Yearly Archives: 2012

LEGO Galaxy Squad set reviews (70700, 70702, 70703)

LEGO Galaxy Squad was just released, and here’s my review of 3 of the sets from the theme featuring the alien bug race: 70700 Space Swarmer, 70702 Warp Stinger, and 70703 Star Slicer. The video review consists of a look at the parts and a review of the models.

For those who just want to hear the verdict, I like the Space Swarmer for its compact design and the Warp Stinger for its decent design and good price. However, I am not much of a fan of the Star Slicer due to the flimsy looks of the mantis.

All three LEGO Galaxy Squadicon sets are now available from the LEGO Shop.

Deep in the Forest

Mitah Val Karem portrays this scene of the uprooting of a foul tree in the heart of the forest with a great sense of style. It’s a fantastical tree, and much more interesting than most Lego trees. This creation is part of an ongoing saga-telling at Classic-Castle.com.

Nyan Cat

Not much explanation is needed…just that this creation by H.Y. Leung (Mr. Attacki) is awesome.

Brave Merida

Mariann Asanuma (Model Gal) creates a wonderful miniland figure of the heroine Merida from Pixar Animation Studios’ Brave

Brave Mereda

The repetitive parts use to create Merida’s iconic hair is rather ingenious. Not to mention, the bow design as well.

Brave Mereda

USCSS Nostromo from Alien

Mihe Stonee spent 3 months making this 2′ 6″ model of the USCSS Nostromo from the movie Alien. I like the texture created from using of bent rigid tubes tacked on the tiled hull, which mimics the feature seen on the actual ship.

The Redlions Castle

This castle by ppao 66 is grand and impressive, and I wish there are more pictures to show it off.

The Big Unofficial LEGO Builder’s Book [Review]

Soon after the LEGO Adventure Book, I found out about The Big Unofficial LEGO Builder’s Book by Oliver Albrecht (*Olly*) and Joe Klang (-derjoe-). I guess it must be Christmas or something as that left me with two LEGO books I wanted. Sensing my desire, Joe Klang sent me a copy of the book which means I am now able to review it for you all.

The tl;dr version can be summed up simply: buy this book (or from Amazon.co.uk, or in its original German) if you like great LEGO town models, great models in general, mini/midi scale LEGO models, or nice books about LEGO.

The Big Unofficial LEGO Builder's Book - Examples

Polizei & Feuerwehr / Police & Fire EngineThis book is a little more focussed than the LEGO Adventure Book, and arguably more tailored toward adults than children (although older children and teenagers who are still into LEGO would love it). It is mostly a collection of instructions for models at regular minifig scale (six-wide car scale for those who care), and at “midi scale” (see right) where cars are two bricks wide and everything else is scaled accordingly. In between the very, very many instruction sets, there are tips and tricks on building, mostly at a fairly advanced level.

This is a book for ‘serious’ modelling and the technical level is higher than LEGO sets. The models are of a very high quality, with a focus on looks rather than playability. Which I love but may not be for everyone. But Joe and Oliver are excellent builders so this is unsurprising.

One aspect of the book that I found very nice is that the instructions are usually presented in a very common colour (often red), and then examples are shown in alternate colour schemes. I think this is a great idea, allowing more people to build them straight out of the book, but offering more exciting variants. On the whole the instructions are very clear, and are made with LDraw, which in my opinion makes better printed instructions than even LEGO’s in house software. I found the steps pretty easy to follow too.

The Big Unofficial LEGO Builder's Book - Examples

The English language book has some amusingly quirky translations from the original German. But it does not suffer from them (personally I like German-English) and is entirely readable. On the whole I really have to recommend this to people who are ‘serious’ about building LEGO towns, or just like to see what really good builders can do with a bunch of bricks. Be warned though, that if buying for a young child you will have to help them. Overall it’s an excellent book and I’m happy to have it in my collection and would guess that if you’re reading TBB, you would too.

You can buy it from Amazon.com and help support TBB.

The Hobbit cast meets their LEGO minifig selves

It’s not often you see actors from movies with their minifigure counterparts, much less in full costume. The cast of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit, though, was recently visited by their smaller LEGO selves.

Martin Freeman meets minifig Bilbo Baggins:

Martin Freeman with Bilbo Baggins minifig

William Kircher with his awesome Bifur minifig:

William Kircher with Bifur minifig

Sir Ian McKellen admires his Gandalf minifig:

Ian McKellen with Gandalf minifig

See the full gallery on Facebook.

Portal 2 Stop Motion

Alex Kobbs (Kooberz) is no stranger to LEGO stop motion films. His works have been featured here in the past. His latest film based on the Portal 2 video game has just become public.

If you like it, be sure to cast your vote in the Machinima Interactive Film Festival.

Be sure to check out his Youtube Channel for his other films.

Beautiful LEGO bonsai

Japanese artist Azuma Makoto usually creates his botanically themed pieces from real plants, but occasionally dabbles with materials as diverse as Astroturf and LEGO. One of his latest pieces is a gorgeous recreation of a bonsai pine tree built from bricks.

LEGO bonsai by Azuma Makoto

Click the pic to see more photos on the artist’s Facebook page.

Via MAKE, a text message from my mom, and the rest of the Internet (we’re a little behind on this particular item)…

How many LEGO bricks stacked vertically would crush the bottom brick?

We generally pass up all the “World Record attempt!” tower builds that seemingly happen constantly, because, well, they’re not all that interesting (and most often promote some business or event that doesn’t need any additional coverage from us). But a recent experiment by the Open University is a bit more intriguing.

According to the article on the BBC, Dr. Ian Johnson and his team set about to answer the question, “How many Lego bricks, stacked one on top of the other, would it take to destroy the bottom brick?” And how tall would that hypothetical tower be?

Crushed LEGO brickBased on calculations of the average 2×2 brick’s weight and measurements of force exerted on the brick by a hydraulic ram until the ABS failed, it would take an average of 432 kg (950 lbs) to crush the unlucky brick. That’s a hypothetical 375,000 2×2 bricks, towering 3.5 km (2.17 miles) into the sky.

Dr. Fleming says, “The material is just flowing out of the way now and it’s not able to take any more. We’re getting a plastic failure. It means the brick keeps on deforming, without the load increasing. Metals can be plastic, and this plastic is being plastic.”

Read the full article on the BBC, and feel free to suggest other LEGO experiments in the comments! Who knows, we might head to a local university lab ourselves and give your test a try.

Firefly Serenity custom kit for sale

Those who were disappointed with CUUSOO’s rejection of tbone_tbl‘s Firefly Serenity can now purchase it as a custom kit with instructions and all the parts to assemble the model. It is being sold on Etadyne.com for $385, which I think is a fair price for this custom 2186-piece model.

Firefly Serenity

Via Brickset