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DIY: nanoblock Keychain

How would you like to have a keychain that allows you to alter its design whenever you feel like it? A keychain that allows you to show off your creativity? Well, here is a simple DIY nanoblock keychain that you can do in just 3 minutes. Have fun!

You need a small nanoblock base plate and a cuticle nipper. You can
use a big nail clipper, wire cutter or something similar if you don't have a
cuticle nipper.

Use the cuticle nipper to trim off one of the corner stud. Place the blades
of the cutter at the base of the stud, apply some pressure, and slowly
rotate the cutter side to side so that you are cutting the stud at the base.
Continue until the stud comes off completely. You can use the cutter to
trim any leftover bits of the stud until it's completely flat.

Here you can see the stud has been completely removed. There would
already be a small round hole present after removing the stud. If the
metal connecting ring for your keychain is thick, you can poke the sharp
point of a scissors blade into the hole, apply a bit of pressure and rotate
left and right to make the hole bigger. 

Here we insert the keychain's metal connecting ring. You can use two
pliers, one holding each side of the ring, then twist one side until both
ends of the ring meet to form a complete ring.

Attach the keyring and it is done.

Now you can go ahead and design your nanoblock keychain however you
like. You can also add another small base plate and fill it up with lots of
small bricks like above and attach it to the bottom of the keychain
base plate.

Here is how it looks like with the extra base plate and brick layer attached.

Another view.

Now you can detach the bottom base plate and use the bricks to
redesign your keychain anytime, anywhere. It is like having your
own portable nanoblock set =)

nanoblock Big Minion Dave Build Instructions

Click here for the step by step build instructions for the big size Minion Dave from Despicable Me.

nanoblock Manta Ray Review

Difficulty: Level 2

Time to Complete: 20 minutes

No of Blocks: 150+

Item Code: NBC-083

Manta rays are large eagle rays belonging to the genus Manta. The larger species reaches 7 m (23 ft) in width. They have triangular pectoral fins, horn-shaped cephalic fins and large, forward-facing mouths. Mantas can be found in temperate, subtropical and tropical waters.  More information can be found in Wikipedia.

The nanoblock Manta Ray is a small set consisting of 150+ pieces of bricks and a piece of instruction sheet as shown below.

What I found interesting about this set is the number of 1x4 rounded edge bricks in white and black. You can see them in the photos below. There are a few pieces of black 1x3 rounded edge bricks too. If you are looking for these bricks for your own custom projects, this would be a good set to grab.

This nanoblock set is quite straight forward to build. There is nothing really tricky here. Below are photos of the build process.

The extra bricks included with this set

The completed Manta Ray is mounted on a stand made of clear bricks. Personally, I wish they had designed a smaller stand so that it does not stand out as much. The design of the Manta Ray itself is nice. Use of rounded-edge bricks in the design allows the wing-like fins to curve. 

You can find this item in Plamoya and Amazon.

nanoblock Rocking Horse Build Instructions

Click here for the step-by-step nanoblock Rocking Horse build instructions.

nanoblock Disneyland Castle Review

Photo & Review By: Mike Wong
Text By: Christopher Tan

Time to Complete: 30 minutes
Item Code : Not Available

Front of the box

Back of the box 

The nanoblock Disneyland Castle is a Tokyo Disney Resort exclusive and generally available to the rest of the world only through third party resellers who gets them at retail from Tokyo Disney Resort, so the price tends to be somewhat higher than other regular nanoblock sets of similar size.

In the box, you will find an instruction sheet and estimated around 400+ pieces of bricks as shown below. There are a lot of the smaller bricks like 1x1, 1x2 and 2x2 bricks in this set. 

Building this set was fairly easy and it only took me around 30 minutes to complete it. What I love about this set is the colour combinations. Here are some photos of the build process.

The extra bricks included with this set

The completed Disneyland Castle is about 3 inches tall. Here are some photos of the finished built.

Note: You can find this in Amazon over here.

nanoblock Amusement Park

You may have seen the nanoblock Ferris Wheel that I posted a few days back =) ... Well, over the weekend, I have worked on adding a roller coaster around it and this is how it looks like now =D ... What do you think?

If you like it, please help vote for this design in the nanoblock Award 2013-2014 by clicking here. Thank you for your support =)

Here is a video tour of the nanoblock amusement park ...

nanoblock Award 2013-2014

nanoblock Award 2013 - 2014 is now open for submissions and voting. Anyone from anywhere around the world can participate in this annual nanoblock competition. Click here to find out more. You will also see my submissions there (around 20 of them under "Christopher Tan") and I would really appreciate it if you would vote for my entries =) ... Hehehe ... Thank you for your support ^^

nanoblock Ferris Wheel

While experimenting with the use of rounded-edge bricks, I made a Ferris Wheel =) ... 

And here's a stop-motion video of the nanoblock Ferris Wheel in motion =)

nanoblock Danbo Deluxe Build Instructions

Click here for the nanoblock build instructions for Danbo Deluxe Edition. 

Danboard (or Danbo in short) is a fictional character from the comedy manga series Yotsuba&! by Kiyohiko Azuma, the creator of Azumanga Daioh. 

Danboard is a costume worn by Miura Hayasaka, a friend of Yotsuba's most frequent playmate, Ena Ayase. Ena does not have the heart to tell Yotsuba that Danboard is not a real robot, so Yotsuba thinks Danboard is real.

Chris's Nanoblock Blog Facebook Hits 3000

Thanks to all your support, we now have 3000 fans on our Facebook page! If you are not already following us on Facebook, you can join us now by clicking here =) ... 

In addition, we have a nanoBuilders Facebook group too, which is now becoming one of the fastest growing nanoblock community online =) 

nanoblock Tokyo Tower - Crystal Pink Review

Reviewed By: Satchan Boonsiri

Difficulty: Level 2
Time to Complete: 40 minutes
Item Code : NBH-019 Limited

Front of the box

Back of the box

This Tokyo Tower - Crystal Pink nanoblock set is a limited edition release of the standard Tokyo Tower set (NBH-001). As you can see in the photos above, the front and the back of the box are almost the same as the standard set. The main difference in this limited edition is the colour of the tower, which is transparent pink, instead of red.

This nanoblock comes with an instruction sheet (which shows the same build process as the standard set) and 220+ bricks.

This is a level 2 nanoblock set, so it did not take long to complete. In my case, I took about 40 minutes. Some of you may take less time than me.

Here is the completed Tokyo Tower in Crystal Pink. I think it looks so cute in pink, but it doesn't look so good with the nanoblock LED plate though. 

This is how it looks like on the LED plate

The extra bricks included in this set

In the photo below, you can compare the limited edition crystal pink Tokyo Tower with the standard version. They are identical except for the colour.

Overall, I think both of them looks good, but I prefer the standard Tokyo Tower because it looks more unique and cost a lot less, but that's just me. Your taste might be different.

I got this Tokyo Tower - Crystal Pink set from Amazon Japan and asked my sister in Japan to bring it over to me. When I ordered it some time ago, it was about 2,000+ yen, but now it has reached around 4000 yen.

Note: This set can be found in Plamoya over here or on Amazon over here.