lego

I’ve just returned from Melbourne where I attended my third (maybe fourth…) Brickvention. Each year this convention gets bigger and, more importantly, better. A huge thanks to the organisers for making it such a great event.

For those who could not attend here’s a selection of some of the great creations that were on display. Or of course you can find your own by wading through the tags or Brickvention group. And if you took photos please remember to add “Brickvention” and “2012″ to your tags and submit it to the group.

Mark Curnow (Brickton) brought this utterly amazing version of Bumblebee from the new Transformers movies. This thing was incredible, both for size and detail. It was funny coming up to it from behind where it looked like a jumbled bionicle creation (with no offense to the great bionicle builders out there) but from the front you realised the jumbling was 100% truth to the source material.

• With full stands and an incredible minifig selection, Jannie Sasson bent walls to capture the geometry and activity of a Quidditch tournament. Her use of 3D for the players gave the tournament a wonderful feeling of action.
• The Canberra LUG brought along this wonderful rollercoaster using the old blue track. Watching it zip around the track was a pleasure. I know David Boddy has some great videos of the show too.
• I have to admit I missed Travis Matheson’s ‘Nova’ ships at the actual event, but having spotted the pictures now I really regret it. Some excellent microscale love.

And of course these are merely a few of the many great models and displays that the 10,000 audience members got to see. We’ve already seen Ryan’s rocket and I’ll blog Mike Pianta‘s and my creation later.

PS. Excuse the messy pictures. WordPress hates this sort of layout for some reason. And I hate taking too much space or boring you with excess words to fill space.

(via In Russia, tiny protest sparks big police response: LEGO minifigs, South Park dolls, and Wall-e demonstrate for democracy)

LEGO Recycling Bin (Blue) by bruceywan on Flickr.

LEGO Corn Popper Toy by bruceywan on Flickr.

LEGO and Moleskine

LEGO Kitchenaid Tilt-Head Stand Mixer by bruceywan on Flickr.

I’ve been enjoying halfbeak‘s LEGO creations for a while now, but it seems I hadn’t managed to blog any yet, so I’m glad he posted this strange little micro-ship. Halfbeak is also great at writing very tiny stories to go with his very tiny ships — backstories that don’t overwhelm the model and actually add something.

While we’re at it, he posted a great pair of “colonial ark” ships back in December. Click through for the excellent micro-story.

Shannon Sproule (Shannon Ocean) has a very odd interpretation of the Batman in 2025. It’s for the LUGNuts 51st Build Challenge: Batmobile 2025.

Bad Hair Day (by Sad Old Biker)

Christmas LEGO Table by rb3wreath on Flickr.

Princess Leia Bust 1 by Lego Monster on Flickr.

Two 17-year-olds from Toronto made a balloon to fly a minifig and camera 24 kilometers into the air. Check out the news article for photos and a video of this amazing feat.

Via Toys N Bricks

This spindly mech by Kahan Dare (aka tadashistate) brings a bold look and a bit of flair as it poses cheekily. Kahan also proves his style with a spot of lovely photography using a simple background that accentuates his model.

Our good friend Huw over at Brickset recently attended the UK Toy Fair in London. Huw writes, “Although photography was not allowed on the stand, there was nothing stopping photos being taken of the stand: the sides and, for that matter, from the balcony above. This picture was decorating the side of the stand and as you can see it shows the whole Fellowship of the Ring.”

Read all of Huw’s report about the LOTR sets over on Brickset, and be sure to check out the rest of his coverage.

Official photos of the latest addition to the modular building line surfaced recently. At 2766 pieces with 8 minifigs, 10224 Town Hall appears to be the largest modular building to date.

Here it is with the other recent modular buildings:

Our contacts at LEGO promise to share details about pricing and availability closer to the official announcement, but enjoy the photos for now.

Size matters not… by SPARKART! on Flickr.

LEGO Ghostbusters by chris glenn on Flickr.

HEY! I wanted a gumball! by legoliz on Flickr.

Martin Latta’s (thire5) UCS scale ARC-170 starfighter is very easy on the eyes with its smooth sculpting on the nose, engines, and pretty much everywhere else.

Matt De Lanoy made a Lego version of the Reddit alien for the newly launched subreddit for Lego fans, r/afol. You don’t have to be an AFOL to join as the group seems to focus more on MOCs and building techniques.