So while I was meandering casually around the LEGO booth, someone redeemed a Brickbuster case. And I had the opportunity to view the prize pack. First up is what you see in the featured image, set 6385893 LEGO Masters. Another was LEGO Masters keychain. It’s a golden brick keychain with an additional LEGO masters logo […] The post LEGO SDCC Brickbuster Prize Pack appeared first on FBTB. Original link

While I may be a LEGO-building Washingtonian now, there was a time when I lived in northern Indiana, South Bend for those playing the home game. And during my four years there, I made plenty of trips to Chicago and its suburbs. One memorable adventure was attending Brickworld in 2013 (my first LEGO convention). But another was the first big post-graduation meet-up with friends from college to see the sights downtown, including the infamous Navy Pier. So, yes, at one time I was one of those 1×1 round tiles in Jonah Schultz’s microscale build, probably one of the lime green ones. The design here is spot-on, with a better translation to microscale than I thought possible. The half-plate stripe just under the warehouse’s roof is spectacular, as is the use of claws and horns to give the appearance of waves on Lake Michigan. But the bit that’s got my jaw on...

Fresh from its appearance at the Christchurch Brick Show in New Zealand earlier this month, this LEGO-made island-bound tower by Nathan Hake is simply astounding! Created over the better part of seven months, this mammoth medieval masterpiece sprawls out over a pair of islands and includes several noteworthy features like a shipwreck, black dragon, stone bridge, abandoned docks, magical portal, and a detailed tower interior. Details like the underside of its overhang and the tendrils of smoke rising out of its chimney stand out brilliantly on the tower. While more experienced builders will marvel at Nathan’s stud reversal on the rocks of the big island halfway up the side. Building at this scale, such techniques can become unwieldy, but it’s handled here quite adeptly. While you’ll have to check out Nathan’s Flickr page to see all the details and angles (and some pictures from the public show), I do want to...

Usually I don’t build space-themed models, but my latest two models are exceptions. Then again, they aren’t exactly your everyday space builds, representing real-world spaceplanes developed for the US military. The first is the X-20 Dyna-Soar (for “dynamic soarer”). This was an ambitious program to build a reusable manned spaceplane. It started within weeks of the Soviet Union’s first Sputnik launch. It never came to fruition, though. A few years later, with the first prototype already under construction, escalating costs and an unclear mission resulted in its cancellation. The second is the much more recent and successful X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle. This is an unmanned reusable spaceplane currently in service with the US Space Force. So far, two vehicles have flown six missions. The latest was the longest, with almost 909 days spent in orbit. Its official role is to demonstrate reusable space technologies. However, there has been speculation that it...

Character master Oliver Becker has crafted this charming scene of a shepherd and his flock (of, er, one sheep). Now this might sound odd, but I’m actually glad there’s only one sheep here. Not because I’m ovinophobic, but because if I started counting sheep, I’d surely fall asleep and miss the rest of this great build! The sheep is very good, chewing away on the grass, with its spindly legs. (Well it’s chewing with its mouth, but you know what I mean.) And any build that uses X-pod covers is a good one in my book. But the shepherd is where the whimsy really comes into this scene. He’s a great caricature, using inverted arch pieces twice – in his boots and for his face. He’s quite rotund though. Maybe that’s where the rest of his flock went… The post Don’t fall asleep looking at this build – you’ll feel rather...