FanMade

LEGO’s what can’t you do with them?

Cars, have been built. House’s have been erected. Life-sized people have been fashioned. All well and dandy… but this guy wanted to become the LEGO. He wanted to take it just one step further.

Sir, well done. We enjoy your Fandom.

I can’t get over the creativity and ingenuity of Chris McVeigh. He was able to get a Scout Tropper on the back of a Chipmunk.

(slow hand clap)

No special effects here (cough, Episodes 1-3), just really good photography. Bravo sir.

Check out his whole collection on Flickr. He has nods to Indiana Jones, LEGOs, and Batman. Brilliant photographer. Worth the look.

Raiders of the Lost Ark is a fan favorite. It’s been parodied, sweded, and the entire opening sequence of the movie that shaped my childhood is based, nearly shot for shot, from ‘Raiders’. That movie is UHF with Weird Al Yankovic. If you’ve seen that movie, then it helps to explain why I am the way I am.

Darkwooddub993 loves ‘Raiders’ as well. He loves it so much he also has a live action version of this and a fight scene on his YouTube page. Apparently, he also loves to move the camera around during stop animation. With that in mind, I would suggest you do not view this video in full screen as it may make you physically uncomfortable. That may have just been my personal experience, and I’m sure I could partially blame that on the combination of Limeade and Poptarts.

That title is for real. It’s not just me rambling off a few of my favorite things because I accidentally mistook the NyQuil for DayQuil. Anyway…

This fan took a LEGO mindstorm motor set, various sensors, bluetooth, an old Mac Cube, and some sort of voodoo to create what I would call, “Nerdvana”.

The description on his YouTube video says that none of what you see is remote controlled. It’s all based on sensors. Proximity, sound, and ultrasonic sensors begin the sequence, prevent it from colliding with the LEGO R2-D2(which is also awesome), and allow it to stop at the wall and shut down. So brilliant I want to punch myself.

Has anyone else played around with the LEGO Mindstorm sets? Sound off in the comments.

(spotted on The Unofficial Apple Weblog)

You should know something about us here at FanMadeDotOrg. We are huge Mac fans. Each of us own at least two Apple products, with a combined total of well over a dozen. AND, we are all big LEGO fans as well… So when this miniature version of the classic iMac g4 made with LEGOs came across our radar, it was like coming home.

This is yet another creation by Bjarne Tveskov, the LEGO sculptor.

More photos at Bjarne Tveskov’s website, and he’s even on Twitter as @tveskov, another thing we are fans of.

(found on Daring Fireball)

We here at fanmade.org love Twitter. In fact, if you’re not following us on twitter, promptly click the link in that last sentence and start stalking us.

Twitter is the source of countless joys and frustrations. Joys because it’s a beautifully simple social networking tool, and frustrating because we learn to rely on it so much that when it does suffer down-time, it’s as if someone had ripped an IV from your arm and then turned out the lights. Yes, I’m addicted to Twitter. No, I don’t want any help.

When Twitter does go through it’s normal, O-God-Why-Me downtimes, it displays a piece of digital art done by artist Yiying Lu to let you know that you can’t contact the outside world right now, please come back.

Bjarne P Tveskov (apparently, if you’re an artist, you need a complex name) combined his love for LEGOs and his love for Twitter to make this epic win: (as seen on Swiss Miss)

EDIT (4-29-09): Check this out. There is a whole page dedicated to fans of the ‘Fail Whale’.

CRAIG SAYS: Oh crap. Whew. That was a close one. For a second there I thought twitter was having scaling problems again. Wait. It is down? No!!!

IAN CONCEDES: Fear the ‘Fail Whale’.

If you’re the type of person who likes sitting through 10 parts of LEGO stop-animation timed perfectly to the audio from someone playing the entire ‘Black Mesa’ portion of the Half-Life saga, then we have something in common.

Below is part one, and even if it was done horribly, I would post it just for the sheer amount of work that it takes to pull this off at any level. But it’s not horrible:

My love for LEGO stop-animation cannot be hidden.

LEGO fans have been doing stop animation for about as long as there have been LEGO bricks and cameras. In fact, I would go so far as to say that prehistoric man was drawing lego shapes in the sand and then blinking very fast while running in order to simulate what it looks like.

This is an oldie, but a goodie. Star Wars plus LEGO always equals massive win:

I’m a huge fan of musicals.

I’m a huge fan of LEGOs.

This is perfect for me.

From the musical ‘Grease’, this is a LEGO version of the song ‘Summer Lovin’ done in stop-animation style with LEGOs.

IAN ADDS: …I wonder if there is a LEGOs Fiddler On The Roof?

When I was 7 years old, I had a picture of myself in my head. I was a perfect blend of McGyver and Han Solo. “Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster, swiss army knife, stick of gum, and a coat-hanger at your side, kid.”

Not much has changed in almost 20 years, however, I’ve added to my list of supplies, and they now include several cameras, a few computers, a wife and two kids. I am a photographer slash videographer slash internet junkie slash nerd. I love to write because ultimately I love to tell stories.

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark is an amazing movie, but take away the special effects and camera tricks, and at it’s rawest form, it’s a brilliant story. One that could be told around a camp fire, in a series of bedtimes, or acted out with stuffed animals in a quiet dining room. It’s those kind of stories that get me amped up and, at the end of the day, make me a fan. There is something deep in the heart of each of us that longs for a good story. We need our imagination stimulated, we need our attention focused, and we need to be entertained. It’s part of who we are as humans.

I am a fan of good stories, and of good storytelling. And that’s not limited to blockbusters and bestsellers, I’m a huge fan of the guy telling his stories with stuffed animals in that dining room. I was pretty good at entertaining myself with nothing but my LEGOs, a blanket, and a story. So, fans, thank you for loving the stories that make you fans. I am your biggest fan.