Over the past few years I have followed a tradition of blogging each of the LEGO Advent calendars every day from December 1st through 24th. I’d buy the 2, 3, or 4 calendars produced by LEGO that year, and each day during the lead-up to Christmas, I’d open that day’s models, and build, photograph, and blog about them. But this year I’ve decided to only do the City Advent Calendar 60268. (CW: Harry Potter)
New LEGO Conventions page
I’ve added a new page about LEGO Conventions to this site, with links to the conventions’ websites, and for the events I attended, all the trip reports / travelogues / photos I’ve posted on this site about them over the years.
Micropolis Octan Gas Station
In this model Octan provides fuel for Micropolis vehicles, and a taco truck provides sustenance for their drivers.
Micropolis Hospital
This hospital building is inspired by some old San Francisco General Hospital buildings from 1915. I built it a few years ago but like many of my models I haven’t gotten around to posting about it on my blog until much later. This was part of my Micropolis display featured in the Bricks by the Bay 2020 Virtual convention.
Micropolis Elevated Train Station
Inspired by my local BART station, this model provides for the public transit needs of the Micropolis population. It’s been the centerpiece of any of my Micropolis displays for a few years, and I’m finally getting around to posting here.
Micropolis Border
I built these border segments to provide a clean edge to my Micropolis display for the Bricks by the Bay 2020 virtual convention. Here you can see them on my home layout as I had it during the virtual convention.
Rainbow Apartments (Micropolis)
My latest model is a Micropolis apartment building in all the colors of the rainbow.
Bricks by the Bay 2020 Virtual
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.
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.
Book Review: From an Idea to LEGO
The book From an Idea to LEGO by Lowey Bundy Sichol is a part of a series of books providing a history of well-known companies, such as Google, Disney, and Nike, for children. But since this is a LEGO blog, we’ll just focus on this one.
Fan community reacts to LEGO buying BrickLink
The LEGO Group announced this week they will be acquiring BrickLink, the online marketplace for LEGO parts. This has sent shockwaves throughout the entire LEGO fan community.
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: