Merry Christmas!

MOC by Noved1. I guess they hid a couple of familiar characters in a shop they displayed - one relevant to the day, the other relevant to this blog. I hope everyone found lots of LEGO under their tree this morning.

Rhodey and Tony

Johnny Tang made large-scale versions of War Machine and Iron Man.

Joint powers

Garrett Waters is producing a series of LEGO comics called Batman/Superman: Joint Powers.

Hulk smash!

Craig Lyons presents the Incredible Hulk. The big green guy seems awfully happy to me.

Holy pastries, Batman

A couple of years ago, Elisa Strauss of Confetti Cakes was commissioned by Warner Brothers to create this great cake for the launch party for LEGO Batman, the videogame. Yes, everything is edible.

Set 1374 - Green Goblin

Another of the first run of Spider-Man sets was 1374, the Green Goblin. As with 1376, this set was organized as a subtheme of Studios, rather than a separate them. One interesting result of this is that the Green Goblin/Norm Osborne face was not really patterned after Willem Dafoe, but was rather the same actor who had appeared in earlier Studios sets. The Green Goblin fig is nice, though they improved it in the subsequent series by painting the mask. Sometimes the mask doesn't stay on my fig all that well. The torso is double sided and fairly versatile - one side could be some sort of green monster, and the other side (if you flip the arms and switch out the hands) could easily be a green formal shirt. Patterns on the legs and the back of the head further highlight the attention to detail on this fig. The Mary Jane Watson fig is another really nice character. Again the head and hair repeat an actress from earlier Studios sets. I really like the wisps of hair detail, and the double sided face lets you switch from damsel in distress to woman in control. As to the glider, it was a pretty disappointing build - pretty flimsy and the pearl gray pieces were made of a cheaper feeling plastic. Who cares, though? Let's face it, you were paying $7 for two key figures, which was a lot better than paying $24 essentially for the Spider-Man fig in set 1374.



You can see the inventory on Peeron, the instructions on LEGO.com or buy a copy on BrickLink.

Batty

This Batman sculpture was in a LEGO store near Washington DC.

Hulk ... no ... Atom Smash

Meet Atom Smasher, a member of the Justice Society of America and later of the Justice League, known for his great strength and ability to grow to great size, here built by Graznador2.

Thor

Monsterbrick gives his take on the god of thunder.

I am Iron Man

MooseBot came up with this great design he called midifigs. His tiny characters are immediately recognizable, such as Iron Man.

Rhino

Spidey battles the Rhino in this little vig by samW.

Superman 365

Many Flickr users have undertaken 365 projects - essentially a personal challenge to post a photo a day on a particular subject. Karloswayne's Superlegoman 365 set puts a custom fig in a number of clever settings.

No evil shall escape my sight

If you went to a movie this weekend, you very well may have seen the trailer for the upcoming Green Lantern movie. Seems like a good enough reason to look at a few variations on old Hal. Mariann Asanuma made a miniland version. Angus McLane made this cubedude. There are a lot of custom minifigs out there, but I like how Quinn took on several members of the Green Lantern Corps.

Baby Spidey in Boston

Alex McKenna made this congratulations gift and card for some friends on the birth of their son, nicknamed Spidey.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I figured that a Robin is close enough to a turkey. :) This sculpture, along with one for Batman, was made by LEGO to help in the promotion of the LEGO Batman video game. Photo credit to Mariann Asanuma.

Up, up and away!

Josh LaFollette has made a great number of custom decals. Simply print them out and stick them on torsos and you'll have a various heroes, like Firestorm, the Martian Manhunter or the Red Tornado.



Garett Waters used Josh's Superman design to make Up, up and away! I do wish more people would actually use their custom figs in scenes. IMO, too often people make these awesome figures, but then never do anything with them aside from the initial photo.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

If you haven't read the graphic novel The Watchmen, you certainly should. IMO the movie didn't hold a candle to the original. The plot is centered around a retired team of superheroes like the Justice League of America or the Avengers, but only one of them has super powers. The rest are more like Batman - acting based on superb physical training and technological gadgets. Anyway, a decade or so before the main action, superheroes were outlawed (like in the Incredibles), and so most went into training. Someone, though, is killing these retired heroes, and this brings the others back into action. The whole story is very gritty and dark - definitely not for kids. Anyway, Paul Lee put together a LEGO version of the movie poster.

Creations for Charity

Creations for Charity is a chance for you to buy the creations of other LEGO builders, and all of the proceeds go to buy LEGO for Toys for Tots. Julian Fong is donating a number of great customized minifigures including Wonder Woman, Deadshot, and Zatanna. These figs were made using waterslide decals as well as some painting, cutting and gluing, and acrylic.

Trick or treat

Okay, a little late for Halloween, but check out these great costumes.

Best ... villain ... ever

Andrew Becraft put together a rendition of Magneto using available LEGO elements that is simply perfect.

Nanananananananana - Bat Theme!

Between 2006 and 2008, LEGO released 13 sets in the Batman theme. One of the first released, and, at $10, a cheap way to get Batman himself, was 7779, Catwoman Pursuit



As a building set this was not great. The dragster was kind of silly, based mostly on the long curved wedge element and the large bat wing. The gatling gun on the front is kind of nice, though that design was around in MOCs before this set. Also Catwoman's motorcycle is just your basic one-piece (well, more like 6 piece) design, even though you can make an amazing motorcycle using LEGO elements. For me this set was all about the figs. These are great renditions of both Bruce and Selina. Okay, I'm not thrilled about these being flesh-toned rather than yellow, but I'm over that by now. Also, due to the placement of the eye-holes in the cowls, you can't easily interchange with another head, but you're pretty much going to use these figures as originally built rather than as fodder for making your own characters. It's also nice that Catwoman's head is double-sided, so you can view here with or without her goggles.

You can view the inventory at Peeron, the instructions at LEGO.com, or buy a copy at BrickLink. (Holy cow! It starts at $80. I'm very tempted to sell mine now.)

Vulture

Nelson Yrizarry has made a great number of scenes staring Spider-Man and foes such as the Vulture.

Dark Knight

Alex Schranz built this Dark Knight as a reinterpretation of Fredoichi's bust that I blogged a few days ago.

Spoon!

Adrian Drake built a bust of the spoof-hero, the Tick.

Iron Man

The Arvo brothers made this awesome Iron Man.

What's the worst comic-book movie ever?

Catwoman certainly has to be up there on the list. Anyway, Teti-tots came up with a cube-dude version of Batman's felonius feline foe. Holy alliteration, Batman!

Caped crusader

Fredoichi made this great Batman bust based on the animated TV show version.



Via the Brothers-Brick.

Emblematic emblems

Michael Taylor made a series of iconic superhero emblems.

This little light of mine

Dawn of the Brick modified minifigs with working lights to make Tony Stark and Whiplash.

Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stranger

BlockoLUG presents Heath Ledger's Joker, disguised for the bank robbery scene in the Dark Knight.

Dark Knight

This was a photo I just quickly threw together for photo captioning over on Classic-Castle.

Presto changeo

In another new MOC, BlockoLUG captures Clark Kent in the act of changing out of his suit and tie.

In brightest day, in blackest night

Ring need charging? Use JustJon's Green Lantern Power Battery. It's even got a light-up power function. (Another fairly recent MOC, btw - see, I'm not just all about dredging up old MOCs.)

Mr. Sandman, send me a dream ...

Okay, this is a different kind of comic, but my favorite graphic novels are by far the Sandman tales penned by Neil Gaiman. Shane Larson made a great series of MOCs based on these haunting stories.

Look! Up in the sky!

It's a MOC by me. Some time ago now I made this Superman. Notice, I don't personally do customization, so if you look at this from a different angle you'll see that Clark is sporting a plane blue torso rather than his signature S.

New Gothopolis

Here's one that really takes me back. About ten years ago, Tim Saupe, creator of FBTB visited LEGO's North American headquarters. While there he saw a great creation sitting on the desk of Master Builder Erik Varszegi, New Gothopolis. This 48x48 baseplate was packed with buildings from both the Marvel and DC universes, like the Daily Planet building and Dr. Strange's mansion. Of course it was also populated with custom figs, ranging from Two-Face to Galactus and Thor to the Flash. Doors pop open to reveal furnished interiors, and there's even Clark Kent changing to Superman via a revolving door. Follow the link to see all the great details.





A big thanks to Ace Kim, admin over at FBTB, for re-uploading these pictures for me.