEGO that can do something in response to human input is pretty awesome. There are a few LEGO vending machines out there that can be easily found with a Google search. In fact, in the description of the LEGO Starburst vending machine video the builder acknowledges the "LEGO vending machines" of another YouTube user by the name of ElectryDragonite. While ElectryDragonite's LEGO vending machines are numerous and very interesting, what makes iceleftd's Starburst vending machine wonderful is the sleekness of the design coupled with the very well thought out mechanical components and functionalities. This LEGO Starburst vending machine is a truly impressive build that really shows off the talent of this amazing builder.
In addition to an impeccably well produced video, iceleftd has also created a very sleek rendering of the vending machine which can be found on the builder's Flickr.
Channel 4 over in the UK has recently put out a brilliant documentary that chronicles some great behind the scenes action at LEGO. Many topics near and dear to the LEGO community's heart are touched upon and lots of notable LEGO fans are featured prominently.
Fortunately for those of us not in the UK, a kind YouTube user by the name of "Legoboy" has taken the time to post the documentary in its entirety for your viewing pleasure.
(Please note that the video embedded above was viewable at the time of this posting. If at some point in the future this video is no longer viewable please alert us as such and we will attempt to update this post with a working video.)
EDIT 3/5/2016: Channel 4 now has this documentary available on demand online.
Details: Minifig sculptures are an interesting genre - you can build them at so many different scales, and with so many different techniques, but it still seems like most people just copy set 3723. Increasingly, the official sculptures that LEGO uses for promotional purposes seem to be getting increasingly cartoony, with dimensions and angles that look less like actual LEGO pieces and more like something out of a LEGO-branded video game. It's an interesting aesthetic that I suspect we'll see leaking into fan-created builds over time, but so far seems to be used primarily by professionals.
One advantage of Ryan McNaught's status as a LEGO Certified Professional in Australia is that his model shop is LEGO's preferred method of making official promotional sculptures in Australia (this doesn't happen in most of the world, but it's an advantage of being on a continent without other model shops or certified professionals). Because of this, official designs for sculpted large minifigures have been trickling out on Ryan's Flickr photostream for some time now. They're not all necessarily built or designed by Ryan, but they're all built in his studio. You can see a few more characters under his legominifig tag and legocity tag, or, say, in anyofthesephotos. There aren't too many photos of any particular model, but the models themselves are nice, with appropriate details and sculptural technique. It's worth taking a look and browsing through his photostream.
Details: The latest addition to the exciting world of scaled-up LEGO elements made out of standard LEGO elements is this incredible rendition of the classic rubber band holder, a much-derided "useless part" that was seemingly inescapable in sets for about a decade. This particular build is about 8 times the regular size of the part, and makes great use of the 4x4 macaroni element to portray the Technic pin holes in the part. I'm also enjoying the use of curved-top arches and 1x3 curved slopes to capture the curvature at the edges of the part.
What elevated this part to a more beloved status was a joke by one LEGO fan about how "cool" LEGO pieces don't get named after builders who use them frequently anymore. Surely the LEGO fan community has been around too long and we'll never name a great piece after someone who used it well again. Nate "nnenn" Nielson figured that if a piece were named after him, it would be something like this rubber band holder (unfortunately, variations on this story have been told so many times in tribute to the man that it seems to no longer be possible to find his original quote in a quick search of the web). After Nnenn passed away, the decision to refer to this part as a "nnenn" was unanimous.
Details: Those of you who have supported a Kickstarter project in the past may have recognized a project that showed up in yesterday's "Projects We Love" e-mail. "This Week in Kickstarter" featured PancakeBot, which I wrote about here in 2011 and spotlighted in advance of World Maker Faire 2012. For those of you just tuning in, this is a machine that can print pancakes with custom designs. The non-LEGO Kickstarter project is already well beyond the original funding goal, and will eventually be available for sale at $299 USD (you can still support the project on Kickstarter to get it at a lower price). Oddly, much of what's been written about the current Kickstarter project refers to 2013 as when the idea became the "working LEGO version" and 2014 as when the "First working prototype" was made. I was pretty impressed with the video from 2011, but perhaps a later LEGO version (that I can't seem to find with a quick search) was more reliable and is what they're now considering the "working" version.
There's been a considerable amount of hype around the Mindstorms line as a source of tomorrow's great inventions. This 'bot might be the first to actually go all the way from LEGO-based rapid prototyping to being a mass-produced product that people buy. If you can think of another one, let us know!
Details: In the past few years, there's been a proliferation of seed-part based challenges in the wake of the popular "Iron Builder" contest. I (Dan) did my part by finding a way to make such a game fit in at BrickFair, but most of these challenges revolve around Flickr. Sometimes, like in this case, it's just a couple of builders taking up the challenge for the fun of it. This particular challenge is based around the current small, 5-link chain element. Surely a silly piece, it's much too short to be useful and was originally used for Ninjago weaponry when it first came out. They've found plenty of clever uses for it, although some of them make use of the classic "everything is more useful in quantity" trick.
Details: I've recently written about the increasing popularity of building sculptures with studs facing out in all directions. It allows for a stunning level of precision in a model, making it pop with realism. This one's a bit different than most of the others I've blogged inthepast, though: most of the shape of this model was generated by a computer. LSculpt has been around for a while, but for us LEGO Open Source junkies (I know I'm not the only one), it's exciting to see it used to make RepRap's version of the iconic Linux mascot, Tux the penguin, exist in the brick. Sure, sure, it's not that difficult to build a model from computer-generated instructions, but it's no mean feat to track down all the right pieces for a model on this scale (50 cm/63 studs/20 inches tall), and most of standing out in the LEGO community is more about having good ideas for what to build than about how clever you are with LEGO techniques anyway. It's hard to overstate the cleverness of the complete Free Open Source Software chain here - a Linux penguin, colored in GIMP, modeled in Blender, run through LSculpt.
There's also that nose - zoom in on the photos and you can see that care was put in to use tiles to round things out just a little more than LSculpt suggested. You'd be surprised how often small details like that end up being what separates a builder who really knows what he/she is doing from someone who is building directly from a program.
It's also noteworthy for historical reasons (and comparison's sake) that Eric Harshbarger (in many ways the first big freelance LEGO sculptor) has built Tux in a more traditional studs-up style, without the aid of modern programs or techniques. Newer tools and tricks have a way of making awesome models seem less exciting in retrospect (as they say, nostalgia isn't what it used to be).
Details: This gorgeous Formula One racer is actually an alternate model of the MINI Cooper set. The set itself is a great model, of the sort we would have blogged here if we were on top of things, but never mind that now. This retro Formula One racer kicks it up a notch, taking the snazzy color scheme and adding some wicked curves and angles to coax a far more difficult shape out of the same parts. The aft section is all built at an angle, but attached so well that it feels seamless. The front involves a bit of artistic license (or perhaps is a good reason for the builder to say this isn't modeled on any particular life-sized vehicle), but is a pretty stunning look nonetheless. The Speed Racer windshields in dark green looked pretty clever as wheel wells in the set, here they look even better as the rounded area around the front grille.
The details are classy too, although it's a little hard to highlight them with just 5 photos. You'll have to look closely and take my word for it that they're in there and look good. There's a hood ornament, dashboard instruments, an exhaust pipe, and even an adjustable headrest. I'm pretty sure I even see gas and brake pedals in one of the photos. I'm not sure if the doors really open, and I'm not sure I mind much either way - it's hard to make an alternate build look this good.
This model isn't terribly complex from a technical standpoint, but it features great uses of lettering, hinges, and studs-not-on-top building (check out the boxes shown on the side). Then, of course, there's the use of a 1 x 1 round tile and 2 x 2 round tile to represent some milk that has spilled.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner. This is the most adorable thing you will see this Valentine's Day. The characters here are Fabuland figures - but here, the original Elton Elephant and Bonnie Bunny are only used as "gifts" that the larger, sculpted versions of the characters are giving each other.
