Don't run red lights!

Or so says Sean Kenney in his first ever Brickfilm, made for the non-profit organisation BikingRules.org. Kenney built the sets whilst David Pagano (hey, he's been popping up a lot recently...) animated it. A great short little movie, it reminded me of this clever advert which was made a few months ago by a company called Passion Pictures. Luckily Kenney's animation isn't so hard-hitting.

~John

House Cubed.

There's not really much I can say about this Cubic House creation by evildead1980 except to say that it's one of the most interesting creations I've ever seen. I love how the three sections of the house just casually sit there at an angle, as if it's the most natural thing in the world.

Dr. S.

Thunderbirds Are Go!

Tim Goddard (aka Rogue Bantha) goes microscale again with this brilliant Thunderbird Two. Yes, it has a working pod and yes, the pod contains Thunderbird 4. What more could you ask for? OK, how about this Thunderbird 1 to go with it?

Dr. S.

My big fat Greek... Courier spaceship!?

Ok, maybe ignore that bad movie title-related joke, but Happy Weasel's crazy Courier Service 'ship is great. The bulky shape is unique, and there are some great techniques used (the upside-down headlight bricks). There's been some debate over the colour scheme, but I like it; just not for a courier ship. A flash speeder, maybe, and some sort of advanced fighter or something with forest camouflage, but not a post-van-ship. Ah well.

Puma.

This is not only a lovely rendition of a WWII era German Puma by Henrik Hoexbroe, the photography is great too - the reflection really makes the image stand out.

Dr. S.

Interview with David Pagano

Mr. David Pagano, who we all know as the creator of Little Guys and Playback, has been a busy man lately. He's been making the short Space Police promotional Brickfilms which so many Lego fans have been following over YouTube. I took the opportunity to ask him some questions when he contacted me about his Sean Kenney (phew, got it right that time) interview.

John: How did Lego contact you, or did you contact them? Did the partnership come from your Go Miniman Go! film?

David: I met the folks from LEGO Club TV at the 2008 Brickworld event in Chicago, where I demonstrated some stop-motion techniques for a segment they were shooting. (You can now find this on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y64wu1KRe4I) After that initial segment, I developed a working relationship with those guys, and the rest -- to quote the vernacular -- is history.

John: The Space Police films include lots of special effects, which we haven't seen from you before. Did you have to buy new software for the effects?

David: I don't like to use too many special effects in my LEGO work. I prefer to experiment with unusual building and animation techniques. But, the future-noir atmosphere of the Space Police series does call for a large quantity of effects.

On Space Police, I do all the stop-motion and a significant amount of the heavy effects work (i.e. ships flying, camera moves, etc.). When I'm done with each episode, I hand it over to folks at LEGO who add additional special effects (spray paint, blinking lights, computer screens, laser blasts, smoke, etc.), polish, color correct, and generally fine-tune the episodes.

So, the difference in quality doesn't come from any software upgrades (of which there were none). It comes from there being more than just one person having an impact on the final product. Computers don't make things better, people do!

John: Did you have to buy more Lego for the films, or was your original collection enough to build the futuristic world you imagined?

David: Some parts were supplied by LEGO, most was from my original collection.

John: What now, then? Have you got any more films planned for the Lego Group? What about that Little Guys sequel you mentioned before?

David: Right now I'm working with the team from Space Police on some segments for the upcoming LEGO Club show. However, doing LEGO animation as a full-time job has meant that my personal work has shifted to less LEGO-centric areas of interest. But don't worry, I still have a few film ideas ("Little Guys!" sequel included) that I'll find an excuse to animate one of these days.

Thanks to David for answering my questions. Check out his Space Police Brickfilms here.

~John

Lego Atlantis 2010 (2), Power Miners 2010, Ben 10 sets

A big congrats goes to BenLego (EDIT: swapped to Dano's pictures) on Flickr today for finding some great new pictures of the 2010 Atlantis theme (to be launched in February). Here's what he's got:

The whole line (impulse sets not included). The second-to-the-right box is the one Dano showed us a couple of weeks ago, but there's also some great-looking red underwater ships and the Atlantis city itself (centre box). It seems this theme goes with the classic humans-versus-aliens or animals plot which pops up so many times in Lego. The humans are in red and trans-neon-green, and the Atlantians (?) seem to be riding large animals: squid, sharks and the like.

These fellas look nasty... but at least they've got some great headpieces, and a new trident. There's Manta-Man and Viktor Krum - oh no, sorry, it's just another shark-headed bloke.

Let's not forget the promotional stand, showing off the new underwater helmets (with the return of those large visors, which we last saw in the Mars Mission sets in shiny gold - now in trans-neon-green) and some great-looking impulse sets (a crabby crab and what one Flickr user correctly referred to as TLG's version of a cave racer).

That's all on the Atlantis front, but we've also got some first pics of Lego City 2010, which is showing off another farm range.

Here's the farm, with added pigs and a great looking tractor.

Then there's some new Power Miners sets, where the PMs dig deeper down into the Earth and discover weirder rock monsters, and they also have silvery costumes and Ice Planet visors!

Finally, Dano found the first ever picture of the new Ben 10 sets, which he's called 'Galidor 2010' for obvious reasons - it looks, to his eyes and the eyes of many others on the 'net (myself included), like a poor excuse for revamping Galidor-like figures.

What do you think of the new sets? Tell us in the comments section!

~John

Sean Kenney Interview

This week Brickfilmer David Pagano had the privilege of interviewing Lego certified professional Sean Kenney for the great new podcast he presents called 'The New York Geekcast'. The topic of the show was to choose 'my geeky idol', and Pagano chose Kenney. On the show, Kenney talks about his building habits as well as MOCpages, the website he runs. Go check it out!

~John

Reach for the sky...

I am currently working on building a Victorian house, and so it was great to see lgorlando's latest creation ('Sky Victorian Modular Building') to get some ideas. Though I'm not a big fan of its blue usage, I love the techniques used around the door and windows. Don't forget the flower beds and the ornate lamppost, both of which show off some great techniques and produce a very elaborate outcome. There's even a balcony to look out from.

~John

Push the bar!

Today, after the immense success of the Bricks in Motion 2009 competition 'STAR', Mr Heinrich and the folks at BiM have announced the 2010 competition, 'Avant Garde'. This one is certain to produce some phemonenal films. Here's part of the press release (found here):

"What does "Avant-Garde" mean for the purpose of this contest?  French for advance guard, or vanguard, the central idea is to create something that is innovative and pushes the boundaries of what has been done before.  We want you to reconsider the standard conventions of brickfilming as it is now and create a film that is unique and, on some level, does things that haven't been done in a brickfilm before.  Your film can be experimental and surreal, or simply use new techniques and kinds of storytelling that we probably have not seen before.  Be creative!  Wikipedia's "Avant-garde" article provides a good introduction to the movement from which this contest takes its name.  While this contest is about pushing the boundaries, we're not asking entrants to create films so abstract and nonsensical that they are not enjoyable to watch.

As per the nature of this contest, think of some of the obvious concepts you expect other people to use, and avoid those.  A film about a minifig wandering around in a vast, white expanse finding himself may be experimental and surreal, but it has been done more than a few times in this medium and is not what we're hoping to see in entries for this year's contest." 

If that hasn't already got your Brickfilming imagination working overdrive, I don't know what will. It's certainly a a fantastic theme, and it'll get some of the more conventional (in plot terms) animators off their traditions and try something new. Brickfilmers have until the 25th July 2010 to make their films and send them off to BiM. The judging panel is yet to be decided, but I'm sure it'll include some Brickfilming greats as before.


So this is it, Brickfilmers! Push the bar! Destroy convention! Be creative! Be new! Be unique! 


I'm expecting something BIG...


~John

Yee haw!

Some of the stuff SlyOwl makes just astounds me. All of the rest of it bemuses me with its amazing techniques.

So it will come as no surprise to you that I think SlyOwl's newest creation is fantastic. The sloping on the rocks is unique and well carried-out, and the inside of the mine is meticulously detailed. Of course, there is (as with all MOCs) some problems: the outside ground is a bit empty, and I don't think the rocky-floor effect is very realistic. I'd suggest a desert floor, and maybe a cactus or two.

~John

Apocalypsis II

It's been a fair few weeks since we had our first look at the second episode in Mark Kelso's Apocalypsis story, and now it's finished. You may remember the amazing waterfall scene in the first episode, and the scenery just gets better and better. This time we've got caves, fantastic Photoshop effects, and all the rocky goodness you could ever want. Mark Kelso, I bow to you, master of landscaping.

~John

Lego Factory to become Lego Design byME

Just today Flickr user TallTim posted a discussion topic in the Lego group about some exciting news coming out of Lego.

Very soon, the Lego service we all know and love (or maybe hate because of the high prices), Lego Factory, will be changed into Lego Design byME. To be released along with the new LDD 3.0 on the 1st October, Design byME is said to be 'superior' to Factory beforehand. It comes with a shiny new box, a box within a sleeve, and fully customizable graphics. Then, once you look inside the box, there's a fully printed glossy instruction manual so your [awful] creation can look just like a real Lego set! [God help us]

It's not just Lego Factory that's changed. Now with 50% more bricks to use, Lego Digital Designer has changed yet again. The press release says it has a 'more friendly tone of voice', a new logo, and a fully redesigned layout. We've got an updated hinge tool, a way to hide bricks and focus your construction on a certain part of the creation, custom templates, a 'buyability tool' which will help you not spend so much, and to run all that there's some improved performance. Sounds great.

So, on the 1st October, we'll be happy as nutcakes buying our custom Lego sets with new bricks, having designed them on a newly redesigned software. Maybe not. What I didn't tell you is that the new custom packaging means an extra $10 on top of P&P and the cost of the model itself, which is also high: Lego bricks from Factory cost, in some cases, over double the price you can buy them on Bricklink for. So what's the point in spending so much money? The idea is that you don't know the alternative - people wasting their money on glossy manuals for awful creations will be those who don't know about Bricklink, and who don't know acceptable prices for bricks. And so Lego will rake the money in, one gullible sucker at a time. Ah well.

What are your opinions on this new announcement? Write a comment below!

~John

Caption competition no. 5

Hi guys, it's time for the fifth caption competition, all you need to do is add your funny, witty, interesting and/or humorous caption for this pictyre as a comment on this post. Enjoy!

John's note: ps. No, you're not allowed to use the picture's actual name, silly people.