Over at Eurobricks Luke Hutchinson (Derfel Cardarn) is running a ‘live’ how-to guide to building a medieval village. It’s a great way to learn some new tricks and follow a builders approach to construction. Just be ready to buy a lot of 1×1 rounds if you want to build as you read.
You might be able to guess I’m going through my recent additions to my blog list. These two steam train pictures look so nice together I’m going to save myself some typing and blog them together. Both are excellent models and showcase the advantages of building trains at 8-wide. Which needs to be showcased since it is a dirty size[1].
First we have Cale Leiphart‘s USRA Light Mikado from World War I as operated by the Baltimore and Ohio railway.
Followed by this excellent diorama by Tony Sava (SaveTheAggie) from his series “The Texas Brick Railroad”.
[1] That’s a train-head joke. There’s joking banter between 6/7w builders and 8w builders that dates back many years.
Marko Velic posted this amazing trebuchet a week ago. Today I finally get around to posting it. It’s exceedingly clever because it works, is only 120 pieces and you can vote for it on Cuusoo.
The purpose of this post is two-fold: 1) to show off Dave Stannard’s (Brickhead) excellent models and 2) to serve as inspiration and a reminder for the 7777 Redux contest.
Dave has been working on his LBB layout for quite a long time and, to me, it exemplifies what LEGO Ideas Books are all about, and that KISS can apply to LEGO models too. Dave’s models aren’t full of weird and tricky connections but they still look really great. Not they’re free of SNOT or studless but on the whole he keeps his techniques close to that of official sets. If you’re thinking of entering the 7777 Redux contest you could do worse than to check out his photostream.
The winners of the Maschinen Krieger (Ma.K.) Starfighter contest have just been announced. In the words of its creator TR Brownbridge (.Tromas),
One last thing…I think I can speak for Tim & Peter when I say this…this was without a doubt the best line up of contest entries that we have ever seen. You have no idea how hard it was for me (us) to narrow it down to a final 10 let alone final 3. Everyone of you should be super proud of your entries!!
First place went to Robiwan Kenobi’s Neuntöter which has already been blogged here
In second place was the Space Falke by Gregory Haga (The Lantern Rouge)
Third place went to Mountain King with his Dragonfly
The quality of the entries was absolutely superb. I have to admit I wasn’t expecting many people at all to capture the Ma.K. vibe (as I see it) and was utterly blown away but how many people did, and how well they did it. We really had a a hard time even narrowing down the final entries and picking a winner was a real challenge. Make sure you go to the entry thread to understand why we had such a hard time.
One thing we all agreed on is that John Judy’s (neim343) entry was both amazing and ineligible. While the paint took it up a notch it did breach the rules that no model should be painted, merely parts. But we all felt it needed honourable mention as it wouldn’t look out of place on the winners podium of a ‘real’ Ma.K. contest without being restricted to LEGO.
Finally the “Heart Tile” award for best use of an existing printed LEGO brick had to go to Tyler Clites’ (legohaulic) Höllenhound. The zebra tile was odd yet looked great and was thus a natural winner.
It’s been way too long since Mladen Pejic posted a new mecha but he tells me he hopes it’ll be less time until his next one. In the meantime we have his latest Mobile Platform “Orca” to ogle, and, given many readers may not be aware of Mladen’s stuff his mecha back catalogue and all the rest.
Ben Beneke is one of the greats of LEGO train building, with even his old steamers still standing out as some of the best. I’d been wondering what had happened to Ben recently (he usually posts at least one new train a year) but apparently he’s been spending time making excellent animations using LDraw and POVray. An animation like this is really hard to do in POVray. I know, I’ve tried.
I’m fairly sure I’ve never been ten-pin bowling. I’m even more sure that Dave Shaddix has. From the mosaic on the wall, to the hotdogs on the grill, this diorama has everything I imagine a bowling alley should have. And more.
I’m so used to seeing excellent teensy spaceships from Rodney Bistline (Buster) that I had to check twice that I had the name right. I did. This delightful helicopter combines Rodney’s gorgeous use of shape and colour with a more contemporary design. I want to see more near-future stuff from you, Rodney. Got that!
Ralph Savelsberg (Mad physicist) recently completed his P-61 night-fighter and decided to show it off with its German counterpart. Although if looks won wars I’d have my money on the Axis.
Brian Williams (BMW_Indy) is definitely not a LEGO purist and likes to do things his own way. With results like this I can see why. Whenever I see something new by Brian I always find myself questioning my own rules.
I’ve never seen The Wild Wild West TV show that inspired this creation, but I have to admit I’m tempted now. The idea of a lab on track is pretty cool.
This was an entry for the Spaghetti Western contest on Eurobricks and you can vote for your favourite train here.
Not only was it really difficult to choose a `lead’ shot for this amazing collection of castles, it’s quite hard to quite describe the bizzarre form of creative genius RoxYourBlox has used for them. They’re casles, but not as you’ve ever seen them. Making tidy work of both LDD and excel for the trigonometry he (I assume) has created some of the oddest geometric castle-like structures I’ve ever seen. And you should see the one that didn’t make it to the brick.
