2000
| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
December 31, 2000-January 6, 2001
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Dark Gundam: The Klaupacius Nightmare -Brian Cooper
| | If you’re a LEGO mecha fan and you think you’ve seen it all, well, you haven’t seen it all until you’ve seen this! Inspired by the popular Japanese anime series Gundam, these giant black and red behemoths stand twenty minifig-stories tall and are armed to the teeth and chock full of gears and other moving parts. Many detailed photos are shown. The way the mecha are revealed is wonderfully ominous.
In addition, there’s an incredibly beautiful model of the famous Star Wars ship Millennium Falcon and some LEGO MINDSTORMS RCX creations (with NQC source program code).
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
December 24-30, 2000
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1000steine.de -René Hoffmeister
| | If you live in Germany or can read or write or speak German, chances are that you already know about this great site, which hosts German-language forums, news, and other information. If not, you might still find quite a bit to enjoy here, as there are several photo galleries of sites organized by theme (click on the links in the “LEGO Welten” section to browse these). Many of the forum messages also contain images (click the “News” links to see some of these).
The name 1000steine, by the way, means 1000 bricks.
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
December 17-23, 2000
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PanoBot 2 : Robotized
panoramic head V2 -Philippe Hurbain
| | Armed with a fisheye lens and LEGO MINDSTORMS RCX-controlled panoramic head, this camera takes full-rotation panoramic photos viewable with special software or as wide images. Detailed building and assembly instructions, a photo gallery, and a history are given. This is a great example of the versatility of the LEGO system of elements and the possibilities of use in the “real world.”
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
December 10-16, 2000
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LEGO at Hafhead.com -Tony Hafner
| | There is a nice assortment of DUPLO and 4.5v train models here, but this is primarily a space-themed site. You can find several dozen of Tony’s own space creations -- ships, bases, buggies, fighters, troop transporters, cargo systems, monorails, etc. If you’re in a hurry, don’t miss the Colony Ship Glimmer of Hope and Blacktron Invader Rehash pages! Tony has put a great deal of thought into modular designs.
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
December 3-9, 2000
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Steel Gallery
-Mr. Toshiaki Mukai
| | Steel Gallery is a showcase of mecha models (and a few non-mecha models) built largely from rectangular bricks, plates, and sloped bricks. No doubt, the challenge in getting “realistic” looking mecha to emerge from a selection of primarily basic elements is a great one, and Mr. Mukai accomplishes this challenge masterfully. Even if you’re not a mecha fan, you may learn a thing or two by studying the models. Look closely and you will find many pleasant surprises!
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
November 19-25, 2000
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Technica -Jim Hughes
| | Technica is Jim’s totally excellent guide to LEGO TECHNIC elements and sets. Not only has he categorized nearly every LEGO TECHNIC element ever made, he has done so with gorgeous photographs (made using a color digital scanner). If you’re into LEGO TECHNIC or LEGO MINDSTORMS, this guide is an indispensable element reference. There’s also a multi-page history of the LEGO TECHNIC product line, and a survey (data pages) covering 250 official LEGO TECHNIC sets over the years, and a page about the geometry of LEGO TECHNIC elements.
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
November 12-18, 2000
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Henry Lim’s LEGO
Sculptures -Henry Lim
| | A 14-foot (4 meter) long green, yellow, and white dinosaur tops the scales here at Henry’s gallery of sculptures, all of which he has designed and built using LEGO bricks. As you click through the photos, you can get a sense of the immensity of this sculpture, which fills a room and a half of Henry’s apartment. No less impressive are two smaller sculptures (still rather large!) and a beautiful black and white mosaic.
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
November 5-11, 2000
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ASL’s LEGO Page -Andrew Lipson
| | To fully experience everything here at Andrew’s site, you’ll need an LDraw compatible DAT file viewer, but there are plenty of traditional photographs as well. Dilbert® fans, don’t miss Andrew’s page of character sculptures. Mathematics and puzzle fans, don’t miss Andrew’s pages of mathematical sculptures, including a klein bottle, a Möbius strip, and a working LEGO TECHNIC Hobermann sphere!
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
October 29-November 4, 2000
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LEGO Creations
-Lawrence Wilkes
| | Lawrence recently built a large Metro Terminus station which received wide acclaim -- it’s amazing...check it out here at his website. Also for LEGO Train fans is Lawrence’s larger, extended version of the official LEGO set 4554 Metro Station and other LEGO Train models, as well as photos from local UK LEGO-fan get-togethers with LEGO Train layouts. If you own or are thinking of buying a 8448 Supercar II, don’t miss Lawrence’s Unofficial 8448 Supercar II Owners Club pages. Space and Town fans -- don’t miss the detailed inside photos of Lawrence’s huge 14-wheel Land Carrier, which makes a Winnebago Camper look like a small toy.
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More about Lawrence’s Metro Terminus...
| | Metro Terminus - Station for Legofest
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| Started work on the Terminus style station I proposed for the Legofest railway layout Visit the following for a view of the front of the station (URL) is 5 platform plates wide Provides the main building to front a terminus with platforms in an e (...) (25 years ago, 20-Feb-00, to lugnet.loc.uk)
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| | Metro Terminus - Work in progress
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| Though I would share with you the current state of Metro Terminus This is a large Terminus style station building that covers 6 48stub base plates (so pretty large!). It uses a further 4 baseplates for the roof over the platforms. Platforms will (...) (25 years ago, 21-Jul-00, to lugnet.loc.uk, lugnet.trains)
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
October 22-October 28, 2000
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Sehr Schnell Superjustage -Jeff Boen
| | The words “sehr schnell” in German mean “very fast” in English. Got an 8880 or 8448 LEGO TECHNIC super car? Here are some great modification and extension ideas -- all beautifully rendered.
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
October 15-October 21, 2000
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Heiner Berg’s Homepage -Heiner Berg
| | This is a delightful site focusing on Heiner’s LEGO Train and Town creations (the town supports the train theme here). You can see about a dozen engines, passenger cars, freight cars, and a monorail, in additional to a large and fascinating train layout with Town-themed creations such as street café, postal cranes, a filling station, an outhouse, and more. Finally, don’t miss Heiner’s Zahnradbahm (“Rackrailway”) -- a must-see for Train fans and everyone else too!
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
October 8-October 14, 2000
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LEGO Mechcommander -Burkhard Schlömer
| | This site is a gallery of several dozen extremely colorful mecha, fighters, and tanks, by Burhard and others. Each model is beautifully rendered, with many shown from multiple viewing angles on subpages. Building instructions for many of the models are also available for download in LDraw .DAT format. (LEGO purists beware: although the colors used in the models appear to be real LEGO colors, many of the colored elements shown have never been released in the colors used and could only be possible through painting or rendering in the computer. Nevertheless, the designs are solid and based in reality.)
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
October 1-October 7, 2000
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LEGO Construction Site
-Jennifer Clark
| | With amazing accuracy and detail, Jennifer Clark has captured two real life construction vehicles in her LEGO creations. Each vehicle page includes full explainations, photographs and real life examples. The Skid-Steer Loader also includes renderings and videos. A walk through of both design processes is welcome addition to an already impressive site. (Reviewed by Jennifer L. Boger)
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
September 24-September 30, 2000
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Tom’s LEGO Stop
-Thomas Cook
| | Tom’s LEGO Stop showcases beautiful Trains and Model Team creations. From MOCs created from single sets only, to an 18-wheeler with trailer and load, Tom’s wonderful train models are highly detailed and some even include instructions and inventories. His site also contains full information on how to implement Digital Command Control (DCC) into LEGO Trains, complete with pictures and full instructions. (Reviewed by Jennifer L. Boger)
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
September 17-September 23, 2000
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The Kingdom of Ikros
-Anthony J. Sava III
| | The Kingdom of Ikros is a very full castle page, with stories and characters, weapons, monsters and castles. In true D&D style, complete information is given about everything, and the Heroes section is not to miss. (Reviewed by Jennifer L. Boger)
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
September 10-September 16, 2000
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Blacktron - A Shattered Empire
-Jim Davis
| | Based on the ever-popular LEGO® Space System play theme Blacktron introduced in the late 1980’s, this site features more than 30 original Blacktron-style creations organized as a futuristic divided empire with backstories and character profiles. In addition to the distinctive black and yellow coloring, there are also models with Ice Plant: 2002 and Blacktron: Future Generation colorings. All of the ships, mecha, tanks, and equipment are given as high-quality ray-traced images, some with downloadable LDraw .DAT files.
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
September 3-September 9, 2000
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LEGO Photography
-Michael Hopkins
| | Michael has written four short tutorials demonstrating some of the techniques he uses to photograph LEGO models and edit the resulting images. Topics include camera settings, digital masking, color adjustment, background replacement, and special effects. Check it out, even if you don’t have image-editing software!
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
August 27-September 2, 2000
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The Woo LEGO Project -Glen Steedman
| | One day, a group of guys in Australia decided that they absolutely needed to have a LEGO case for one of their old computers. The Woo LEGO Project site chronicles their three-day mission. What’s particularly enjoyable about this project is its impulsiveness and the high-spirited way these guys were hell-bent on having fun, eating pizza, and just building for the sake of building. Find out how it turned out!
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
August 20-26, 2000
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Denis Cousineau’s Technic
LEGO Pages -Denis Cousineau
| | Denis has assembled a variety of information and experiences with high-end LEGO TECHNIC and LEGO MINDSTORMS creations. He shows walking robotic ants, a pneumatic robotic arm, a program editor for the RCX programmable brick called PRO-RCX and example projects. There’s also technical presentations of the physics of LEGO TECHNIC motors and gearing and pneumatics. Content is heavy on the techincal side, including a few electronics diagrams.
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
August 13-19, 2000
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North Georgia LEGO Train Club -NGLTC
| | NGLTC is a group of adults in the northern Georgia region of the U.S. who enjoy building, designing, operating, and having fun with LEGO trains. Among other things, their website showcases projects and local exhibitions. Whether you’re a LEGO Train fanatic or just curious about LEGO Trains, you’re sure to enjoy the hundreds of photos available here. The level of realism is amazing!
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
August 6-12, 2000
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Mark’s LEGO Creations -Mark Sandlin
Just closing this week is a Design-a-Civvie building contest which Mark
conducted. Nearly 20 people entered more than 30 spacecraft designs; you
can see the winners and all of the entries at Mark’s site.
Mark also has hundreds of photos of more than 40 awe-inspiring ground
vehicles, spacecraft, dropships, mecha, and more which he has designed and
built. Minifig weaponry fans: don’t miss the Balrogs page!
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
July 30-August 5, 2000
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LEGO UH-60 L Blackhawk -Marc A. Cook
Marc’s UH-60 L Blackhawk is a super-powerful minifig-scale military
helicopter with extensive pages of documentation. The model itself is
impressively complex, but what really makes this site great is the
personality and “life” Marc has breathed into the project. Through careful
photography and computer image editing (for example, the green-image
night-mission page) and through the deliberate but delicate use of blurring
and over-exposure techniques, the pages seem to come alive, backed by plenty
of action scenes, crew bios, and even a whole sub-site Seal Team 9 covering
special operations.
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
July 23-July 29, 2000
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CastLEGO -Shiri Dori
This is an incredibly energetic and creative site focusing on Castle themed
creations, with an emphasis on minifig characters. Rich with close-up photos,
the site also contains several interrelated storybook-style tales.
By the way, don’t miss Shiri’s “microfig scale” town Helfire and her
tiny red and blue chess set.
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
July 9-July 15, 2000
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Dave’s LEGO Site
-David Eaton
Dave says he hasn’t spent much time on his website yet, but that won’t stop
you from enjoying the fruits of his labor. For the Star Wars fan in all of
us there’s a masterfully detailed minifig-scale AT-AT walker and several
pages of photos from MIT’s 1999 MindFest(TM) event, at which NELUG set up a
table of Star Wars themed creations. (Dave’s AT-AT was one of two AT-AT
models on display -- the other was built by Shaun Sullivan.) Among other
incredible creations are photos of David’s gatehouse and walled medieval town
which were part of a NELUG-made window display at a local toy store and
David’s fundraising model for a local music center -- a 16,000+ brick scale
model covering several square feet.
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
July 2-July 8, 2000
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KAKI’s LEGO Gallery
-Kazuyuki Kakishita
This site is an artful display of fine model building -- from a variety of
gorgeous passenger and cargo trains to a variety of stunningly beautiful
architectural designs. Also included are several pages of details (including
many fascinating close-up photos) of two LEGO imitation brands available or
once available in Japan.
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
June 25-July 1, 2000
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Brad’s LEGO Hobby
-Brad Hamilton
This might appear at first glance to be yet another LEGO town setup (not that
there’s anything wrong with that!), but looking deeper is quite a treat. There
are actually two layouts here -- an old one and a new one, both with lots of
photos and descriptions. Brad seems to have a magical talent for taking
large specialized elements from various LEGO themes and incorporating them
into powerful modern architectural designs with a surprising variety of color
color combinations. Don’t miss, for example, the walk-through (minifig-scale)
aquarium, the 12-story Police Compound tower, and the unique designs of
the Cutie Store fashion tower and Boba’s Fête Night Club in LEGO City 2!
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
June 18-June 24, 2000
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Mladen’s LEGO Creations
-Mladen Pejic
Some of the most impressive futuristic designs can be seen here -- dozens of
mecha (mechanized warriors), ground assault vehicles (hovertanks, armored
personnel carriers, etc.), and aerospace vehicles (attack fighters, gunships,
bombers, shuttles, etc.), with downloadable instructions in LDraw format.
Site navigation is pleasant and uncluttered; image quality is outstanding and
consistent. Pick a random model or two and enjoy the eye candy!
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
June 11-June 17, 2000
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Tom’s LEGOMania -Tom Stangl
Take a virtual tour of Tom’s office space at work, brimming with LEGO models
and even an outer computer “shell” which Tom built entirely LEGO bricks
(complete with a colorful Netscape logo on the side). Among other things,
Tom also shows many close-up photos of a beautiful black tactical SWAT Semi
truck he designed and built.
If you’ve got a couple hours free and haven’t seen them yet, don’t miss the
more than 600 photos taken on “Preview Day” (March 14, 1999) at LEGOLAND
California as well as almost eighty photos of a giant department store display
model and some sixty photos of a local gathering of fans when the “LEGO Tour
Truck” came by in October 1998. Tom’s site packs a powerful punch!
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
June 4-June 10, 2000
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Sandou’s RisingSun Minifig
Headquarters -Shigeyuki Sandou
This website is an extremely energetic gallery of photos showing well more
than 100 different minifig-based characters and scenes from popular comic
books, movies, video games, and music album covers. All of the designs use
actual LEGO® elements, without the use of paint.
An English translation
of the site is available, but the main Japanese pages contain all the newest
content. Click on everything that appears to be a link!
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
May 28-June 3, 2000
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Eric Kingsley’s LEGO® Pages
-Eric Kingsley
This is an all-around fantastic site with models ranging from spaceships to
giant castles. Eric’s Star Wars section is incredible, with ray-traced
renderings of his own excellent design of a B-wing fighter, a huge rebel
squadron hangar, photos of a setup from last year’s
MindFest event, and more (including
Eric’s legendary minifig-scale “Gonk” building instructions). Other futuristic
models include a wicked-tough two-legged Heavy Assault Walker -- very cool!
Eric also has a delightful page devoted to a pair of semi trucks and a wide
range of castle creations including a majestic inn, a church with graveyard,
and several peasant houses. Consider yourself warned that some of these
castle models are jawdroppingly tasty!
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
May 21-May 27, 2000
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Christopher Masi’s LEGO Pages
-Christopher Masi
Here is an eclectic collection of works with a heavy focus on trains. Check
out the numerous trolleys, engines, tank cars, as well as an old-style coach
car, a motorized train-track drawbridge, and step-by-step building instructions
for building your own Automated Points (electric train-track switches).
If you’re in the mood for some twisted humor, don’t miss the “Things My Wife
Does with LEGO®” pages. Boat fans: Don’t miss the page on motorizing LEGO
boats with a non-LEGO motors (it seems that all LEGO boats were actually
designed with a special tab on the bottom to work with standard underwater
toy motors!)
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
May 14-May 20, 2000
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The Valley of Asuncian -Jeff Huit
The Valley of Asuncian is a short story Jeff has illustrated using LEGO
minifigs, horses, and specially constructed scenery. The (currently) 28-page
story takes place in post-Rome western Europe during the Dark Ages and
contains, as you might imagine, copious amounts of graphic violence.
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
May 7-May 13, 2000
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Hari’s Net Home -Hari Wiguna
This is a very “hands on” site in the sense of fun building projects. From
the incredible Magic Trick (a must-see and a tour de force in presentation) to the fantastic Do “Nothing” machine, this site is quite the mental treat.
If you own a LEGO MINDSTORMS RCX Programmable Brick, you can also build Hari’s
interactive memory and dexterity challenge game.
By the way, if you’ve ever been curious about what’s inside a LEGO Mini Motor (#5225), Hari has some revealing photos...
Also, just for fun, or if you’re trying to woo a potential NLSO, be sure to
check out Hari’s pages showing 85 tiny models built during a 24-day period using only pieces from the 1298 Advent Calendar set. This little collection is quite the testiment to the versatility of the
LEGO system.
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
April 30-May 6, 2000
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The Official BrikWars Home
Page -Mike Rayhawk
BrikWars is a free wargame designed to be played using plastic building bricks (especially LEGO® bricks). Originally inspired by an early 1990’s
game dubiously named “Lego Wars,” this is a much enhanced successor with a
actively growing fan following. Mike’s site devoted to BrikWars is rich
in detail and atmosphere and is exuberantly illustrated.
| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
April 23-29, 2000
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Brickpark Björn
Übersicht -Björn Doppke
Björn has put together a site dedicated to professional LEGO Design for print
advertisements (Björn’s job when he worked at LEGO in Germany). Shown are
more than 31 ads from glass slippers to billiards to dozens of sculpted
animals, as well as a newspaper article and screen captures from German
television programs in which Björn appeared.
| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
April 16-22, 2000
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D.N.T.R.I. (Dai Nippon Technical Research Institute) -Kunimasa Fujisawa
This is a bilingual site (Japanese and English), although most of the content
consists of photos. Shown are many transforming double- and multi-legged
mecha and large space battle ships, all with engaging close-up photos showing
various details and configurations. Don’t miss the Pegasus II Class Space Battleship with its menacing I-beam rams!
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
April 9-15, 2000
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MGLM (Master Grade LEGO Models) -David W. Thomas, Jr.
David has set up the MGLM website to showcase “some of the most amazing LEGO creations from builders around the world.” More than half of the creations shown so far are built by David himself, but this isn’t merely an exercise in
self-aggrandizing; David’s creations are pretty amazing. Does MGLM live up
to its goal? At present, there seems to be a heavy bias toward Star Wars
and mecha (mechanized warriors), but the Upcoming section of the site does show a Forumla One car.
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
April 2-8, 2000
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KEN-TUCKY WORKS -Ken Takeuchi
Ken has put together an incredible collection of eclectic LEGO models and sculptures, with marvelous attention to detail. Among some of the treats
you’ll find here are dropships, cruisers, giant space freighters (wow!);
several custom LEGO Star Wars modifications; a variety of mecha, walker pods,
fighter craft, and a flying police car; several small sculptures (a computer,
a frog, a dragon, and more); a veriety of small Town vehicles and several large
classic cars; realistic minifig-scale construction equipment; and examples of
modern architecture and office building skyscrapers. Dive in and click away!
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
March 26-April 1, 2000
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Colin’s LEGO Tech -Colin Robert Gutierrez
Colin has designed and assembled some of the greatest and toughest mecha on the face of the Net today. Even if you’re not into mecha (mechanized warriors), you may find many enjoyable building ideas here, as these models are highly complex and use LEGO elements in often surprising ways. The photography is excellent, so you can get very good looks.
Step-by-step building instructions are also provided for several models and subassemblies. These have been photographed up close against a green and white grid background: a great way to show depth.
Also, don’t miss Colin’s five incredibly gorgeous motorcycles and his page of Building Hints and Tips.
This site not only contains great content but sets a great example!
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
March 19-25, 2000
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NYANTA’s LEGO train spirit -Masayuki Ogura
The LEGO trains here are some the most beautiful to be found on the net today.
From several all-black cars and classic steam engines to a nearly all-white super passenger train, many of these are modeled after famous and popular trains in Japan. The tank, freight, and hopper cars also have a certain utilitarian beauty about them. On the Tank page eigotank.htm, by the way, see if you can spot the clever use of pirate ship elements!
| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
March 12-18, 2000
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From Bricks To Bothans: The Star Wars LEGO Experience
-Tim Saupé
This is a beautifully designed site which combines a news weblog and several Star Wars reference sections for fans (general links, a set guide, and
custom models by fans). The site is also interactive by means of polls, a guestbook, a web forum, and an “ask LEGO” feature).
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
March 5-11, 2000
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Pawel’s Castle Page -Pawel Nazarewicz
Although the site is titled Pawel’s Castle Page, it is actually a multi-page website with quite a bit of depth. Pawel has created and linked together several complex castle-themed settings in a mapped kingdom. (A tantalizing Armies page also shows hundreds of the kingdom’s minifigs on a coffee
table.)
Navigation within this site is a bit challenging, as it is still evolving,
but at the time of this writing, there are approximately 9 HTML pages and
100 images to see (if you’re keeping track). The photography is excellent,
and the models, settings, and characters are rich and full of life.
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
February 27-March 4, 2000
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Adventurers -Christian Lindblad Rasmussen
Christian has put together a wonderfully comprehensive reference to the LEGO Adventurers product line covering details of all of the sets, cross-referenced with all of the minifigs. Also covered are many non-building-set LEGO Adventurers materials such as T-shirts, caps, tote bags, keychains, signage, books, magazines, bumper stickers, a board game, and even a deck of LEGO Adventurers playing cards!
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
February 20-26, 2000
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BrickShelf.com -Kevin Loch
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past two years, or only recently
discovered other LEGO® enthusiasts on the Internet, chances are that you already know and love the scan collection at BrickShelf.com (formerly known as kl.net).
Over recent years, Kevin has been amassing and organizing unofficial JPEG scans of official LEGO® building instruction booklets and catalogs. To date, dozens of contributors have scanned more than 1,000 official LEGO® building instruction booklets and more than 150 official LEGO® catalogs. All of these
scans are organized in an easy-to-follow top-down hierarchy, making it convenient to find, for example, building instructions to a long-lost beloved set from childhood.
Just recently, Kevin added a public-uploadable Gallery where anyone can share
photos (and the like) of their own creations. Each person gets their own
folder which they can organize however they see fit, including the optional creation of sub-folders and sub-sub-folders (and so forth) for organizational
purposes. Thumbnails (clickable shrunken-down versions) are automatically generated for each uploaded image, making browsing a snap.
By the way, BrickShelf.com has a special announcement group on LUGNET called lugnet.announce.brickshelf. This is a good group to check periodically (or subscribe to for news-by-mail delivery) for announcements of recent additions and changes.
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
February 13-19, 2000
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Paul’s LEGO® Page at GMLUG
-Paul Foster
If you’re a truck or train lover, get ready for a major visual avalanche
(and maybe even a headache-but a good one!), as there are more than 200 great images to view at Paul’s site.
Here in addition to more than 40 different fire trucks, you’ll find everything
from flat bed trucks to semi trucks, from trains and train equipment of all types to train terminals, and even some of Paul’s variants on official LEGO TECHNIC models and beautiful extensions to Model Team models. (The Freight
Terminal page shows a very interesting use of transparent garage doors, by
the way.)
And finally, no matter what your fancy, don’t miss Paul’s more than 50
jaw-dropping photos of the GMLTC (Greater Midwest LEGO Train Club) layout at the NMRA (National Model Railroad Association) convention last year, and Paul’s huge page of event photos, including the Mall of America LEGO Imagination Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota (USA)!
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
February 6-12, 2000
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Ben’s LEGO Creations
-Ben Williamson
The photography at Ben’s site is so beautiful that it’s almost difficult to
break from it to read the words. If you’re a LEGO MINDSTORMS fan,
great!-you’re doubly lucky because the designs are also excellent. But if
not, just sit back and enjoy the pretty pictures and appreciate the clean and straightforward site design.
A modified version of Ben’s FetchBot arm, by the way, appears in The Unofficial Guide to LEGO MINDSTORMS Robots (Chapter 5).
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
January 30-February 5, 2000
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LEGO Star Wars
-S. Fujita
Starting way back in 1992, Mr. Fujita set forth to create an all-LEGO* version of the original Star Wars trilogy (Episodes IV-VI). Over the next
155 weeks, he meticulously and faithfully constructed dozens and dozens of models and locations at various scales and photographed these using true-to-the-film camera angles. The result is a mindblowingly incredible homage to Star Wars comprising nearly 200 still images.
* Well, 99.9% anyway. Paper, cotton, and a few other construction materials are used as backdrops in certain scenes. There is also a tiny bit of minifig
head modification. The strange animal-like creatures, by the way, are actual LEGO Fabuland figures from yesteryear.
More about Mr. Fujita’s LEGO Star Wars...
| | Word From Mr. Fujita
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| Hay All! Just got an email back from Mr. Fujita, the man who made the original Star Wars Trilogy from Legos. Here is the email he sent me. Mr. Jeremy Crawford, Thank you for your E-mail. I'm going to answer for your questions. (...) For three years (...) (25 years ago, 31-Jan-00, to lugnet.starwars)
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
January 23-29, 2000
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Eric Harshbarger’s LEGO® website
-Eric Harshbarger
Eric’s latest creation, a seven-foot-tall completely functional grandfather clock built entirely from LEGO bricks, is the most recent in a long series of
incredibly impressive LEGO sculptures Eric has created over the past few months.
Every one of these sculptures is a must-see, and Eric provides plentiful
photos and accompanying commentary, so there’s not much to say here except
to encourage visits to Eric’s pages!
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
January 16-22, 2000
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Blackened’s Brick Mania -Daniel Siskind
Dan’s model gallery is an outstanding collection of work spanning several
themes. First up is an exquisite giant red (“Bloodstone”) castle accompanied
by a beautiful farm and a beautiful inn, all built with historical accuracy
in mind. Also, don’t miss the working ballista projectile launcher!
A 20th Century War Machines page is filled with tanks, fighters, boats,
bombers, and many other historical war machines built to minifig scale. The
use of a vertical mirror surface to photograph a model from two angles at once
is a neat trick Dan uses here.
And finally, an extensive Wild West Trains page with gorgeous model designs
and two 4-8-8-4 locomotive designs (a particularly impressive response to a particularly difficult design challenge) round out this wonderful gallery.
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
January 9-15, 2000
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CSSOH’s LEGO Pneumatics Page
-Chio Siong Soh
This site is a veritable dossier on LEGO TECHNIC pneumatics, covering
pneumatic engines, motorized pneumatic compressors, valves, switches,
motions, and construction methods. Navigation among pages is quick and intuitive, the photography is superb, and the models are well streamlined.
Highly detailed step-by-step building instructions with notes are also
provided for many of the ideas presented here.
By the way, even if you’re not particularly fascinated by pnematics, you
should still visit the RCX Controlled Air Compressor Testor page, which describes and shows a working paper-roll pen plotter to test and record the effectiveness and properties of various pneumatic compressors. It’s quite
the scientific approach!
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
January 2–8, 2000
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Port Block, New South Wales
—Richard Parsons
Here is a wonderful site devoted to a minifig colony in New South Wales,
Australia, circa 1820. More than 130 images (all with thumbnails) are
accompanied by extensive narratives—and there’s even a poem (with inside
jokes). Several of the pages have auto-loading sound effect files, but they
are short and pleasant, and they actually add rather than detract from the
“atmosphere” of the pages. The photography and image editing is excellent,
and the pages are all relatively fast-loading, considering the overall size
of the site (more than 20 pages).
If you’re a Colin & Wanda fan (heck, even if you’re not a Colin & Wanda fan!),
check out the eight-page story detailing their visit to Port Block in late
1999—it was quite an experience for them!
More about Port Block...
| | Port Block sees in the new nineteenth century
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| Despite all the predictions of doom and destruction, midnight has come and gone. The candles and torches did not go out, the lock on my treasure chest still fails to work (just like it always did), my abacus still does work, blood did not rain from (...) (25 years ago, 31-Dec-99, to lugnet.pirates)
| | | Port Block upgraded
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| Now I know some of you already know my site, but if this is where Pirate lurkers are to be found, this is where I should hit it up no? (URL) Port Block pages have been renovated over the last two weeks, in keeping with the new format Minifig World (...) (26 years ago, 29-Sep-99, to lugnet.pirates)
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