About Gambort

I'm a builder with a short attention span and a lot of virtual bricks. I'm probably most known as a train builder and was involved in the creation of LEGO set 10183 but I do a lot of other stuff too. I'm also a member of the LDraw SteerCo and a webmaster for the site.

Posts by Gambort

Post-apocalyptic train

Stijn Oom has just made a stunning post-apocalyptic LEGO diorama for 2013 Mocathlon. Very notable features are the track sinking into the swamp, and the leaning building, but the whole diorama offers a very pleasing mixture of artificial and natural forms.

Packmann

No, that’s not a spelling mistake in the title. Cole Blaq‘s Packmann 850 clearly works in a warehouse packing (or unpacking) shelves. This is LEGO mecha design at its cleanest.

Packmann 850

Crumbling walls

I do like me a good LEGO tehcnical study once in a while. Ethan (-MrMacy-) brings us a doozy of a pair of crumbling walls that is well worth sharing.

Walls (WIP)

Long-legged LEGO Sniper Mecha

Soren Roberts has been without bricks for a while, but it looks like he’s got them in his hot little hands again. Which is great for all lovers of LEGO Mecha. Not only is his Type K a great model, but Soren shows yet again why he’s one of the kings of the genre with his posing.

Type K

EDIT:And if I’d being paying attention before I would have included the Type N too.

Type N

Magnificent “Malleus Maleficarum”

Brick Vader shows off a LEGO textural study in his medieval witchhunting diorama. I’m particularly fond of the surprise studs in the studs forward segments of the wall. And the leaning chimney is very neat. I’m now almost convinced someone can make The Shambles out of LEGO.

And on the topic of trains...

X3800_PicassoPeter Oglivy (Peter.A.B.) has graciously offered to take over the occasional LEGO Trains challenge, and given us a doozy for town and train builders: build a railbus. Railbuses were an important part of rail networks in the 1930s (and even today in some parts of the world) and because of the era and other limitations, are rather difficult to build well in LEGO.

So if you’re keen on a challenge, head on over to LEGO Train MOCs. And even if you’re not, check out the entries as they appear, you’re sure to see some spiffy models and snazzy techniques.

To the right is Henrik Hoexbroe’s take on a Railbus from a while back.

Two for one on Union Pacific

Falk (bricknerd, top) and Peter Norman (swoofty, bottom) performed a trans-Atlantic (respectively in Berlin and LA) LEGO co-build with this cute twinset of Union Pacific (UP) locomotives. Both models are excellent demonstrations of all the techniques good train builders are known for, with clever and varied grilles and other texturing details, as well as some very cunning rod and clip work by Falk in the wheels.

UP 3GS21B

Madder than Mel (or Max)

Way back in time, when Mel Gibson still had an Australian accent and was not openly a nutcase, he starred in an excellent cult movie. That movie, as I’m sure many of you know, was Mad Max. The real stars of the films were the late 70s muscle cars, which bring us to Adam Grabowski’s (misterzumbi) excellent LEGO models. Adam goes one up on the usual replicas of the Ford Interceptor (I’m not even going to try to link to the thousands of versions), and throws in “Nightrider”‘s Holden Monaro too. The Monaro is a very hard car to get right at minfig scale (I’ve tried) and Adam pulls it off very neatly.

MFP Pursuit Specials.

Pumpjack goes round and round and up and down

LEGO is made from plastic. Plastic is made from oil. And Gilcelio Chagas is extracting oil with this neat pumpjack. A pumpjack is essentially a device to convert rotational motion to pumping motion to suck oil out of a well. As Gilcelio illustrates very nicely in his video of the pumpjack at work. I lied about the oil bit, you need to go underground for that.

Pumpjack (See in operation )

LEGO underground train with working platform and train doors. And more.

As though making a very nice looking cutaway street scene with an underground Metro (subway for our US readers) train wasn’t enough, serial genius Esben Kolind has gone several better. His Metro train and station uses NXT, technic and a load of smarts to feature sliding doors which open when the train hits the station. But wait there’s more. Not content with just having the train doors open, the station doors open at the same time, preventing minifig suicide, and impressing the pants off onlookers. And to lift (excuse the pun) his game, Esben also adds a working elevator.

Street Spirit x 2

Joe Klang (-derjoe-) has been busy building a city. Here’s a shot. It’s no secret I like realistic street scenes, so it’s no surprise I love this shot.

Sneak preview

Patrick Bosman is building a city too:

pj_bosman 2013-02-23 Amsterdam Keizersgracht Utrechtsestraat  0431

Studly personality, and a big gun

This post comes two months after Erik (Lemon_boy) first posted his Boyetz and eight days after he posted a trio of them. The lateness is, however, not my fault as flickr keeps dropping people from my contact list, including Erik. This robotic beast has fantastic character, and shows that you can leave studs exposed and still come up with a plausible design.

Boyetz