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

Fish don’t fart metal*

A sense of abandonment emanates from David Hensel‘s latest build. Here we have Металлоискатель Submarine, a failed prototype Russian submarine which was built to detect metal on the ocean floor. Its aim was to find wrecked ships and sunken treasure, but David explains that the submarine would just detect itself and show constant maximum readings. The build is great, with some lovely curves and angles. I really like the colour blocking and the military theme to the colour palate used.

The photography and post production work makes this great build truly fantastic. The narrow depth of field replicates a view in deep water while the atmospheric lights give a sense of realism. As a side note, I really love the rubber band on the nose although I have no idea what it represents!

*A quote of Cdr John Fisher on board the USS Ray. Upon seeing a transient on the sonar repeater he confronted the Sonar Supervisor who claimed it was biological, this was his response.

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Going where Star Trek tends to go, into Space

The television series Star Trek: Deep Space 9 actually went where no Star Trek series had gone before – it was the first series that took place on a starbase rather than a starship. Clearly vehicles were still required as no one would want to be stuck on a starbase without the opportunity to encounter some new species or tackle some intergalactic crisis. Larsvader has built this huge minifig scale LEGO version of the USS Yukon (NCC-74602), which was a Danube-class runabout used extensively in the series.

The builder has managed to ensure that his Star Trek minifigure personnel are as comfortable as possible. The interior includes a large crew cabin complete with sleeping and dining areas for extended travel. There is also a compact personnel transporter to ensure there can be a dramatic transportation just in the nick of time. Of course the cockpit comes complete with beeping screen, tactical stations and an escape hatch. But where is the toilet?!

LEGO Architecture 21034 London city skyline [Review]

LEGO’s city skylines series continues with LEGO Architecture set 21034 London, one of 3 new city skylines announced yesterday. Released at the grand opening of the new London flagship LEGO store in Leicester Square today, this set captures 5 iconic landmarks from Great Britain’s capital city and is exclusive to the new London store until wider release in Jan 2017. London skyline retails at £44.99, contains 468 parts and features the National Gallery, Nelson’s Column, Big Ben, the London Eye and Tower Bridge.

I was intrigued to know which iconic landmarks would be chosen as London is a city full of grand architecture, iconic buildings and landmarks. Indeed LEGO have already captured Buckingham Palace, Big Ben (twice) and a London Bus across the Architecture and Creator series. The 5 chosen landmarks are all well known and perhaps more historical than other potential buildings such as the Shard or the Gherkin.

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World’s largest LEGO store opens in London’s Leicester Square [News]

Today the world’s largest LEGO store opens in Leicester Square, within the bustling heart of London. The Brothers Brick were invited to an exclusive pre-opening event to take a tour of the new store, preview the exclusive London skyline set, and talk to Glenn Abell (LEGO’s Vice President of Direct To Consumer) about the future of LEGO’s retailing.

The London flagship store is the largest in the world, covering 914 sqm over two floors, and features a number of signature brick sculptures — all themed to the City of London. The doors open onto an archway with the classic London Underground sign stating “Leicester Square” and a map of the London Underground lights up one wall.

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If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them

Australian builder Chade has created a vehicle from my childhood, the 1983 GMC Vandura from the 80s show The A-Team. The A-Team were military veterans, in hiding after being framed and court martialled for a crime they didn’t commit. They were ready to fight in the corner of the ‘little guy’ with huge explosions, lots of gun fire, but no serious injuries or death caused. They travelled in their black 1983 GMC Vandura with a red slash across the side. Chade’s LEGO Technic version is a little bit special as it’s a remote controlled vehicle with powered doors, working lights and enough power to allow a few high spins.

Take a look inside: seats for B.A. Baracus and Hannibal in the front with Murdock in the back, and all built with Technic parts. The sliding side door and rear doors are powered, but the front doors and the bonnet open and close via the power of a human hand. Check out this video showing all of the powered functions in action and offering a closer look inside.

If you want to build your own version of this powered LEGO A-Team van, Chade has kindly provided instructions for his creation.

LEGO ends promotional giveaways with Daily Mail amid protests [News]

Yesterday, LEGO announced that it had no further plans for promotional giveaways with UK newspaper the Daily Mail. While LEGO itself did not offer a reason for this decision, there has been an ongoing protest against the Danish toy manufacturer’s association with the Daily Mail, led by social media campaigners @StopFundingHate.

The Stop Funding Hate campaign states that its aim is to tackle the culture of hate, demonisation and division surrounding the Brexit referendum, and more specifically to “take on the divisive hate campaigns of the Sun, Daily Mail and Daily Express by persuading advertisers to pull their support”. LEGO responded to the campaigners by tweeting that “We have finished the agreement with The Daily Mail and are not planning any future promotional activity with the newspaper”.

Stop Funding Hate drew attention to a letter written by Mr Bob Jones, a father from London, who voiced his concern at vitriolic headlines and articles published by the Daily Mail. He specifically mentioned those surrounding the Brexit referendum, migrants, and personal attacks on High Court judges who heard the case challenging Theresa May’s right to trigger the Article 50 process without the backing of Parliament.

Click here to read the full letter

The Birth of Apple

Ohio-based builder JD Keller has built this great minifigure scale vignette that depicts Steve Jobs in Steve ‘Woz’ Wozniak’s garage back in the mid 1970s. Amazingly, the billion dollar company Apple Computing started out as Woz’s garage-based hobby so we are witnessing the ‘Birth of Apple’. I love the panelled garage walls and the various electronic bits and pieces on the shelves. Don’t miss the classic large red toolbox with sliding drawers, the Apple colours on the shelves, and the original wooden Apple I computer in the background.

Cornering the market in grand style

Mark Erickson is well known for his castle and medieval-themed builds and his latest creation is a grand one. Entitled ‘The Grand Bazaar’, Mark has created a beautiful, bustling, colourful market scene packed with details and nice techniques. This bazaar has an exotic feel of the east with a camel, trees from warmer climes and a rare sighting of a yellow parrot. The architectural details are lovely, with arches constructed from bricks and slopes and a great combination of colours.

There are a great many details that require a closer look, but for me the combination of colours is the highlight of this build. I love the blue tiled roof with hints of sand and olive green on the more official ‘town hall’ looking building on the right. The use of the Belville oriental carpet as a canopy adds a lovely flash of bright red, while sand red makes a rare appearance on the sloped roof of the building to the left. A really captivating scene.

Catbus knows your destination

What is a Catbus? Well, it’s a cat that’s a bus of course! This particular Catbus has been crafted by CK Tsang and is an excellent depiction of Catbus at this scale. Catbus is a character from the classic anime movie My Neighbor Totoro by legendary Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki. The wide grinning smile and bright ‘headlight’ eyes are perfectly captured in this build. Don’t worry about the lack of a door, as one of those windows will elongate should you want to climb aboard for a ride.

Back when a press photographer needed a camera, not a smartphone

It’s time to put your smartphone camera back into your pocket and embrace the wonder of the Graflex Speed Graphic camera. Back in the 1960s, Graflex cameras were the standard camera used by press photographers (before some were renamed paparazzi). Milan CMadge has built a LEGO version of this famous camera that is remarkably accurate compared to the real thing.

The method of building the flash housing is particularly clever, as Milan has used 3mm flexible hose to shape the reflector and a couple of curved cockpits for the bulb. Interesting bit of trivia now: the 3-cell Graflex flashgun was modified and used as the prop for Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber in Star Wars: A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back.

Paris skyline in microscale

Cecilie Fritzvold has once again been inspired to create a microscale city skyline in the style of the skyline sets within the LEGO Architecture theme. LEGO released 21028 New York City, 21027 Berlin and 21026 Venice as part of a trio of new city skyline sets earlier this year. Cecilie has chosen the beautiful French capital, Paris, a city full of impressive architecture and grandiose buildings. Cecile’s build includes (from left to right) Arc de Triomphe, Tour Eiffel, Dômes des Invalides, Notre-Dame, and Colonne de Juillet (Place de la Bastille). The small strips of transparent blue on each side represent the River Seine.

Notre-Dame is my own favourite in this build — I think that the combination of ingenious parts use and the textured stonework for such a small build are fantastic. If you like this type of build, you will also enjoy Cecilie’s Tokyo skyline build that we blogged a couple of months ago and Michael Jasper’s microscale model of Dortmund.

A handy way to build the Eiffel Tower

The official LEGO Eiffel Tower 10181 set is one of the largest sets released, with 3428 parts. For those with less room for such a monster set or fewer pennies to afford such a sizeable price-tag, have a look at LegoJale‘s latest creation, which users a single part depicting the Eiffel Tower: A minifig hand. This microscale build manages to capture the essence of the Eiffel Tower, the skyline in the background, and the fountains in the foreground (as per the image that the build is based upon) with just a handful of parts.

The set-up for this shot shows how distancing parts of the build can give a very good foreground and background feel to the final shot without requiring any scaling. I always enjoy seeing set-up shots and this one is great because there is no fancy equipment — just LEGO, a book, and a camera.