2003
| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
June 1-7, 2003
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New Templar Order
Sylvia Tresto
| | New Templar Order is a website gathering information for the forces of the religion New Templar Order. They fled from earth to find peace in the universe but the Terran Union is trying to bring them down. The web site has information and photos of many of their own crafts and units, no doubt info the Terran Union would kill for - so beware! The site also gathers data on enemy ships along with photos, to help the Knights of New Templar Order win the war.
To calm down and step out of the role a little, Sylvi has made a whole line of MOC’s that fit in the universe that’s being created. A lot of neat space designs! The “enemy forces” is another side of the war and has it’s own special ships and units.
I hope we’ll also see some dioramas around the MOC’s someday, there certainly is material for it!
.space!
(Reviewed by Tobbe Arnesson)
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
May 25-31, 2003
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digitalbricks.nl
Jeroen de Haan
| | Probably one of the more overlooked AFOL sites, digitalbricks.nl touts a small variety of interesting works, including a few classic car models, some tutorials on high quality rendering and assorted train model .mpd files, however, seems to carry an emphasis on graphics, with a surprising collection of trains-related posters (which are of exceptional, high dpi quality!) Although the site in general seems to still be in its planning stages with many projects apparently on the drawing board, future updates may increase the content. In all, not too shabby.
(Reviewed by Matt Hein)
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
May 18-24, 2003
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Building Utopolis
Michel Labelle
| | Skyscrapers galore! Some ten really interesting skyscrapers rise to the sky at Building Utopolis. The shapes and colors of these should stand out in any LEGO city, and if not, their impressive height sure does! Apart from the 1.83-meter monster building there is also some inspiration for those with less LEGO in their collection... check out the 10x10’s! Nanofig skyscrapers! Michel Labelle’s sense of design is also put to good use on the site itself; it’s not often you find such nice designs that are still functional!
(Reviewed by Tobbe Arnesson)
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
May 11-17, 2003
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Bruce’s Homepage - LEGO
Bruce Lowell
| | Bruce Lowell is a Star Wars-loving AFOL, but it does not hinder him from visiting other genres as well. Although his Star Wars customs (many built in one-foot-to-one-stud scale) are excellent, his best work IMHO is his Ecto-1 from Ghostbusters! And for those of us who don’t own a collection big enough to make those large mosaics, Bruce comes to the rescue! But for the love of LEGO, don’t miss his large collection of Star Wars MOC’s! starships, vehicles, creatures, custom figures, that über-cute Death Star and a lot more!
(Reviewed by Tobbe Arnesson)
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
May 4-10, 2003
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Serious LEGO
Jonathan “JP” Brown
| | My bet is: If you’re slightly interested in LEGO Mindstorms, you have already seen this excellent site by JP Brown. Especially his CubeSolver that solves a three-sided Rubik’s Cube in about ten minutes. Even The LEGO Company was so impressed by his work that they asked him to make some copies for them! True, the CubeSolver is an amazing creation and it might take some of the “coolness” away from his other works, but they are all worth checking out! So, take a deep breath and prepare to launch to this weeks Cool LEGO Site! Oh! And make sure to duck for the Aegis!
(Reviewed by Tobbe Arnesson)
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
April 27-May 3, 2003
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BZPower
| | BZPower is for Bionicle what LUGNET and BrickShelf are for the non-Bionicle AFOL: a place to meet, discuss topics, and share pictures. As a non-Bionicle fan, I’ve learned more about Bionicle going through the quick-nav than I thought I’d ever learn. And I can see why Bionicle is a smash-hit with kids. Especially the “Parents Guide” was a great section of BZPower. So, no matter if you like Bionicle or not, head on over and learn something new!
(Reviewed by Tobbe Arnesson)
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
April 13-19, 2003
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rtlToronto
| | rtlToronto is a group of people in the Toronto, Ontario (Canada) area having fun with LEGO. Since most of these people enjoy LEGO Mindstorms and Trains, that’s what they primary do. rtlToronto is one of the most organized LEGO fan groups in the world, and still they are pretty unorganized. Their love of the brick and their eagerness to laugh at one another when their robots fail seems to keep the group going -- and going strong! Check out their destructive robotics competitions as well as their constructive train events!
(Reviewed by Tobbe Arnesson)
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
April 6-12, 2003
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The Adventures of the Unlikely Society
Jason Gross
| | The Adventures of the Unlikely Society is a superhero comic told with bricks. Every scene is a photograph of LEGO characters in a LEGO city. The Unlikely Society is a group of eight silly superheros with great (or not so great) powers defending the city of Fluxington from the evils of Starfish Head. Don’t miss the 22-page first issue where you learn just how Ninja Rabbit got his weird powers!
(Reviewed by Tobbe Arnesson)
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
March 30-April 5, 2003
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MOCpages
Sean Kenney
| | MOCpages, by Sean Kenney, will be the coolest thing to the AFOL-community since LUGNET and Brickshelf! Why? It lets people with no knowledge in HTML have their own LEGO web site with advanced features like ratings and reviews for individual MOCs! For free! Without annoying pop-ups! Furthermore, it will be a directory over all the web sites it hosts so nothing gets lost in the shuffle. You can also search through all the MOC’s. So, if you have a minute, go there and start your own MOCpages because a minute is all it takes!
(Reviewed by Tobbe Arnesson)
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
March 23-29, 2003
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Marc Duggan’s LEGO Inventions
Marc Duggan
| | Marc Duggan has a couple of cool LEGO Mindstorms projects on his site. One is a “cantenna” holder/aimer and the other a retina scanner. The Cantenna project allows him to use his laptop in the park surfing LUGNET wireless while the Retina Scanner makes sure no unauthorized persons access his laptop.
(Reviewed by Tobbe Arnesson)
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
March 16-22, 2003
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Créations Rotule
Terry Prosper
| | Créations Rotule has a pretty wide spectra of different things that contribute to the LEGO community. There are a lot of movie posters redone in LEGO, there’s the Minifig Hall of Fame (MHoF, not to be confused with LMHOF which is LEGO Mecha Hall Of Fame), and last but not least there is the new humor section! Head on over and make sure to vote for the next Minifig to enter the hall. Then, go to the humor section and write a nice caption to the photo!
(Reviewed by Tobbe Arnesson)
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
March 9-15, 2003
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The Aquarium
Felix Greco
| | The Aquarium, by Felix Greco, collects and displays all things related to the Sea Monkeys. The Sea Monkeys are an intelligent species found in the wetlands of Aquazone. They might seem a little grumpy and quick to war, but a nice meal can stop their destructive minds. To see all things Sea Monkey related, take a look at The Aquarium. There are still lots of things to be discovered about the Sea Monkeys. After all, they’ve only been known to humans for some eight months! So dig into your part bins and see what you can find!
(Reviewed by Tobbe Arnesson)
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
March 2-8, 2003
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LEGO Figs
Kenny Sze
| | LEGO Figs is an excellent resource for browsing photos of minifigs. A minifig collector hosts it. There are a lot of photos of minifigs, sorted by themes such as Space, Studios, and Animals, to mention a few. I’m no expert, but it seems to be pretty much complete! The only thing I could tell missing is the trans-green scorpion. By clicking a photo, you get to see a larger version. An improvement would be a short description of the fig, what years it was made, and which sets it came in.
(Reviewed by Tobbe Arnesson)
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
February 23-March 1, 2003
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El Caracho
Andreas Engel
| | “El Caracho” (Andreas Engel) obviously was a master builder over ten years ago, although having a dark age he has really excelled at building realistic and functional creations. I’m stunned, really. His site features a lot of truly fantastic designs made recently as well as a comprehensive Museum of his old MOCs.
I lack the words to write this review, so I say: Get over there and take a peek!
(Reviewed by Tobbe Arnesson)
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
February 9-15, 2003
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BI Portal
Jacob McKee
| | BI Portal is a portal for fan created building instructions, it has links to some 300 instructions. You can browse the instructions by category, by author, or display all links at once.
The portal is free to use. However, some of the instructions are not for free. This is clearly stated but I could only find five that charge a fee. The instructions have ratings and reviews so you can quickly find what others have found cool.
If you register (again, for free) you get access to additional features. You can now upload links to your own instructions. Just fill out the short form with an URL to the instructions, a thumbnail and some other small things. The instructions become online at once and the process is surprisingly pain-free. Another really good “member” feature is bookmarks, with which you can bookmark instructions so you easily can access them again. So if you browse BI Portal at work (on your lunch hour of course) and find a cool building instruction you bookmark it and when you get home to your bricks, just get online and build away! Just remember to rate the instruction when you’re done!
(Reviewed by Tobbe Arnesson)
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
February 2-8, 2003
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Cool Brick Movies
Seth Rotkin
| | Cool Brick Movies is a site that gathers brick movie makers and their work, a one-stop movie resource with lots of movies that you can download. The movies are arranged by category or you can choose to list them all. There is a short review of each movie, some facts and also a thumbnail. If you view the All Films category, there is even user ratings. If you want to see a particular movie, you can search the database by title or director.
Cool features include the “Time to film” data where you can see how long it took to make the movie, length of the movie, and also what format the file is so you know if you can view it before you download. There is also a download section so you can get a working player for Windows or Macintosh.
Unfortunately some URLs are broken and an additional feature I’d appreciate is how big the file is before you start your download.
When you have seen all (or some) of the movies and feel the instant urge to make your own, be sure to visit the Tutorials section for a few get-started guides.
(Reviewed by Tobbe Arnesson)
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
January 19-25, 2002
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HoMa’s World of Bricks
Holger Matthes
| | As HoMa (Holger Matthews) says on his front-page: “Enjoy my realistic-looking LEGO® models!” The models are both realistic-looking and enjoyable! At first glance it would appear Holger is only into trains, but there is more to enjoy! What about a huge, working, Bucket wheel excavator in minifig scale or a pre-10024 Red Baron Fokker Dr. 1?
Not that there is anything wrong with trains, even less so when you look at Holger’s MOC’s. One of his trains even took him from Germany to Namibia, in South Africa! Read all about it on his page about the Desert Express.
For people new to “SNOT” building (Studs-Not-On-Top), Holger’s page on the subject is a must-read!
(Reviewed by Tobbe Arnesson)
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| | Cool LEGO Site of the Week
January 5-11, 2002
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BimP: Bricks in my Pocket
Steven B. Combs
| | For the ultimate in staying up-to-date, head on over to Bricks in my Pocket, online e-journal for LEGO addicts. Designed especially for PDA use, it is extremely fast and streamlined. Browse important news and featured models, learn new tips and tricks, and read Q&A interviews with fellow builders. The site even features a weekly Out of Pocket cartoon by Ton van Waas.
(Reviewed by Todd Lehman)
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