Yearly Archives: 2016

CHIPS – Central Headquarters Imperial Pursuit Squad

In a rather unexpected conceptual mashup, SPARKART! has titled his pair of Imperial Scout Troopers on Endor “CHIPS,” or the “Central Headquarters Imperial Pursuit Squad.” Actual minifigs are wildly out of proportion, so their massive heads are put to good use in these large-scale figures astride nicely detailed scout speeders.

SPARKART!’s Star Wars twist on the American TV show that aired from 1977-1983 (the same years during which the Original Trilogy was released) is Imperial propaganda, of course, with a rather amusing backstory:

CHIPS followed reel-life troopers Larwil Jonbak (TB-1337) and Eriest Frapon (TB-1983) through several tours of duty throughout the Empire and Outer Rim territories. The series ended with a cliff-hanger; On the forest moon of Endor, the troopers were captured by the Rebellion. As vile terrorist human Rebels looked on and laughed, our heroes were readied to be cooked alive by the Ewoks…

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This four-armed mech is too good

kenny_yan‘s mechs are both superbly built and instantly recognizable, and this newest one looks to be the best yet. With four arms and an aggressive stance, this build pulls off a lot of complex angles as well as having great articulation thanks to the small Mixel joints. There’s not much more to say here other than to check the builder’s photostream to drink in all the detail; this one’s really worth the time.

Click to see more angles

Slayn & Korpil A/SF-02 B-wing assault starfighter

Our friends over at FBTB are hosting a “Star Wars Evolved” contest inspired by the upgraded T-70 X-wings in The Force Awakens. The premise of the contest asks the question, “What would other Star Wars vehicles look like 30 years later?” xiei22 answers the question for the B-wing with this chunky blue and white beauty.

I’m a sucker for schematics, so here’s a nice graphic explaining the enhancements. The original B-wing packed the punch of a capital ship, so the extra guns and rotating turrets are a particularly lethal upgrade.

(The builder doesn’t specify the model number for his B-wing, but I’ve taken the liberty of incrementing it, just like the Incom T-65 X-wing became the T-70.)

When I was your age ‘streaming media’ was called books...

Meet Ol’ Barney, an opinionated, grumpy old man created by Centuri. His fingers are gnarled, his bones ache when it rains, those teeth have done a lifetime of chomping and you’re going to need to speak up boy!

Ol’ Barney has some fun parts use by Centuri. Some of the ones I spotted are the white croissants for his eyebrows, tan hair for his ears, a gold ingot belt buckle and what could better be better than ‘knobbly knees’ made of Technic connectors.

Now go and do something useful…when I was your age we didn’t just sit around playing with kiddie toys…

Guide to feeling blind packs for LEGO Collectible Minifigures Series 15 [Review]

Series 15 of LEGO’s incredibly popular Collectible Minifigures line is starting to hit stores. And if you’re going to find a full set, you’ll need to either buy a full case (which can get very pricey), or stand in the store feeling the blind packs to determine what’s inside. If you opt for the latter route, we’re here to help you get started with this feeling guide. We’ve already done a full in-depth Series 15 minifigure review, so here we’ll just cover the important things you’ll want to know when standing in the store with your fingers on a blind pack.

Click to read the full guide!

New LEGO 1966 Batman Batcave officially announced! [News]

Tired of your LEGO Superheroes being modern, dark, and gritty? Well, LEGO has just the solution: a fully loaded Batcave from the 1966 Batman TV series starring Adam West and Burt Ward. KAPOW! The set will have 2,526 pieces including 9 minifigures, and will retail for $269.99 USD. It’s set to be available in March. The full press release and photos are below.

Click through for the all the photos and the full press release!

Alien Project by The Arvo Brothers [Review]

The Arvo Brothers (Ramon & Amador Alfaro Marcilla) have recently released their second book called Alien Project. It costs €26 + shipping and can be purchased via the Arvo Brothers website. The main bulk of the book contains detailed instructions for building their fantastic Alien figure and its base. There are also chapters explaining the inspiration behind the project and a rare insight into the development of a model of this calibre. Below is my review of the book.

Click here to read the full review

Astrid the Vanquisher conquers all

Talented Bionicle builder Djordje strikes again with another wonderful character, as always featuring unusual parts usage. For “Astrid the Vanquisher” Djordje has included an inside-out tent from the Lone Ranger sets as the Valkyrie’s skirt. Similarly, her shoulders are built from “big-fig” masks from the colorful Knights Kingdom series.

LEGO Warhammer 40K Imperial Knight

Warhammer and Warhammer 40K are a lot like LEGO in terms of getting its hooks into you and draining away your time and money. Spare a thought then for people like funnystuffs who are involved in both hobbies. Luckily for us, it usually leads to creations like this – an Imperial Knight with a cockpit that fits a minifig as well as articulated joints.

Check out the original, solid model version to judge how close this comes.

LEGO Teedo and Luggabeast from The Force Awakens

Though they got little screen time, the pair that tried to capture BB-8 in a net near the beginning of The Force Awakens has been faithfully recreated by teohongtzer. Teedo is given a name drop by Rey (for he’s no respect for anyone), his steed is not. If you dig a bit you’ll find out it’s called a “Luggabeast” and they are cyborg creatures used to find droids and salvage on Jakku.

I’m hopelessly in love with this build. Partly because I’m a Star Wars nerd, partly because I’m a Warhammer nerd and this looks like a Juggernaut, and mostly because it’s just done so well.

Interview with Hannes Tscharner, builder of 7,500-piece Millennium Falcon from The Force Awakens

When I first saw the amazingly detailed 7,500-piece Millennium Falcon the day after Christmas, I knew right away that it deserved worldwide attention. The model was built by someone who went by the screen name “Marshal Banana“, whom I recognized as the builder who’d created the wonderful 10,000-piece Jawa Sandcrawler back in 2011. Less than two days after I’d posted the Falcon, my prediction came true and the Falcon was everywhere, from “geek” sites like Kotaku and GeekWire to major news outlets like Time Magazine and USA Today. But we still knew almost nothing about this talented builder.

Now that he’s back from a well-deserved holiday, I’m pleased to bring our readers this in-depth interview with Hannes Tscharner, builder of both the Falcon and Sandcrawler.

Hannes shares a bit about himself, along with tips on photographing LEGO models and editing the photos for presentation. We also learn how he organizes his collection, what he uses to add lighting to his models, and more.

Click through for our interview with the builder of the 7,500-piece Millennium Falcon!

See the mice in their million hordes, from Ibiza to the Norfolk broads

Trying to summarize almost half a century of accomplishments and innovation in a couple of paragraphs would be futile, so I won’t even try. Yesterday a singular artist departed this particular plane of existence, leaving us with a body of work that will no doubt be remembered for another half century to come (including one final album, released just a few days ago).

Somehow we overlooked this gorgeous LEGO sculpture of Bowie’s Aladdin Sane album cover, built by Gabriel Thomson as an entry for the 2014 MOCAthalon contest. So let’s fix that now.

RIP David Bowie (aka Ziggy Stardust, aka Major Tom, aka The Goblin King) 1947-2016.