Monthly Archives: July 2019

This Crossy Road-inspired claw machine will grab you

If you’ve spent any time in arcades, you’ve likely been tempted by those crane games where you can win a handful of candy (or sometimes bigger prizes). H.Y. Leung has taken that temptation to the extreme by making their own working version from LEGO bricks.

The base of this build is 80×64 studs (roughly 64×51 centimeters); pretty close to 1:1 scale to a real-world crane game. The arm design comes from LEGO set 42043, the Mercedes-Benz Arocs 3245, with a modified claw. The first control on the left side rotates the arm left and right, moving it through a 200-degree arc. The next three switches handle positioning of the boom and outrigger and opening and closing the claw. To the right of the controls is a slot that accepts tokens, and a switch to activate a pneumatically-controlled horizontal security bar, intended to keep people from reaching up and into the game when it’s not in use.

This claw-machine creation incorporates just a touch of non-LEGO parts in the custom plexiglass, external air compressor, and edible treats. I personally would have liked to see this machine filled with LEGO parts, but I suspect bulk candy is a lot cheaper to refill it with.

Speaking of arcade games, the colors are inspired by the prize machine in the mobile game Crossy Road. Not familiar with that machine? Happily, H.Y. has also recreated a LEGO version to add some context. I like the inversion of the red/yellow styling between the two games.

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In space, no one can hear you scream, unless you are in a TIE fighter

Nyeeeeyaw! C’mon, you know what I mean. Any Star Wars fan will have to admit to swooshing their TIE Fighter toy through the living room making that signature screaming sound of the Empire’s mass-produced cheap and disposable one-man flying coffin. This midi-scale replica by Pascal Hetzel has a ton of great parts usage packed into a compact design.

Pascal uses some of the newer curved wedges to sculpt the cockpit, and the two solar panels manage to capture the look of its on-screen inspiration without being too bulky for its scale. I have to admit that I would love to see the entire line-up of TIE Fighters in this same scale…

Mr. Potato Head butters our nostalgic appetites

Things that entertained kids in the ’50s were simpler. The original Mr. Potato Head came with accessories but no plastic potato body. Since potatoes were a staple of the American diet back then it was assumed each household had scores of actual potatoes you could pin plastic eyes, noses and ears into. Complaints of rotting vegetables and stricter food safety regulations put a kibosh on all of that and so Hasbro began including the plastic potato body within the toy set starting in 1964. Modern diets have changed, and thanks to my ever-expanding, aging waistline, I have not had a heavy starch in my house in maybe years. Mr. Quinoa Head or Mr. Tofu Head just doesn’t have the same ring to it but thankfully Elijah Bormann buttered our nostalgic appetites with this LEGO version of the iconic toy.

If you liked this you should check out Elijah’s other stuff as he tends to tickle one’s nostalgic fancy. Mr. Potato Head’s silly face takes me back to a simpler more care-free time when…whether fried in oil, baked with butter and chives or roasted and seasoned with salt and rosemary, I could eat potatoes with impunity. Man, I miss potatoes!

GLaDos is doing science and she’s still alive

GLaDos is back and she’s serving up some vengeance on Chell and Wheatley in this Portal vignette by hachiroku24. Way back in 2007, the video game industry was taken by storm by Portal, a mind-bending game that pitted a human test subject against technology run amok. A sequel followed in 2011 and the series proved popular enough that LEGO included it as a playable world in LEGO Dimensions, even producing an official Chell minifigure and the beloved Weighted Companion Cube. Hachiroku24 has taken that Chell minifig and built this spot-on recreation of a scene with the evil GLaDos and Portal 2’s friendly AI, Wheatley.

GLaDos is perfectly rendered here utilizing a variety of visible Technic parts to create that feeling of exposed machine technology. The hoses and wires are especially effective and add a touch of realism that make the whole machine seem plausible. I’m very fond of the combination of pieces used to create GLaDos’ elegantly curved “face”. Comical sidekick Wheatley, in contrast to his larger relative, gets a similarly ideal treatment but using only a small number of parts. As a builder, I like “breaking the square” so I really love the use of hinges and angled plates to create a more irregular shaped base for this scene. Although 12 years may have passed, thanks to hachiroku24, GLaDos is still getting the science done for the people who are still alive.

Fan-favorite Barb from Stranger Things revealed as yet another Diego Comic-Con 2019 LEGO Exclusive Minifigure [News]

LEGO just revealed Barb minifigure as the Stranger Things Exclusive Minifigure that will be available at San Diego 2019 Comic Con. The fate of the fan-favorite citizen of Hawkins, Barbara Holland left many displeased. Finally, LEGO does justice for Barb in its own way; the minifigure will make a perfect addition to LEGO Stranger Things 75810 The Upside Down set. The minifigure can be obtained as part of a randomized draw on July 19th at the LEGO both in San Diego Comic-Con.

Click here to see more pictures of the exclusive minifigure…

LEGO Harry Potter faces the Dementors in 75945 Expecto Patronum [Review]

It’s another summer of Harry Potter, and we’re continuing our reviews of the new sets available now, following our review of 75948 Hogwarts Clock Tower. In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry faces the evil jailers known as Dementors, against which only the “Expecto patronum!” spell is effective. 75945 Expecto Patronum captures the moment in the Forbidden Forest when Harry fends off hundreds of Dementors attacking Hermione Granger and Sirius Black. The set includes 4 minifigs and a stag Patronus with 121 pieces and retails for US $19.99 | CAN $24.99 | UK £19.99.

Read our complete review of LEGO Harry Potter 75945 Expecto Patronum

The future of space travel is looking good

We have already seen one Tesla launched into space last February when the SpaceX Falcon Heavy blasted off, but it looks like this super-sleek personal spaceship by GolPlaysWithLego just might be a Tesla from the future, that has traveled across time and space from a human colony on Mars. This stylish ship is the perfect blend of form and fashion and is full of great details. One of my favorites is the revolver between the two rounded white accents on the front.

The model makes excellent use of one of the windscreen parts from the Speed Champions theme. I honestly can’t decide whether I like the slim contours of the body more or the fin-riddled engine assembly. In any case, this is one sleek spaceship.

LEGO Star Wars SDCC exclusive Sith Trooper set and life-size model revealed [News]

The third exclusive LEGO set for San Diego Comic-Con has just been revealed, and this time it’s a Star Wars set featuring a Sith Trooper bust from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. This set is similar to the Darth Vader bust set LEGO made for Star Wars Celebration 2019, and it may be one of LEGO’s more interesting Star Wars convention exclusives yet. The set will be available to select attendees who win the opportunity to purchase the set on the Comic-Con Exclusives portal, which is now closed for submissions.

Click here to see more photos!

Need to take on something big, green and angry? Build your own Hulkbuster! [Instructions]

If LEGO instruction builders could be ranked, Hachiroku24 would be close to the top — both for his designs and the videos he uses to share those designs. His most recent set of instructions comes from the armory of Tony Stark: the Hulkbuster. This well-designed, fully articulated and heavily armoured power suit is a well-balanced build as well as an easy to follow instruction guide. Each section is beautifully structured, incorporating a great array of plates with ball joints and bars to give this Minifig scale behemoth some excellent functionality. The mid section, where we find the flat silver ingots and printed 1×1 half circle tiles really does it for me. It’s not just that silvery band of simplistic greebles, but the pivot articulation from the waist up.

See step-by-step instructions on how to build your own Hulkbuster

A chicken walker just waiting for Ewoks to crack it like an egg

Despite the vehicles from the Star Wars movies being built time and time again, from endlessly re-hashed official sets to uncountable builds from the LEGO community, sometimes a fan creation comes around that makes you say “Wow.” This Imperial AT-ST by GolPlaysWithLego is one such build, capturing the likeness of the scout walker impeccably. The hips have the wobbly look that is so distinctive of the aptly-nicknamed chicken walker, always sorely lacking in official sets, yet it still seems solidly put together while maintaining excellent proportions — it’s certainly the best I have seen.

See more of this excellent LEGO Star Wars AT-ST

Two tapirs to tickle your fancy

Animals always makes my day just a little brighter. My case in point, Marco Gan has built this pair of endangered Malayan Tapirs (Tapirus indicus) and I am tickled pink…or tickled black and white as it were. The adult looks dashing with its striking black and white piebald pattern but the baby steals my heart away with its horizontal stripes. The artist palette in green make for excellent lily pads while a nearly hidden pushbroom and paddle heads adds neat textures to the jungle flora. Marco tells us that in the Malay language, the tapir is commonly referred to as cipan, tenuk or badak tampung. No matter what you call it, this duo just might be the best thing I’ve seen all day, and I’ve seen a guy in an inflated dinosaur costume bouncing on a pogo stick.

20 parts bird, 100 parts awesome

Here’s a little something different courtesy of aukbricks. This piece of art was created using just twenty elements, ten each in yellow and black. Compared to most LEGO models, there’s not much physical cohesion to this build. In fact, it looks like there are only two pieces actually connected to each other. The image of the bird comes from careful part placement and alignment.

This is a digital render, but it could be replicated in the real world as it uses only existing part/color combinations. I particularly like the use of tentacles for the tail feathers. The bananas that do double duty as claws and as detail in the head are a close second.