About Gambort

I'm a builder with a short attention span and a lot of virtual bricks. I'm probably most known as a train builder and was involved in the creation of LEGO set 10183 but I do a lot of other stuff too. I'm also a member of the LDraw SteerCo and a webmaster for the site.

Posts by Gambort

Zoids and LEGO – a childhood construction dream

There is a LEGO Zoids contest on at the moment, and Garry (Garry_rocks) has virtually build himself a doozy of an entry in Ultraterius. Not sure if this can be built for real in blue, but I’d happily accept it in a grey or yellow.

"Ultraterius" Zoid

Incredible Steampunk Castle made from 20,000 LEGO pieces

This amazing “Steam Castle Falls” diorama was presented at the recent Fana’Briques expo in Rosheim, France, and represents the combined effort of three builders: Arnaud Besson (74louloute), Olivier Curto (oLaF LM) and Jimmy Fortel (6kyubi6). My complete absence of francais aside, I wish I could have been there to see it.

Steam Castle Falls

Steam Castle Falls 1/3 - Kyubi's partWeighing in at over 20,000 pieces, and taking each builder over four months to make, the diorama is clearly the result of a lot of effort. It is impressive that three builders managed to make something work together so cohesively, especially when you consider that the three live in different corners of France.

Steam Castle FallsFurthermore, the major part of the diorama went on a 1000km trip, while another section took a long train trip. And unfortunately for everyone, the diorama could have been even bigger, had the originally planned fourth builder “Capt’n Spaulding” been able to participate.

Steam Castle Falls 1/3 - Main Picture
With major inspiration from this picture, the diorama follows a loose interpretation of a medieval theme. Although I get a strong vibe of techwest anime cartoons as well. Regardless of what inspired it, it’s certainly an incredible work.

Gorgeous bipedal PRISM mech

David Steeves (SuperHardcoreDave) is clearly working from the didn’t-look-like-LEGO-in-the-thumb playbook with his latest P.R.I.S.M. mech. And he clearly read it well. And it has spindly crotch arms. And I can even forgive the pointe feet.

P.R.I.S.M.

Nasty, nasty bugs

Starship Troopers seems to be a movie that divides people (I like it*), but hopefully negative opinions about the film won’t detract from Tim Goddard’s (Rogue Bantha) excellent LEGO rendition of the “bugs”. And if you really hate the movie, take heart from Ian Heath’s “Woah, did Blacktron just take it up a notch?!”.

Bug warriors

* And yes, I do know it was a book first.

Ever-awesome lime, and teal... on a train

Thanks to his great building and photography skills, Peter Norman (swoofty) is no stranger to this blog. His latest masterpiece has ever awesome lime and teal, so pretty much ticks every box. Note especially the use of negative space and texture to mimic the triangular panel on the original.

ALL SD70ACe

LEGOberry 3.141592635

Many years (a decade?) ago a LEGO computer case did the rounds of the internet[1]. Sadly I can’t find any pictures of it, but I can assure you that Jim Devona’s (anoved) LEGO Rasberry pi case is at least 100 times smaller. And if you want one yourself, Jim has kindly put up instructions for it.

Sliding the card into position

[1] There have been many since, but this particular one was the first I was aware of that found widespread fame on the internet. It was not pretty :)

Tiny LEGO RC Routemaster Bus

The Routemaster is almost certainly the most famous bus design in the world. And there have been many built out of LEGO, including this pair by our own Ralph. What makes this one by Gabor Horvarth special is that it manages to pack in full remote control in a very small (6 wide) package. Which I can tell you from my own less successful attempt is an incredible achievement

I first saw Gabor’s work on The LEGO Car blog.

Skis, Guns and a big LEGO Fan

The pedant in me is very happy that Karwik has, after many years, given me the designation of a rad ski-mobile (technically an aerosan) I built way back when. He’s also given all of us an absolutely excellent LEGO rendition of the NKL-26 which totally puts my older one to shame. And since you need to be freezing in your boots to use this thing, I promise not to complain about the 10C minimum on this Winter’s day…

Angels on a pin

I suspect that Pascal (pasukaru76) has more of these delightful fellows coming, but for now we can make do with no-name and Raziel. His first two little LEGO neo-angels (presumably based on Evangelion) are just so cute.

Neo-Angel Raziel
Neo Angel

Duck and cover

In other news, legorobo:waka snuck this beauty onto flickr, right in between a wall of large and generally unoriginal pictures expressing dislike for flickr. Consider it a mecha chaser.

cover

Köf II

The super cute Köf locomotive is one of the most distinctive shunters/switchers in the world. There are too many LEGO versions out there for me to link to, but this new one by Henrik Hoexbroe was pretty enough to force me to work out[1] how to use the new flickr interface for a blog post.

KöfII

[1] It’s slightly more annoying to navigate, and way uglier. But all the old functionality seems to be there.

Fatality!

The Iron Builder contest between Chris Maddison (cmaddison) and Bruce Lowell (brucey_wan) is producing some absolute LEGO gems. Chris’ depiction of Sub Zero‘s fatality is particularly timely for Australia, where Mortal Kombat 9 is finally available after a change to the censorship laws.

Finish Him!!