Saturday, January 31, 2009
More secrets
Two more entries for the LUGNuts "Who is Agent Janus" challenge. Firas Abu-Jaber presents everyone's favorite talking car with the Knight Industries 2000 (K.I.T.T.). Rabidnovaracer brings us a Lego Mercedes Benz SL65 AMG. Both of these are packed with features that any secret agent would love, so check 'em out.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Sexy but deadly
Lino Martins has revealed his entry in the Agent Janus challenge that he teased us with previously. His secret agent drives a ‘63 Ford Thunderbird that's fully tricked out with weapons, changing license plate and even a working ejection seat. Definitely follow the link to see all the features and read his full description.
Shakespeare in the ABS
Not sure how I missed blogging these. Aaron Sneary built Midsummer Night's Dream for a Shakespeare in the Park display when he was working at Legoland.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Places for Minilanders to hang out
Hey all,
A couple of new groups have been created recently for Miniland fans to hang out. In the new and greatly improved MOCpages there is the ability to make groups, including LEGO Miniland started either by Sean Kenney or Mariann Asanuma. Over Christmas, Mariann started up a LEGO Miniland group on Flickr as well. Just to round out some other Flickr groups, LUGNuts is technically about vehicles, but has several oft-blogged Miniland builders. There are also several groups related to the Legoland theme parks, which will, of course, have many photos of the official Miniland creations, including LegolandCalifornia, Lego Land California, Legoland Germany and Legoland Parks.
A couple of new groups have been created recently for Miniland fans to hang out. In the new and greatly improved MOCpages there is the ability to make groups, including LEGO Miniland started either by Sean Kenney or Mariann Asanuma. Over Christmas, Mariann started up a LEGO Miniland group on Flickr as well. Just to round out some other Flickr groups, LUGNuts is technically about vehicles, but has several oft-blogged Miniland builders. There are also several groups related to the Legoland theme parks, which will, of course, have many photos of the official Miniland creations, including LegolandCalifornia, Lego Land California, Legoland Germany and Legoland Parks.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Rice-a-roni
Alex Eylar built this wonderful streetcar for Down the F Market & Wharves Line. For his first stab at this scale, I'm pretty dang impressed. I can't wait to see where he'll go with his next miniland MOC. Via the Brothers-Brick.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Secret Asian, uh, chick
The current build challenge on Lugnuts is entitled Who Is Agent Janus?. Ralph Savelsberg rose to the challenge with this Lamborghini Miura. Lino Martins has given us a sneak preview with She's Foxy! She's Deadly!, which I assume will be part of his secret agent entry.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Avatar
Steve Bishop adds to his growing menagerie of Miniland characters with Avatar, the Last Airbender. I like how he used those curved slopes on the legs rather than the tall slopes that are usually used.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Like a racecar stadium
Here are a couple of news stories on the Legoland inaugural event from CNN and ABC that were posted on YouTube. I did end up trying to go with my daughter; we wanted to tell her that she was there. Unfortunately we couldn't get on to the actual mall, as they started closing areas off due to the crowds. A police officer told me my best bet was to go all the way down to Lincoln, but that was an awfully long ways on a cold day with a little girl. It was a great atmosphere, though, and standing at 12th and Independence we were able to listen to Aretha Franklin singing My County, 'tis of Thee before I took my daughter back to the Metro station to get warm.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Inauguration day
Legoland is celebrating the inauguration of President Obama in a big way. Let's start with a long shot:
Move a little closer in:
Now let's focus on the center of attention:
You can see more coverage of this on Kristi Klein's blog Brick Star, in the San Diego Union Tribune and on San Diego 6. Most of these pics were pulled from Kristi's blog, so photo credits go to her. In the Trib article Gary McIntyre notes how they researched who would be attending to design the display, so you can pick out individuals such as the Obamas and Bidens, with the elder Bushes and Rick Warren looking on:
On the other side of the podium we see Chief Justice Roberts, the Bushes and Cheneys, with I believe the Clintons and Carters behind them:
I really laughed that George H. W. Bush is falling asleep and Bill Clinton is checking his watch:
Great job to Kristi, Gary, and the whole team that worked on this. I hope I get out to San Diego to see this in person, but a little later today I may try braving the crowds to see the real thing in person. Mainly I'd like my daughter to see it, but it will depend on the weather.
Move a little closer in:
Now let's focus on the center of attention:
You can see more coverage of this on Kristi Klein's blog Brick Star, in the San Diego Union Tribune and on San Diego 6. Most of these pics were pulled from Kristi's blog, so photo credits go to her. In the Trib article Gary McIntyre notes how they researched who would be attending to design the display, so you can pick out individuals such as the Obamas and Bidens, with the elder Bushes and Rick Warren looking on:
On the other side of the podium we see Chief Justice Roberts, the Bushes and Cheneys, with I believe the Clintons and Carters behind them:
I really laughed that George H. W. Bush is falling asleep and Bill Clinton is checking his watch:
Great job to Kristi, Gary, and the whole team that worked on this. I hope I get out to San Diego to see this in person, but a little later today I may try braving the crowds to see the real thing in person. Mainly I'd like my daughter to see it, but it will depend on the weather.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
2008 in review
Hi all,
It's time to look back on the year past. 2008 has been a great year in LEGO, with lots of events, news and, most of all, great MOCs. I'd like to do a month-by-month review of the year on MinilandBricks.
I started this blog back in April, pretty much in response to seeing three great Miniland MOCs: Nathan Proudlove's Mystery Machine, Lino Martins' Batmobile and Steve Bishop's Futurama. These three builders have been a big part of this blog.
Okay, I think this is an older MOC, but in May I blogged Ochre Jelly's Stephen Hawking (I think the micro version was new at that time). Ochre has done a lot of building at the Miniland scale that's definitely worth checking out.
In June, Mainman posted this great scene: Ho Ho, Uh-Oh.
I suspect this was an older MOC, but also that month I blogged K-Hatch's Monsters.
In July we heard the announcement that there would be a new Legoland in Dubai. More recently we've heard that there will be another coming in Malaysia (I've yet to blog that).
Mention of Legoland makes me think of Master Model Builders of the past and present. In August, former MMB Mariann Asanuma started a blog, Model Building Secrets. Also in August I did a bit of a focus on MMB Gary McIntire, his quest for a job at Legoand, and several of his MOCs. Current MMB Kristi Klein also has a blog Brick Star, that gives a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the models at the park.
Hmm, I didn't do a lot of blogging in September. Life got pretty busy that month. This is a good place to note that the Lugnuts group on Flickr has been a great source for Miniland models. Every month they have a new building challenge, and several of the builders (Lino, Nathan and Ralph in particular) are fond of this scale, as you can get a lot more detail on vehicles than at the traditional minifig scale. This month the theme was "sympathy for the underdog," and one of the submissions was Lino's '57 Pontiac Safari.
Two new huge structures appeared this year and were on public display in October. Heather LEGO Girl's Dollhouse was shown at BrickCon and Yvonne Doyle, Steven Marshall and Pete Reid's Hospital was at the Great Western LEGO Show. Any summary of Miniland building would be lacking without a mention of Ralph Savelsberg, so I'll note here that this Ferrari Testarossa was his entry to the Lugnuts year in review challenge.
I feel that I'm being a bit of a Lino fanboy in this summary, but looking at November, I can't overlook his coulrophobia, which was probably my favorite Miniland-scale MOC that came out in 2008.
One of my favorite LEGO December traditions is MisaQa's advent calendars. A couple of years ago she did Dressy Dolls, and this year it was Fantasy Creatures. I'm still meaning to blog more of these.
I finished out the year with a run of Christmas-themed features, such as Steve Bishop's Nativity and Mariann Asanuma's Madonna and Child
Oh, one other quick news item on the year that I still need to blog is the creation in December of a Miniland Flickr Group. What a great year in MOCs, and I've still got a backlog to post. Looking forward to more in 2009.
It's time to look back on the year past. 2008 has been a great year in LEGO, with lots of events, news and, most of all, great MOCs. I'd like to do a month-by-month review of the year on MinilandBricks.
I started this blog back in April, pretty much in response to seeing three great Miniland MOCs: Nathan Proudlove's Mystery Machine, Lino Martins' Batmobile and Steve Bishop's Futurama. These three builders have been a big part of this blog.
Okay, I think this is an older MOC, but in May I blogged Ochre Jelly's Stephen Hawking (I think the micro version was new at that time). Ochre has done a lot of building at the Miniland scale that's definitely worth checking out.
In June, Mainman posted this great scene: Ho Ho, Uh-Oh.
I suspect this was an older MOC, but also that month I blogged K-Hatch's Monsters.
In July we heard the announcement that there would be a new Legoland in Dubai. More recently we've heard that there will be another coming in Malaysia (I've yet to blog that).
Mention of Legoland makes me think of Master Model Builders of the past and present. In August, former MMB Mariann Asanuma started a blog, Model Building Secrets. Also in August I did a bit of a focus on MMB Gary McIntire, his quest for a job at Legoand, and several of his MOCs. Current MMB Kristi Klein also has a blog Brick Star, that gives a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the models at the park.
Hmm, I didn't do a lot of blogging in September. Life got pretty busy that month. This is a good place to note that the Lugnuts group on Flickr has been a great source for Miniland models. Every month they have a new building challenge, and several of the builders (Lino, Nathan and Ralph in particular) are fond of this scale, as you can get a lot more detail on vehicles than at the traditional minifig scale. This month the theme was "sympathy for the underdog," and one of the submissions was Lino's '57 Pontiac Safari.
Two new huge structures appeared this year and were on public display in October. Heather LEGO Girl's Dollhouse was shown at BrickCon and Yvonne Doyle, Steven Marshall and Pete Reid's Hospital was at the Great Western LEGO Show. Any summary of Miniland building would be lacking without a mention of Ralph Savelsberg, so I'll note here that this Ferrari Testarossa was his entry to the Lugnuts year in review challenge.
I feel that I'm being a bit of a Lino fanboy in this summary, but looking at November, I can't overlook his coulrophobia, which was probably my favorite Miniland-scale MOC that came out in 2008.
One of my favorite LEGO December traditions is MisaQa's advent calendars. A couple of years ago she did Dressy Dolls, and this year it was Fantasy Creatures. I'm still meaning to blog more of these.
I finished out the year with a run of Christmas-themed features, such as Steve Bishop's Nativity and Mariann Asanuma's Madonna and Child
Oh, one other quick news item on the year that I still need to blog is the creation in December of a Miniland Flickr Group. What a great year in MOCs, and I've still got a backlog to post. Looking forward to more in 2009.
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