MicroBricks

A Tear in Time

2009-12-08T08:53:00.004-05:00

Flickr user Tito0o0o was inspired by the movie, Land of the Lost, to create a scene with objects representing different time periods. The mechanical sun is a great touch. The microscale tree appears to be made using this minifigure head.

Technorati tags: LEGO microscale

MCC Entry Review Part III

2009-12-04T23:43:00.002-05:00

Way, way late in coming, but this is my third and final review of entries into the Mini Castle Contest. There are more than I reviewed of course, but some of them were already posted here, and you can always check out the thread if you want to see them all.

I'm going to finish it off with mentioned two of the honourable mentions that while I linked to, I didn't get a chance to discuss here. First off, Chris Wunz's Micro Castle.

The most obvious feature about it is of course the extreme micro scale of it all. You can't denine that this is probably about as small as you can build a castle and still reconize it as such. The little path added to it, as well as the use of the grill brick to create a field gives the ground some nice texture. Add to that a well thought out beach, and the nice use of clear bricks to show the surf, and you get a great micro castle.

The other one I will mention here is mahj's collapsible temple.

Of course, the thing that everyone's eye is immediatly drawn to is the fact that it is collapsible. Seriously, that very cool, and very well done. The creation looks complete when fully together, and completely hidden when collapsed. He also has some great detailing done with the tooth pieces and the technic collums. Also cleverly done is the how he stringed the leave pieces together so that when the temple emerges, it has vines over it.

Like I said before, there are many more entries, but I think it is way too late to continue doing more, so enjoy and I'll see you again next year.

Technorati tags: LEGO microscale

MisaQa

2009-12-04T16:13:00.001-05:00

MisaQa continues her advent calendar, including a sweet shop and two buildings from the science college.

Technorati tags: LEGO microscale

Blocktropolis expansion

2009-12-03T15:24:00.002-05:00

Flickr user Tom Neumo posted this photo of the buildings that will be part of an expansion of his micro city, Blocktropolis.

Technorati tags: LEGO microscale

Advent calendar

2009-12-01T10:10:00.002-05:00

Every year, MisaQa presents an Advent Calendar project, with one new MOC for each day of December leading up to Christmas. A couple of years ago she did a microscale town and she has returned to this scale again with her 2009 Advent Calendar. Her first two offerings are the Twins Tower (reminiscent of the Petronas Towers) and her Science College.

Technorati tags: LEGO microscale

Yugiri Tank

2009-11-29T20:25:00.002-05:00

Fredoichi packs a lot of detail into a micro tank .

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Cabin by the Lake

2009-11-20T10:26:00.000-05:00

Quy presents a nice scene: Cabin by the Lake.

Technorati tags: LEGO microscale

MCC Entry Review Part II

2009-11-18T21:39:00.004-05:00

Continuing on my review of entries in the Mini Castle Contest, I go on to Brickshelf user Legostein aka Chris Deck entered a micro version of set 6074 Black Falcon's Fortress:

Instantly recognizable to all castle fans, Chris captures the set's look with the use of the 1x1 tile as a flag, and the yellow window frame as the entry arch. An excedingly small creation, but very obvious as to what it is.

We move on to bartosza6m's entry, which won the mini set category, 6081 King's Mountain Fortress.

A personal favorite of mine, this incorporates many cool ideas. From the simple 1x1 grey plates that make up the printing on the baseplate, to excellent tree on the corner, to the use of a cheese slope as the ghost, this little creation is excellently done. Very detailed, and very recognizable.

Technorati tags: LEGO microscale

Henry Ford Museum

2009-11-17T10:27:00.002-05:00

Spencer Rezkalla has a display of his microscale skyscrapers that will be running at the Henry Ford Museum near Detroit through January 3. For close-up pictures of each of these, be sure to check his Brickshelf and MOCpage sites. Congratulations, Spencer, on this great venue.

Technorati tags: LEGO microscale

Zoids in Space

2009-11-15T12:56:00.004-05:00

For the past month or so, Flickr user roguebantha_1138 has been posting a lot of great micro space pics. His latest creations are a mash up of LEGO Space and Zoids.

Here's the zrk1.

Technorati tags: LEGO microscale

Nakagin Capsule Tower

2009-11-14T13:16:00.004-05:00

The Nakagin Capsule Tower already looks like it was made of LEGO elements. Flickr user SPACE, TIME & REALITY figured out how to build it in microscale.

Included in the photoset is this helpful photo showing how each capsule was made.

A tip of the hat to Andrew for highlighting this over at The Brothers Brick.

Technorati tags: LEGO microscale

MCC Entry Review Part I

2009-11-13T22:32:00.004-05:00

Alright, lets get down to highlighting some of the entries in the MCC. I'm going to highlight one of the winners I mentioned earlier, followed by a different entry.

Lets start with 2 Much Caffeine's entry, which won third place, Kingdom in a Box.

Obviously, the uniqueness of having been made to fit within this box is what makes this MOC what it is. Other points of note to micro fans are the scale of it. On average, most micro creations are of a larger scale than this. Obviously the small the scale, the harder the build. The use of the tooth bricks as trees is an outstanding idea. The waterfall as well is a beauty to look at, and it is so simple, but it's those small things that make the MOC great. The way the road and the water continue into the drawers is also a nice touch.

Now, a new MOC. NewRight's Floating Castle.

New to the field of micro, NewRight never the less made a bold stab at it. The use of the plumes on top of the towers is both a brilliantly effective, and to the best of my knowledge, unique. The 1x1 round plates, while the simplest of pieces, is used well to give the castle the effect of pillars. I also enjoy the somewhat jumbled appearance of the towers on the castle, its makes for a nice break from the typically uniform look most micro castles get.

More to come.

Technorati tags: LEGO microscale

Tow trucks

2009-11-13T12:39:00.001-05:00

Dohoon Kim built this tow truck for a challenge in the Official Minigarage Group Flickr group.

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Happy Veterans Day

2009-11-11T10:49:00.002-05:00

To honor Veterans Day, Brickmania is offering a 10% discount on certain military-themed custom kits, including this micro armor. It's one day only, so check it out now if you are interested.

Technorati tags: LEGO microscale

A Retrospect in Micro.

2009-11-10T18:48:00.003-05:00

With the conclusion of the Mini Castle Contest V, with prizes soon to be on their way, and threads soon to pulled down, I though it might be interesting to go back and look at the last five years of micro building.

In 2005 I started a thread for a small little contest (yes, pun very much intended) and was pleasantly surprised by the six-page affair it turned into. Granted, the first page or two was just people trying to get their heads around just what micro was exactly. I’d like to think that after five annual contests, castle micro is a bit more understandable, and with any luck, has helped people uncover a new area of creativity. The five contests have been relatively close in amount of entries, but I think I can say the average level of skill rose with each year.

The entries for each year are as follows:

MCC - 2005: 19 entries.

MCC II - 2006: 14 entries.

MCC III - 2007: 23 entries.

MCC IV - 2008: 23 entries.

MCC V - 2009: 23 entries.

Getting a little scary isn't it?

The winners of each year were as follows:

MCC - Sir Nelson

MCC II - engineerio

MCC III - jedimasterwagner

MCC IV - wobnam

MCC V - Weasel47

So in total, there has been 102 MOCs built for this contest, plus a special category the last two years. And with winners from all corners of the globe (I know cause my wallet screamed every time I had to go and mail out the prize).

So that’s a brief synopsis of the past contests. I am curious though where people would you like to see the MCC go from here. Is there anything they feel needs to be changed; a particular rule they think doesn't apply anymore? Do they think the judging is fair? That the time slot is the best? That the length of the contest is adequate?

Some specific questions that have come to mind over the last little while, which some feedback on would great.

Do you think the different special category is a good idea?

Would you rather see several specific categories every year, or none at all?

Do you feel having the contest right before the CCC affects it at all?

The contest has gone on for five years, and with luck, it'll go on for at least that many more, but I'd like to make sure the contest is something you people enjoy.

Thank you all, especially the people who donated the prizes, and the management of Classic-Castle, it's been a great five years!

In the next few days I will be highlighting some of the entries for this year's contest, both the winners and those not yet shown here.

Technorati tags: LEGO microscale

MCC Winners!

2009-11-08T00:58:00.003-05:00

Well I finally got around to judging the Mini Castle Contest. The entries, some of which have already been shown here were just incredible.

Okay, so here is the list of winners.

In the Miniature Set category, the two runner-ups were:

Nanuck95 with his version of 6073 - Knights Castle.

Griffon with his version of 6080 - King's Castle.

And the winner of the category was Bartosza6m with his version of 6081 - King's Mountain Fortress.

For the main category, the runner-ups were:

Marcosbessa with his Running up that Hill:

Wunztwice with his Micro Lego Castle:

Mahj with his Temple:

Third place went to TooMuchCaffeine with his Kingdom in a Box:

Second place went to Darkspawn with his Firbolg Keep:

And First place went to Weasel47 with his Castle on the Lake:

Once again the contest was a sound success with many great entries. There were also many other great MOCs entered, be sure to check them out at the contest page. I look forward to next years.

Technorati tags: LEGO microscale

Japanese village

2009-11-07T23:27:00.000-05:00

Flickr user Yupa-Sama presents the village from the movie, Seven Samurai.

Technorati tags: LEGO microscale

LEGO Book

2009-11-06T16:05:00.003-05:00

DK Publishers recently released a boxed set: The LEGO Book, all about the hobby and another about minifigs (celebrating their 30th anniversary). There is a lot of great information about the company, the various sets, the Legoland parks, and more. Perhaps coolest of all is the inclusion of (a few) fan MOCs. From the MicroBricks viewpoint, they include pictures of the line of LEGO Architecture sets designed by Adam Reed Tucker and also a discussion of the 2005 contest that started off the LEGO Factory line. They challenged fans to design microscale MOCs and the winners were released as official sets.

Technorati tags: LEGO microscale

Futuron City

2009-11-03T12:46:00.001-05:00

I've got to remember to check MOCpages more often. Alex Fojtik presents this Futuron City with a very George-Jetson vibe.

Technorati tags: LEGO microscale

Aztec Temple by HeavyWeather

2009-11-02T16:08:00.003-05:00

Amber "HeavyWeather" Arts has made this awesome microscale Aztec Temple.

Be sure to check out the whole folder for more views!

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The big and the little

2009-10-31T04:00:00.001-04:00

Liwnik presents the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw.

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Space Battleship Yamato

2009-10-30T20:23:00.004-04:00

Max Braun, aka Bisonfuehrer, built a large microscale version of Space Battleship Yamato for the October TwinLUG meeting.

Technorati tags: LEGO microscale

City

2009-10-30T04:00:00.001-04:00

Igorlando has posted a city experiment, incorporating some non-LEGO elements into a cityscape that will be the backdrop for a Brickfilm.

Technorati tags: LEGO microscale

Gundam

2009-10-29T04:00:00.003-04:00

I'm actually not sure if all of Superb's MOCs are from the Gundam series, as one looks like Space Battleship Yamamoto. I don't really follow anime at all, but these are very cool little ships.

Technorati tags: LEGO microscale

Nananananananananananana - Batman!

2009-10-28T04:00:00.003-04:00

Here's another MOC from BrickCon: the Batmobile. Photo taken by Bolt of Blue. Can anyone identify the builder?
Edit - Thanks again to Ochre Jelly for identifying this - the builder is corran101, Harrison Densmore.

Technorati tags: LEGO microscale