I’ve been quite a busy little bee lately and really getting back into building. There’s a few more new ones in my photostream (including some NoVVember fun) but I’ll blog my favourites from most recent.
First is my “Wombat” VTOL which I’ve fairly blatantly ripped off Ryan Rubino and Keith Goldman. I had fun trying to [...]
As a general rule I’m quite enamoured of streamliners due to their sleek shapes and art deco stylings. Unfortunately many LEGO renditions leave me feeling a little cold due to the difficulty of pulling off the subtle curves and colouring. However Benn Coifman hasn’t disappointed me with this rendition of an Norfolk and Western J-class [...]
I never expected to see the nose of a GE Dash-9 done well in LEGO. The double down slope is one of the most difficult shapes to achieve. By making clever use of a triangular flag Scott Wardlaw has finally pulled it off in this lovely eight-wide version of the locomotive. Seeing solutions like this [...]
It would seem that photographing train models is back in fashion. I usually have to wait around for ages for the right quality combination of model and photography but lately it’s been flowing. This snazzy dark red and yellow SOO FP7 is by Matt Hamann.
Peter Norman (Swoofty) and Tony Sava have been playing around with Peter’s Franken-Loco. Since the older style 9V trains (with powered track) have been retired in favour of forthcoming Power-Functions System (PFS) based designs this offers some handy insight on how to switch over earlier with the existing PFS elements.
Nathan Proudlove presents a great green van featuring the Brothers Brick. I wonder if it can fit 7 minifig Brothers
Jeramy Spurgeon and the team from Railbricks have been providing an excellent service for LEGO train fans for a while now and Issue 4 of Railbricks is no exception.
As with the previous issues the magazine is packed full of interesting articles including information about Brian Williams’ Royal Train, technical ideas, computerisation (DCC) of track, [...]
In order to get this model posted before the universe ends I asked Matt Hamann to guest review this lovely steamer for me
Carl Greatrix recently finished this lovely addition to his layout, a British Railways 9F 2-10-0 “Evening Star” steam locomotive.The working and prototypical drivers alone make this model stand out to me. The flickering [...]
A good diorama always impresses me and this is a fine example. The members of LugPol (the Polish LUG) have combined forces to present a beautifully integrated display at the Museum of Toys in Kielce. Karwik’s (Noddy) photos provide both overviews and close-ups of the details making me even more disappointed I couldn’t be there.
Train MOCs are frequently accused of being nothing but boxes on wheels. While this is usually true a little texture goes a long way as the above model indicates. See more from this builder.
Highlight this line for builder’s name: Swoofty
PS. I’m trying a little experiment at the moment and leaving out direct mention of the [...]
Nate “Blunty” Burr, along with David Pagano and myself, was asked to make a brickfilm to celebrate the 30th birthday of the LEGO minifigure. Nate delivers in typical Blunty3000 style, with his satirical brickfilm, Living in Meatspace:
Don’t forget to check out GOMINIMANGO.com for more videos and a contest (details coming soon to a blog near you!)
Every so often I’m absolutely dumbfounded by a LEGO model. In this particular case German builders Andreas and Kai Böker do it by presenting what I consider to be the best non-urban train layout I’ve ever seen. While looking at the details is exciting enough the panorama shot is a must in order to absorb [...]
Matt Wagner (jedimasterwagner) is fast becoming one of my favourite LDrawers. As can be seen in this latest work he treats the rendering process as a means of creating artworks as well as for constructing models. I’d love to see the image he based this on for comparison.
Making big LEGO steam engines that run is hard work. LEGO train track has very sharp curves which mean all sorts of clever trickery is required to make a steam train even get around it without looking totally stupid. Fortunately Cale Leiphart is quite an expert in it and shows off a lovely 4-4-0 locomotive [...]
Peter Edwards’ latest addition to his Bodville layout includes an amazing LEGO MINDSTORMS RCX gantry crane for his train yard:
Watch the awesome video right here on The Brothers Brick:
You can also check out lots of pictures on Brickshelf.
Cale Leiphardt presents some photos of his (and possibly other people’s) trains set up in an industrial diorama. Lots of excellent details including the textured ground with footpath and the track furniture (bits and pieces the live next to tracks). And of course his locomotives more than stand up to their surrounds.
Brickshelf user Elalfreddo demonstrates that you don’t need to use ‘advanced’ techniques to create a good design. His signal tower is a straight studs-up building dressed up by a clever use of colour to create texture. Very effective and a good lesson.
I also need to mention that I have a nostalgic soft spot for the [...]
Brickshelf user carl shows off an excellent balance of form and function with this versatile container stacker. The mix of studless technic and system building gives a wonderful balance of usability and visual accuracy.
Thanks to Dave Stannard for the heads up on this
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