Considering this car is built on a 4×7 stud footprint and is still instantly recognizable is quite the feat. I am not even a huge car guy and I immediately knew what it was. But should we expect much else from Raphy Granas?
Yearly Archives: 2013
The cars are the stars
Back in June, I posted a collection of Eighties film and TV vehicles, which at that time consisted of four cars (and fifth one that wasn’t in the picture). Lots of people offered me suggestions for which vehicles to build next and I kept going.
Top row from left to right: American Graffiti, The A-Team, Back to the Future, Batman (1989), Blues Brothers, The Dukes of Hazzard; middle row: Ghostbusters, Gone in 60 Seconds (2000), Inspector Morse, Knight Rider, Magnum P.I., Miami Vice; bottom row: Mr. Bean, Only Fools and Horses, Starsky & Hutch, Terminator II Judgement Day, Tomb raider and Top Gear.
By now, a few months later, I’ve got 18 vehicles. They are not all from the Eighties anymore and a few British ones sneaked in. I am really enjoying building these. Unlike many LEGO car builders, I don’t have it in me to come up with my own cool or custom car designs. I tend to build scale models of existing vehicles and most are bog-standard production versions. The cars that are the stars in movies and TV series, however, are often a bit more flamboyant. Building them means I still get to build the scale models I like so much, but with a few extra sprinkles on top and the often funny characters that go with them. There are a few obvious vehicles still missing from my collection, such as cars from any of the James Bond movies, but I am not about to stop this any time soon.
Star Trekking, miniland style
I am currently enjoying reruns of Star Trek The Next Generation on Belgian TV. When I saw the first episode a few weeks ago, many years after I first saw it, I was a bit surprised at how dated the series looks nowadays and how young most of the actors were. Of course, many Trekkies consider Captain Picard, Cdr. Riker and their crew to be young upstarts. The real Starship Enterprise is captained by Kirk, with Spock serving as his first officer and Uhura, ‘Bones’ McCoy, Chechov, ‘Scotty’ and Sulu making up the rest of the cast.
Ryan Ziegelbauer (rionz) has recreated all of them in miniland form. Despite the limitations inherent to building miniland figures, to me they are all instantly recognisable. The only thing missing is a cardboard set that wobbles slightly!
Friday Night Fights (Round 28)
Welcome to another action-packed night in The Brothers Brick Arena. For you, our faithful fans, we have some stealthy, high-flying action as our competitors duke it out in the air! In the Red Corner, raining down death from above, we have Dan Siskind‘s Black Hawk. In the Blue Corner, with an awesome 80s theme song, Alex Jones and his Airwolf. So get comfortable there on the edge of your seat, as rotors fly and giants collide in this week’s edition of Friday Night Fights!
“UCS Stealth Black Hawk”
“Airwolf”
Last week, Karf’s grasshopper got crushed and eaten by Mihai’s Owl with a score of 7 to 1. Cast your vote, via the super secret ballot box/comments, to decide who rides the waves of victory and who goes crying home to mama!
The Blue Beast of Bionicle
Builder Patrick Biggs (DViddy) says this was is meant to be a representation of a fellow fan, but whatever it is, it’s pretty awesome. The blue and yellow make a snappy color scheme, and I love the integration of System and Bionicle elements in a nearly seamless fashion.
The Elves do enjoy a good party!
I haven’t posted one of my own builds in awhile, so thought I would share this one. I had to build a Medieval Feast with a 16×16 stud footprint for a challenge in which I’m involved. I have to say that I’m liking the Lord of the Rings elves much more than I expected.
The Lamborghini Countach is Eighties car porn
As a child, back in the Eighties, I had a poster of Lego set 5580 Highway Rig, above my bed and I know I’m not the only LEGO car builder who fancied that particular model. However, if there would have been poster of the Lamborghini Countach built by Rolling Bricks back then, I might have replaced the poster with its image.
The Countach was the maddest supercar of the Eighties. It was super fast and hugely impractical and had a shape that was out of this world. The LEGO version is pretty much super too. Check out the clever half-stud offsets for the front fender and the SNOT work used for the rear one as well. In fact, every time I look at this model I notice some clever combination of parts and it wouldn’t be complete without working scissor doors. It’s hard to imagine this car being done better on this scale.
LEGO Tardis from Doctor Who in 1/3 scale!
Shelly Timson is the creator of this work of art. She wanted to build a Tardis for the upcoming 50th anniversary of the iconic show, Doctor Who (just ten days away as of this writing!). She asked Rob Deakin, founder of the studio Inside the Brick, if she could use the studio’s supply of Dark Blue bricks. Over four thousand bricks and three weeks later this lovely Tardis emerged. The TARDIS, along with other creations, is on display at the Studio in Fairfield, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria in Australia.
Check out the Flickr Set for more pictures and detail. Flickr comments have been disabled on all the pictures except for this one. If you want to tell Rob how awesome this build is, I’m sure he will be passing the comments on back to the builder.
LEGO Star Wars Sets for 2014 Unveiled [News]
Looking remarkably like previous years’ offerings, the 2014 sets have been revealed for your perusal. With only one exception, this wave is all from the prequel films, and I believe all of the vehicles in this wave have already appeared in previous versions. So if you’ve missed out on your favorite one before, you’ll get another chance as soon as these hit stores.
75045 Republic AV-7 Anti-Vehicle Cannon
See the rest of the 2014 Star Wars sets after the jump!
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Wearable Santa Head!
I know, I know, Christmas comes earlier and earlier every year and I’m not helping matters by posting Christmas creations in November. I’m sorry, but this Santa was too good to pass up. Jeff Cunningham has build an awesome Santa head. At first I thought it was a really nice display piece until I read the description. Come to find out, he can wear the thing and see out the eyes! I’m impressed, Jeff, very impressed.
Hayao Miyazaki’s Akuyaku
Tyler Clites (legohaulic)does it again with this pile of curvy goodness. This model is a recreation of a tank designed by legendary film-maker and artist, Hayao Miyazaki. In the words of that immortal tanker, Donald Sutherland, “It’s a mother beautiful tank!”.
First Wave of 2014 LEGO City Sets Revealed [News]
LEGO City fans ought to love these new City sets. There are some really cool vehicles here, but my favorite has got to be the new LEGO City police helicopter, which actually looks like a proper Sikorsky S-61.
60046 Helicopter Surveillance
See the rest of the City 2014 sets after the jump!