Yearly Archives: 2016

A proper starship to go bounty hunting all across the galaxy

There is definitely no proven recipe for an awesome starship. Sometimes it’s all about huge size and sometimes the color scheme is what amazes people the most. But the latest NovaFire by TBB alum .Tromas somehow achieves a brilliant result by just putting the right pieces in the right places — otherwise, I can’t tell why this ship looks so cool.

The modified Sienar-FS SL-75e Logistics Mule (as TR calls it) looks pretty heavy, but not overladen. This balance is particularly hard to maintain, and this time deserves applause.

Moreover, NovaFire includes a cargo pod which was modified to become a prison cell. This playability feature makes the model even more nifty. And I already know which minifigs I’d put inside to help them escape!

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LEGO Elves 41172: The Water Dragon Adventure [Review]

We’re pleased to bring you our second LEGO Elves Dragons review! Last week, we reviewed 41176 The Secret Marketplace. This week, I am reviewing 41172 The Water Dragon Adventure, provided by LEGO. This set has 212 pieces and is expected to retail for $19.99 when it debuts in March.

Click to read the full review

Star Wars Executor executed excellently

Hachiroku24 has built a cracking recreation of an iconic Star Wars scene – the bridge of the Super Star Destroyer Executor.

The details are spot-on, with Imperial officers just visible in the sunken-floor control areas, but it’s the lighting setup for the photo which really sets this model apart. Also, the reflections (normally the bane of a LEGO builder’s life when it comes to taking photos) are used to excellent effect. Great stuff.

Warg Riders

In the frozen lands of Ebar Stream, warg riders of Mitgardia have found a way to heat the Frost Spear. This snowy landscape created by established builder Tirrel Brown has amazing terrain work including a small spring which pipes hot steam into the old stable and tower. The creation also comes with an impressive background story, which you can check out for yourself on his Flickr account!

Thrusty, red spaceships go faster...

Thomas W. has built a ship; and not just any ship, but a heavily armed scouting ship called New Horizon. Thomas tells us that it is designed for long distance flights, so it has lots of propulsive power. But let’s not forget the importance of weapons to protect it from any naughty people. New Horizon has a nice, aggressively angled cockpit and a host of lovely details across the ship’s body work.

Thomas’ use of stickers is spot on, with just enough to give it identity markings but without distracting from the lovely shaping and greebles. It is definitely worth taking a look at the rear view to see the ‘horsepower’ behind this ship …deliciously ‘thrusty’ for such a compact design.

I’m just not sure where the lavatory is located for those essential breaks during long distance flights…

A vibrant Greek city on the sea

The annual Kockice Brickstory Contest attracted a lot of talented builders this year including jaapxaap’s Hanging Gardens of Babylon that we posted on Wednesday, but Simon Schweyer‘s Greek Polis is the most massive entry I’ve seen so far.

There is so much to take in! Four unique homes, an amphitheater filled with tiny citizens, a vineyard, a goat herder, a temple, an Oracle inspired by the one in Delphi, and even a man-powered war galley.

You can check out even more details on Flickr.

76052 LEGO Batman Classic TV Series Batcave [Review]

When we announced details of LEGO’s enormous new 76052 Classic Batcave set last month it almost melted our Facebook page. There hasn’t been this kind of buzz about a new set since the release of the equally enormous 76042 SHIELD Helicarrier last year. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, so I donned my cape, hopped in the Bro-mobile, rappelled up the outside of a mall, and KAPOW-ed my way through the local LEGO store to secure a copy of this decidedly spendy $270 set.

Click to read the full review

Once Upon A Brick: Disney characters as LEGO bricks

Chris Adams has developed a series of Disney characters based around the shape of the basic LEGO brick. Entitled Once Upon A Brick, his collection currently has at least 18 Disney characters from Mickey Mouse to characters from Frozen. The concept is simple: The body shape of each character is based on the basic LEGO brick with specific colours and added features to really identify the character.

You can see closeups of each character on Chris’ album Once Upon A Brick on Flickr. So come on, everyone likes a bit of a quiz, how many of the Disney characters in the photo can you name?

4-foot-long LEGO Technic ER-1250 bucket wheel excavator [Video]

The ER-1250 was a massive bucket wheel excavator designed for surface mining in the Soviet Union in the mid-20th century. The tracked vehicle stood taller than an 8-story building. Brilliant Russian Technic builder Kirill has built a minifig-scale version of this behemoth that stands 56 cm tall and 123 cm long, and weighs 7.8 kg. That’s over 4 feet long, nearly 2 feet tall, and more than 17 pounds.

Even more than with his previously featured Ice Planet “Elephant” and snow rover, Kirill has built a huge amount of functionality into his vehicle using 14 Power Functions motors, 6 IR receivers, 2 regular battery boxes, and 2 rechargeable (lithium) battery boxes. Working features include fully steerable tracks, superstructure rotation, rotating bucket wheel, conveyer belts, elevating booms, and more.

Click through to watch the video and see more photos!

If you can’t hang with the big dogs, you stay on the porch!

Here is an adorable couple of Chihuahuas by delayice to celebrate the start of the weekend. Take a moment to note how adorably grotesque both dogs are and how recognizable the overall shape is. How can one not fall in love with these silly eyes and enormous ears?

Perfect home for a melancholy samurai

Some beautifully sinister and gloomy Japanese-style micro architecture on display from Tim Schwalfenberg. With it’s moody black and silver color scheme and wonderful levels of detail, this fortress could be a piece of concept art from 47 Ronin. (And that’s intended as a compliment – although the film as a whole might not have lived up to expectation, it looked very pretty indeed).

The fortress walls are impressively detailed and the curved roof is an obvious highlight, but it’s the neat little bridge and the base which add the finishing touches of brilliance. This could be the first set in a new LEGO theme of Fantasy Architecture. (If LEGO were to launch such a line they could literally take all my money. All of it.)

Beneath the surface of an alien landscape

Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) is one of the main non-destructive techniques at the disposal of modern archaeologists. While Tyler Sky says that this crew of LEGO space scientists are on a geomorphology survey expedition, I like to imagine that they’re xenoarchaeologists hoping to discover buried alien civilizations. Built in realistic grey, the GPR vehicle evokes the retro-futuristic vibe of Classic Space LEGO, while the shape of the sensor array on the front appears to be eminently practical.