Yearly Archives: 2016

Delivering the goods

This food service delivery truck from Chris Maddison is a cracking LEGO creation. The stripped-back color scheme leaves room for the details to steal the show — particularly the lovely touch of a red rubber band as the brake line connection between truck and trailer. White is always a tricky color to use for the main body of a model, swallowing up detail and allowing people to miss all your efforts at capturing accurate shaping, not to mention it can be a pig to photograph. However, there’s no such problems here, this is a great model to look at — although I must admit I’d much rather vroom it around my desk than just look at it!

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Builder mixes 70’s rock, spaceships, and LEGO

Let’s return to the 1970’s for a moment. Japan faces a serious economic crisis, President Nixon resigns from office, and rock-and-roll music has never been cooler. Back in present day, grobie built these sweet LEGO creations to honor two rock bands from the psychedelic “Me Decade.”

First up, we have Electric Light Orchestra (ELO)’s spaceship from their Out of the Blue album cover and an accompnaying Jeff Lynne minifig with acoustic guitar. You have to admit, that custom ELO paint job is downright groovy. Next up, we have Journey’s spaceship from their Escape album cover. This build also comes with a short-sleeved Neal Schon and the ship even has detachable scarab wings! Can you dig it? I can.

LEGO 21306 The Beatles Yellow Submarine [Review]

LEGO’s crowd-sourced Ideas platform is on a roll this year, with sets and news coming in rapid succession. Early this year we reviewed the 21305 Maze, and learned that the Apollo 11 Saturn V and Adventure Time characters will become sets. At the beginning of this month, LEGO announced the Old Fishing Store, and we reviewed the 21307 Caterham Seven 620R at its launch a few weeks ago. Now, 21306 The Beatles Yellow Submarine is available on The LEGO Shop. The set will retail for $59.99 USD and contains 550 pieces.

UPDATE: 21306 LEGO Beatles Yellow Submarine is out now!

Click to read our full hands-on review

Classic Space 2.0?

Don Wilson asks an interesting question… What would LEGO Space look like if it happened today? There are a bunch of new colors and parts available since the Classic Space heyday and Don puts some of them to effective use in his latest spaceship design.

The shift from Classic Space’s regular blue to dark blue immediately creates a more serious feel. The classic inspiration is clear, but there’s a definite evolution towards a more dangerous and slightly sinister look. As for the build itself, I particularly like the “greeble sandwich” design of the front prongs — a nice layer of complex detail held between the plates of the hull. The shaping on those swept-back wings is excellent, and the use of the hexagonal stud shooters as engine exhausts is magic…

As regular readers will spot, this craft has twin prongs at the front, a pair of wings, and a central cockpit and tail. That can only mean one thing — it’s a Vic Viper, and NoVVember must be just around the corner.

The bar where I met your mother

One of the things I like about TV show How I Met Your Mother is how central McLaren’s Bar is to the action. Having run pubs for years, I love to see a good bar depicted well in LEGO. speedyhead doesn’t disappoint here with some excellent attention to detail.

The booths are nicely-built, as are the bar stools, but I particularly like the wonderful clutter on the back bar and the use of printed tiles to represent all the posters and sports memorabilia that bedeck the walls. When you wrap all the detail up with a smart color scheme and smooth tiled look, this would be a great little pub model even it wasn’t so faithful to the TV show.

This is Halloween, everybody make a scene.

This Nightmare Before Christmas LEGO creation by Cesar Soares looks like it came straight out of Tim Burton’s head. Mimicking the opening of the movie, this vignette is done in mostly black and white and it packs a lot of detail into a seemingly simple design. It’s got Mjolnir cobblestones, an eerie lamppost, and even pumpkin heads impaled on the fence spikes!

But of course, the real stars of this build are the perfectly proportioned figures: Jack Skellington and the Mayor of Halloween Town (aka, the original good cop/bad cop). The Mayor even comes with his “Mayor-mobile.” The proportions on this hearse are spookily good. If you’ve seen the movie before you’ll remember the car’s Dr. Seuss-like loudspeaker and the black cat hood ornament (which lets out a yowl siren when you crank the tail).

Well, I think it is time to bust out my old VHS collection so I can watch this movie.

Start your Halloween weekend with Tales from the Crypt

It’s Friday before Halloween, and all good ghouls and ghosts are starting their haunts. Can you hear it now? The creaking iron door, the thunder clashing? Can you see the dusty, dilapidated mansion? I can. It’s time for Tales from the Crypt. Jason Allemann has given us a spooky Halloween version of his pop-up book, with an appropriately spooky gate inside. Step inside, if you dare!

Tiniest AT-ST takes on the Rebellion on Sullust

We can’t emphasize often enough how challenging it can be to create really small LEGO creations. Roy of Floremheim has built an AT-ST “chicken walker” walking not on the verdant moon of Endor but on the blackened plains of Sullust, as featured in the training mission in Star Wars: Battlefront. Despite being built from only about 20 pieces, this Imperial vehicle is instantly recognizable.

A different LEGO perspective

You may have to look a little longer to get your bearings with this clever creation by Milan Sekiz. It’s certainly a unique perspective of a simple sunny autumnal day when a minifigure has a spot of good fortune.

LEGO Marvel Superheroes 76060 Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum [Review]

It’s about a week till the general release of the latest Marvel superhero movie Doctor Strange. The plot of the movie still is a mystery, so the LEGO set 76060 Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum is a perfect chance to get a hint at what may unfold on the big screen. This medium-sized set was released in August and was marked as a limited offer both in the US and Canada. The set contains 358 pieces and 3 minifigures, for the price of $29.99.

Read the full review

Porsche 919 Hybrid takes the pole at Le Mans

The official LEGO Porsche 919 Hybrid doesn’t quite have the same lean, low profile of the real thing, so EliteGuard01 has built a much more accurate version. To do so, the builder has taken some of the stickers from the set and applied them to a model that’s two studs wider. The race car fits a minifig, and the builder says it even has an engine.

Another LEGO nod to the classic Star Wars toys of the 80’s

Remember when Eric Druon built a LEGO version of the 1980’s Kenner Death Star? Well, the French builder is recreating even more of your favorite Star Wars toys from the past! But this time instead of the Death Star we get Cloud City of Bespin. Just look at those play features! This beauty has everything you need to reenact your favorite scenes from Empire including the carbon freezing chamber and the strange catwalk where (spoiler alert) Vader cuts off Luke’s hand.