Tag Archives: Greebles

VO-Eighty gets an overhaul after 13 years

After an almost five-year hiatus on his Flickr, builder Rob Dasnewten is back with another ship that almost blows the rest out of the sky. He must’ve been traveling the cosmos during that time, because the level of detail he’s returned with seems almost hands-on. Rob, are you actually from the future, or are you just a sentient being from a space-faring species? Yet again resurrecting the green cockpit design from several of his previous builds, he developed a ship that seems like a perfect upgrade to the VO-Eighty we covered back in 2009. Thirteen years is a long time in the LEGO world when you consider the number of new pieces and colors that have entered and forever changed the System. Even though it’s been five years since his last post, it’s clear that Rob hasn’t forgotten a thing and maybe even learned some more. Let’s see what this legend has to teach us.

VO-80 MKII

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Cruise through the galaxy with style and practicality

Spaceships are definitely my bag, man. Massive dreadnoughts to humble escape pods, I love every model from the unwieldy to the swooshable. Classic Space sets are near and dear to many adult Lego fans, being the formative theme that roped them into playing with little plastic bricks for the rest of their lives. In recent years, the theme has been revived by fans with redesigns of their favorite classic sets or new creations of their own thanks to the LEGO Movie franchise and their lovable, spaceship-obsessed character, Benny the Spaceman. Here, builder LegoSpaceGuy gives us a ship of his own design, the Explorer Cruiser.

Explorer Cruiser 01

Click to see more classic Space goodness

I wonder if his garden is in the shade.

Let’s go on an undersea adventure with this great octopus by Didier Burtin. You don’t normally associate great greebling with aquatic creatures, but if you look close there are lots of fun details here. Sure, the LEGO tires are easy to locate, but what about the hot dog? There’s also a generous helping of hinged articulation, making this one poseable critter. It looks like the octopus has claimed a treasure chest as a perch, and the brown of the chest (and the bright orange leaves festooning it) really make the red and black colors of the octopus stand out.

Octopus

It’s great to see a creation that’s based so firmly on an accurate depiction of a real-life animal. That’s not to say there isn’t also benefit from a more mechanized approach.  What sort of octopus do you want to build?

There’s more than a trace of creativity here.

The creator of this nightmarish image, Bart De Dobbelaer, has combined cinematic inspiration from Hackers and Tron Legacy with 22 meters of EL wire in Trace initiated – a chilling image of cyberspace done right. I’m not sure exactly what’s happening here, but it doesn’t seem to be good news. Is the creepy central figure reaching out with a red data probe to track a hacker? Or is the trace running the other direction? Could this be a friendly cyber guardian about to be compromised by the outside world? We may never be sure.  Where’s Flynn when you need him?? Either way, though, it sure is a spectacular scene.

Trace initiated

At that glorious greebling makes me want to break out my collection of tiny parts and get to building myself. And I’m pretty sure I still have some light kits around here somewhere…

Greebling from the ground up

If you’re not familiar with the term, greebles are small details that make a simple object appear more complex. In LEGO building, that term is often applied to all those little textural elements you see on LEGO mechs and spaceships. (Don’t forget that you can check out this and many other LEGO-related terms in the TBB glossary.) Redbirch takes the greebling concept one step further with Mechannibal – a mechanical monster that appears to be all greeble.

Mechannibal

Redbirch started building with an idea for the feet — minifigure torsos with jet packs. The rest of the monster is built over a core Mixel-joint skeleton, resulting in great articulation. Each move requires a lot of fiddly adjustments, though, as the surface detailing has to be tweaked to close any newly visible gaps. All that effort is worth it, as Mechannibal looks great (and menacing) from every angle.

Mechannibal

Now we just need some clever builder to do a similar creation, but with all those Friends accessories that keep piling up…

A Pegasus is more than a work horse

Impeccable maestro of the LEGO sci-fi/space genera Blake Foster seems to not be able to sit still after completing his massive four-year project, the Ugly Duckling. This time, while sticking to his tried, true and tested style, he has created the Pegasus Class Anti-Frigate Attack Fighter. His somewhat iconic, solid dark bluish grey greebling creates the feeling of a substantially sound craft. The white with red pinstripe enclosed paneling is stark in contrast yet strikingly vibrant.

Pegasus Class Anti-Frigate Attack Fighter

Click to read more about the Pegasus

4×4 Greeble Transporter

In future, greebles will be highly prized and fought over. David Roberts has built a vehicle to safeguard all those precious bits.

4x4 Greeble Transporter

I love the brightness of this rover. The white highlights really seem to jump out and I love the steering mechanism! Using the pistons makes for a really smooth turn. Very nicely done, David!

Medieval Cottage – A study in color and texture

This beautiful cottage by Luke Watkins Hutchinson (-Derfel Cadarn-) is full of incredible details. The textures and shapes of the walls are fascinating. Then there is the lovely color scheme, flowing from the blues of the upper story to the patches of grass and the customized tree branches. It is an incredibly well-thought creation.

Cragspire Cottage