About Chris Doyle

Chris has been involved in many parts of the LEGO community for over twenty years, and has been building most of his life. A love of transparent bricks and pop culture combine in most of his creations, which tend to be pretty large scale. His website, Reasonably Clever, featured one of the longest running brick-based webcomics, as well as one of the first LEGO-themed avatar creators. His photographs and creations have appeared in several books.

Posts by Chris Doyle

This groovy exterior will make you dance

When building with LEGO, one of the more frustrating things is when the bricks just don’t seem to line up right. Oh, sure, LEGO has amazing interlocking technology built in, and that helps. But when you’re trying to do something fancy with half-stud offsets or SNOT, sometimes those joins are a little less than static. El Barto has taken this pain point and turned it into something lovely with their rendition of the David E. and Stacey L. Goel Center for Theater and Dance at Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, NH. Built with meticulous attention to detail, the walls use a repetitive mis-alignment to create a zig-zag pattern that matches the textures of the real building. Even better, the whole build sits askew on the display stand, mirroring those interesting angles.

The sides and back of the building also have that great texturing. The rest of the landscaping is also well executed, with brick-built trees and curving walkways.

If you’d like to see it in person, this creation will be on display in the lobby of the Goel Center for the remainder of the academic year. I just wonder if the display table is also at an angle…

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Getting pump(kin)ed for Halloween

Some people gripe about Christmas decorations going up in stores too early. (Full disclosure: I’m one of them.) On the other hand, I don’t hear many folks complain about a bit of early spooky cheer for Halloween. Corvus Auriac is one of those ready for the festivities to start, based on Creepy Pumpkin. Made up of only 82 pieces, this Jack-o-lantern has nice curves and an expressive face. And check out that great part usage! The stem is made up of a frog and a Ninjago scarf – truly a combination of elements I never expected to write about.

If you’d like to make one for yourself, keep an eye on Corvus’ Instagram, as they’ve promised to share a tutorial soon!

A new take on the jet-assisted Chevy

Have you heard the urban legend about the JATO rocket car? If you’re unfamiliar, it’s the story of a man who straps a rocket engine to his Chevy and ends up embedded in the side of a cliff. As cautionary tales go, it’s a pretty straightforward one: Don’t strap a jet engine to your vehicle. Pasq67 thinks otherwise, at least when it comes to the world of LEGO. Benny and Lenny are going for the ride of their lives in a 1970 Chevrolet C10 Pickup with a serious need for speed. The base vehicle has all the clasic lines you’d expect, and the rocket is a well constructed nightmare of high speed bad decisions waiting to happen.

The multiple air intakes fit well with the mix of Technic and system parts, and the trans-orange discs make for an excellent hit of explosive force just starting to push the car forward. Lenny had better hold on to that pretzel…

Yes, she knows it’s a multipass. Anyway, we’re in love.

When you’re having a bad day, sometimes it’s nice to just sit down and watch a fun science fiction movie like The Fifth Element. There are great characters, an engaging story, and a universe that is willing to give us flying cars. Davdup brings that love of the vehicles into LEGO form with renditions of a police cruiser and Korben Dallas’ taxi. Slightly bigger than minifgure scale, these beauties feature smooth curves, complex angles, custom stickers, and build details straight from the movie.

The police car is a solid build (I love the grille tiles in the window) that accurately captures the utilitarian vehicle. Davdup has chosen to also include a window-delivered to-go order from McDonald’s, giving us a great callback to the movie. The interior is also pretty sweet, using a Technic pilot’s yoke for the steering wheel. Continue reading →

The concrete results of artistic abstraction

When building with LEGO bricks, most people opt for recreating something that mirrors our experiences. We draw inspiration from the real world — maybe we look to movies, literature, or some other media, but our creations look like things that exist…or could possibly exist…in our reality. What, then, should we make of the artistic abstractions of Crimso Giger? Even though they exist as physical models, these spaces are like nothing we’d expect to encounter. Crimso has combined geometric abstraction with sculpture, leading us into an unfamiliar world without giving us a roadmap.
Sure, you can try and make sense of these images by trying to force some sort of logic onto them. Take Abstract – Yellow Grey Black, for example. The choice of colors and shapes reminds me of the interior of a computer, or a cityscape that’s been bent like a scene from Inception or Doctor Strange. But that’s just my perspective – maybe this is something else entirely.

Abstract – White Black Red makes me think of gaming. The red and black tiles seem to form a checkerboard, and the black and white groupings remind me of backgammon boards and dice. But what is that construction in the center? Is the “x” shape in the 1x6x5 rectangular girder a call out to Tic-Tac-Toe? Have I completely missed the point? I just don’t know!

Continue reading →

Tom Servo and me – a journey part 4 [Feature]

Previously on Tom Servo and Me: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

When we last left Chris Doyle, he had just finished building his latest replica of Tom Servo from Mystery Science Theater 3000. All that was left was to take photos and write up the summary article. Simple, right? Well, if you’ve read the previous installments, you know things rarely went according to plan throughout this journey. Why should the last few steps be any easier? When things go disastrously wrong during the final photo shoot, Chris will find himself questioning if getting back into LEGO building was the worst idea he ever had.

In the end, it will all work out. We promise.

Greebling from the ground up

If you’re not familiar with the term, greebles are small details that make a simple object appear more complex. In LEGO building, that term is often applied to all those little textural elements you see on LEGO mechs and spaceships. (Don’t forget that you can check out this and many other LEGO-related terms in the TBB glossary.) Redbirch takes the greebling concept one step further with Mechannibal – a mechanical monster that appears to be all greeble.

Redbirch started building with an idea for the feet — minifigure torsos with jet packs. The rest of the monster is built over a core Mixel-joint skeleton, resulting in great articulation. Each move requires a lot of fiddly adjustments, though, as the surface detailing has to be tweaked to close any newly visible gaps. All that effort is worth it, as Mechannibal looks great (and menacing) from every angle.

Now we just need some clever builder to do a similar creation, but with all those Friends accessories that keep piling up…

Baby got Dewback

From the giant rancor to that thing in the Death Star’s trash compactor, there’s no shortage of interesting creatures in the Star Wars universe. One of the most memorable for me is the dewback, a reptile found on the desert world of Tatooine. Over the years, LEGO has released a few minifigure scaled versions of this creature. Some were very movie-accurate in appearance, but were constructed of giant molded parts without much hope for reuse. The recent Escape Pod vs. Dewback Microfighters set features a brick-built dewback, but the adjustments needed to meet the microfighter theme meant that the creature wasn’t particularly movie-accurate. Luca S Projects has given us the best of both worlds with a brick-built dewback that looks just like the real thing.

Despite the necessary evil of the occasional blue-grey connection brick, the sand-green creature’s curves are very accurately reproduced. The use of the Legends of Chima crocodile eye tile works well, as do the minifigure arms and hands used as part of the bridle. It’s also worth mentioning the diorama as a whole; the base is subtle but enough is present to set the scene, and the use of the dusty stormtoopers is certainly apt. Now, when can I expect to see a nice 1:1 model? Someone’s got to be working on that…

There’s no choice but to like Hobson

One great thing about Paddy Bricksplitter’s LEGO creations is that they always have a lot of character. Take Hobson, here, for example. Described as a faithful robotic butler to the idle rich, you still get the feeling that maybe this servant is a little disdainful of the beverage choices being made. Or maybe it’s just Hobson’s choice. Regardless of any pompous attitude, Hobson is all class, though. Check out the gold chain, pneumatic T cufflinks, and bucket handles as both eyebrows and shoe accents. Hobson’s outfit is also stylishly constructed, creatively using parts like the 4x4x16 tapered curve, Hero Factory armor, and vehicle tires.

Tom Servo and me – a journey, part 3 [Feature]

Previously on Tom Servo and Me: Part 1 | Part 2

Chris Doyle has been clawing his way out of a grey age, reconnecting with LEGO building by creating a new replica of Tom Servo from Mystery Science Theater 3000. Tom is looking pretty good – his central body is done and he has working puppetry elements. There’s just his hoverskirt and the display base left to go. Should be a quick win!

Or, rather, it should have been a quick win…. Come along with Chris as he journals the final days of this build. Will the end result be worth the effort?

A Ferrari fleet to feed your fancy

Builder Angka has shared a quartet of LEGO Ferrari models with all the style of their real-world counterparts. Just take in the lovely lines achieved in these 8-stud-wide builds. The combination of cheese slopes and curved slopes convey a real sense of aerodynamic shaping. Though structurally similar, each build has unique design elements that are worth looking for. It’s left as an exercise for the reader to spot them all…but I’d be remiss if I didn’t explicitly call out that amazing rubber band usage as window trim.

Ferrari 328 GTS Nero

Ferrari Mondial Cabriolet

Ferrari 348 TS

Ferrari 328 GTS

If you’d like to try building these models for yourself, Angka has provided an exploded view of the GTS to get you started. The design really takes advantage of modular sectioning; hopefully it will inspire others to make their own modifications to these already awesome cars. Of course, if you’d rather go “stock” you might consider LEGO Speed Champions 75890 Ferrari F40 Competizione…

Tom Servo and Me – a journey, part 2 [Feature]

Last time on Tom Servo and Me…. (AKA Part I)

In an effort to claw his way out of a LEGO grey age, builder Chris Doyle has started building a new version of his LEGO Tom Servo. After a month or so he has a revised head and some very basic prototype Technic puppet-gearing.

There’s still a long way to go until Tom’s “perfect,” though. And Chris is still refusing to plan things out or let well enough alone when he has a “pretty good” solution. Will he do better over the next month of infrequent building time?

Spoiler alert: No. No, he will not.
Continue reading →

About Chris Doyle

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