SPARKART! used around 2200 carefully selected and arranged LEGO pieces to create this model of the MS-06R High Mobility Type Zaku II from the anime/manga Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt, a gritty, violent, and dramatic sci-fi space war story. The model is about 1 foot wide, 1.5 feet high, and 1.5 feet long (30cm X 45cm x 45cm).
This weeks obligatory dose of Neo Classic Space is called the White Tiger, and comes to us from Italian builder Andrea Lattanzi. It’s a pleasant departure from the norm in that it follows the color scheme of the Futuron sets (sometimes commonly referred to as Whitetron, since their counterparts were the ever-popular Blacktron).
Andrea has even built this tank its own maintenance bay, where we can see its Futuron operators directing a bunch of Classic Space regulars as they re-fit it for it’s next Blacktron encounter:
Stu Pace wanted to try something different when he built his LBA-10 Long Range Heavy Fighter and I think he succeeded. While the physical design of the ship has the same strong ‘alien’ feel as many of his previous spacecraft, the unconventional color blocking really takes things to the next level, emphasizing interesting features of the ship’ that might have gone unnoticed under a more monochromatic color scheme. It’s a bold move but I think it works!
Having already delighted us last summer with his mosaic of everyone’s favorite holographic vocalist Hatsune Miku, Chris Rozek does it again with this cute minifigure version – well, Friends “minidoll” version to be precise. We’ve featured customized LEGO Friends before but it’s always nice to see more customizers using them to recreate well-known screen characters.
This was Chris’ first try at custom sculpting hair pieces. The hair is made from 6 pieces of carved and sculpted resin. The entire figure took around a week to complete.
Despite being named after the ship where it all began, much of the action in hit British sci-fi sitcom Red Dwarf actually takes place on the much smaller scout ship Starbug (in fact two entire seasons take place on board the cramped green spacecraft, while the show’s incompetent heroes try to figure out how they misplaced their original mothership). So it makes perfect sense that total smeghead Patrick Gregory would choose to recreate Starbug rather than Red Dwarf in LEGO, despite it’s more challenging spherical features.
But not only did Patrick model the ship’s exterior, he also built in a fully playable interior, spread over three decks, featuring many locations and props from the show! If you study the closeup pictures you’ll see the flight deck, medical bay, AR computer room, cargo bay and even a scutter or two.
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Following on from the introduction of the Build Your Own Adventure books last year, August 2016 sees the launch of two new titles in the series: Build Your Own City Adventure, and Build Your Own Star Wars Adventure.
The Build Your Own Adventure series is different from most other LEGO books in that it comes with an exclusive LEGO set. The book features set instructions followed by a story illustrated with models created by builders from the LEGO fan community. The Brothers Brick’s very own Rod Gillies worked on the Star Wars book and we pestered him into giving us a sneak peek before the book is officially released.
The model in the set is very cool — a microscale Y-Wing fighter, built in a “chibi” style similar to the Microfighter range of collectable sets. The spaceship is piloted by Zin, a Rebel pilot and the hero of the book’s story. The tale sees Zin traverse the galaxy on a secret mission, visiting famous Star Wars planets and locations.
After taking a flick through the pages, we arranged to ask Rod a few questions about the book, the building process, and getting to work with the LEGO Star Wars designers…
Click through to read the interview and see more images from the book
As a minifig-scale creation, this beautiful Medieval church by Croatian builder Franko Komljenovic is relatively small, yet packs in an amazing amount of architectural detail. The variation of roof tile colors and liberal mixing of ‘old’ and ‘new’ grey bricks throughout also give the building a sense of age.
For the first time, a locomotive graces our monthly cover photo in the form of this fine SBB CE 6/8 Electric (aka “Swiss Crocodile”) by Vedosololego.
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In the same year we were introduced to such trend-setting digital marvels as the CGI dinosaurs of Jurassic Park, and the groundbreaking first-person shooter Doom, a rather different kind of video game appeared. It was a puzzle game called Myst. It was set in a virtual world that was presented to players not as low resolution 3D animation, but as beautifully rendered high resolution images. It was a nod to text-based adventures from the dawn of the gaming age, and became a surprise success, dominating the PC game market for almost a decade and helping to drive adoption of the new CD-ROM media format. Letranger Absurde has created this microscale LEGO version of the familiar Myst map.
Capturing the human form in LEGO bricks is challenging at the best of times, which is why builders either plumb for a combination of complex parts and techniques, or go the other direction and use basic bricks but scale up their creations. However, the work of British builder David Hughes seems to lie somewhere in between these two extremes, with sculptures that require relatively few bricks and relatively little detail to capture the essence of their subject. Here, in a memorable pose, is Jimmy from the classic 1979 “angry young man” movie Quadrophenia:
In what might be one of the more interesting (and perfectly executed, and beautifully presented) mashups that I’ve seen in a while, David Lee, inspired by the excellent design of Herbert Lee’s Stormtrooper puppet, has reimagined Captain Phasma and a First Order Stormtrooper from Star Wars: The Force Awakens as chibi samurai. They’re so adorable, and stabby!
Some of you might feel that there are contributors at The Brothers Brick who have an unhealthy and self-indulgent obsession with nostalgia for 70s and 80s pop culture. And that those should contributors be stopped. And you would be absolutely right, on both counts.
Unfortunately we cannot be stopped, so please enjoy this latest LEGO-themed slice of retro goodness from SPARKART, who put together this microscale collection of ships from the Glen Larson TV shows Buck Rogers and Battlestar Galactica. These look totally swooshable, and each one is instantly recognizable as I peer at it over the rims of my half-moon spectacles.
