What is Patina? Patina is defined as “a surface appearance of something grown beautiful especially with age or use.” Have you ever picked up a partly green coin or penny, or seen the Statue of Liberty? Those have a patina from oxidation, for example. There are many different patina shades you can achieve. A weathered car is another example. This could be as subtle as fading, or as extreme as rust and decay. Worn or otherwise unrestored vehicles are very popular among enthusiasts. There are a few different reasons why people leave their cars like this. It’s more costly to prep, prime, & paint a metal surface than it is to leave it alone. It’s also been said that not repairing the worn look gives the car more personality, and shows its history. Some people preserve the outer decay and prevent it further by coating their vehicle in clear paint. Why...

Around this time last year, my partner and I went on a road trip to BrickBuilt Sydney and visited all of the LEGO Certified Stores in the Sydney area to obtain the LEGO store passport stamps. This year we embarked on another road trip to BrickBuilt Sydney, but managed to extend it to make it into a 19-day LEGO-themed adventure we called the Festival of the Brick. What is the Festival of the Brick? So what is the Festival of the Brick? For us, it was the name of an epic trip comprised of 19 days of LEGO-related events and travels from Melbourne via Sydney up to Maryborough, in Queensland, and then back to Melbourne via Brisbane, Port Macquarie, Newcastle, and Canberra. It wasn’t entirely planned to be LEGO-focused, but we ended up having something LEGO-related happen every single day of our journey. Day One - SORTLUG Meeting The Festival started...

My favorite ride at LEGOLAND California is The Dragon roller coaster. The coaster is one of the standard LEGOLAND rides, appearing in all ten parks. The roller coaster itself is reasonably exciting (for a park designed for younger children), but the coaster part is not the main attraction. The best part of the ride is seeing all the LEGO models depicting scenes within the castle. But the ride takes you through the castle at such a brisk pace that it’s hard to take everything in. If you blink, you’ll surely miss some of the great models! Our family would often ride twice, and I would decide to “look to the left” this time and “look to the right” the next time just to get fleeting glances at the impressive LEGO builds on display in the dark portion of the ride. Here at BrickNerd, we want you to be able to enjoy...

Bringing a 2-D trading card into the third dimension certainly feels like a job made for LEGO. And Takamichi Irie puts those bricks to work, moving the Pokémon Chikorita into the active position. The ‘Mon is an impressive recreation, extending a mushroom to the “camera” using one of its vines. And the terrain is downright astounding, brimming with vegetation and crags in front of a gradient pixelated background. But the features that take this build from astounding to jaw-droppingly awesome are all the references to items from the game surrounding the card: Master Ball, Rare Candy, Pokédex, Potion, Full Heal, and PlusPower. Even the kanji at the top of the card spells out the Japanese name of this particular pocket monster. One more thing before attaching a Grass Energy and going in for the attack. As with all trading cards, there’s always a second side to consider. And Takamichi didn’t skimp...

If there’s one thing we at TBB never get tired of, it’s castles. The LEGO community never fails at using both innovative and tried-and-true techniques to bring castle walls to life, and this build by JakobKaiserMOCs (“Gothic: Twilight – Greenmire Gate”) is no exception. The first thing that drew my eye was the stunning vaulted arch that serves as the entryway, made from curved stacks of 1×1 round bricks set on top of microfigs to suggest carved figures in the stone. Another standout feature is the lovely set of windows along the gallery on the left, with some 1×1 studs providing an effective accent. It’s worth trudging across that dodgy-looking pond (itself worth a good look) just to get a better view. The post What awaits you beyond Greenmire Gate? appeared first on The Brothers Brick. Original linkOriginal author: Ryan Kunz