The official high-res image of 6860 The Batcave has been released. There are also additional pictures of 2012 sets from Star Wars, Cars, Spongebob, and Series 7 Minifigs posted on FBTB’s Flickr photostream.
Monthly Archives: October 2011
Medieval building guide
Over at Eurobricks Luke Hutchinson (Derfel Cardarn) is running a ‘live’ how-to guide to building a medieval village. It’s a great way to learn some new tricks and follow a builders approach to construction. Just be ready to buy a lot of 1×1 rounds if you want to build as you read.
Train double feature
You might be able to guess I’m going through my recent additions to my blog list. These two steam train pictures look so nice together I’m going to save myself some typing and blog them together. Both are excellent models and showcase the advantages of building trains at 8-wide. Which needs to be showcased since it is a dirty size[1].
First we have Cale Leiphart‘s USRA Light Mikado from World War I as operated by the Baltimore and Ohio railway.
Followed by this excellent diorama by Tony Sava (SaveTheAggie) from his series “The Texas Brick Railroad”.
[1] That’s a train-head joke. There’s joking banter between 6/7w builders and 8w builders that dates back many years.
How to fling stuff
Marko Velic posted this amazing trebuchet a week ago. Today I finally get around to posting it. It’s exceedingly clever because it works, is only 120 pieces and you can vote for it on Cuusoo.
Robo kitteh preys on computer mouse
Tyler (Legohaulic) recreates a game of cat and mouse in a circuitry world of machines. Everything in the picture is made out of Lego. Don’t believe me? Take a look at the setup.
I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing
Machinations in the Boardroom
To get the necessary overview of what’s happening in the LEGO world, we here at TBB often have to rely on various sequences of small pictures — it’s just not possible to review hundreds of LEGO photos a day in deep, individual detail. Sometimes, amazing LEGO models get overlooked as a result. So we’re eternally grateful to readers like Chris Edwards to make sure we don’t just blog LEGO models that “looked good from the thumbnail.”
This fantastic photo by Nathanial Brill (Shuppiluliumas) is a perfect example of what we might have missed if we were only looking at a tiny version of the picture.
Low light emanates from the walls and ceiling, illuminating the scheming executives. Outside the window, Nathaniel uses microscale buildings to provide a clue to the scale of the city in which these captains of industry plot their hostile takeovers.
It’s definitely worth taking a look at the large version on black. And don’t miss the setup shots.
Get To Da Choppa!
It’s been quite awhile since I’ve built anything with my own Lego, but I’m going to post something anyways. I built this light transport helicopter months ago, and have finally managed to get the photos together. I tried to spice things up with a little scene this time, although it may be too little for the helo.
I’m a big fan of tilt-rotors, though I hear this is properly called a tilt-wing. Either way, the tilting adds a fun little activity, when swooshing this thing around.
Get Robo!
I don’t know what the Get Robo company does, but I know I like this sculpture if their mascot by Ewok in Disguise. The robot is cute, and incorporates some intersting building techniques in the torso. Frankly, I think it’s better looking than the source image he based it on.
The Golden Hinde
Brickshelf user T-Brick brings us this lovely replica of the Golden Hinde, the infamous ship of that gentleman-pirate, Sir Francis Drake. The real ship was used by Drake in his circumnavigation of the globe, one of the earliest such voyages, and only the second to be completed in a single ship. T-Brick’s version is particularly interesting, because he hasn’t used custom sails or rigging.
Trying out LEGO Cuusoo
After the LEGO Cuusoo Beta launched in English last week, I’ve been keeping an eye on the site to see what people are up to. As announced last week, winning projects have to reach 10,000 supporters, and the winning designer keeps 1% of the proceeds from the LEGO set’s sales.
Projects from several Japanese builders are also available on the English site, including one of Hidaka‘s classic, oft-imitated pianos.
Other cool projects include a Back to the Future Delorean and Macross/Robotech Valkyrie.
Of course, we here at TBB don’t want to be left out! Dan already mentioned his Protype Attack Mecha Alpha Zero design, while Nannan submitted his massive “Mirage” collaboration with Tyler:
I thought I’d go a bit smaller, with a couple of my favorite vehicles — a wildland fire engine and WW2 ambulance:
It’ll be interesting to see where all of this goes!
LEGO Technic 8110 Mercedes-Benz Unimog U 400 [News]
The VW Camper Van isn’t the only German vehicle released in LEGO form this year. Long-time readers of the blog will recall that I’m obsessed with the Mercedes Unimog, and I’ve featured several — starting with Adam Grabowski’s Unimog back in 2006. Adam now works for LEGO as a designer. I don’t think Adam works on Technic sets, but it’s nice to see an official LEGO version of this awesome vehicle.
It’s been out for a few months, but I suspect it might be news for a couple of you out there. TechnicBricks has the full review.