EverydayBricks is a Lego blog featuring news, reviews, and photos from the world of Lego. Feel free to contact Everyday Bricks about your MOCs or Custom Minifigures.
They fine people from Screen Junkies have just released an Honest Trailers for The Lego Movie. Full of awesome puns, jokes, and snark. They really got into this one. The video features a full parody of the Academy Award nominated song Everything is Awesome titled Everything’s a Product, sung by Nice Peter and EpicLLOYD from Epic Rap Battles of History. Make sure to check out the full video, and afterwords go buy some Lego.
Calvin and Hobbes is one of the greatest comics. As a fitting tribute, two Lego builders (Simon Liu and Lego Junkie) teamed up and created a Lego Calvin and Hobbes. The idea to create these figures stated with a simple question: “So… you have a lot of orange right?” With some imagination and Lego, that simple question ended up as a Lego Hobbes. The slightly ruffled fur, achieved with a combination of slopes and curve pieces, is a perfect touch. The whole thing is topped off with an expressive portrait of Hobbes. But, you cannot create the most famous imaginary tiger without creating its owner. Calvin makes for a good Lego figure, but might have the smallest possible hands. This duo looks ready for a Sunday full of adventure.
Find out more about this Lego Calvin and Hobbes, by Simon Liu and Lego Junkie, over on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/si-mocs/15542180957/
Almost everybody’s favorite Guardian of the Galaxy is Groot. This character has an interesting past, he started out as a villain all the way back in 1960. He didn’t reform his ways until he met Peter Quill (Starlord). It turns out that Groot is a Monarch (Floral Colossus) from Planet X. With the recent rise in popularity comes a whole lot of Lego MOCs. Not surprisingly most of them are trying to recreate the dancing “baby” Groot scene at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy. Here are just a few of the many Lego Groots out there:
“I am Groot” is the creation of Tyler (Legohaulic), and can be viewed over on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/legohaulic/14885786161/
Sean and Steph Mayo created “Baby Groot” and can be found on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/legocy/15909759895/
There is also the super cute “LEGO Groot” created by Sparkytron over on DeviantArt: http://sparkytron.deviantart.com/art/LEGO-Groot-479615477
And finally, Chris McVeigh has created the awesome “We are Groot” (Brick Sketch #32), which can be found on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/powerpig/14978763016
Have you ever thought that the Lego Minifigures are too small? Maybe they could be improved by making them 6 times larger? Well that is exactly what CrayonBricks did with their Classic Spaceman Blue build. This guy could easily be Benny’s big brother. The 6x scale Lego Man (can’t really call it a Minifigure) is fully posable, featuring all the movable joints as the smaller Minifig. This big guy even has the jetpack/air tanks on the back. What exactly are those intended to be anyway? I say jetpack. The only thing missing here is a broken helmet chin strap.
Check out this 6x Scale Posable Classic Lego Spaceman Blue over on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/crayonbricks/15896782071/
Hulk Smash Lego bricks. These Lego versions of comic book covers are the creation of monsterbricks. The Lego comic book covers are also relief sculptures. Where a 3D image/figure is sculpted in front of the background. In this case it is The Incredible Hulk breaking through the ground, literally breaking out of the background and into your face. This is even more pronounced with the Captain America cover below. These Comic-Bricks (Lego Comics) are extremely fun. The overall design is greatly supported by the typography and logos, which is difficult to replicate with Lego bricks. Here the lettering is using a combination of brick built letters, and custom printed tiles. The end result is great. Check out the custom UPCs, price tags, publisher icons, etc. These are great recreations of their real life comic book inspirations; The Incredible Hulk #59, and Captain America #109.
Lego has had great success with their Super Heroes theme. It is a little bit weird that they have managed to license both Marvel Comics and DC Comics. Lego has been releasing mostly modern themed comic book stuff. With just a little of the classic or silver-age represented (The 1966 Batmobile). It would be awesome if Lego were to release 1 or 2 sets a year based on the golden-age or silver-age stuff. Imagine all the possibilities with Minifigures based on Jack Kirby, Gil Kane, Steve Ditko, Stan Lee, and John Romita designs.
This post has been approved by the Comics Code Authority.
Check out monsterbrick’s Brick-Comics (Lego Comics) over on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/monsterbrick/15408223229/
Summer time is here and a good portion of us will be visiting the beach. Even Minifigures need to take a vacation. This MOC, built by zaberca, is titled Beach House 2. The whole thing was originally designed digitally, but when building it in person the project changed quite a bit. Which is great, because this house is impressive. The house itself is built using a lot of SNOT techniques. Make sure to check out the details on the top floor, which is built sideways compared to everything else. This helps give the structure a distinctly modern design.
The interior is fully furnished, and puts most (real) homes to shame. These Minifigs have style.
Make sure to check out Beach House 2 over on Flickr, where you can view all the details: https://www.flickr.com/photos/15902478@N02/14760877455/
Wednesdays Are Awesome!
“The balance in a hidden valley is brutally disturbed when a the peaceful Stonetooth tribe and and their herbivorous dinosaurs are confronted by the sudden arrival of the rival Ashclaw tribe and their carnivorous pet predators. Can the fierce Stonetooth warrior women protect their valley – and the precious dinosaur eggs within – against these vicious intruders? Or will the dangers of the outside world prove to great a challenge?
Growing up with Saturday morning cartoons like Dino-Riders and a vast interest in prehistoric lifeforms, I decided to create several sets featuring an alternate time when dinosaurs and humans lived together somewhat harmonically. As with my Space Exploration sets, I aimed these sets primarily at girls, although with a much more distinct action adventure feel to it.” — Steven Woolfe
Prehistorica is a great MOC theme created by Steven Woolfe. The concept of Dinos and Humans living together is a universal fantasy. These warrior women are ready go to battle to protect their tribe. This conflict between the Stonetooth and Ashclaw looks like the beginning of something larger.
The use of the Lego dinosaur figures is infinitely more interesting then the official Dino theme. The structures built around the dinosaurs look completely natural. Giving these warriors a look that is both frightening and deadly.
Check out Steven Woolfe’s Lego MOCs (including Prehistorica) over on his Flickr page: https://www.flickr.com/photos/playslashwrite/
A few years ago Lego released Life of George, a building game involving Lego and your phone. It has been an under appreciated experiment of combining Lego with technology. The original release of Life of George (21200) has recently been updated and repackaged as Life of George (212001). It seems like the only difference between the two is a redesigned box. The original box has almost no details and was quite minimalist. The packaging appears to have been created before the iPhone app was completed, so there are almost no similarities with the box and the app. There is also no mention of the Android version. All of these oddities have been corrected in the new release. The original box is pictured here.
Life of George contains:
The normal retail price is $29.99 but can be found for much less. Amazon
Life of George is a world wide tour where George is filling out his travel journal with photos. George finds himself exploring North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia. Each continent has many journal “pages” with a good amount of photo challenges to do. There is even a special Holiday 2012 chapter filled with many more levels.
If you happen to finish all of the include content, then you can move on (or skip) to the user generated challenges. This is where the creativity of Lego shines. The hundreds and hundreds (thousands?) of online user challenges offer many many hours of Lego fun. With just 144 Lego bricks and 6 colors, the variety of what can be built is limitless. Pikachu, Spiderman, Mario, Link, Jake, Mickey Mouse, Boba Fett, and Angry Birds are just a few of the challenges in the User Gallery.
There is also a Build Your Own mode, where your own creations can be photographed, documented, and uploaded for other Life of George users to view and build.
If you happen to have some friends or family around, there is a multiplayer mode to try out. After five quick challenges the scores are totaled and a winner declared. If you can find them, Life of George supports up to 4 different players.
To play Life of George, you need to use the included Lego bricks, the play mat, and your phone. Select which “photo” challenge to do, and then build it as fast as possible. There is a generous timer counting down, which can really build up the tension.
When the challenge is completed, you place the model on the play mat, and line up the board with the camera on your phone. This portion of the game can give some people trouble, but I found that if the whole play mat is in the camera frame then the app worked perfectly.
Life of George then compares your photo to the model, and assigns a score based on accuracy and quickness. The app needs to be balanced for people of all ages. So it can be pretty difficult to get a full 5 star score. To earn 1-2 stars you really need to mess up, most scores seem to land in the 3-4 range.
Overall the Life of George app is full of fun. Everything looks good and works well. Lego has been focused on making this a great experience. It alone is worth the price of admission.
Build Your Brain with George is another app that works with the Life of George set. Build Your Brain is free on the various phone app stores. This time around the focus is on small challenges that test your ability to recognize patterns, and non-traditional Lego instructions.
This time around George is now a host of a game show. Randomly assigning tasks from six different categories. Such as Silhouette challenges, Logic puzzles, Bonus modes, Memory challenges, and Shape Finding.
Some of these challenges are super easy, and some are really difficult. Once again the game can be played between 1-4 players. Competing for high scores, and the largest ”Brain Level.”
Build Your Brain with George is not as smooth of an experience as Life of George. A lot of the challenges can be unclear, and the camera recognition is not as accurate. The nature of Build Your Brain can lead to frustration, and the small technical issues do not help. It is still a good experience, and has a whole lot in common with the Nintendo games “Brain Age” and “Big Brain Academy.”
Lego Life of George is a whole lot of fun. Even the box says so: “Awesome!” The whole package adds up to be a good value. It is amazing to see what can be built with only 144 basic Lego bricks.
Lego Life of George (21201)
Dude, another new wallpaper. This one starring the first appearance of Epic Beard Dude.
Once again, wallpapers are the best of the best, and are available in *NEW* widescreen. Then to make it even better, there are no watermarks!