Picture Perfect

Its not often you take a picture of your camera, but RGB900 made one out of LEGO.

I like all the details such as the strap, flash and display screen.

Its hard to tell in the picture, but I used the very same technique for the strap of the guitar hero controller that I made several years ago.

SEALUG at Emerald City Comic Con

BrickCon isn’t the only time you can see awesome LEGO displays in Seattle. Emerald City Comic Con is just two weeks away and for the second year in a row SEALUG will have all kinds of LEGO coolness for attendees to see.

And that’s not all — several LEGO vendors will be there too, including your’s truly!

I will be partnering with BrickShirts and AltBricks. So if you are attending, stop and say hi.

Not only that, but I will be giving a presentation at 3:20 pm in Hall C all about my career as a Freelance LEGO Artist.

But if you want to attend the Con, buy tickets soon. The full Con passes and Saturday passes are already sold out but Friday and Sunday are still available.

10240 – Red Five X-wing Starfighter

My interest in Star Wars isn’t what it was when LEGO came out with their first sets in 1999, so yet another X-Wing isn’t really my thing. Sure its big, its grand, and I’m positive many of you can’t wait to get your hands on it. I however, can’t get too excited, sorry.

Here’s the press release

10240 – Red Five X-wing Starfighter™
Ages 16+. 1,558 pieces.
Build the ultimate LEGO® Star Wars™ X-wing Starfighter!
US $199.99 CA $249.99 DE 199.99€ UK 169.99 £ DK 1699.00 DKK

Collect and create the most highly detailed LEGO® Star Wars™ X-wing Starfighter ever produced. This iconic starfighter is featured in many of the most exciting Star Wars battle scenes, including the decisive battle scene above planet Yavin™. Recreate the moment when Luke Skywalker’s X-wing delivered the proton torpedo that led to the destruction of the Imperial Death Star! With 1,558 pieces, this realistically detailed model features opening wings and cockpit, a special display stand, data sheet label and R2-D2.

Includes R2-D2 atromech droid
Features highly authentic detailing, and opening wings and cockpit
Includes 1558 pieces
Measures over 10″ (26cm) high, 20″ (52cm) long and 18″ (46cm) wide
Includes display stand and data sheet label!
Available for sale directly through LEGO® beginning
May 2013

And the video

One thing that did interest me about this set was the controversy of how this set was announced.

What I am much more interested in is the new Palace Cinema which I realize I haven’t posted anything about here on the blog yet. That will be in my next post.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I know I haven’t been posting for the past few days and I apologize. I’ve been preparing for my upcoming shows and I have a lot of products that I have to get ready so I’ve been totally focused on making hundreds of key chains, earrings and necklaces.

Any how, Happy Valentine’s Day! I searched Flickr for some of the Valentine fun and found quite a mixture of cool photos to share.

Lets start off with this excellent photo by DVieytes. There isn’t really any building, but it doesn’t need it.

And then here’s a couple cute pics from Debbie Hickey

And then of course we have some built creations too by Tyler Sky

Frost

And Carl Merriam

Hope you have a happy Valentine’s day

For the birds

I like to feature builders that I haven’t seen before when I can. And Thomas Poulsom’s birds are an awesome find.

Birds aren’t the only thing on his Flickr stream, but he sure has a lot of them. Three whole sets dedicated to just LEGO birds!

And as you can see from these samples, they are many and they are varied.

I like the sense of movement and life he’s added to all his birds. As if they are just about to fly off and he’s captured a brief moment in time. I feel like I’ve gone to a nature preserve just looking at them.

Giant Sushi!!!!

Need I say much more than that? Even the black “nori” (seaweed) are black baseplates. This is pretty epic in shear size and scale.

I guess Sean and Steph Mayo were pretty hungry after creating their Coral Reef. Which is equally epic!

Look at it in large size to get the full effect and all the complex building. I think one of my favorite part is the use of the clickits bracelets.

Monstrous Red Plated Beetle

I wouldn’t want to find this out side my room, at least not if it was real. But hey, this cool LEGO beetle by Bart De Dobbelaer is awesome!

This is just the latest in the Iron Builder contest.

Here’s a couple more he created

Keep it up Bart!

LEGO “Elvis”

Ryan McNaught, Australia’s only LEGO Certified Professional has created yet another mind blowing LEGO model of staggering proportions! And no, its not Photoshoped, its just that big.

Close-up you can start to get an idea of size

LEGO “Elvis” Erickson Air-Crane.
100,000 bricks.Built for Brickvention 2013.
At just under 4m and over 1m high (that’s a little over 13 ft long and 3 ft tall), this is by far the largest Helicopter I have made.
It took me just over 1 month to design and build, with its unusual shape and virtually no ground contact made it technically challenging to build.

Last year’s model was a Saturn V rocket and the year before that the Love Boat. So Ryan building big isn’t all a surprise to me, he just had me waiting on the edge of my seat for him to reveal this year’s creation.

If you happen to be in the Victoria area of Australia next weekend, BrickVention is being held on Jan. 19th and 20th. Public tickets are available through the website and selling fast.

And like last year a batch of my LEGO jewelry, keychains and stickers will be available for sale.

Cobblecrook Cottage

My first reaction was wow! Practically nothing on this model is straight or uniform. And the walls, dang. Luke Watkins Hutchinson has created what to all appearances is a tumble down cottage.

One of my aims this year is too really dig out a niche for myself. There’s a huge amount of castle builders and many people are building similar things, so I want to try and steer myself away from the norm and work on my own crazy, twisted, gritty style. I like to have a bit of character in my buildings and so I have tryed out a few things with this build. The stone walls are built on 1×2 hinge bricks which allow me to lean the walls inwards to create more of a ‘mushroom’ shaped cottage which is the style I’m going for. More texture to the plaster walls is another area I want to work on and go more in-depth with. I’ve also grown tired of the standard Lego Green color. I feel it’s too bright and unrealistic for what I’m going for, so sand green, dark green and olive green will be my colors of choice from now on.
This moc is a part of a story, and there will be a lengthy written parts which I will add soon. I’ve pretty much mapped out chapter 1, which will include quite a few builds with a larger build as the chapter close.

As LEGO comes out with more and more colors, the 1×1 round tile is quickly becoming one of my new favorite parts and this model uses them awesomely (is that even a word? )

I’m really looking forward to more of Luke’s creations!

Mike Crowley, you will be missed

Mike Crowley, also known as Countblockula on Flickr, passed away yesterday. Sadly I didn’t know him as much as I’d like personally, but I what I did know was his models. Funny, innovative and with a flare all his own, Mike created amazing models.

Here are just a few examples

I first knew Mike through his website countblockula.com, his models and his drawings

Caylin of Brothers Brick has written a wonderful tribute and so has Ace of FBTB here. I can’t do any better than them and both Ace and Caylin knew Mike better than I did.

All I can say is we will miss you Mike and thank you for sharing your talent with us.