However, I don’t think that you can deny the pleasure of actually wrapping your fingers around a nice pen and writing things down on a sheet of paper. And nowadays, when it comes to notebooks, I think we can all agree that Moleskine is one of the more popular brands out there. This is not to say that I actually use them – I think they are overrated notepads – but they do come up with cool collections now and then.

LEGO Moleskine

The LEGO Moleskine collection notebooks feature imprinted covers, which in themselves make buying a notebook worth considering. You do get more perks such as a LEGO-themed bookmark, stickers, and LEGO graphics. There is even a LEGO patch which you can play around with.

Open LEGO Moleskine

Via Freshness Mag

LEGO Lord of the Rings: Gollum

We’re salivating with each new reveal that comes along from LEGO for its upcoming Lord of the Rings toy line. We’ve seen several character posters, but today we’ve got your first look at the killer minifigures for the entire Fellowship and several baddies, including Orcs, Uruk-Hai, Gollum, and Nazgul.

Above you can also see the new character poster for Gollum, which really nails the malevolent part of his personality. Of all of Tolkien’s characters, Gollum was probably the hardest to translate to LEGO form. But he’s instantly recognizable, so I think it works.

These official images of the Lord of the Rings minifigures (below) were sent over by the great folks at LEGO, who are hard at work putting the finishing touches on their lineup of LEGO Lord of the Rings toy sets. LEGO is expected to unveil their boxed sets at Toy Fair in two weeks. Stay tuned!

I think my favorites are Gimli and the Nazgul.

LEGO Lord of the Rings minifigures

LEGO Lord of the Rings minifigures

LEGO Minecraft

A while back, we told you that Minecraft had submitted an application to LEGO Cuusoo for official LEGO Minecraft branded sets. The application got more than 10,000 votes from Cuusoo members, so LEGO reviewed the proposal and formally announced that it’s been approved!

In a post on the Cuusoo blog, LEGO made the announcement by stating that The LEGO Group is “developing a concept that celebrates the best aspects of building with the LEGO system and in Minecraft,” as we speak. LEGO didn’t go into any details on what kind of set or sets might be made available, or when they’ll be released, which is understandable. Product development is something that LEGO never rushes, which is one reason that their products are always so high in quality.

Legolas from LEGO Lord of the Rings

Hey, have you heard that Lord of the Rings is coming to LEGO?! We may have mentioned it once or twice. Today, courtesy of LEGO, we present to you a first look at everyone’s favorite elf, Orlando Bloom. Er, I mean Legolas.

This latest image — the third such character-centric poster released by LEGO to promote their forthcoming tie-in with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings — appears to be a riff on the original Legolas poster you can see below. I’m loving the attention to detail LEGO is putting into these minifigures.

I mean, LEGO’s no dummy; they know that Tolkien’s universe has the potential to be their next Star Wars-level franchise. So of course they’re working hard to get everything just right. Look at those ears, and the hair… I’m pretty sure those are brand new LEGO elements, made specifically for this minifig. And you can see how the quiver full of arrows loops just beneath the head, like backpacks and aqua lungs.

With this much care put into the minifigures, I can’t wait to see the play sets!

LEGO Lord of the Rings poster

The good folks at LEGO sent over this awesome poster after our LEGO Lord of the Rings article a few weeks ago. This one features Aragorn in full King of Gondor regalia.

This fantastic LEGO Aragorn poster is a perfect recreation of this Return of the King poster, using a minifigure and LEGO elements. Enticing, eh?

LEGO will be producing Lord of the Rings sets next year, starting in June. These sets will be followed at Christmas time by sets based on The Hobbit. LEGO hasn’t officially announced the first sets that will be available (if you search online, you can find some leaked info about them pretty easily — but you didn’t hear that from me), but plans on unveiling them at a special event just before Toy Fair begins in mid-February.

Stay tuned to ForeverGeek for all the latest about LEGO Lord of the Rings. We plan on following the development of this product line very closely!

LEGO has just released its first toys in the new “LEGO DC Universe Superheroes” lineup (“LEGO Marvel Superheroes” sets are coming later this year). To celebrate, adult LEGO builder Rod Gillies created this awesome TV displaying a Superman minifigure TV show — and it really plays.

Gillies’ ingenious MOC has a built-in scrolling function, allowing the background to roll by, which cleverly creates the illusion that LEGO Superman is flying over Metropolis. It’s a brilliant piece of work, and it couldn’t have been easy, since the entire landscape had to be created using perfectly vertical slats that aren’t connected. This is the only way the whole thing could be made to scroll. That he made such a thing work in such a small size only adds to its wonder.

Gillies posted the above video that shows how the TV set looks when it’s “on” and the background is scrolling, and it’s a pretty flawless effect. Major kudos, Mr. Gillies. Very impressive.

I’d love to see another video or maybe some photos that show how the scrolling mechanism works. I can think of a few different ways one could do this, and I can’t help being curious about what method he used.

LEGO Superman TV by Rod Gillies

That’s exactly what the guys at Legoland Florida did. This amusement facility has only recently opened, and while entertainment may be its focal point, Legoland Florida stays true to the idea of bringing out the creativity in kids of all ages. The giant LEGO Einstein head is positioned strategically at the entrance to the Imagination Zone, which “emphasizes exploring and creation, while showcasing seven of the most visually exciting LEGO models in the world”. Indeed, what better to see before you enter than the bust of Einstein?

LEGO Einstein Head

Just to give you a better idea of how ginormous this LEGO Einstein head is, take a look at this other photo.

Little girl looks at LEGO Einstein Head

Inside the Imagination Zone, you can see the following rides and attractions:

• Hero Factory – immersive interactive play area based on LEGO’s popular Hero Factory line.
• Build & Test – Build a LEGO car and test it against the competition on the digitally timed track.
• LEGO MINDSTORMS™ – Build and program cutting-edge, computerized LEGO MINDSTORMS™ robots.
• Kid Power Towers – Kids and parents alike hoist themselves up to the top of a tower to get a great view of the entire park and lovely Lake Eloise, and then enjoy a fun “free-fall” to the bottom. (Minimum rider height of 40″, riders less than 48″ must be accompanied by a responsible rider of at least 48″ in height.)

You guys based in the US don’t know how lucky you are!

Via Bit Rebels

1. iTunes

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iTunes has everything you want — music, movies, TV shows, games, apps, ebooks, and more. The smartphone is the most important gadget of all time, while the iPad is the most desired gift of the year (ever?). Do you really need me to explain why an iTunes Gift Card is at the top of this list? Plus, you can totally rub this card in the nose of your Android-loving friends. Bless ‘em, they just don’t realize they’re using inferior products. But your card is all the proof you need; the Android Marketplace doesn’t offer gift cards!

2. Xbox Live

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If you’re serious about gaming, then you own an Xbox 360. Xbox Live is like Xbox’s very own iTunes, offering most of the same movies, music, and TV shows, along with the biggest video game selection of any download service — some of which are even Kinect-friendly. But the real reason most players want an Xbox Live Gift Card is to get a year’s subscription to Xbox Live Gold membership. So if you really want your gift card to be a hit, make sure it’s for at least $60 (or just buy an Xbox Live 12 Month Gold Membership card; some places, like Amazon, have them on sale for $49 at the time of this writing).

3. Amazon.com

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There’s nothing Amazon doesn’t have. Seriously, need a carburetor? They got that. Lava lamp? Well, duh. Dixie Cup? Mm-hmm. Fake handlebar mustache? Are you kidding — of course! They also have a killer selection of all the things we geeks love: games, movies, graphic novels, toys, electronics, ebooks, and on and on. An Amazon Gift Card is the next best thing to giving a blank check.

4. Best Buy

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If you really need an explanation for why geeks love Best Buy, clearly you’ve never been in one. There’s something about walking into a Best Buy… it’s like the Chocolate Factory for geeks. They’ve got everything electronic: computers, smartphones, flat-screen TVs, game consoles, cameras, and loads more. They’ve also got a darn good selection of Blu-ray and DVD, video games, and music CDs. And if you’re not sure what you’re looking for, Best Buy’s sales staff is knowledgeable and helpful.

5. LEGO

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No other toy in the world has as many child and adult fans as LEGO. We geeks are particularly fond of the LEGO Star Wars sets, though there’s an enormous contingent of adult fans of LEGO (AFOLs, as they call themselves) that are true pioneers of the utterly jaw-dropping things you can do with those magical plastic bricks. 2012 promises to be a big year, too, with partnerships from major properties coming to LEGO that include The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, superhero franchises Marvel and DC, new dinosaur-themed sets, and tons more. LEGO Batman 2: DC Superheroes, the next big LEGO video game, is also expected sometime in 2012.

6. Regal Cinemas

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Some people will tell you that movie theaters are dying. The rising cost of movie tickets certainly doesn’t help matters. But I’d contend that people are just waiting for something worth going to the cinema for. And one look at the 2012 movie calendar shows that there are going to be tons of great reasons in the months to come: The Hunger Games, The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, Brave, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and plenty more. Regal is the nation’s biggest theater chain, but you’ll want to check your local area for a dominance of other chains like AMC, Cinemark, or Carmike.

7. ThinkGeek

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As the biggest and best online retailer for the fun, the unexpected, and the just plain awesome, there really is nothing else like ThinkGeek (though we’re also fond of X-treme Geek). They carry thousands of products that you never knew you needed — until you see it on their website. ThinkGeek’s ace in the hole is that every product they sell is hand-picked by their own staff of hardcore geeks. So if you’re looking for geeky gifts, you can’t go wrong with anything in their catalog. Where else can you find plush bacon, Han Solo-in-carbonite ice cube trays, or caffeinated marshmallows?

8. GameStop

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For the gamer geek, there is no better gift card than a GameStop card. Not only do they have probably the most extensive collection of video games in any bricks-and-mortar retailer, every store also has a fantastic selection of used games. And they accept trade-ins. The only downside? Video games are all they sell, so don’t bother if your geek recipient isn’t into gaming (which seems impossible, but there are exceptions to every rule).

9. Threadless

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There are a ton of great online retailers out there for cool, original t-shirts. Teefury is another big favorite, and we love Splitreason, too. But the biggest and best has to be Threadless. They create new t-shirt designs every week, and most of them are extra geek-friendly, featuring mash-ups of popular franchises. Most of their shirts are just $12, so the price is right, too. Want to stand out at your next comic book convention or LAN party? You can’t go wrong with Threadless.

10. Openbucks

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Openbucks is a new kind of gift card for a new kind of shopper. Created by the Gift Card Payment Network, you pick up one of these cards at Subway, Circle K, CVS, Citgo, Sports Authority, or Hess, and then redeem them inside some of your favorite online games. Titles that support Openbucks’ cards include Battlestar Galactica, Need For Speed World, Dark Orbit, Parallel Kingdom: Age of Thrones, Metin 2, Cross Fire, Adventure Quest, and more. Additional games are being added all the time.

11. Sideshow Collectibles

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Their products don’t come cheap, but for good reason — they’re incredibly well made. Whether you’re looking for a life-sized bust or a collectible figurine, they’ve got items from all of your favorite properties, including Star Wars, Harry Potter, Disney, Marvel, Lord of the Rings, Terminator, and many more. Don’t see your geeky friend’s favorite franchise? You should also try Gentle Giant and Weta.

12. Facebook Credits

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Gift Card-selling store locator
Sneer all you want, but Facebook has become a major part of all of our lives. (Even John Romero made a Facebook game.) Millions of Facebook members play games there every day, so a Facebook Credits Gift Card might be just the ticket. Your recipient will be able to spend it on premium in-game items in Mafia Wars and the like. You can only buy these gift cards in the real world, but you’ll find them almost everywhere. Walmart, Target, Best Buy, GameStop, Radio Shack, and 7-Eleven all carry them.

LEGO Lord of the Rings: Coming in 2012

I can die happy now.

Warner Bros. and LEGO have partnered to create a line of brand new LEGO sets based on next year’s The Hobbit — and legacy sets based on The Lord of the Rings.It’s a match that geeks have been begging for for years, and it’s really happening! Next Christmas (2012), The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is coming to theaters. But starting in June of ’12, you’ll be able to buy your very own LEGO Lord of the Rings sets, followed by LEGO The Hobbit sets later in the year.

AAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!

Dear Santa LEGO,

I want Helm’s Deep, Minas Tirith, Edoras, Isengard, Shire, Minas Morgul, Black Gate of Mordor, Balrog, Rivendell, Smaug the Dragon, Treebeard… oh my goodness the mind just boggles! Oh, and also please get me Nazgul minifigures and I’ll never ask you for anything else!

Man, to be a fly on the wall in Billund, Denmark, where employees of The LEGO Group must right now be dreaming up the LEGO sets that will come out next year! BEST. JOB. EVER. And being the video game geek that I am, my mind immediately goes to the thought of TT Games putting out a LEGO Lord of the Rings video game. Come on, you know they must be thinking it, too. It’s way too lucrative an idea to pass up. Plus, it comes with a built-in sequel — a game with levels based on The Hobbit. For all we know TT Games could be in production on a Tolkien LEGO game already!

LEGO’s already set up a placeholder page at thelordoftherings.lego.com, where they’ll announce more details about their plans next year.

LEGO Minecraft?

Minecraft, the crazy popular indie video game, has always had a lot in common with LEGO. Both properties are “sandbox” playthings, limited only by your imagination. Now the developer behind Minecraft is trying to get LEGO to create a line of official Minecraft-themed sets.

Imagine the possibilities...

Mojang has recently begun reaching out to The LEGO Group, forging a relationship. Their goal: LEGO Minecraft sets. The Minecraft developer is using Cuusoo, LEGO’s Kickstarter-like crowdsourcing website to raise awareness and build support for the idea. Like all Cuusoo projects, if their proposal gets 10,000 supporters, The LEGO Group will review the proposal for consideration to manufacture it as a real LEGO kit. (At the time of this writing, they have almost 6,000 supporters so far.)

Mojang says that “Minecraft and LEGO were meant to be together,” and pledges to donate its 1% royalties from the proposed set’s sales to charity. LEGO Minecraft sets might look something like the fan-made creations you can see in the pictures on this page.

Would you buy a set of LEGO Minecraft bricks?

[Image source.]

There’s something so simple and genius about these LEGO ornaments, which are sold exclusively at lego.com. They come in three festive holiday colors — green, gold, and red — and you can hang them as they are, or you can open ‘em up and build something Christmas-y.

If you’re really clever, maybe you could even use the bricks to build something small enough to fit back inside the clear globe, to be hung again on your tree. The bricks inside are a mixture of solid colors and tinted clear bricks. There are 40 bricks in each 3-inch-wide ball.

LEGO sells these ornaments for $7.99 a pop, though if you order now you’ll find them on back-order. Hopefully lego.com will get more in time for Christmas!

Introducing the Taxidermy Deer LEGO Kit.

Taxidermy Deer LEGO Kit

Isn’t that a cute little mounted deer? Okay, I am probably earning the ire of the politically correct brigade right now, but each to his own, right? If you don’t like hunting and mounting deer, then you might have a different opinion. Still this Taxidermy Deer LEGO Kit is cute. More so it avoids the need to actually go hunt. ;)

The Taxidermy Deer LEGO Kit is “homegrown” and made from standard LEGO bricks. Most of them are new, although some are not. It is being sold by David Cole, who also throws in a diagram – instruction guide – which can help you figure out which piece goes where, just in case you need some assistance.

Taxidermy Deer LEGO Kit Diagram

If you do it properly, you are going to have a tiny thing, though, so do not expect a ginormous deer head on your wall.

Taxidermy Deer LEGO Kit Mounted

Taxidermy Deer LEGO Kit Size Reference

LEGO Christmas Tree at St. Pancras Station, London

Just installed at London’s St. Pancras rail station is this incredible, 12 meter high (that’s almost 40 feet for us Yanks) Christmas tree made entirely out of LEGO bricks. The full, record-breaking stats on this bad boy will blow your mind.

LEGO Certified Professional Duncan Titmarsh

Great Britain’s one and only LEGO Certified Professional, Duncan Titmarsh (oh, grow up and stop snickering), was commissioned to build this giant Christmas tree. Every single element, from the trunk to the branches and the ornaments, is made from LEGO bricks. Let’s break down everything that went into building this thing:

• The tree is comprised of 600,000 LEGO bricks
• There are 172 individual branches
• The branches were built off-site over a period of six weeks and then assembled on the trunk at St. Pancras Station at night. (It was built only at night, because that’s the only time the station is empty.) It took two weeks to assemble at the station.
• 1,200 ornaments, made to look like glass balls, adorn the tree.
• The ornaments were assembled by kids at two local primary schools and a troop of Scouts.
• The tree is so tall it could only be built in an open-air section of the station, so it could extend through two levels.

St. Pancras Station‘s LEGO Christmas tree was officially unveiled just yesterday, and will be on display until January 3rd, 2012.

LEGO Christmas Tree at St. Pancras Station

Simply perfect, and perfect in its simplicity is this little LEGO minifigure scene explaining why they don’t celebrate the holidays on the Death Star.

Mike Stimpson created this clever image that comes with the following caption:

“The Empire does not celebrate Christmas. Now get back to your post, TK-421.”

Stimpson, a computer programmer and photographer, is well known in the adult LEGO fan community for his minifigure stills that capture the often hilarious, usually mundane lives of LEGO Star Wars characters. Visit his website to find out more about him and head back to Flickr (via the link above) to see his hundreds of cute LEGO photos.

Jason Freeny: "Minifigure Anatomy"

No, your eyes are not deceiving you. You’re looking at a LEGO minifig whose plastic “skin” has been peeled away so that you can see his insides.

Who knew that underneath your standard minifigure was a heart, lungs, intestines, stomach, and spleen? There’s something so fascinating, and yet so wrong, about seeing the beloved “LEGO Man” this way.

In reality, this is a sculpture made of a polymer clay called epoxy. The artist is the talented Jason Freeny, who’s made a career out of showing off the anatomies underneath everything from balloon animals to gummy bears. He’s particularly taken with childhood toys, having created cutaway anatomies for a Care Bear, Cooties, Hello Kitty, a little green alien from Toy Story, Mario, Mickey Mouse, Mr. Potato Head, My Little Pony, Finding Nemo‘s title character, and many more, including snacks like Goldfish Crackers or the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters.

This is, in fact, not Freeny’s first pass at a LEGO anatomy; the subject seems to hold a longtime fascination for him. Below is a digital schematic Freeny created a few years back that shows not only the anatomy of a minifig, but all of its bodily systems as well, like his arteries and nervous system.

LEGO Minifig anatomy schematic

The Brick Bible, by Brendan Powell Smith

The nice peeps over at Skyhorse Publishing sent over a copy of The Brick Bible for us to peruse, and you don’t have to be a believer to enjoy its LEGO greatness. Take a look at a few choice pages from the book.

Master LEGO builder Brendan Powell Smith has spent the last decade creating nearly 5,000 scenes from the Bible using LEGO bricks. You’ve probably seen his website, The Brick Testament, or at least heard of his amazing dedication to his craft. This lush, full-color, 272-page tome shows imagery taken directly from the Bible’s text, in LEGO form.

The book isn’t as comprehensive as the website; some bits are skimmed over here and there, and the book only covers the Old Testament. And true believers might be a little taken aback by some of Smith’s admittedly cheeky depictions — some of which you can see in the photos below. But the book is (mostly) very faithful to the Bible, and any creative liberties come straight out of the fun, lighthearted spirit of LEGO itself. Non-believers, fear not: Smith, the book’s author, is an atheist. The Brick Bible has been his longtime obsession because he believes that both the devout and the skeptical should at least know what’s in the Good Book, regardless of what they believe about it.

Don’t be deceived into thinking this is just a collection of LEGO images; the work behind these pictures is just astounding. I can’t even imagine the amount of time it must have taken to create these thousands and thousands of LEGO scenes. The book is available now at book retailers everywhere.

It was fun while it lasted, but LEGO Universe has announced its curtain call. At the end of January 2012, the LEGO-themed MMO will shutter its doors forever. In case you’re counting, that’s less than a-year-and-a-half of operation. So what went wrong?

I mean, it’s LEGO. Everybody loves LEGO, right? (We sure do.) It’s one of those indestructible brands, like Apple, Star Wars, and Pixar. An MMO built around LEGO blocks sounds like a no-brainer.

Despite a killer premise, the game never seemed to attract enough players. It even launched a free-to-play zone a few months ago, in an effort to bring in more paying players. But despite a total number of players somewhere around 2 million, that tactic didn’t work, either. In the end, as in all things, it came down to the money: too much going out, not enough coming in. As a result, 115 employees — both at the game development studio in Colorado and the game’s marketing department at the LEGO home office in Denmark — are being laid off. (The LEGO Group says it plans to offer them assistance in finding new jobs.)

But these logistics don’t answer the fundamental question: why didn’t LEGO Universe work?

My take is that despite the “sandbox”-type play it offered, the most popular elements of the LEGO building sets were excluded from the MMO. Namely, the media tie-in collections, such as LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Batman, and LEGO Harry Potter (properties that have their own, individualized — and bestselling — tie-in games). Granted, it would have taken some serious licensing fees to get those properties included in LEGO Universe, but it’s simple math. The licensed properties are LEGO’s bestselling kits. Without any of them included… what’s left for people to play with? What’s left is the generic sets, such as LEGO City, Kingdoms, and Atlantis. They even tried injecting the fairly new “Ninjago” theme into the game to give it that needed level of recognition, but there’s just no substitute for the stuff people really want to play with.

Anyway, that’s my $.02. I never played LEGO Universe, but I’m sad to see it go, nonetheless. It was a genius idea, and it deserved a better fate.

Time Twister

This week is good for LEGO lovers! Yesterday, we discovered The Cult of LEGO, a coffee book table that is due to be released next month. It is arguably the best present for any AFOL. Today, to end the week, we have a LEGO creation that will make it hard for LEGO enthusiasts not to drool and embarrass themselves: a LEGO clock.

This clock is called Time Twister. It was created by Hans Andersson, who is already known for his rather interesting inventions. Does the name Tilted Twister sound familiar? That was how Andersson made his name. The Tilted Twister is a robot (with LEGO components, yes!) that can solve the Rubik’s Cube. I am not sure if he is the first one to do this, but he pretty much cemented his geek cred with that creation. Since then, he has been busy with other related stuff (Sudoku Solver!) and his latest baby is this clock.

Andersson says that he has always been fascinated with time and clocks. (Admit it – you have always been as well!) With everything that he has been doing, I suppose it was just a matter of time till he actually made a clock, but he took things one step further and got together two LEGO Mindstorm bricks. Thanks to Bluetooth, he was able to make these two bricks communicate with one another. One brick functions as the master, while the other serves as the slave. The former brick is in charge of keeping track of the time and takes care of the minutes digits as well. (I can’t help but think: Time Lord!!!) The slave brick, on the other hand, is in charge of the hour digits and the second indicator.

Andersson created the digits (four in total) by layering black and white tiles. The trick was to make each tile layer rotate 360 degrees, at which point it hooks to the next layer. I don’t know how he did it, but by playing around with the top layer, each column of tiles can be made to display specific patterns, i.e., the time.

Awesome is all I can say. Watch the Time Twister in action.

Minifig Turns 30

Is there a correlation between AFOLs and the love for reading? There must be at least one study out there that we just do not know about, but it does not matter. If you are an AFOL, whether or not you love to read, you will want this coffee table for Christmas. Or even for an early Christmas present.

The book is titled The Cult of LEGO, and that is pretty much self-explanatory. Written by John Baichtal and Joe Meno, The Cult of LEGO will be released in November of this year and is 304 pages worth of LEGO goodness. Just in case those names do not exactly ring a bell, Baichtal is of Wired’s GeekDad renown while Meno is the founder of BrickJournal. That ought to tell you that this book should be worth more than something.

So what can you see in the illustrated book? People just like you who consider LEGO to be an integral part of their life. From the publisher’s page:

People like professional LEGO artist Nathan Sawaya; enigmatic Dutch painter Ego Leonard (who maintains that he is, in fact, a LEGO minifig); Angus MacLane, a Pixar animator who builds CubeDudes, instantly recognizable likenesses of fictional characters; Brick Testament creator Brendan Powell Smith, who uses LEGO to illustrate biblical stories; and Henry Lim, whose work includes a series of models recreating M.C. Escher lithographs and a full-scale, functioning LEGO harpsichord.

If that is not enough to get you all worked up, how about the following?

• A life-sized Stegosaurus and an 80,000-brick T. Rex skeleton
• Detailed microscale versions of landmarks like the Acropolis and Yankee Stadium
• A 22-foot long, 350-pound re-creation of the World War II battleship Yamato
• A robotic, giant chess set that can replay historical matches or take on an opponent
• A three-level, remote-controlled Jawa Sandcrawler, complete with moving conveyor belt

The mere thought of these should be more than enough to get any AFOL excited! And even if you are not a hardcore LEGO fan, this book is a great Christmas gift idea for those who are and for kids. After all, it is never too early to get kids into LEGO, don’t you think?

Reserve your copy now at No Starch Press for $39.95 for the print book plus a free ebook in PDF. If you want the PDF only, it will cost you $31.95. That’s a no brainer!

Bet you’ve never heard of LEGO Cuusoo. (I have no idea how it’s pronounced.) It’s an utterly brilliant idea from the minds at LEGO, that works a lot like Kickstarter. But instead of crowd-funding random projects, LEGO fans build cool new stuff and you get to vote on whether or not LEGO makes an official set out of it!

LEGO Cuusoo puts the power to create new LEGO sets in your hands. It’s simple. You create something with your existing LEGO bricks. Take pictures of it and upload them to the LEGO Cuusoo website. Spread the word and try to get 10,000 people to sign up as “supporters” of your project. Unlike Kickstarter, supporters don’t pledge money, just interest in buying the set if it’s sold in stores. Though the site asks you how much you’d be willing to pay for the set, how many copies of a given set you’d buy, and why you think it should be made by LEGO.

LEGO DeLorean Time Machine

If you succeed in getting 10,000 supporters, your project will be reviewed by the professionals at LEGO, who have the final word on whether or not to make and market your set. The best part? If LEGO makes your set, they’ll give you a 1% royalty on the net sales of the set, presumably forever. It gives talented builders a chance to influence the sets that LEGO chooses to create, and get something out of it in return.

The site is still in beta right now, but already there’s an impressive collection of proposed LEGO sets available to view, and you can sign up and add your own project anytime. Current projects seeking supporters include the DeLorean time machine from Back to the Future, an impressively detailed Settlers of Catan board game, a scaled replica/diorama of the “Love Boat” cruise ship, and more.

LEGO Settlers of Catan

LEGO Superheroes logo

Holy crackers! This coming January, LEGO is making one of its biggest product line launches ever: LEGO Superheroes. And the products making up this toy line? Both DC Comics and Marvel characters. How did I not know about this?

Official LEGO DC Comics Minifigures

The news was announced a few months ago at San Diego Comic-Con International, but somehow I missed it. I’m reeling in shock here, give me a minute… The DC characters are the ones that premiere in January. Marvel’s LEGO toys are being held off until summer, to coincide with The Avengers movie.

LEGO Wolverine Minifigure

It’s easy to see how this one-in-a-million convergence came about. LEGO already has a partnership with Warner Bros. for the Batman franchise, so expanding that to encompass other DC heroes is a no-brainer, considering how well the Batman sets have sold. As for Marvel, they’re owned by Disney now, and LEGO has an existing partnership with Disney as well.

LEGO Iron Man Minifiure

But it’s still mind boggling that these two universes are coming together in the form of the world’s greatest toy. DC has for years refused to do any crossovers with Marvel because of some kind of animosity from DC towards Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada. So the very idea that both of these titans will be united under a single umbrella is just incredible.

Anyhoo, below are some of the first images of some of the Minifigs and sets coming with the LEGO Superheroes line.

But you know where my mind can’t help but go with this news… They already made a LEGO Batman video game. How long until we see LEGO Avengers or LEGO Justice League?

Photos courtesy of FBTB.net and Eurobricks. Hit both links for lots more images.

LEGO Couch

LEGO Couch

Those are some seriously huge bricks, but I assure you this is the real deal. Can’t imagine it’s very comfortable. Just imagine the impression it must make on your butt cheeks. [Source]

Macintosh II Couch

Macintosh II Couch

I count 25 old Macintosh II computers. Yes, they really are Macs, and not fakes. And you really can sit on it. The Macs have been attached to one another with drywall screws. [Source]

Mouse Pad Couch

Mouse Pad Couch

A perfect compliment to the Mac II couch, this one is made of real, stacked mouse pads. No idea how many, but there’s got to be hundreds of them in there. [Source]

Pac-Man Couch

Pac-Man Couch

A clever modular design that takes its inspiration from Pac-Man’s nom-nom-nom maze action. [Source]

Pixelated Couch

Pixelated Couch

Designer Cristian Zuzunaga (love that name) created this unique take on the 8-bit/pixelation craze. [Source]

Space Invaders Couch

Space Invaders Couch

Designer Igor Chak must be a big retro gaming fan, because his take on Space Invaders is spot-on perfect. Under its straight edges and ninety-degree angles are memory foam cushions lined in black leather. [Source]

Tetris Couch

Tetris Couch

Designer Stefano Grasselli came up with this interesting idea for modular seating that separates into individual seats and ottomans, or comes together as a couch. One cushion in near the center tells you exactly where he got his inspiration. [Source]

In honor of Gears of War 3, some dude built a Lancer assault rifle entirely out of LEGO bricks. It’s life-sized, and it works. Mm-hmm, that’s what I said.

MOCpages user “PLUM B” built this bad boy, which features a motorized chainsaw, a releasable magazine, a trigger safety, and yes, it really shoots. So what if it only shoots rubberbands? That takes nothing whatsoever away from its awesomeness. You have to watch the video above to fully appreciate the genius of its design. I mean, it not only matches the right proportions of the gun from the game, it has all the necessary mechanisms built in (mostly inside) that make it actually work.

If this doesn’t prove once and for all that you really can build anything out of LEGO, I don’t know what will.

You know what they say. If you absolutely, positively have to kill every (LEGO) Locust in the room…

LEGO Lancer Assault Rifle

LEGO Orthanc

This amazing LEGO build recreates the Last March of the Ents from The Two Towers. What’s amazing about it is that it’s been made to Minifigure scale, which stretches it more than seven feet tall.

With an insane level of detail, a group of LEGO enthusiasts called OneLUG have built the tower of Orthanc, in the land of Isengard, to depict the siege upon Saruman and his forces known as the Last March of the Ents, as seen in the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings movies. (Basically, it’s the big battle of the tree people vs. the bad guys at the end of The Two Towers.)

The scene boasts of over one hundred Orcs, and more than twenty-five of the tree-like Ents. It took OneLUG’s members seven months to complete, and consists of somewhere above 22,000 LEGO bricks. The finished product weighs in at over 145 pounds, with a base over eight feet in diameter.

Check out the details in the pics below, and then head over to the group’s Flickr account for lots more.

LEGO Isengard

LEGO Orthanc

LEGO Isengard

Trump Tower LEGO model

LEGO artist extraordinaire Sean Kenney was recently commissioned by a LEGO Store in Chicago to recreate three of the city’s most iconic skyscrapers. And boy, did Kenney deliver. The biggest model — Trump Tower — is 10 feet tall. And the towers are held together by nothing but the artist’s expertise.

For this LEGO Store, Kenney recreated Trump Tower, the Chicago Tribune building, and Water Tower Place. A stickler for detail, Kenney put in loads of tiny bits like the ornate, gothic architecture on the Tribune building, and window shades behind the windows of Water Tower Place.

But the real masterpiece is the Trump Tower. Since the real building is covered in reflective glass, Kenney incorporated subtle images of the Chicago skyline into the outer walls. If you look closely, you can see the blue sky and clouds. The entire model — by far the biggest of the three — is made up of 65,000 LEGO pieces, and has no glue to hold it together.

Sean Kenney is one of an elite group of LEGO Certified Professionals, licensed by The LEGO Group itself. Currently there are only eleven of these Professionals in the entire world; their ranks also include another ForeverGeek favorite, Nathan Sawaya.

Check out the other two models below, and then head over to Kenney’s website to see lots more photos of the buildings, including in-progress shots showing how they were made.

Chicago Tribune building LEGO model

Water Tower Place building LEGO model