Yesterday, July 11, was the first-ever online edition of the Bricks by the Bay LEGO convention. I set up a MOC (“My Own Creation”) exhibit in my dining room, since we couldn’t meet up in person this year.
Tag: #lego
Play 101 Bricks with me at Bricks by the Bay Virtual
I’ll be hosting a game of 101 Bricks at the upcoming virtual Bricks by the Bay event. Sadly the pandemic rules out any in-person activities this year, but they’re having a Zoom-based online convention instead, next Saturday July 11th. It’s not too late to register, and it’s only $5 per household to attend!
House Concert
This musical family is performing a social-distance concert for their neighbors from their front porch and balcony in the time of COVID-19. Stay safe and stay home!
Black Lives Still Matter in 2020.
Reposted this model from 2016 on my Lego Instagram @billwardsbrickpile in honor of George Floyd. blacklivesmatter lego
Black Lives Still Matter
In the summer of 2016, to show support for the Black Lives Matter demonstrations happening all over the country, I created this LEGO “Black Lives Matter” sign. After the pointless death of George Floyd in Minnesota a few days ago, protests and demonstrations have been going on all over once again, and I feel it’s time for me to repeat this message.
Bricks Cascade 2020: 99 Bricks Contest
A month ago I was attending the Bricks Cascade LEGO convention in Portland. A highlight of that event for me was on Friday when I participated in the “99 Bricks” challenge, in which you have to build a bunch of different models out of the same 99 elements, each one to a different theme or subject matter, and you only have 3 minutes to do it in! I think my favorite was the first one I made, a robot:
LEGO Masters at Bricks Cascade 2020
At the recent Bricks Cascade LEGO convention (Feb 29th / March 1st) in Portland, Oregon, about half of the cast of contestants from the LEGO Masters TV show (Wednesday nights at 9pm on FOX in the USA) were there.
Bricks Cascade 2020 MOCs
It feels like a million years ago, but it has only been 4 weeks since my first (and I fear it may be only) LEGO convention of 2020, Bricks Cascade, in Portland Oregon. Despite early worries about coronavirus, I had a pretty great time, and don’t seem to have caught anything. Since then, of course, I’ve returned home and have been sheltering in place and watching with horror at the way the virus has spread across the world. It feels almost impossible that an event such as this could ever happen, much less just a few weeks ago. It’s amazing how quickly we adapt to changing realities. Everyone, please stay home and help flatten the curve.
Anyway, let’s try to forget about COVID-19 for a minute, and talk about the MOCs (My Own Creations) at the event. As usual at LEGO conventions, I tried to take photos of photos of all the MOCs displayed by the builders there, and think I probably didn’t miss much if any. Here’s an image of my MOCs that were on display in the Art area:
Flat Owl
Inspired by the “platecraft” technique used in Christmas decorations by Chris McVeigh, and my own Flat Santa and Flat Rudolph holiday decorations, I wanted to try the technique on a larger scale and without tying it to the holidays, and this was the result:
Advent 2019
I can’t believe it’s already December! As I do every year, I’ve purchased all of the available LEGO Advent Calendar sets and for each day I will be posting photos of that day’s models and discussing them. This year we have four Advent calendars: City, Friends, Harry Potter (new calendar theme), and Star Wars. I was a day late getting started – out of town for the weekend. As usual, each post was originally a separate blog entry, starting with Day 1, and continuing with a daily post about that day’s advent models. However, to clean up the site, I’ve condensed all those daily posts to a single post per year. Here’s the 2019 edition.
East Bay Mini Maker Faire 2019
Last Sunday, as we do every year, BayLUG had a display at the East Bay Mini Maker Faire in Oakland, CA. Several of us brought Micropolis modules and we had a pretty extensive city set up, plus a variety of other models. See the photos below for more details – click on any photo to go to the Flickr photo album.
BayLUG October 2019 Meeting
This past weekend I attended the annual BayLUG anniversary meeting in San Leandro, CA. It is the club’s 21st year, but we had a big celebration last year for the 20th and this year it was more like a regular meeting. We had a Halloween themed contest and lots of people brought models to show. My photos from the meeting can be seen here or on Flickr (click any photo to go to the album).
Book Review: Build a LEGO Mustang
I’ve been an admirer for some time of Polish LEGO fan PaweÅ‚ “Sariel” Kmieć from Warsaw, Poland. He builds some of the most brilliant LEGO scale model vehicles I’ve ever seen and is a wizard with TECHNIC mechanisms. One of his models, the Shelby GT 350-H, has been made into a book, Build a LEGO Mustang. As of this writing, Amazon offers it for US$13.99, discounted from the cover price of US$19.95. Here are the front and back covers:
Book Review: LEGO Holiday Ideas
This Christmas, you might consider picking up a copy of the new book from DK, LEGO Holiday Ideas. The list price is US$14.99 or CA$18.99 but you can get it for less and support my blog by using the Amazon link provided:
Caltrain Gallery Cars
This isn’t a new model, but it is one that has never been featured on my blog before, even though it was first built almost a decade ago. It’s the Gallery Car used by Caltrain commuter rail service on the San Francisco peninsula, to go with my Caltrain F40PH locomotive.
LEGO Masters Casting Call
There is a new LEGO-related competition reality show coming to FOX TV in the US, based on the LEGO MASTERS show that has been a big success in the UK and Australia. They’re looking for contestants. If you’re interested, read on.
Bricks by the Bay 2019
This year’s edition of Bricks by the Bay, the annual LEGO convention in the San Francisco Bay Area, happened last weekend. It seemed like I wasn’t going to be able to go due to illness, but thanks to the miracle of antibiotics, I was able to go! Here are some of my models (Teddy, Kermit, Owl and California Flag) on display:
Micropolis Canal
I’ve built some new Micropolis modules, running a canal through the city. It’s not an original idea, but rather one that I borrowed from photos I saw online, and decided to make my own versions of.
Follow me on Social Media / Micropolis Houses
I’ve recently been trying to up my social media game, and want to post an update and reminder. I’ve started being a bit more active on Instagram and Twitter, and I’ve been posting on my Facebook page for a while now, but if you’re not following those then now’s a good time to start.
BayLUG June 2019 Meeting
Yesterday, June 9th, we had a meeting of BayLUG at the Museum of American Heritage in Palo Alto. Click any of the photos below to see the larger version from Flickr, or click this one to see the whole album on Flickr:
Advent 2018
In 2018, unlike the last two, we don’t have a 24-in-1 set (“Christmas build-up”) to play with, unfortunately, so we’re back to just the basic Advent calendars in City, Friends, and Star Wars. As usual, each post was originally a separate blog entry, starting with Day 1, and continuing with a daily post about that day’s advent models. However, to clean up the site, I’ve condensed all those daily posts to a single post per year. Here’s the 2018 edition.