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

LEGO City: Build Your Own Adventure [Review]

This summer, British publisher DK have continued their Build Your Own Adventure series with two new volumes that explore the themes of City and Star Wars. LEGO City: Build Your Own Adventure is an 80-page hard cover book that comes with an exclusive 99 piece LEGO vehicle set and minifgure.

The book’s storyline follows a rather hectic day in the life of LEGO City’s heroic firefighter Brave Ed as he journeys through typical locations within LEGO City, on a mission to get to the end of his shift with enough time to challenge his fellow fire-fighters to a game of table tennis (oh, and to spend the day helping out with rescues, accident scenes and fighting fires of course!).

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Metal Scout blings into action

Markus Rollbühler has definitely focused on bringing more bling to the mecha arena with his latest build. Using a a limited colour palette of metallics and building his first mech as part of a contest has certainly brought out the best in this creation. The head made from droid torsos and mechanical minifigure arms, and the angled, piston-like legs are two particularly awesome parts of this mech. I also love the “billy club” hands and those powerful abs.

The presentation is eerily good, with the threatening shadow in the background. I can only assume that this mech is not involved in reconnaissance missions as one flash of light and he will become a shiny beacon!

Babylon 5’s EAS Agamemnon in LEGO form

Babylon 5 fans will recognise Ryan Olsen’s latest build, the EAS Agamemnon. She was one of the first Omega class starships to be built by Earthforce following the Earth-Minbari War. Ryan’s LEGO version is beautiful with those dark red highlights and a central rotating portion that is full of fantastic repeating textures. At 116 studs long, this ship has plenty of details to enjoy!

What EAS Agamemnon would be complete without a few Starfuries flying alongside in formation? This rear aspect also gives a great view of those engines and the detailed greebling. What great presentation of a fine build, this is definitely a ship to admire.

When you gotta go, you gotta LE-GO

I suppose derjoe has just created another public space like a museum, library or cafe. But this is the first time that I’ve seen public toilets used as the theme for a LEGO ‘playset’. The builder has cleverly captured some of the common findings in a male public toilet block, such as urinals (and some pee ewwww), wash basin, toilet brushes, toilet rolls, and cisterns complete with their seats left up!

The playset is hinged and opens out to allow the paper towel dispenser and waste bin to be revealed. Thankfully the stalls all have their door closed in this view and the brown frog is not visible, although I find the fact that the toilet paper is placed the wrong way much more upsetting.

Overall, a quirky, fun build and I really like the colour scheme used, although it does not reflect the average public toilet here here in the UK. Also, for us females, a long queue of minifigures patiently waiting while the male toilets are empty would seem about right.

Massive LEGO Star Wars Imperial Star Destroyer is 2.2m long, weighs 50kg, and uses 42,000 bricks

Korean building team OliveSeon has revealed the first views of their massively impressive Imperial Star Destroyer. Built by Hobbyinside and designed by ByeongSoek Kim, this 2.2m long slice of shiny grey starship uses approximately 42,000 bricks and took around 1000 hours to build. At present, only the main side views have been revealed, but the group promises that more detailed views will follow. This ship has a beautifully smooth, aerodynamic SNOT design, with the LEGO studs well hidden beneath a lot of hours of design and building work.

The ship measures 2200 mm x 1300 mm x 610 mm (that’s 7′ 3″ x 4′ 3″ x 2′ for you Imperial readers) and weighs in at 50 kg (or 110 lbs). And if you need proof of just how large this Imperial Star Destroyer is, check out the size of white board needed for the photograph of the final ship (actually I think they need a bigger board).

Building massive Imperial Star Destroyers is not a new concept, and these creations that we have blogged previously are definitely worth a second look:

Giant 5ft-long LEGO Star Wars Imperial Star Destroyer “Tyrant” features incredible interior
Crashed LEGO Star Destroyer from Star Wars Episode VII
The ultimate Imperial Star Destroyer built from Lego, measuring over 2 meters long

Fill up at this futuristic gas station

crises_crs has catered for those urgent requirements for high altitude gas refueling in his latest build, a Dieselpunk gas station. Crises was inspired by the mind-bending futuristic art work of Argentinian artist Alejandro Burda and his ACA service station.

Gateway to LEGO brick wall building

Tim Schwalfenberg’s latest build, Wizard’s Gate, is a masterclass in both rock work and brick wall building. There are a lot of lovely techniques packed in to really make this model top class. In particular, the wall portion of the gate uses a technique that requires some off-setting techniques using the headlight brick and some patience with clips and tiles, but the finished look is really fantastic.

Tim has provided a breakdown of the technique used to create the brick wall effect. As Tim explains, “The wall is constructed using headlight bricks to achieve a half plate vertical offset and then alternating clips on 1×2 tiles to form the exterior wall It’s similar to many of legostrator’s awesome techniques.”

Sleek cruiser hides a dark side

John Moffat‘s latest build is the Marie Curie, the first of Earth’s Manchester class attack cruisers which sailed out of the Lagrange shipyard in 2380. What a sleek beauty she is with her subtle dark red highlights and that smooth aerodynamic upper hull covering the intricate ‘greebled’ inner workings of the ship. The little touches of dark tan and yellow add interest and draw the eye to the darker greebled areas — a great way to ensure that all those subtle details are appreciated.

Now, I wonder if John built two Marie Curie attack cruisers or if there’s a clone in our midst?

Don’t let this mecha dragonfly bug you

You would be forgiven for thinking that Big Brother was spying on you if you saw Mitsuru Nikaido’s mech dragonfly whizz past. This is no ordinary insect with its cybernetic appearance and yet the builder has managed to maintain the delicate form of a real dragonfly. I particularly love those dangling legs and the repeating structures within the main body and tail.

If you like mecha insects, you will like this mecha damselfly we previously blogged. Mitsuru’s dragonfly is significantly larger than the damselfly and would definitely require a heavy duty fly swatter.

Gini’s Home Electrical Store is now open on BrickHills Avenue

It is the early 1960s and we are going for a stroll down BrickHills Avenue with builder Andrew Tate. Andrew has created a lovely scene with Art Deco-inspired architecture centering on Gini’s home electrical store on the corner. There is definitely evidence of the source of inspiration being a movie theater, and Andrew mentions the Warner Beverly Hills theater and Sunset Boulevard theatre at Disney Studios in his own description.

This build is not just a façade, as Andrew has also designed some interior views. The image below is clearly from Gini’s home electrical store. It looks to be a source for colourful refrigerators, washing machines and expensive cookers — more than enough to meet the desires of a mini-housewife!

LEGO lighthouse shines brightly

Kołobrzeg Lighthouse is located in Kołobrzeg on the Polish coast of the Baltic Sea. Piotr Machalski has build a very nice rendition of this landmark in LEGO, capturing its curvaceous architecture in brick form. The real lighthouse is is a red brick cylindrical tower that emits a light that can been seen nearly 30km away. There are lots of techniques for creating curves from LEGO, many of which hail from builders who favour castle-themed creations, but it’s always nice to see similar techniques used for other types of building. The main central portion uses a mix of round and regular bricks but the outer wall is all about the power of bending LEGO.

This lighthouse we blogged previously uses a similar technique as the main tower in Piotr’s build.

Duelling LEGO Knight with spurious shield

These duelling knights are clearly having a medieval difference in opinion, perhaps a pretty damsel in distress is the source of their angst? This vingette by DavidFNJ is a lovely little scene that has been photographed very well to demonstrate depth of field and a perfect angle to make the viewer part of the action. The colours used for the surrounding woodland and rocky areas are both realistic and attractive.

Look at the anger on the Knight’s face, he means business. I imagine the other chap is actually distracted by his opponent’s unusual shield decoration, its not often you see the sprue (a piece of extra plastic holding two elements together as part of the moulding process) used as an unofficial part!