Marcin Danielak (Hippotam) contructed a stable with bustling details of people and animals from the country life. I like the use of differently colored wedge plates to partition segments of land (as shown in the overview shot), where builders usually attempts the effect with normal plates.
Occasionally I see a model that I have to blog right away. This is one of those times. Brent Wolke (thwaak) gave his magic punk dwarves a toy, he then gave their mortal enemy the orcs a bigger toy. Not to be outdone the dwarves enlisted the help of Patrick Swayze (my interpretation) and built an even bigger toy: the “Forge Breath”.
I’ve received word from Lluís Gibert and Antonio Fernandez that the first issue of the Spanish-language Hispabrick Magazine is now available.
Whether you read Spanish or not, there’s quite a bit of great stuff in the magazine:
Download Hispabrick Magazine 001 (5.9 MB) now! :)
Mike Yoder continues to increase the size of his pirate fleet. Black Betty is hardly monochrome, with “close to 20 colors,” according to the builder.
This nasty piece of work may look slapped together in a bunker somewhere on an asteroid, but it bristles with menace:
More on Brickshelf.
With highly detailed landscaping (including some lovely sunflowers), lots of minifig action, and a fairly large scale, there’s lots to love about ztp’s “Tower Palace”:
Back in January when the first LEGO Agents pictures were leaked, the reaction was fairly mixed. But since we put the new poll up last Saturday, nearly a quarter of you have indicated that LEGO Agents sets are what you’re looking forward to the most for “late 2008” LEGO sets.
As I’ve seen more and more of these new sets, I couldn’t help but think that 23% of you couldn’t be that wrong.
So I picked up the two smallest sets yesterday, 8631 Jetpack Pursuit
and 8632 Swamp Raid
(along with 7038 Troll Assault Wagon
). To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much, but I was very pleasantly surprised!
We’ve already featured full reviews of the two sets I bought (8631 and 8632), but I wanted to add a few words of my own.
8631 Mission 1: Jetpack Pursuit
The jetpack is ridiculously huge, to be sure, and the gun on the snowmobile won’t go all the way down, but this is a pretty good $10 parts pack. You get a bunch of pearl silver elements, including skis and a propellor, plus orange cheese slopes and dark blue vertical stabilizers.
The minifigs (left) are what make this set, I think. The cyborg fig has a new type of arm that fits anything with a rod connection point, and the back of the torso is printed with a large version of their logo. The agent fig has a double-sided head and black Mutt Williams hair.
8632 Mission 2: Swamp Raid
LEGO barbed wire! This set includes two loops of barbed wire sure to please military and post-apocalyptic builders, two dark gray “grilled cheese” slopes, four black girders, and three dark green leaves. Space builders will likely be pleased with the chrome silver cheese slopes on the well-designed bike — a mix of SYSTEM and Technic pieces.
In contrast to Alpha Team minifigs of the past, LEGO Agents figs have somewhat more realistic facial expressions, making them more useful in other contexts. The “guns” are a little disappointing, but easily corrected with larger brick-built guns of your own (or BrickArms, for that matter). The new helmet on the bad guy is hilarious, and the face underneath even more so — but in a good “I can see a use for that!” way.
Building Swamp Raid was actually pretty fun — especially the bike. The dock has a fun play feature that flips the bike off when you punch a lever. Oh, and did I mention the cyborg crocodiles? Indeed, hilariously awesome cyborg crocodiles.
Missions 3-6
Missions 1 and 2 have given me hope for the rest of this theme, and I’m fairly eager to get my hands on them. A quick rundown of what I’m seeing in the other sets:
The last, haunted train out of TheBrickster‘s town of Grave Stone has finally arrived at the station.
Check out Brickshelf for all the cars clattering along behind the ghastly engine.
Sly Owl has turned out some very unusual creations, but the latest is in a league of its own.
Its simply called Dung Mall.
I always wanted a green Classic Space minifig. Peter Reid seems to have felt the same, so he’s made a number of custom minifigs in alternative colors:
Of course, Pete’s been busy building his usual, fantastic New-Classic Space vehicles as well:
Via YSAB.
Jordan Schwartz (Sir Nadroj) built what he thinks is one of the most disgusting scenes in all the Indiana Jones movies that has the ground crawling in giant ants. Although I haven’t seen the movie yet, Jordan’s scene looks very promising.
Of all the cool adjectives to describe robots and mechas, there’s none that makes me say “happy” except Moko‘s recent creation of a happy retro robot. Smile :)
