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

Star Wars podracing under the sea with Ariel

Fan site Imperium der Steine is running a contest to create a LEGO build blending Star Wars and Disney. Cecilie Fritzvold has brought podracing to the world of The Little Mermaid in this colourful podrace under the sea, comically called the Boonta Reef Classic (a parody of the Boonta Eve Classic podrace). Cecilie tells us that the pods are built to match the characters: a clamshell for Ariel, a gastropod shell for Sebastian, and a “dead carcass turned evil” pod for Ursula, pulled by Flotsam and Jetsam.

This unique creation is full of beautiful colours and some ingenious parts used to merge Star Wars podracing into the Little Mermaid’s world. For example, Ursula’s pod mimics Sebulba’s pod in shape, but has a color scheme more befitting the evil octopus witch. For a closer look at the colourful details, check out the close ups in Cecilie’s Boonta Reef Classic album on Flickr.

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A different stop-motion method – “The Farmer”

LEGO stop-motion films or ‘brick films‘ are a popular way to bring LEGO to life. Brick films often feature minifigures and depict movie scenes or action moments using LEGO. Andrea, an Italian fan of LEGO, has employed a stop motion method that is certainly unique. His film shows the smooth creation of a build by Massimiliano Marino. The final creation centers around the Farmer minifigure who appears in Collectible Minifigure Series 15 along with his pig.

The creator Andrea plans further stop-motion fan builds on his YouTube channel AnkTales. The great thing about a stop-motion video of a build is that you can remember how to build it long after it has been deconstructed and the bricks used for the next project, not to mention letting other builders take a look at the construction process.

An epic LEGO tale of death

This fantastic vingette by Thorsten Bonsch is a LEGO recreation of a scene from the Elder Scrolls Online (ESO). The ESO is an online multiplayer role playing game and this particular scene comes from the latest part of the saga, The Thieves Guild. The build is not an action scene but, as Thorsten calls it, a ‘still life’ that tells a story – can you imagine what happened by looking at the evidence left behind?

The builder uses a great building technique to curve the bricks and allow the ground to slope gently upwards to the right side. In addition, the rock formations are very nicely shaped and hints of colour are just enough to capture your attention. The more I look at this scene, the more intriguing I find it.

Personally, I think that a huge snake-like creature has eaten the first man and then reaches the second and kills him just as he mortally wounds the snake with a spear to the heart. All that remains are the bones and undigested evidence that tells the story of their deaths.

Previous ESO-based creations by Thorsten have been blogged by us and are worth a second look: the City of Orsinium, the Stonefalls in Morrowind, and an amazing 11,000 piece portal called The Dolmen.

Alien kills Predator with a LEGO flipper

The 2004 movie Alien vs Predator was a clash of two eponymous sci-fi creatures to bring the comic action to the big screen. Grantmasters has captured the penultimate moment from the movie in LEGO, when the Alien Queen has mortally wounded Predator with a thrust of her tail to his torso and his green blood drips spills.

Grantmasters has cleverly utilised a host of parts to create this scene in ‘small scale’. Black minifigure hands form the feet of Alien, while lime green depict Predator’s dripping life-blood. The minifigure diver’s flipper also makes a fantastically unusual appearance as a wound!

The characters are cleverly built and a few subtle landscape details add to the scene without distracting from the main event. I hope Grantmasters continues with Alien vs Predator Requiem next…

Not just a tree house, but a LEGO tree fort

Did you have a tree house as a child? jsnyder would have been very disappointed by my basic tree house if his LEGO tree fort reflects his idea of one. This creation is on three levels with a swing bridge that spans across two huge trees. There is a look out at the top of the largest tree with a telescope to keep an eye out for potential attack (or parents looking for you at bedtime). The trees themselves are well shaped and I love the mix of studs on show and tiles to add texture.

The details are really adorable in this build, for example the tyre swing and rope pulley system to allow a crate of resupplies (perhaps more ice lollies) to be lifted high up into the tree.

You can see more detailed views of the tree fort on his Billy’s Tree Fort album on Flickr.

Portable LEGO Seismograph

It is strangely appropriate that Kosmas Santosa, a builder from Jakarta, Indonesia, has built a LEGO seismograph. Indonesia is a country that is heavily affected by earthquakes due to its location within the Pacific Ring of Fire.

Kos has been utilising the ‘paint roller‘ in all sorts of ingenious ways this month, and his vintage seismograph is no exception. The locks on the front of the case, the levers on the top right of the machine and the pens that record the output are all constructed from the paint roller.

I wonder what happens when you press the red buttons?

LEGO Forklift truck in action

It is not often that I associate the word “adorable” with a forklift truck, but mahjqa has built a forklift truck that fits the description perfectly. Bonus points go to the builder for using my favourite Medium Azure colour for the body of this fully functional forklift truck. It’s compact, but packs a lot of power into such a small package.

More importantly than looks, those forks really can lift! Mhajqa demonstrates this perfectly in his compelling video of the little LEGO forklift busy at work.

As an aside, you will see many palletized goods in the video that are fantastic builds in their own right and are worth a closer look.

LEGO Vianen City Hall is steeped in history

The City Hall of Vianen sits within the small historical city of Vianen in the province Utrecht in the Netherlands. Sebastian Arts has managed to capture so many details of this beautiful old building that we simply had to share it. The ancient stonework is very well done and the whole design is accurate to the actual building in Vianen, right down to the position of the bench.

The turret at the rear of the hall is equally impressive, the builder’s use of different bricks and earthy tones has really brought the old stonework to life in LEGO. The windows are cleverly crafted from fences rotated 90°. The rear view also show a nice contrast between the old and new buildings side by side.

A LEGO Mario Bros Wiggler to brighten your day

Koen has managed to capture the cute shape and colours of a Wiggler in its calm state in his latest LEGO creation. There are many Mario Bros fans out there who will not need an explanation of what a Wiggler is but, for the uninitiated, Wigglers are caterpillar-like creatures in the Mario Bros games. In their usual state, Wigglers are yellow in colour and happy, relaxed little creatures, but when jumped on they turn red and become dangerous and unpredictably angry.

Koen has cleverly used a mudguard part to depict the gentle curve of the Wiggler’s smiling mouth and utilised Bionicle joints to allow those caterpillar legs to get into position. With the cute daisy to top things off, this is an instantly recognisable build.

Mario Bros have been featured numerous times here at TBB, so fans might enjoy taking a look at these previously blogged creations:

Super Mario Bros Bricks
Brick-built Mario bounces toward LEGO Bowser
LEGO Super Mario Blocks are ready for punching
Lego MarioKart
How much would you pay for a 6 ft tall Mario?

LEGO Angry Birds 75824: Pig City Teardown [Review]

The first wave of Angry Bird sets have already been released here in the UK, and consists of six sets ranging from Set 75821 Piggy Car Escape (Price UK £11.99/US $12.99) to Set 75826 King Pig’s Castle (Price UK £74.99/US $89.99). You can see the full lineup in our initial news coverage of the Angry Birds sets, and we also got a first-hand look at them at Toy Fair New York last month. The Angry Birds sets are due for release in the US in April and are not available online or within the US LEGO Stores at present. The Angry Birds sets are all colourful and enticing for the ‘recommended’ age range, between 6-12 or 8-14 as the set size increases. For those of us who are perhaps slightly older than this range, fear not…there are a host of new moulds, re-colours and great new printed tiles that will also bring great joy.

Click to read the full review

First look at The LEGO Batman Movie, including teaser trailer [News]

Following on from the global success of The LEGO Movie back in 2014, a spin-off movie starring the supremely popular LEGO Batman character is due for release on Februrary 10th, 2017. The LEGO Batman Movie stars Batman, once more voiced by Will Arnett. Warner Bros have released a few stills from the movie to give us a sneak peak.

[Update] Hot on the heels of the film stills being released, Warner Brothers has released the full teaser trailer.

Click to see more stills from the movie

Our thoughts are with Brussels: A LEGO tribute

Yesterday’s bombing attacks in Brussels left over 30 dead and hundreds wounded during bombings at the airport and Metro, with responsibility being claimed by Daesh.

TBB’s own Simon Liu has created this touching tribute showing Belgium’s famous son Tintin and Snowy the dog giving comfort to each other with the flag of Belgium in the background.

Our thoughts are with Belgium and the friends and family of those killed or wounded in the attacks.