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

Fancy a stay at the Monochrome Motel?

This atmospheric building by Pete Strege is called the Monotone Motel and almost seems like a black and white image until you spot the coloured minifigures near the staircase. The neo-gothic inspired architecture has some great brickwork detail near the base using old dark grey tiles against the dark blueish grey bricks. I particularly love the use of Thor hammers across the central area to add texture and detail to the stonework. The mix of old greys and the newer blueish grey LEGO colours allow some contrast within the grey-scale colour scheme.

It’s worth taking a closer look at the clock to see the details and clever parts used, a foil, a short spear with Pin Hole and a sword blade with bar. The builder mentioned that he searched for weeks for just the right parts, I think it’s a great combination.

Flickr album.

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Nine projects qualify for the first 2016 LEGO Ideas review [News]

The official LEGO Ideas blog has just confirmed that nine LEGO Ideas projects have hit the 10,000 votes required to go on to the first review of 2016.

The nine projects include two Star Wars based ideas – a rolling BB-8 and the Jedi high council chamber. There are four minifigure scale buildings: an old fishing store, modular railway station, Jurassic Park visitor centre and a gingerbread house. The movie based project this time is Johnny Five, a model of the eponymous robot. Finally, in the science themed section we have a fossil museum display of dinosaur skeletons and a functional model of a particle accelerator.

Readers: Which projects have captured your attention, and which do you think will go on to pass the strict LEGO review criteria and become an actual LEGO set?

See a short description of each project by the creator after the jump

LEGO Omnibot, the fully programmable robot ...with memory!

Back in the mid-1980s kids across the world were begging their parents to buy them an Omnibot. Toy manufacturer Tomy released Omnibot 5402, and Peter Reid has built this adorable LEGO version. The advert-style background compliments this awesome LEGO robot perfectly. The build was created for a ‘parts challenge’ over on parts-obsessed blog New Elementary and the eyes of the robot utilise the new Nexo Knights part trans neon orange bar with towball. What a great way to utilise this new part!

So just as I get over not receiving a Tomy Omnibot for my 8th birthday, I now long for my own LEGO Omnibot all these years later…

UnMASKing these high performance vehicles

Hobbestimus may well be giving away his status as a child of the 80s with this fantastic set of the three main vehicles from the Mobile Armored Strike Kommand. M.A.S.K. was an animated television series that screened in the mid-80s and spawned all sorts of goodies like action figures, comics, videogames and so on. From the left we have Rhino — a large truck, Thunderhawk — the red Chevrolet Camaro that could also fly, and Condor — a stealth motorcycle that could cunningly turn into a helicopter for those moments when high speed chases needed a little extra lift…

Not only was Rhino a huge truck, but it also formed a mobile defense unit with cannons, a battering-ram bumper, and a missile launcher. The builder has managed to capture all these great additions in his LEGO version.

Hobbestimus has a few other M.A.S.K builds and closer views of these vehicles in his Flickr M.A.S.K. album.

Adam Bomb explodes in LEGO

Garbage Pail Kids began their lives as trading cards way back in 1985, just as the Cabbage Patch dolls were peaking in popularity. The Garbage Pail kids were a parody of the ‘nicer’ cabbage patch dolls with catchy names such as ‘Joe Blow’, ‘Moist Joyce’ and ‘Barfin’ Barbara.’ Damoncorso has chosen the explosively named Adam Bomb to build and has captured the character animatedly in LEGO.

If anyone else is looking for inspiration from the Garbage Pail Kids, there are about 660 of them in total so there are plenty more gross images to chose from.

Let’s hoedown to High Noon City

Monostrophic has built a real Western themed treat for LEGO fans with this large scale diorama called High Noon City. There are many fantastic details to be found in this huge creation from water towers, Indian lookouts, covered wagons, gold-diggers working in the gold-mine, a water mill and a busy railway platform. Of course, everything takes place around the railway line that encircles the entire build complete with steam train chugging along.

The water tower and railway platform are particular favourites of mine with the typical high roofed station building that also houses the sheriff. To the left, it seems that some naughty boys are being brought to the sheriff for some Wild West style justice. Don’t worry about too many wild activities though, the cavalry are just around the next corner.

You can see all the details in close-up views on Flickr in the builder’s High Noon City album.

Yee-haw!

A phantom LEGO Hero encased in silver

Meet the latest build from TBB favourite, Japanese builder Moko. This stunning figure is a unique blend of Bionicle and Hero parts. Moko has a real talent to get seemingly unrelated parts to attach and form a beautifully shaped mecha. The silver colouring of this build is perfect for the robotic shaping and the textured surfaces of the Bionicle and Hero parts.

This Bionicle-Hero hybrid is also highly poseable as you can see. And… lunge… 2… 3… 4.

This LEGO gallery is a work of art

This fantastic minifig scale art gallery is a creation by Tyler Sky and his wife Frances. The gallery includes both LEGO depictions of actual works of art and some new creations by the builders themselves. Atop the largest floor, you can see a LEGO version of Four Boats Stranded and inside the large window the obvious red square is part of Composition II in Red, Blue and Yellow. The Orca on display in the foreground is definitely one of my favourite parts of this build.

The inside of Tyler’s art gallery is worth taking a virtual stroll through. See if you can spot the white croissants used as an internal architectural feature. Don’t miss the tribute to Bob Ross on the first floor balcony; he is standing painting happy little trees.

A dropship delivering more than just LEGO bricks

A dropship is a fictional aerial transport vehicle featured frequently in science fiction and video games, and this is a fine example built by Horčik Designs. This particular dropship has aggressive shaping and plenty of weaponry to provide security. Horčik has clearly spent a great deal of time adding stickers to complete the look. The variety of slopes, curves and angles used is really very impressive.

Check out those sexy angles and the aggressive nose art…

You can see other views on Horčik’s VTOL dropship album on Flickr. A previous dropship blogged by TBB happens to be a favourite of mine and is also worth a look, the Syd Mead inspired dropship.

Goings-on at the tavern

Patrick B has created a traditional wooden tavern that lies in the fictional kingdom of Brandküste, one of nine kingdoms from an online role-playing game on the German-language LEGO fansite Imperium der Steine. The tavern has some lovely architectural details and a sloped roof with a mix of tiles and studs on show to add texture. The character details are fun and engaging: an archer aims his arrow at the apple on top of his friends head, there’s a basin of water being used to wash some of the dishes and a comedy moment as some poor soul falls down the stairs.

Does anyone else agree that the two statues on the staircase are wild boars? I may have to check with the builder as I am not an expert in zoology.

A lineup of well-known Simpsons characters

The characters from America’s longest running animated series The Simpsons have been immortalised by LEGO already with two series of collectible minifigures. Now SuckMyBrick has brought them to life once more in brick-built form. Naturally, the main Simpson family members are all here along with a few key characters from the show such as Mr. Burns, Krusty the Clown and Groundskeeper Willie. The 1×1 round eye tile and the larger 2×2 round eye tile equivalent are perfect for the cartoon features depicted in the tv series.

You can see close up views of each individual character on SuckMyBrick’s The Simpson’s album. Brick-built characters from The Simpsons have also been featured before on The Brothers Brick, as you can see in previous posts like The Simpsons made from LEGO bricks.

A windswept hobbit escape

This diorama by TBB’s own contributor Jen Spencer depicts the scene from The Fellowship of the Ring at the Prancing Pony Inn just after the wraiths swoop in and stab the beds that the Hobbits are supposed to be sleeping in. The windswept atmosphere and dishevelled room is beautifully illustrated by the thrown-open window with curtains blowing, the overturned stool, pictures awry and—my own favourite part—the mattress that is askew.

This diorama really captures the imagination. Even if you have not seen this scene in the movie, it is clear that someone has left the room in a hurry and something sinister is going on. Jen’s diorama is actually an entry into the 2016 Middle Earth Lego Olympics over on MOC pages. Good luck to all the competitors currently flexing their Middle Earth muscles!