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

The Vitruvian LEGO Cat

You may be familiar with the Vitruvian Man, a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci showing the human body’s proportions, but have you seen flambo14‘s Vitruvian LEGO Cat?

According to the text of da Vinci’s original:

“if you open your legs enough that your head is lowered by one-fourteenth of your height and raise your hands enough that your extended fingers touch the line of the top of your head, know that the centre of the extended limbs will be the navel, and the space between the legs will be an equilateral triangle”

In the case of flambo14’s cat:

“if you look cute and purr, then no one will notice that you are out of proportion”

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LEGO Worms with arms

Worms was an artillery strategy video game released in 1995, back when worms were fashionable. The sometimes-controversial builder Suck My Brick has nicely captured these well-armed and battle-ready guys in LEGO form. There is definitely a humorous side to arming worms with grenades, flame-throwers and machine guns, and the comedy has been transferred to these brick versions. From hot dog bun eyebrows, through a cigarette-chomping worm, through to a Rambo-worm with bad teeth, what’s not to love about these little dudes?

My favourite is the grumpy warworn worm on the right with his grenade and WWII-style helmet. There’s some ingenious parts usage to create his grenade pin. Shame he has no hands to pull the pin and throw it!

This LEGO drone cannot wear skinny jeans

This LEGO drone by Guy Smiley has the build of a machine aimed at impact and intimidation rather than agility and speed. It bears a resemblance to the drones in the awesome short film Keloid, a source of inspiration for LEGO drones since 2013. Those thunderous thighs would make a grown man quiver, not to mention the weaponry carried in its arms. I’m not exactly sure what type of weapon is in its left arm, but it looks like some sort of futuristic chain gun with a handy supply of rounds in the chamber.

I particularly like Guy’s colour blocking technique, the use of two main colours nicely highlight the shaping of his drone. There are some clever parts in there if you take a closer look, it’s not often cupboard doors form the head of a drone!

If you liked this build, Check out this previously blogged Militech Weapons Platform and drones by drone builder extraordinaire, Devid VII which were also inspired by the film Keloid.

Hispabrick Magazine 25 is out now [News]

Hispabrick Magazine issue 025 is out now and is packed full of articles. As always, this magazine is free to download and is available in both English and Spanish.

This issue includes:

An in-depth review and test drive of Set 42056 Porsche GT3 RS.
The creator of series of Star Wars Maxifigs talks about his ‘larger than life’ creations.
Reviews of
- 75098: Assault on Hoth
- Minecraft 21128: The Village
- 71012 – LEGO® Minifigures Disney™ Series 1
- 71011 – Collectible Minifigures Series 15
- 21305 – The Maze
- 76052-1: Batman™ Classic TV Series – Batcave
- Energy LEGO® Tablet 8”
Exhibition of LEGO® constructions at the XIV Collectors Fair in Mungia
A look at fan creations, this time the theme is sailboats.
A review and photos of Nathan Sawaya’s touring exhibition “The Art of the Brick”.
The team take a look at the updated WeDo 2.0 robotics set and compares the new educational robotics sets to their predecessors.

This latest issue can be downloaded in PDF format – Hispabrick Magazine 025 PDF (English)

This LEGO Tardis is definitely bigger on the inside

This LEGO version of the Tardis interior takes its inspiration from Doctor Who Series 9 and was built by Jared over the course of the past year. The Tardis is well known as Doctor Who’s time travel machine and is infamous for being bigger on the inside. Jared’s version is definitely big on details inside with the cylindrical console area front and centre, complete with the orange glow sticks (I’m sure they have an more scientific name).

Jared took an atmospheric second photograph with some great lighting that definitely captures the mood of Doctor Who; slightly eerie, intriguing and a real, ethereal feel.

Life-sized scale models in LEGO

Wait…I know what you are thinking, The Brothers Brick lets another sister start blogging and she gets distracted and starts posting about fashion and sewing machine techniques! Look again: the items adorning this table are life-sized scale models all built with LEGO bricks. The Singer sewing machine, glasses, scissors and tailor’s chalk are very accurately depicted using LEGO as part of an exhibition called the Tiong Bahru Show by The Brick Collective that took place at Temasek Polytechnic in Singapore.

Another scene from The Brick Collective show is a typical cafe in the 1980s with some snacks, drinks and the classic Coca-Cola sign on the wall. When I say typical, clearly this is location dependant as Green Spot, Egg tarts, Siew Mai were not on the menu in my hometown of Glasgow, Scotland in the 1980s.

If you want a closer look and images of further scaled LEGO builds that appeared in the show, then you will find more within crayonbricks album on Flickr.

It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this...

Link is the main protagonist in the best selling roleplaying-puzzle-action franchise The Legend of Zelda. This LEGO model of Link by Nathanael Kuipers accurately depicts him characteristically wearing a green tunic and pointed cap. The shaping is excellent, especially the facial features and his green tunic. Nathanael has also taken the time to build the details into Link’s shield and sword using bricks rather than any printed parts – nice attention to detail. It’s a perfect use of the Nexo Knights blade for Link’s sword in this build.

This links nicely on to another LEGO version of the same Zelda character. In this version Koen has rebuilt his previously featured Kirby, the eponymous character from another Nintendo videogame series. Kirby has the in-game ability to inhale enemies, thereby gaining characteristic abilities from them. Clearly by inhaling Link, Kirby has gained the ability to wield a huge sword and wear a green pointed hat without looking like one of Santa’s elves! A lovely fun build.

Poland’s tallest building created in LEGO

The Palace of Culture and Science is the tallest building in Poland and dominates the skyline of the Polish capital, Warsaw. Łukasz Libuszewski has not only recreated the building in LEGO but has also managed to capture his creation in a beautifully atmospheric photograph.

The building’s art deco style is achieved with clean lines, grille tiles for the tall windows and some lovely detailing using texture bricks. I particularly like the seemingly simple parts used by the builder to represent the decorative masonry atop the walls, the original architect purposefully copied this from Renaissance houses and palaces of Kraków and Zamośćthat – a tile with clip and technic gear rack.

The full sets of photographs and views of the Palace of Culture and Science can be seen on Flickr.

LEGO Juno enters Jupiter’s orbit

Chris McVeigh is on target with his latest build of NASA’s space probe Juno. Just as the actual space probe enters Jubiter’s orbit this week after a five-year cruise, Chris releases his own version of the famous space probe built from LEGO. This LEGO version is a great representation of Juno, with accurate shaping and colouring although a much smaller price tag.

In a lovely twist, Juno has carried three aluminium LEGO minifigures with her on the journey to Jupiter. Our original post about the launch of Juno and her minifigure passengers was back in 2011 so it’s great to hear of the successful mission.

Don’t swat this LEGO fly, it may fight back

You could be forgiven for thinking that this latest build by James Bailey was an insect to swat or perhaps a technologically advanced drone spying on your every move. In fact, it is a LEGO damselfly, admittedly looking a little more cybernetic than the real thing. The attention to detail and the clever use of parts drew my attention to this insect initially while some nice photography shows the build off well.

I have to admit that I am a massive fan of the movie director Guillermo Del Toro, and this robotic, steampunk-looking insect is reminiscent of the clockwork insect that are a trademark in many of his films.

Space speeders speeding through space

This great little scene by Sad Brick depicts two speeders racing amongst unusual terrain and alien life-forms. The builder nods to a Neo Classic space theme with the choice of classic space minifigures and the classic space colouring on the lead speeder. These speeders are lovely vehicles, but the parts that I really love are the worm-like animals in the bottom right of the scene.

The builder has created a great unique terrain for his speeders with the peaked structures and the occasional eerie looking tendrils to keep you on edge. This is alien terrain so keep your eyes peeled for the unexpected.

BuWizz – the one brick to steer them all – on Kickstarter [News]

BuWizz is an aftermarket brick designed to bring more precise control and increased power to your LEGO creations. It is the brainchild of Roni Leben and his team over at BuWizz headquarters in Slovenia, who have just started a Kickstarter project to fund its production.

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