Category: LEGO Books (Page 29 of 35)

The Art of the Brick: A Life in LEGO Book Review

October 25, 2014 / Allen "Tormentalous" Tran / 1 Comment

Every piece of art comes with a story and renowned LEGO artist Nathan Sawaya has told his story behind his many creations in his latest book, The Art of the Brick: A Life in LEGO by No Starch Press.

The book consists of 248 fully-colored pages and retails for $29.95.

The dust jacket shows an image of one of Nathan Sawaya’s most recognizable creations, “Yellow.” The inside of the jacket gives a short overview of what A Life in LEGO is about.

Nathan Sawaya is renowned for his incredible, sometimes surreal, sculptures and portraits—all made from LEGO bricks.

The Art of the Brick is a stunning, full-color showcase of the work that has made Sawaya the world’s most famous LEGO artist. Featuring hundreds of photos of his impressive art and behind-the-scenes details about how these creations came to be, The Art of the Brick is an inside look at how Sawaya transformed a toy into an art form.

Follow one man’s unique obsession and see the amazing places it has taken him.

The book is separated into a number of small chapters, more than 40 in total. These chapters focus on each of Nathan’s builds and he tells you what inspired the particular projects. For example, Nathan originally thought that Yellow represented death but after looking back, it is actually about opening yourself up to the world without being afraid of what it may bring.

Another story that I enjoyed in A Life in LEGO is the one about Dinosaur which was displayed at the Lancaster … Continue

LEGO Star Wars Character Encyclopedia: Updated and Expanded To Be Released Next Year

October 19, 2014 / Allen "Tormentalous" Tran / 3 Comments

Back in 2011, DK Publishing released the LEGO Star Wars Character Encyclopedia which detailed more than 300 minifigures in the Star Wars Universe and also included the exclusive Yavin Han Solo minifigure.

During Star Wars Day 2015, specifically on May 5, 2015, DK will be releasing the LEGO Star Wars Character Encyclopedia: Updated and Expanded version. This book will probably be including details of all the new LEGO Star Wars minifigures that have been released since the first book was released a few years ago. It will have 280 pages and retail for $18.99 and will most likely include an exclusive minifigure as well. There’s no word yet on who it could be, if there is one, but leave your comments below on who you want to be the minifigure.

Stay tuned for more details about LEGO Star Wars Character Encyclopedia: Updated and Expanded but in the meantime, you can pre-order the book right now on Amazon for 22% off.

Allen "Tormentalous" Tran

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Beautiful LEGO 2: Dark Book Review

October 17, 2014 / Allen "Tormentalous" Tran / 0 Comments

Coming off his very successful book, Beautiful LEGO, Mike Doyle is back with a sequel, Beautiful LEGO 2: Dark. Mike Doyle is an internationally acclaimed artist and his work has been shown in many exhibits like Gallery1988 and the Columbus Museum of Art.

Published by No Starch Press, Beautiful LEGO 2: Dark is a fully-colored 340 page hardback and it retails for $39.95.

The image of the dust jacket is from Mike Doyle’s Sickening Sweet and the back has images of builds from various builders. The inside flap gives a description of what the book is about.

Beautiful LEGO 2: Dark showcases dark LEGO masterpieces from artists around the world. From realistic sculptures of creepy crawlers to impressionist works of shadowy nightmares, this collection will leave you marveling at every turn. But dark has its lighter side, too with sculptures of dark chocolate as well as plenty of black humor on display.

Gothic fantasies and sci-fi horrors come to life in scenes created entirely with the simple LEGO brick. Step into a world of pure imagination in Beautiful LEGO 2: Dark.

The book is separated into 37 short chapters in addition to the preface and the contributors section (index). The index gives you information about each builders’ usernames online for Flickr/MOCPages as well as a link to their profile so you can follow more of their work there. Four of the chapters are actually short interviews of some LEGO builders including Bart De Dobbelaer, Tim Goddard, Brian Kescenovitz, and Mihai Marius Mihu and they … Continue

Steampunk LEGO Book Review

October 16, 2014 / Allen "Tormentalous" Tran / 0 Comments

A new batch of books have come in from No Starch Press and I’ve been excited for these when I first heard about them. The first book that I’ll be reviewing is Steampunk LEGO by Guy Himber. If that name sounds familiar, may have heard of it before in the LEGO community.

Guy’s LEGO creations are very well known in the community and he even has a couple of successful Kickstarter projects like Pigs vs Cows, SKULLS!, and Munchkin Bricks. Guy also has an extensive background with special makeup effects and animatronics in many feature films such as Independence Day, Alien 3, and the Underworld trilogy.

Steampunk LEGO is a hardback book filled with 200 fully-colored pages and it retails for $29.95.

The first thing that you admire is the very nice cover of The Golden Empress by V&A Steamworks (Guy Himber). The cover is actually a jacket that is designed by Sylvain Amacher (https://www.facebook.com/captainsmog). The back of the jacket shows an image of Guy’s HMS Moondreams’s Voyage to the Moon. The book itself is a blue hardback with “Steampunk LEGO” embossed on the front and on the spine. With or without the book jacket, it’s great to show off either way. The pages of the book itself has this old-school feel to it. It’s hard to say how it feels like but it’s glossy but has a certain texture to it that makes it feel old. I’m not sure if all the books are like that or just mine, not … Continue

Brick Flicks: 60 Iconic Movie Scenes and Posters to Make From LEGO Book Review

September 26, 2014 / Allen "Tormentalous" Tran / 0 Comments

This morning, I found an interesting package on my porch. I don’t remember ordering anything so I wasn’t exactly sure what it was. I opened the box and was surprised it came from Barron’s Educational Series, Inc. which is the same publisher for a few books that I’ve recently reviewed, Brick City: Global Icons to Make from LEGO and Brick Wonders: Ancient, Modern, and Natural Wonders Made from LEGO. The latest book from LEGO artist Warren Elsmore is called Brick Flicks: 60 Iconic Movie Scenes and Posters to Make From LEGO. The book has 160 fully-illustrated pages and retails for $18.99. Like with Warren’s previous books, the cover is a nice mix of hard and softback and it shows a film roll with a couple of iconic scenes from E.T. and The Shining in LEGO form.

Brick Flicks: 60 Iconic Movie Scenes and Posters to Make From LEGO

The book is separated into four chapters and are categorized in different movie themes: Sci-Fi and Horror, Drama and Classics, Action and Adventure, and Comedy and Musicals. The introduction talks about why Warren took on this project and how he captured the scenes.

To get the LEGO scene as close to their real-life counterpart, Warren has hired Minifigs.me to create custom minifigures for the scenes in the book. By using custom minifigures, it allows him to capture the details and expressions of the minifigures as they are portrayed in the movies.

Brick Flicks continues to show movie scenes that you can easily recognize from just by looking at it. Each movie gets a two-page spread which includes a … Continue

Brick Wonders: Ancient, Modern, and Natural Wonders Made from LEGO Book Review

September 25, 2014 / Allen "Tormentalous" Tran / 0 Comments

Continuing with another book review from Warren Elsore, we have Brick Wonders: Ancient, Modern, and Natural Wonders Made from LEGO. The book is a sequel to the best-seller Brick City: Global Icons to Make from LEGO which we have also reviewed. Like the previous book, it contains 256 fully illustrated pages and it retails for $19.99. Also, the cover is a mix of a hard and softback in a sense that it is not a full hardback but soft enough to bend a little.

The first chapter of the book follows its predecessor where it talks about the history of LEGO, where to buy bricks, building tips, LEGO design software, so on and so forth. There is some information about sorting and storing of your LEGO bricks and online resources you can use to help you build.

In a little different format than the previous book, Brick Wonders has the chapters that are categorized into types of wonders in the world including the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, Historic Wonders, Modern Wonders, and Natural Wonders.

Like his previous book, there are lots of photos of Warren’s highly detailed builds along with an informative description of the what the subject is about. Included in the chapters are some builds that you can build using the instructions that he has provided like a Mini Sphinx, Trojan Horse, and Chinese Pagoda just to name a few. The instructions again are condensed into one page and are somewhat small. This may give novice builders some trouble when … Continue

Brick City: Global Icons to Make from LEGO Book Review

September 23, 2014 / Allen "Tormentalous" Tran / 2 Comments

Recently, we received a couple of LEGO books from Barron’s Educational Books to review. The first of these books is Brick City: Global Icons to Make from LEGO by Warren Elsmore. It contains 256 pages and retails for $19.99.

Brick City: Global Icons to Make from LEGO

Warren Elsmore isn’t as well-known here in the States as he is in the UK as the organizer of AFOLCON and as a former chairman of the Brickish Association. He is also known for some very elaborate builds such as London’s St. Pancras Railway Station and the London Olympic Park.

The first part of the book takes a look at the history of LEGO which every book seems to do. It continues to talk about the most useful bricks in LEGO building, where to get the bricks, design software, and different building techniques.

The rest of the book which is about 90% is devoted to real-world objects that were built by Warren as well as from other LEGO builders around the world. There are over 100 recognizable global landmarks in 39 different cities that are shown in the book with many of the builds having instructions on create them yourselves. Each build also has a little information block about the object.

Although there are instructions for the builds, they are are fairly small to look at. For novice builders, it may be difficult to follow since the steps can go by pretty fast.

Finally, Brick City contains two large fold-out posters that are suitable for framing. The posters include Warren’s St. Pancras Railway Station and Spencer … Continue