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

Back to a time when LEGO meant wooden tractors

LEGO wasn’t always about plastic bricks. Back in 1932, Ole Kirk Kristiansen, a master carpenter and joiner, establishes his business in the village of Billund, Denmark. Ole’s firm manufactures stepladders, ironing boards, stools and wooden toys. By the early 1950s, LEGO was producing not just wooden toys; plastic toys account for half of the company’s output. The older wooden toys remain in circulation today, often as rare or collector items depending on their condition. Bailey Fullarton has used an apt mix of an original wooden LEGO tractor from the late 1940s/early 1950s and the plastic parts we all know and love to show off the vintage toy.

The LEGO Group’s many wooden and plastic products from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s took inspiration from social change and technological progress. In the early 1950s, the LEGO Group set up production of a Ferguson tractor in plastic. A range of implements is also available for the new toy tractor, including a cultivator and a plough, for hitching on the back of the tractor. These implements fit not only the plastic Ferguson tractor, but also the wooden tractors that are also part of the LEGO^® products at the time. The collection below shows the same tractor as Bailey used bit in better condition and with some of the accessories for working the land.

I personally prefer Bailey’s worn tractor with its played with, nostalgic feel. I get the impression the tractor has had a hard life as a toy and now it is resting by the creek, enjoying the peace and quiet of retirement.

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Hear the ‘wocca wocca wocca’ as a hawk flies past

The Sikorsky HH–60G Pave Hawk is a twin-turboshaft engine helicopter in service with the United States Air Force, and TBB’s own Ralph Savelsberg has chosen to depict this versatile helicopter in ‘European One’ camouflage colours. The amazingly accurate shaping of Ralph’s model was the first reason this model caught my eye. I have flown in Blackhawks and seen them close up in my previous line of work, and I instantly recognised the Hawk family resemblance. There are a few details that I particular like, for example Ralph’s clever solutions to using a limited palate of dark bluish grey, dark green, and olive green means the hubs on the wheels are actually dark green minifigure heads!

See more of this amazing LEGO helicopter

He might be little but he is no chicken...well actually...

Chicken Little is everyone’s favourite neurotic chicken who runs around telling everyone that the sky is falling and is mocked for his efforts. Well, just as Chinese New Year approaches, Alan Boar has created this adorable LEGO version of Chicken Little as he appears in the animated movie. His cute chicken features, stripey T-shirt and geeky specs are perfect, even though Alan had to compromise on colour and use grey instead of green frames.

Thankfully Alan decided to build Chicken Little with his beak closed. In the movie, Chicken Little has teeth, presumably in case he gets a bit peckish, but it just seems wrong to me.

It’s hard work but some droid has to do it

Nobody likes to do chores, but even a starship needs to be swept and dusted to ensure those grey space corridors are dust free for photoshoots. This fun little scene by TBB contributor Jen Spencer shows some Brooma and Waita droids helping out with the chores, albeit with a general lack of enthusiasm for their task. Jen’s little droids are adorable, with their cute pot bellies and Kardishan-esque booties.

The part used for their ‘assets’ is the dark orange 2×2 curved top brick, which is also the seed part in the ongoing ABS Challenge contest. And did you spot the ingeniously subtle use of the huge Airplane wing parts forming the walls and doorway?

The comical posing of the droids really makes this little scene for me; the Waita droid at the end seems to be struggling with his heavy plate of fruit. The poor Brooma droid on the lower floor is having to deal with a messy Cola spillage. I hope he has called for some back-up, ideally droids bearing mops and buckets!

Let it LEGO, let it LEGO, can’t hold it back anymore

Princesses Elsa and Anna from the 2013 animated movie Frozen have now been immortalised in LEGO by YOS Lego, with a host of ingenious parts used in bringing them to life. The builder has managed to capture those impossibly perfect hourglass figures in their flowing dresses and narrow-waisted bodices using a combination of slopes, wedges and (of course) curves. The red-headed Anna figure is fitted out in a beautifully detailed green dress, an amazing likeness to the animated Anna’s green coronation dress.

Elsa’s signature windswept, voluminous yellow hair is very cleverly made with bananas and Hero factory masks. The cheeky little bit of leg showing at the bottom of Elsa’s dress, and the more innocent posing of her younger sister, are very fitting. The characters are fantastic, but my only slight concern is that these two princess have either been drinking too much stimulant energy drinks or perhaps Olaf has given them a fright …those eyes are certainly wide and piercing!

Si-Bored Industries announces its first new drone of 2017

The news that Si-BORED industries has just released an exciting new edition to their drone lineup has been announced by Canadian builder Simon Liu. The Grunzen drone comes with the tagline, “This all-purpose military unit has been built ground-up to exceed all your combat requirements”. These seem to be fantastically poseable LEGO drones, with more joints than a West coast state after cannabis legalisation. I love the joints that Simon has designed, firstly for the knees using a 1×1 plate with clip as the pivot point, and then the shoulder/elbow joints which ingeniously use a droid torso.

For Star Wars fans, the tan helmets would quickly be recognised as belonging to the Star Wars resistance trooper minifigures from Episode 7. These are great helmets and work perfectly with the colouring and style of Simon’s drones.

Even rodents look cute when they are LEGO rodents

Did you know that there are 25 species of hamster? Actually, there are 26 now that Felix Jaensch has built the LEGO hamster. This is an ideal pet for anyone who is short on time and space to dedicate to their animal buddy. This little creature appears to be waiting for something, perhaps a few more studs to store in its cheek pouches. Felix’s cute version must be a close cousin of the dwarf hamster with its grey and white colouring. Those little pink paws and matching nose seem to help capture some of the cute appeal of a hamster, given their close relationship to mice and rats ugh!

I feel that this hamster will get up to mischief unless Felix builds it an endlessly turning wheel and some hamster toys to play with.

A Polish saucer with some LEGO sorcery

This fantastic architectural build by Miroslaw is a 1:125 scaled version of Spodek, a huge multipurpose arena in Katowice, Poland. Spodek means “saucer” in Polish and refers to the flying saucer appearance of this huge structure which seems to defy some of the laws of LEGO gravity. Achieving a circular structure is hard, achieving a stable but tilting structure is even harder,but to combine a circular structure that has a tilt and also an inverted sloped roof must require some feat of engineering. What sorcery is this!

See more of this unique LEGO build

Delivery of a cute LEGO cat called Jiji [Instructions]

Kiki’s Delivery Service is a 1989 Japanese animated fantasy film produced, written, and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. The film’s protagonist Kiki is a trainee witch who has a black cat called Jiji as her best friend, and CK HO has built a fantastically cute LEGO version of Jiji the cat. Like most cats, Jiji has a lot of personality, but the English-dubbed version of the film showed Jiji with a cynical and sarcastic attitude as opposed to cautious and conscientious in the original Japanese.

We loved Jiji so much here at TBB that we asked CK to make some instructions and he very kindly obliged to allow us all to have a best friend called Jiji.

Click here to build your own Jiji!

When LEGO needs a trim, use a LEGO mower

We have all been there: it’s summertime and the plate grass is getting long… well Anthony Séjourné has sorted out our lawnmower needs with his excellent LEGO mower. The garden gnome has sought a place of safety as this is a serious looking mower — look at the beautifully neat grass it is leaving in its wake! Using layered plates for the grass was an extra step well worth the effort to ensure the tiled cut grass is below the level of the top plate. This is a cute little scene that really shows how to highlight this small mower model in the best light.

The lawnmower itself is a great little build with nice curvy shape and good use of the Bionicle mechanical arm to create the angles and attachment for the handle.

My only issue is that I cannot work out where the cut grass has gone?

If you can’t beat them, join the Space Marines

The LEGO Group have wandered into the realm of wearable LEGO with things like the LEGO Friends Friends Jewelery Set #853440, but this helmet and shoulder armour by Timofey_Tkachev takes wearable LEGO to a whole other level. Tomofey’s LEGO cosplay is inspired by the Space Marines from Warhammer 40K, originally the tabletop miniatures game and now a video game.

The shaping of the helmet is particularly impressive, especially around the eye sockets and the mouth where accuracy has been maintained despite the difficulties when using LEGO pieces to build curves.

Toronto’s Fairmont Royal York in LEGO microscale

If you walk along Front West Street in downtown Toronto, Ontario you will see the impressive Fairmont Royal York Hotel. On June 11, 1929, the hotel officially opened. The Royal York changed names and ownership a few times since its humble beginnings as the Ontario Terrace, which consisted of four brick houses, in 1843. Jeff Van Winden has captured the architectural essence of the hotel in LEGO microscale. The sense of scale is emphasised with the busting street below with adorable little microscale vehicles.

I particular like Jeff’s clever solution to the intricate arched windows on the three main blocks at the front with this upturned minifigure basketball stand. Just be sure to book early if the Royal Family are in town, Queen Elizabeth usually has an entire floor reserved for her and her entourage and occupies the Royal Suite herself.