With lots of friends on Flickr pursuing a broad variety of geeky pursuits other than LEGO, actual LEGO models that look like their real-world inspirations sometimes slip past. Peter Reid‘s series of turtle robots are certainly adorable, but putting one of them in a disassembled state on what appears to be a plastic sprue is positively mind-blowing. Even the tools are brick-built.
Thanks to Ed Diment for making sure we corrected this miss.
While we were distracted by images of the 2012 LEGO Avengers sets that Marvel released, our friends over at FBTB were busily covering all the news from Toy Fair 2012 in New York.
Leading the way, we finally have detailed photos of the LEGO Lord of the Rings sets (full coverage). I’m particularly excited by the new articulated horses.
Helm’s Deep looks like a great set for Castle builders and LOTR fans alike.
The LEGO Star Wars license was renewed for another 10 years, with lots of new sets this year. I’m liking the new Jabba’s Palace (full coverage).
The brand-new “Monster Fighters” theme harkens back to the LEGO Studios sets of a decade ago, with some interesting new figs (full coverage).
More photos to pore over in the FBTB photostream, and write-ups on FBTB.net.
Jon Hall is at it again, posting awesome sky-fi fighters. His latest airplane combines masterful sticker usage with a unique design.
Since the last time we highlighted one of Jon’s fighters, he’s posted a few other beauties, not least of which is the fierce-looking “Viper”:
We love a nice big sailing ship here at The Brothers Brick, so I was very happy to run across this beauty by Sean and Steph Mayo (Siercon and Coral). But then I did a double-take when I realized that it’s actually microscale.
The close-in shots reveal just how small this ship actually is, and how much detail Sean and Steph built into the model. The planking on the decks is especially brilliant.
The LEGO Steampunk ROCK and ROLL contest recently wrapped up, and Théo (Titolian) came out on top in the “Small Rock” category with his entry titled “Aloft.”
The tiny house is adorable, with not only a balloon and the usual magic to hold up the rock, but also a big propellor. Not content to go miniature, Théo also built an even smaller micro version of his own entry.
Via MicroBricks.
Sometimes, you start building one thing and it ends up as something else.
I’ve been having great fun building micro for the last few months, and got out my bins of orange and medium-blue (yes, I sort some of my LEGO by color) because, well, they’re complementary and I hadn’t built anything with them yet.
I loved my tiny science vessel (right), but wanted to do something slightly bigger, in the same scale.
Instead, what came together was a futuristic submersible, which I’ve decided is an Underwater Autonomous Vehicle like ENDURANCE, designed to explore the icy depths of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. In honor of the composer-astronomer who discovered this moon (as well as the planet Uranus) and the explorer who discovered Antarctica, I’m calling it Herschel-Lazerev.
For the past decade or so, I’ve done all of my writing in nothing but Moleskine notebooks. Moleskines have never been more than an arm’s length away, accompanying me on trips to England, New Zealand, and Ireland, capturing details and inspiration for my life on the literary fringe. Occasionally, I’d jot down ideas for LEGO builds.
With the upcoming release of officially licensed LEGO Moleskine notebooks, I’ll have a dedicated place to put my lists of micro-space ship classes, World War II vehicles, plans for next year’s collaborative display, and sketches of interstellar refueling depots.
All four are available for pre-order on Amazon.com:
I’ve ordered all four, and I’ll let you know what I think when they arrive.
I’ve been enjoying halfbeak‘s LEGO creations for a while now, but it seems I hadn’t managed to blog any yet, so I’m glad he posted this strange little micro-ship. Halfbeak is also great at writing very tiny stories to go with his very tiny ships — backstories that don’t overwhelm the model and actually add something.
While we’re at it, he posted a great pair of “colonial ark” ships back in December. Click through for the excellent micro-story.
Our good friend Huw over at Brickset recently attended the UK Toy Fair in London. Huw writes, “Although photography was not allowed on the stand, there was nothing stopping photos being taken of the stand: the sides and, for that matter, from the balcony above. This picture was decorating the side of the stand and as you can see it shows the whole Fellowship of the Ring.”
Read all of Huw’s report about the LOTR sets over on Brickset, and be sure to check out the rest of his coverage.
Official photos of the latest addition to the modular building line surfaced recently. At 2766 pieces with 8 minifigs, 10224 Town Hall appears to be the largest modular building to date.
Here it is with the other recent modular buildings:
Our contacts at LEGO promise to share details about pricing and availability closer to the official announcement, but enjoy the photos for now.
As OJ says over on The Living Brick, “The great thing about Japan and China using the same zodiacal chart but celebrating the New Year on different dates is that I get to do this twice!” Indeed.
Schneider Cheung celebrates the Year of the Dragon with the most wonderfully sculpted Chinese dragon I’ve ever seen.
Meanwhile, rack911 celebrates with a depiction of Cai Shen, the God of Wealth, complete with a golden dragon and a bowl for treasure.
