I adore futuristic LEGO trains, but sadly it’s a very small niche that we rarely see. Fortunately builder Frost has broken tradition and created a wonderfully futuristic planetary express, complete with trans-green accents and lots of mechanical detailing. The model looks like it would be right at home jetting across the surface of a distant planet.
The builder has even incorporated power functions to propel the train and power 16 working LEDs.
Military vehicle master Andrew Somers has broken from his usual realistic style and built a neat futuristic space truck that wouldn’t look out of place among Last Days on Mars concept art by Christian Pearce. Along with the usual working suspension and steering, the build features working grabber crane, and lots of eye catching mechanical detailing. I love the use of the stickered space logo tile on the side of the cab as it provides a dash of color and a bit of realistic context to the build.
CrashHelmets seems to be relatively new to the LEGO hobby. But his latest build, the Asp Explorer from the game Elite: Dangerous, makes be believe otherwise. The builder has managed to skillfully integrate some rather complex angles, making this ship a spot-on representation of the one in the game. Don’t overlook the excellent color blocking either, as subtle splashes of white and orange complete this build’s aesthetic.
When I visited, I never got to see the top half of the Golden Gate Bridge due to the ever-present San Francisco fog. But now I feel like I don’t need to because Zio Chao has created an excellent “photograph” of the beautiful bridge. The builder uses forced perspective to his advantage to create a striking 2D image that really looks three dimensional. And let’s not overlook the little sailboat in the corner, which only adds to the effect as it sails into the bay.
What really makes the illusion work is that only one of the supports on each gate is connected, while the other one just floats a bit further back. This gives the effect that the road is actually going through the supports and not across them.
Summer is a wonderful time of no obligations and worries for a school-age young adult such as myself. The past two years it has also meant entering the Summer Joust contest, which has just concluded. Last year I went small and built a microscale castle being attacked by a dragon, but with the addition of the “Immersive LEGO Scene” category this year (possibly my favorite type of LEGO creation) I knew I had give it a go. My first idea was to build a knight returning from battle, like we see in so many medieval movies and books, so I went with it, and this was the result:
Click through to see a behind the scenes shot (no pun intended)
Chris Eyerly has built an excellent model of the Laurent House, a lesser-known work by Frank Lloyd Wright, built in 1951 for Kenneth and Phyllis Laurent. Chris has used some unorthodox techniques to capture the flowing curves of the house, particularly “brick bending”, in which many 1×2 plates are connected to form a wall, then the wall is bent into a curve, taking advantage of the tiny gaps between each piece.
It can be challenging to capture curves with a system based on squares, much less integrate the curves with the square sections without ugly gaps between the bricks, but Chris has done a perfect job here, all while staying true to the original design.
BobDeQuatre says he doesn’t have the skills for castle building, but his recent entry in the Summer Joust 2017 build challenge’s 8×8 vignette category is one of the best entries I’ve seen yet. The story behind the build is that the castle was built by northern men, enslaved by the black queen. After the castle was completed she summoned a magical storm which lifted the castle up to make it impenetrable to her enemies. The builder has represented the storm perfectly by using a NEXO Knights whirlwind part, along with other dark purple bricks that bleed into the base of the castle.
However, the lighting is what really sets this vignette apart from the crowd — it adds an epic effect to the storm by shining through the transparent portion of the NEXO Knights piece, adding a sinister red glow fitting of the castles backstory.
Rob Damiano has been building an epic series of LEGO scenes telling the story of the NOVA team and their expedition to investigate rare biometric readings on a distant planet. I love his recent builds depicting an alien oasis, with a magnificent magenta hue. The builder added in the effects using Photoshop, and these effects really make the scenes shine.
Here, the NOVA team exits the R-RAV to explore the oasis. The usage of red tree leaves and trans-purple parts on the ground are the perfect accent to the magenta haze. The fantastic minifigures were designed by the builder and custom printed in a very small quantity.
Last week was a big week for fans of custom made LEGO figures and accessories, with three of the biggest 3rd party vendors releasing new products.
First up in the Citizenbrick corner we have “The Mayor of Flavortown”, genuine LEGO parts custom pad printed with a design that bears a striking resemblance to some Guy; can’t remember his name though…
Click here to see more epic new products!
The Second Annual Summer Joust castle competition is well underway, and with just over two weeks left to enter, the contest has prompted some amazing entries. ReeseEH built a small diorama featuring a beautiful gatehouse and castle gate built into tree. The build is full of wonderful details like the textured castle wall, the string vines hanging from the tree, and the gatehouse roof made from various bars and droid arms, giving it a rough thatched look. Although, I do spy a strange-looking character on the banks of the pond—is that Bossk doing some fishing?
This build was an entry for the castle collaboration category with Cab~, Micah Beideman , and Michael the juggler, be sure to keep a lookout for the other builders contributions!
I never mistake a build by Moko. His style is unique and colorful, similar to that of anime and Gundam concept art. In his most recent creation, the Raptor, Moko rocks a dark red and gray color scheme, a combination too rarely seen in mecha. I love the swiveling turret with mounted machine gun, and the use of tank treads as the ammo belt.
The Raptor can also collapse into a “parking mode”, making it easier for the drivers to dismount.
Mark Erickson is most well known for his castle scenes, but recently his builds in clearly superior sci-fi themes have been showing up some of the most experienced science fiction specialists. I love the facial expressions Mark has chosen for each of these intrepid explorers. The foremost astronaut — Captain Simon Lou — seems to be smiling nervously as he tries to persuade the Bug Beings that they mean them no harm, while the white astronaut seems to be yelling “I told you this wasn’t the right way!”.
The use of the red buckets in the honeycomb structures is perfect, and to top off this scene Mark has used a mist machine to create an eerie atmosphere. This build is another entry to the ABS Builder Challenge, so check out the Flickr group to see more builds using the red bucket seed part.