About Keith Goldman

See Keith Goldman's LEGO models on Flickr.

Posts by Keith Goldman

Friday Night Fights (Round 22)

Welcome back fight fans, to Sin City Nevada for another rope-a-dope edition of Friday Night Fights! Tonight’s bout features two maritime maestros dueling for the honor of Poseidon and of course, your voting pleasure. Let’s go to the tale of the tape:

Fighting out of the red corner, from the Land of the Rising Sun…”Dangerous” Dak yuki and his “Aegis Ship.”

And fighting out of the blue corner, from the digital side of the tracks, Matt “The Bomber” Bace and his “Mini Inland Ferry“.

As usual, constant reader, you are tasked with deciding the outcome of this pugilistic endeavor by way of comment. On the last edition of Friday Night Fights, the battle of the SHIPwrights, sky4walker disintegrated his opponent with a score of 7-4. Tune in next week for another action packed edition of Friday Night Fights!

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“The albatross begins with its vengeance”

Come fly with me, constant reader, before the weekend draws to a close and the Monday factory whistle blows. Our conveyance is provided by the always impressive David Roberts and his “Albatross“, while the soundtrack is provided by Iron Maiden, who I had the great fortune to see recently on tour here in Vegas. Rock on David, way to bring the clean lines, bold colors and snappy presentation. I’ll see the rest of you next Friday at the fights.

The Four Faces of Jose Carlos Fernandez

We complete today’s Orange Trilogy with this many-scaled celebration of the self by the builder mentioned in the title, Madrid’s own Jose Carlos Fernandez (Lego-Man-at-arms). One thing is for certain; to deny the power of the maxi-figs beard would be perilous.

Jose also likes to draw a comic from time to time and I found this one to be all too familiar.

I’m gonna cut you good!

Joe Perez (MortalSwordsman) returns by popular demand with this manga inspired Angel Dragon. The builder calls it an “action figure“, and with a pose like this, who am I to debate such wisdom.

“It’s the Orange Blossom Special Bringin’ my baby back”

We can’t let a weekend slip by without something for our valued Train-heads, the progenitors of our shared hobby. To that end, Poland’s Maciej Drwięga would like to share his latest effort with you the very orange “PKP WM15A heavy rail truck“, a staple of the Polish rail system. Not only is the design pleasing to the eye, it has some nice play features as well like moving crane and a tilting bed. The builder credits Mrzumbi’s 2006 version for inspiring this build.

“We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical.”

Frequent contributor Chris McVeigh (powerpig) stops by the TBB watchtower with his latest nostalgic model entitled “57 Channels and Nothing On“. I’m sure Springsteen would dig this model, as he no doubt had a similar set growing up in Jersey. The wallpaper is a nice touch, but as a few of the commentators on Flickr pointed out, the table should have been made out of Lego. The builder had some decidedly convenient artistic rhetoric about not wanting to keep the focus on the T.V. but many of us are just not buying it. Come on Chris, nit-picky AFOLs are watching, step up your game before it’s too late. When writing this entry I came across an old posting from 2008 that some of you may find interesting.

“We now return control of your television set to you.”

“We’re not going to Moscow. It’s Czechoslovakia. It’s like going into Wisconsin.”

Matt Bace (mmbace) takes us back to 1981’s “Stripes” and one of most bad-ass RV’s in cinematic history, the EM-50 Urban Assault Vehicle. “That’s a fact, Jack.”

Herakles, Herakles, Heracles!

One great thing to come out of the collectible minifig craze has been a renewed effort by builders to capture ancient Greece in all its mythological splendor. The latest builder to capitalize on the available cast of characters is mihaimmariusmihu who brings to life one of the labors of Herakles; the rescue of Prometheus from his eternal torture chained to a rock at the foot of Kazbek Mountain. The admittedly few sources I checked indicated that this particular labor was not one of the original 12, but was sort of an extended adventure. I’m sure Hesiod and Aeschylus would agree, however, that this is a great diorama with bold colors and classical details, even if the gang of minotaurs seems a little odd. Unfortunately this is one of the few times I was hoping for a back-story or explanation of some kind, the builder doesn’t have much to say on Flickr. Perhaps this posting will coax him out.

Tomb of Swords

The title of our next featured model sounds more like the name of a module from Dungeons & Dragons, filed right next to “Shrine of the Kuo-Toa” or “Queen of the Demonweb Pits”….not that I would know anything about such a dorky game. The diorama was designed by lisqr, who really shows a mastery of how to compose a shot here. The purists among you need not fear, the swords are stuck in the gaps between log-bricks and do not appear to be cut, glued, or otherwise mangled. One of my initial reactions was to admire the builder’s choice of having only one minifig present in the expansive scene, it really adds to the desolate feeling of the diorama. You can’t actually see him in this photo, he’s just off-screen to the left, but you can get a better view in lisqr’s full set. This shot just appealed to me the most, even with the ghostly light-switch in the background it’s a critical hit!

Drifting Shield and friends

Anto-nio returns to the Brothership by appealing to my love of all things VTOL, but this time he doesn’t have to share a roundup style posting. Not only is the “Drifting Shield” VTOL quite pleasing to the eye with its broadly sloping surfaces and groovy textures, but the builder has also included a couple of ground vehicles at no extra charge. The jeep is especially nice but the effect of all three is more than the sum of its parts. It almost looks like an entire toy-line based on a summer blockbuster. I would say it looks like an official Lego theme, but there is no incarceration facility or tiny diorama with some kind of trap-door.

“A Belfast Story”

It’s time to celebrate the success of one of our own, constant reader, a 15 year veteran of the hobby known far and wide as Nathan Todd who’s first feature film has just today hit the big-screens in the UK. No it has nothing to do with Lego, but when a cherished member of our tribe makes good on this level I think it is incumbent upon us to raise our collective glass in celebration. I had the good fortune of meeting Nathan at Chicago’s BrickWorld back in 2010; he’s one of those characters you meet at a convention that makes an immediate and indelible impression, so much so that I jumped at the chance to pimp his film. However, in an attempt to appease concerned parties I’ve included a couple of outstanding Irish themed models at the end of this shameless advertisement. IMDB provides the plot synopsis:

“A BELFAST STORY” explores life after terrorism. Set in a city which has weathered hundreds of years of hatred, 30 years of bombs and a war without winners, just victims. A new era brings new risks. There is peace, but that can also be deadly.”

Some of you with proper nerd credentials will recognize the film’s star Colm Meany, but there is also considerable talent behind the scenes. According to Mr. Director:

“We had some amazing good fortune in not only being one of the first projects (in any field) to bring together contributors from the two sides of our war torn city and have them work together, but also had some really amazing Hollywood lads throw in their skills to bring what would otherwise be a very local story up to the big screen. (The crew has 24 Oscar Nominations between them, take a look through the production notes if you want a good laugh about just which high powered lads will give in and help you if you annoy them enough.)“.

The film has not been released in the U.S. as of this posting, so I don’t have an official rating to pass on but given the subject matter and the trailer, it wouldn’t be appropriate for young kids or sensitive mankinder. If it helps your appreciation of the film at all, Nathan did specifically mention that he thought building Lego dioramas payed off while working on the project. If you’re interested in seeing the film and supporting Nathan, head over to the official Facebook page.

Now on to the Lego related portion of the post.

First up is the beautiful “Survivors of Trauma Lego Mosaic” by Alyska Bailey Peterson. According to the builder “based on the stained glass window “Survivors of Trauma” at the St Silas Church in North Belfast, Ireland. The original window was designed by Alice McGuinness of Ogham Gallery. The Survivors of Trauma Center was established in 1995 to assist those affected by the troubles in North Belfast, and help them transition from victims to survivors, empowering the community to become vibrant once again.”

And we end our brief survey with is the stately “Kildare Station” by Dfenz and photographed by Duq.

Best of luck Nathan and congratulations from the tribe.

Goobers

That’s right, Goobers, from our mutual friend Chris Maddison. Here is how it goes: Yellow Goober tells a joke at the expense of Red Goober and hilarity ensues! Welcome to the weekend.

Welcome to the weekend.

About Keith Goldman

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