Monthly Archives: January 2010

Plundering aboard The Maeve Aulsebrook

This pirate ship by Barney Main (SlyOwl) uses custom sails and ropes to great effect. Don’t forget to take a look at the details on deck and the ornate patterns of the ship in this picture.

The control freak

This vignette by Larry Lars is full of knobs, lever, sliders and all sorts of control devices. The use of levers in grill tiles to make sliders is an ingenious technique, something I’ll have to steal for an upcoming creation.

A slice of Omaha

This diorama by Darth Yoda depicts a classic WWII scene done to good effect with just the right amount of rubble and mayhem. The transparent bricks gradient for the waves washing over the beach is pretty neat.

They call it Tan Fantasy

When I started building this stuff, I wasn’t sure what to call it. It’s certainly flattering to see other people build in this style, though, especially when the creations are as good as this one.

The Cortical Assimilator by Lloyd W looks pretty amazing. He’s managed to cram a ton of details into a very small package. He’s also done some sort of trick lighting or photography to get all his new gray pieces to look like old gray. He’s certainly outdone my latest in density of detail.

Cortical Assimilator

V-22 Phoenix

I’ve been a fan of sk-fi since the Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe game on the PC in the 90s. The genre seems to have its ups and downs within the LEGO building community. Fortunately, even when it’s not a popular thing to build, there are still gems to be found.

This new plane by Jon Hall suits me just fine. It looks just like it was envisioned as the future of aircraft by an artist in the 1940s. He’s also made fantastic use of the new clear dome piece for part of a canopy, even though I’m sure it barely stays in place.

V-22 Phoenix

Colossal Castle Contest Winners Announced! [News]

The Classic-Castle Admins have finished the judging and announced the results! Check out the winners. There are some excellent castle creations there. If you need more Castle goodness, take a peek at all the entries. While there were less entries this year, the quality seems to continue to rise. I can tell you, it was hard to judging this year.

The Pianist

This miniland pianist tickles the ivories and my heart. That piano is gorgeous. Tiago Catarino composed a nice one here.

Lego Piano Miniland

Cute But Tough

There’s something quite compelling to me about this little mecha by _Nash. It somehow manages to look adorable and armored at the same time.

The shield on the shoulder is a great touch. I’m a big fan of yellow and dark gray together, too. If you get a chance, make sure to check out the power unit on the backside.

Cute LEGO Mecha

LL-215 AKA More Chunky Goodness

Maybe I’m stuck in a rut, or maybe I’m subconciously trying to tell myself what to build next. Whatever the reason, I seem to be into chunky Neo Classic Space creations lately.

Take this ship by Uspez Morbo. Once again, I like the chunky style of the ship. The slight element of assymetry added by the gun is also a nice touch.

Getting down to finer details, I’m a big fan of the use of arches to create negative space in the wings. This is further set off by the use of wings from the old UFO sets, lending a bit of a gothic feel. Of course, having used a similar canopy arrangement myself, I have to be a fan of the cockpit. Also, make sure to check out the fantastic use of 1×1 bricks on the edges of the wings, to add texture.

LL-215 Neo Classic Space ship

My daily grind

LEGO Commuter Rake

I debuted this commuter rake at Brickvention. I’m fairly happy with it. Based on the old compartment coaches used in the late 19th and early 20th century. Photography could be a bit better.

I need to do one last (time-consuming) thing before I can blog the A380 but I’ll get to it soon. ;)

LEGO releases its internal color palette [News]

The Design Lab at LEGO has finally agreed to share the company’s internal color scheme with the public. In the chart below, you can see the official LEGO color names with their corresponding color numbers.

Of course, there are differences between the names that LEGO gives to their colors and what we fans call them. Nevertheless, this is still very useful information, especially to improve communication with The LEGO Group regarding the LUGBULK Program.

Official LEGO color palette

You can download a high-res version (25 KB Adobe Reader PDF) as well.

Brickvention 2010 Roundup

The above image by batwingtm will take you to the flickr group which also includes pictures from previous Brickventions. I’ll add more links as I find them.

Well I’ve just got back from Melbourne after attending Brickvention 2010 and having a little holiday. I’m very tired so will keep this brief but I felt I owed it to our readers and the 70 Australian who attended (plus the 2800 people that came to see!) to blog something from the convention before the week was out. I took no photos myself (camera had a dead battery and they always turn out bad anyway) but there’s a bunch of them up on Flickr now (alternate link to search on Brickvention 2010 tags).

PS. Below is the best in show award winner. I’ll be blogging more about it ASAP.