What a magnificent view the pilots of this stellar craft must get as they soar among the stars! Builder aido k says the spaceship was inspired by the sweeping curved windscreen from the UCS Slave I, and the wings from the Creator Blue Power Jet, but the marriage of the two brings forth this a sports car for the next century—a luxurious vehicle for the elite.
It has been thirty years since Top Gun hit the big screen, and the true star of the movie, the charismatic Grumman F-14 Tomcat, was retired from US Navy service almost ten years ago. I built my first LEGO Tomcat more than 20 years ago and I have kept making improvements, as I learned new tricks and as new parts became available. Usually the changes were fairly small, with the core of the model changing very little.
Ever since I completed my 1/22 scale model a few years ago, I’ve been eyeballing my three smaller 1/36 scale models, no longer liking what I saw. They looked very crude compared to the bigger model and they lacked a few essential features. The intakes on the Tomcat are cranked and the vertical tail fins are canted outward. These sort of things may not seem important, but they make a big difference to the look. Furthermore, the undercarriage never really worked properly, the nose was a bit long, the angles of the wings weren’t quite right and there were a host of other little things that could be improved. Of course, I had to avoid messing up the things I did like about the existing model, but small incremental changes weren’t going to hack it any more.
I started with a new model, albeit with the old one nearby for comparison purposes. The first jet I decided to rebuild has the famous skull and crossbones markings of Fighter Squadron 84 “Jolly Rogers”, like they had in the ‘seventies. I don’t care much for stealth fighters. My Tomcats are probably the closest thing I have to a signature build, which makes me proud to say that the cat is back!
While we all love the iconic minifig, it does occasionally have its shortcomings. This was apparent in the Ultron minifigs from sets like The Avengers Quinjet City Chase or The Hulk Buster Smash. That version of Ultron was just too stubby and cute to be the monolithic, metallic machine that was the Ultron we saw in the movies. Luckily, takamichi irie does the character justice with this fan-made brick-built figure.
Building LEGO versions of Transformers has always been a massive task from both the builder’s skill and the bricks’ limits. Joe Perez has already shown his mettle with a frankly unbelievable Soundwave, and now he’s gone and done Sideswipe too.
It goes from this:
To this:
In around nine steps which require nothing to be added or removed from the model. Impressive!
One of my favorite Miyazaki characters is Porco Rosso, and we’ve seen many LEGO versions of Porco’s iconic red plane before. But this character portrait of the gruff pig himself, in all his metaphor and charm, is something special. It’s no surprise that it comes from the hand of Eero Okkonen, whose fantastic brick characters regularly grace our blog.
Check out some of the fantastic LEGO models of Porco’s red Sovoia S-21 we’ve featured, by Uspez Morbo, Mike Psiaki, Jon Hall, Sydag and Stephen 趙(Chao).
Fateheart knocks it out of the park with this chunky and menacing LEGO mech. Often this kind of model can look too shiny and neat, but the mixed use of old and new gray here really adds to the sense of scale and creates a feeling that this bad boy has seen some real action.
LEGO mechs aren’t usually my thing, but I like the beefiness of this one, and its simple stark color scheme. Topping it all off is THAT gun. Lovely stuff.
Check out this fantastical scene from Brother Steven. We’ve got medieval-style treehouses, a brawl in a bustling marketplace, and a tethering tree for magical flying boats! Excellent work all round.
This model pulls of a difficult trick — creating a scene with fantasy elements which still manages to feel realistic. It’s well worth clicking through to the original image and zooming in to see all the lovely detail on display in the marketplace around the base of the trees.
It’s hard enough to live in space, thanks to cosmic radiation and lack of atmosphere. Why make things even tougher by leaving toxic waste laying around? Horcik Designs has a new vehicle called the HMT4 to handle all your hazardous material handling needs. It has treads aplenty to handle the roughest terrain, and it is adorned in the colors of Neo-Classic Space. The impressive density of details is only enhanced by some carefully chosen custom stickers. So cool!
Big LEGO spaceships tend to capture a lot of online attention, but this is the sort of model which people should spend ages drooling over. This Taiwanese temple from delayice is simply stunning.
The roof grabs the eye with its lovely pointed corner ridges and the smattering of studs for texture. But don’t miss the lovely landscaping around the temple itself — an attractive mix of round tiles for stones and green plates for grass. And then zoom in on the original photo to see how the builder has cleverly mixed shades of brown to create a realistic feeling of aged and worn woodwork. This is a fabulous model.
Anton Sundström has built a cracking model of an American classic. His Fender Elite American Telecaster Thinline is a great recreation of this guitar — there’s even a convincing version of the signature resonance hole in the body. This rocks my world.
VW Beetles (or “Bochos” as they are called here in Mexico) are a timeless design. Here’s a pair rebuilt as tiny hot rods. Tim Henderson, you deserve a hug for the detail you’ve packed in at this scale…
There are two models because the builder wanted to illustrate both the tatty and rusting original car, and the shinier version following its restoration. Tim has even managed to create two convincing engine designs — great work with such a small amount of pieces.
So, I’ve been playing Overwatch a lot, so it won’t surprise anyone that things you like inspire you, and I’ve been playing Zenyatta a LOT lately, so when I wanted to build my next MRL Mech, it had to be inspired by him, and hence, the OMH was born (or built):
It was actually a pretty fun build, and done in record time as well, for me at least. I like the purple, white and gold together — they add such a royal look — and using mixel eyes as beads was an unintentional discovery, but to see the true beauty of this build, you have to Gaze into the iris:
On its Enlightenment mode, it becomes a rolling repairing mech, with two additional pairs of arms, which is, if I may say, kind of cool.