Alright, so this was brought to my attention today by a colleague and its really cool. There’s a woman in Japan named Sachiko who builds just the coolest stuff. Some of it is new so its not completely accurate to the title I gave this post. Check out her site though for some truly inspired and interesting stuff.
In all honesty I could take you back to NorthWest BrickCon in 2007 and probably run you through every single thing that was built for it in this category, and I might after a while. I came across this picture today on flickr and it was just a really neat memory of that event.
The LEGOLAND Spacelines 979 itself is a great build and great looking, as we’ve come to expect from Bram Labrecht. Bram is one of the more relaxed and smarter guys you’ll ever meet.
He’s designed lots of community minded programs to assist people building in different ways (I can’t find any of them right now so just know that they’re there and anticipate a post update in the future). At this point though I don’t know that I have the math skills to delve to deeply into some of the cool things he’s figured out. For example he has a program that will build a sculpture model in SNOT (Studs Not On Top).
He’s got lots of great creations that you can check out on his home page. It includes more pictures of his “Big Blue” pictured above as well.
I was looking through Mike Crowley’s website, CountBlockula.com, a while back and found this gem he’d build up. I talked to him about it and he said he’d built it for the Window into the Community display at his local LEGO store. I’m not sure when exactly, but I hadn’t seen it until I made my way through his site.
Most of us grew up with Sesame Street in one form or another and I think Mike’s approach to the colors work very well to give the feeling of the show. The fun brickbuilt characters are also great, and built at a difficult scale as well.
Anyways, thats this weeks ‘not new but still cool’. For more images check this page. All of Mike’s creation’s are fantastic so give the whole site a whirl.
I thought about something when I built this blog and its the idea that most places do their best to be news sites and on the cutting edge of new information. I decided that I had no desire to put the kind of pressure on myself to have to be first at everything, so instead of having a “What’s New” column, I’ve decided to have a “Not New but Still Cool” nostalgia column on the AFOL Community. Think about it. We collectively have nearly 10 years of the only extravaganza of the AFOL Community and sometimes I think we don’t always look back.
I do want to qualify this though; What’s ”Not New but Still Cool” can include anything from 10 years ago to last week. the important thing is, you won’t have heard about it here first.
Entry 1:
Nathan Sawaya is one of those guys who just plays with bricks the way John Williams writes musical scores. really really stinkin good. The neat thing about this model for me personally was that over 4 years ago it appearred in the newspaper in Fort Worth where I’m from and my mom had cut it out and set it on my bedside table (I lived at home during college). Nathan was standing next to it in the picture.
The interesting thing is that I read it once and then it just sat on my nightstand for ages. i’d glance at it occassionally and didn’t throw it away because I liked the model. Later when I started working with the LEGO Group I was put in charge of several tasks surrounding the LEGO Certified Professionals Program (at that point still called the LEGO Affiliates Program). I was building biographies of the different guys and Nathan was one of them. I kept thinking, “How do I know this guy outside of this” and it was driving me crazy.
One day I remembered the article and I called Nathan all excited.
“Hey man, I just realized something crazy. I’ve had a picture of you on my nightstand for over a year, I must look at that shot every night”
I realize later that that must have been a very strange call for him to recieve from someone he’d only barely just met. That’s still the story though and now I’m lucky enough to be able to consider Nathan a friend of mine.
Anyways though, this model is one heck of a good representation of the subject matter. If you want to check more shots of it go to this page on Nathan’s Site.