About Elspeth De Montes

Elspeth De Montes is Scottish but lives in North Yorkshire with her partner and twins. She is a LEGO Builder not a collector of sets, which in theory should make the hobby less expensive (ahem!) but monochrome collections can be pricey. You can see more of Elspeth's work on her blog or website and Flickr. Elspeth is also a bike lover; mountain bike, fixie, road bike, tri-bike (n+1=number of bikes I need).

Posts by Elspeth De Montes

A beach scene that will float your boat

There’s a gentle wave lapping at the shore as you gaze out over the panoramic deep blue ocean. Swedish builder Magnus has chosen to maximise the view by building his beach house on stilts. Although the focus of the build is the beach house, my own favourite part is the use of the minifigure lifeguard float as a dingy sitting by the dock. The palm tree is also a nice touch, with clever use of the 4-leaf plant part to bring a touch of tropical flora to the scene.

I hope those foundations are deep, as we all know what happened to the man who built his house upon the sand…

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Einstein’s mass squared off in bricks

BrickHeadz are a bit like Marmite, dividing opinion into “love them” or “hate them” camps. It seems that even this famous theoretical physicist is not immune to becoming a squared mass of bricks. Krzysztof J has chosen to depict Einstein with his infamous tongue sticking-out pose next to a blackboard demonstrating his widely known equation E = mc ². I love the 1×1 tile representing the ‘squared’ part of the equation and the builder’s clever use of a grille tile for Einstein’s furrowed brow.

A LEGO movie player

Cast your mind back to those pre-digital days and you may remember a time when a movie projector required reels and tape. Carl Merriam decided to build a LEGO version of a vintage 16mm movie projector to keep him company while separated from his beloved camera collection. Carl doesn’t give any specific details but it does look rather like a vintage Bell & Howell Filmo 16mm projector from the 1940s. Carl’s version features a linear actuator to adjust the tilt, working PF pilot light, and a unified chain drive for the reels.

The only issue is that it can’t actually project The LEGO Movie due to incompatible technology.

Refueling is a thing of the past with a solar powered ship

No need for frantic searching to find the nearest fuel station for this LEGO starfighter, that goes by the intimidating name D.I.E Fighter. The builder of this fine ship, Pascal Schmidt, tells us that D.I.E. actually stands for Dual Ion Engine, but I don’t think it comes in peace. Those four blue panels are actually high performance solar panels that provide power, as long as the fighter doesn’t enter any long dark wormholes I assume. With some nice nods to Neo Classic Space with the grey hull and bumblebee stripes, there’s a lot to love about this little fighter. Don’t look too hard for the pilot though, he is hidden inside the opaque, spherical central cockpit.

This starfighter ship was built as an entry to the Real World +200 Starfighter Contest currently running on Flickr until May 15th, 2017. Entries must be a minifigure scale starfighter (with at least one minifig pilot) which could realistically exist in 200 years, assuming no magic warp engines, gravity techno babble or deflector shields. Get building…

A grotesque alter ego plays his role

This odd looking chap sitting at the piano, smoking a cigarette and tinkling the keys may not be known to everyone as a character from the film Gainsbourg (Vie héroïque) [tr. Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life]. The film tells the story of French singer Serge Gainsbourg, from growing up in 1940s Nazi-occupied Paris, through his successful songwriting years in the 1960s. Pedro Vezini has masterfully built Gainsbourg’s grotesque alter ego with his large nose, long thin fingers, and an affection for cigarettes and drinking – a character who personifies all of the singer’s worst habits.

Transforming LEGO in disguise

The Transformers was a US animated television series which originally aired in the 1980s, but has been transforming throughout the years into different generations of TV series and film franchises. The original US series was based on Hasbro’s Transformers toy line and involved giant mecha that can transform into vehicles (although Hasbro’s own toy line was based upon other toys made by Japanese manufacturer Takara) with the opposing teams of Autobots and Decepticons at war with each other. Alex Jones has built a fantastic collection of LEGO Autobots including Optimus Prime at the centre next to Jetfire the jet, Bumblebee in his yellow VW Beetle state on the left and Windcharger the red sports car on the right. How many of these Transformers can you name and remember playing with as a child?

Alex has just co-authored a book with another builder whose work we have featured on TBB, Joachim Klang. Tips for Kids: Transformers: Cool Projects for your Lego Bricks is due out at the end of July 2017 and will help budding builders transform their bricks into Autobots and Decepticons. We also recently highlighted Alex and Joachim’s incredible LEGO diorama of Optimus Prime in position in a tranquil street which gives a taste of the book’s theme.

Merry Christmas, Mr Bean

Mr Bean, the comedic character both created and played by Rowan Atkinson, is a firm favourite all over the world. He has a tendency to get into all sorts of trouble while attempting to achieve relatively mundane tasks, but the comedy value often relates to his innovative solutions to any problems he encounters. Patrick B has built a LEGO version of Mr Bean’s house with lots of details that relate to the Christmas special episode Merry Christmas, Mr Bean.

I am a huge fan of Mr Bean and recognised so many of the little details in this fun creation, from the mouse hole and ingenious LEGO mousetrap (mouse gets a piece of cheese in his Christmas stocking and it is ‘served’ on the mouse trap), the stocking hanging on the fireplace, the stolen Christmas tree, and the infamous turkey that awaits Mr Bean’s attentions later in the episode.

When Mr Bean finds that the television shows are less than ideal, he hears the sounds of carol-singers outside. The alternative view below shows that this detail has also been captured with a couple of young singers in the background ready to lull Mr Bean into an deep oblivious sleep.

Fans of Mr Bean may also like my LEGO version of Mr Bean’s mini, complete with instructions.

LEGO Cassini Huygens is a dead ringer

The unmanned Cassini-Huygens spacecraft has been in the headlines recently as she sends back “swan song” images of Saturn’s rings after a mission lasting over 19 years. Strictly speaking, only the Cassini orbiter portion continues to travel, as the Huygens lander successfully landed on Saturn’s moon Titan back in 2005. Chilean builder Luis Peña has built a LEGO version of the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft, seen here superimposed over an actual Cassini image. This is a pre-2005 version of the craft with the orange Huygens lander clearly visible, and I love the technique used to build the low gain antenna at the font.

A look at the other side of Luis’ LEGO version shows considerable attention to detail – this is very much a 3d model of Cassini-Huygens. The two 445 Newton engines are depicted using ice cream cone parts, while a pair of Technic gears depict the three radioisotope thermoelectric generators.

Due to a dwindling fuel supply, the spacecraft has entered the Grand Finale phase of its mission before a kamikaze pass through he gap between Saturn and its inner ring, before its intentional self destruction within Saturn’s atmosphere on September 15, 2017.

Shake a tail feather and head to Ray’s Music Exchange

When two brothers, Jake and Elwood Blues, reform their band in the movie The Blues Brothers, they have high hopes of saving the orphanage in which they were raised from financial ruin. One slight issue is the requirement for musical instruments, and this leads the brothers to Ray’s Music Exchange where R&B genius Ray Charles has a cameo as the store owner. Nate Flood has built a perfect LEGO version of the infamous store, complete with a fantastic ‘LEGO-ized’ version of the famous mural.

Nathan’s build is not just an exterior though, as inside we can see Jake and Elwood strutting their stuff, with Ray Charles at the piano and the guys shaking some tail feathers with their guitars and saxophones.

To boldly go and explore the final frontier

Imagine a time when the Dominion war is over and the Borg threat has been defused. In this timeline Starfleet will return to its primary mission of exploration. Ben Smith has created the USS Utah, a survey vessel designed to orbit promising planets and use her expanded sensor capabilities to extensively map their surfaces. She is a beautiful ship with those red and yellow highlights and the grey greebles visible just to the rear of the bridge. I love the two shuttles launching from the large central shuttle bay, jetting off to explore the unknown.

Ben’s inspiration for this ship actually stemmed from a piece of concept art of a ship called the USS Iowa by Ryan Dening.

LEGO typography contest – design a new typeface [News]

Our friends over at the LEGO elements and colours obsessed blog, New Elementary, are running a Typography Competition from now until 31 May, 2017. To enter you just have to design a typeface for the phrase LEGO DNA with only one rule that is explained in detail below.

You can use whichever LEGO elements you like in your typeface design, but the only rule is that you must utilise at least one of the following new pieces pictured here. They are:

24246 – see BrickLink
25269 – see BrickLink
27263 – see BrickLink
27925 – see BrickLink
27507 – see BrickLink

That’s it for constraints. Digital entries are not only welcome, but recommended given that at least one of the new parts listed must be included and you may not have many in your collection! The colours don’t matter, and you may use whichever you like, whether or not the pieces exist in those colours in current LEGO sets. The pieces in your design don’t even need to connect in reality – this task is more about design than modeling.

There will be three 1st prizes in this competition (and no other prizes). The three winners will each receive a package consisting of 50 of each of these new tiles, meaning there will be 250 LEGO elements per winner, courtesy of the LEGO Group. A magnificent prize!

Entries close at the end of 31 May, 2017 (in your local timezone).

To enter, head over to the competition post on New Elementary where an entry form awaits.

Defending the Earth against an invasion of 1970’s UFOs

In the 1970s a British television sci-fi show about an alien invasion of Earth called UFO was shown in the UK and Canada. It was created by Gerry Anderson and Sylvia Anderson, who had previously made several successful children’s science fiction programmes, the most famous of which was Thunderbirds. Andrea Lattanzio‘s latest build is the show’s S.H.A.D.O. Moonbase Interceptor, the primary defence spacecraft of a highly secretive agency called Supreme Headquarters, Alien Defence Organisation or SHADO for short. Andrea has really captured the hull shaping and red stripe details of the Interceptors with their comical nose-mounted nuclear missiles. The Interceptor is instantly recognisable to those of a certain age ;-)

Not content with just having the outward shaping, the cockpit and roof can be removed to show some interior details including control sticks, a comfy red pilot seat, and some powerful-looking engine areas.

My only slight concern is the fit of the cockpit wind-shield, as the gaps might be a little “problematic” in the vacuum of space.