Kyle (BermudaFreze) returns to the fray with this space fighter which manages to be both elegant and brutish at the same time. The focus here seems to be a hell of a lot of missiles which are both cleverly shaped and stowed away in pods on the sides of the craft.
While the world goes Episode VII crazy, Dead Frog inc. brings us this gorgeous rendition of the A-wing Interceptor. While it doesn’t get nearly as much love as it deserves, the A-wing is one of my personal favourites and this is definitely one of the best recreations I’ve ever seen.
P.S. The Force Awakens is superb and you should watch it before the endless internet trolls spoil it for you.
We’re three weeks into December, which means it’s Day 21 of TBB’s virtual LEGO Advent Calendar series.
We’ll be unveiling the mini-kits or minifigs from each Advent Calendar around this time every day, and we won’t ruin the surprise — you’ll need to click through to reveal the LEGO behind the tiny doors.
Click to see the Day 21 mini-kits!
The current Iron Builder battle has been producing some fantastic builds and the latest entry by David Hensel is definitely one of my favourites. The Enigma machine built by David is a LEGO replica of the German military model used during and after the Second World War.
The Enigma machine is a combination of mechanical and electrical subsystems. The mechanical subsystem consists of a keyboard; in David’s model this is the main area using the Iron Builder seed part, the Fencer’s Foil. There are also a set of rotating disks called rotors (Technic Gear 24 Tooth Crown) arranged adjacently along a spindle, and a method of ‘stepping’ to turn at least one rotor with each key press (1×1 round tiles).
David, can you just whip up a quick LEGO British Bombe to help decipher your LEGO Enigma machine please?
I am not quite old enough to have seen the first Star Wars movie in the cinema and remember it, have yet to see the latest instalment and, if I had to choose would prefer Star Trek (before J.J. Abrams ruined it), but I too jump on a bandwagon every once in a while. I’ve had a Landspeeder in my collection of movie vehicles for more than a year now and last weekend decided to add a Speeder Bike.
“Where are the twists?” you may wonder. Well, Andrew has been virtually twisting my arm to blog them, to show that the contributors to this blog are builders (and to avoid an embarrassing repeat of the “Optimus Prime fiasco” when everybody and his uncle got around to blogging one of my models before I did). The more interesting twist, however, is their scale. At a first glance you could be forgiven for thinking that these are not that much different from LEGO’s own sets and, in terms of size, they indeed aren’t. Yet, I build my vehicles to a scale of 1/22, which is intended for brick-built figures roughly twice the size of minifigs. I particularly enjoyed building the Scout Trooper for the Speeder Bike. Looking into the specs and pictures of the props taken on the set, it turns out that they really are quite small; a Landspeeder should not be the size of Ecto-1, but more that of Mr. Bean’s Mini and a Scout Trooper on a Speeder Bike really should look like somebody riding a legless horse.
Jason and Kristal from JK Brickworks continue to pump out amazing mechanical inventions created using LEGO. When last we featured them it was with Jason’s holiday cookie decorating robot, but today’s creation comes from Kristal and is a delightful little skating penguin.
The heart of the moving sculpture is a Trammel of Archimedes, a mechanism that traces out an ellipse. This is usually used to make “useless machines” such as the mischevious black box that JK Brickworks created a few years ago.
Full instructions for your own Happy Feet are available right here.
The LEGO Group have released NEXO Knights Merlock 2.0 App for Android and iOS. The app is free and there are no in-app purchases (phew!). Don’t forget to read our review of the physical Nexo Knights sets, too.
Game back-story: The game is set in Knighton, a peaceful and beautiful kingdom, where amazing technology reigns supreme and life has been good for 100 years. That is, until the evil jester Jestro lets loose the ‘terrible lava monsters‘ from the Book of Monsters. Only the five knights from the Knights Academy stand against the invading hordes of ‘terrible lava monsters‘, with the help of the digital wizard Merlok 2.0 who controls the NEXO Powers. They can have their powers upgraded to defeat the ‘terrible lava monsters’…
Each of the NEXO knights come with their own shield, which can be scanned into the game to give their digital avatars new powers. The app allows you to upload the various characters’ shield codes and additional codes into the game to “upgrade your power“.
The codes are not only available by buying the NEXO Knight sets, according to the NEXO Knights FAQ, but also may be found in webisodes, mini-movies and many other places at Lego NEXO Knights Home. And, of course, they can be found in LEGO brand stores and on LEGO® NEXO KNIGHTS™ products. There is a power in each new episode of the LEGO® NEXO KNIGHTS™ TV-series and the LEGO Club Magazine.
I’m off to play the game on my iPad now and to go on a powerhunt to find out if I can scan and upgrade my powers via the TBB Nexo Knights review shield image!
Following our previous story about rough pictures taken of the German LEGO catalogue for 2016, we now have the genuine article from LEGO in PDF form, this time in English.
This is a carbon copy of the printed catalogues that will appear in stores. There are dozens of new sets, including a new wave of Elves featuring dragons, plenty of new City, Creator, and Friends sets, new Batman V Superman and Marvel pantheon Superhero sets, and a lot more.
Click here or the image below to view the PDF in full.
Thanks to a Russian LEGO catalog, we now have a look at which characters comprise Series 8 of Mixels, even before Series 7 has even been released. While we don’t know each Mixel’s name yet, Series 8’s three tribes are a firefighting tribe, a medic tribe, and — out of sync with the other two — a pirate tribe. See all of the characters after the break.
When it comes to customizing LEGO minifigures, Minh Pham is one of my favorites. I enjoy the contrast of his highly detailed armor pieces with a clean minifigure face. His latest is the Raider Power Armor set new to the Fallout series in Fallout 4, and he sculpted and painted the haphazard Raider look rather well at this scale.
Only 5 days until Christmas, which means we’re 20 days into TBB’s virtual LEGO Advent Calendar, with only a few more LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Friends mini-kits and minifigs left to unveil.
We’ll be unveiling the mini-kits or minifigs from each Advent Calendar around this time every day, and we won’t ruin the surprise — you’ll need to click through to reveal the LEGO behind the tiny doors.
Click to see the Day 20 mini-kits!
James Cherry has posted images of his beautiful F-4J Phantom II which I highlighted as my “Best In Show” in the roundup of BRICK2015 in London.
The model is 1.2m long, contains around 6,000 pieces, and took James nearly 5 months to design and build. But beyond the impressive scale and the lovely custom stickering, it’s the smooth curves and the shaping of the various sections which make this creation stand out for me. I also really like the handful of studs left exposed, creating a feel of riveted panels around the intakes.
James managed to squeeze no less than 5 Power Functions motors inside the model, allowing the rudder and various flaps to be operated using a remote control. It was very cool to see these features “in the brick” in London last weekend, and I wasn’t alone in thinking it was a highlight of the show. Carl Greatrix – one of the best LEGO plane modelers around – spent ages examining this creation and pronounced it “Bloody good”. High praise indeed.
I’d heartily recommend a visit to James’ Flickr photostream to check out all the details of this amazing model in the close-up images, as well as photos of his beautiful custom-chrome P-51 Mustang model.
