An entry for the ongoing Jolly Roger Contest III over at Forbidden Cove, Matthew Hurt’s wrecked ship is one of the best wooden derelicts I’ve seen.
Posts by Chris
The Lost Temple
We may have missed our opportunity to blog this when Alex Sandek first posted it a few weeks ago, but this temple is too good to stay lost. The overhanging rocks and waterfall are a creative way of masking the vignette base, and the white temple atop the dark tan crags is beautiful in its seeming simplicity.
New LEGO Architecture Set: 21013 Big Ben [News]
Lego’s Architecture sets seem to be coming in rapid succession lately, with the Sydney Opera House announced just back in February. Now Lego has announced their latest set, 21013 Big Ben, giving some well-deserved microscale attention to a famous landmark previously only seen in the cartoonized world of Cars 2.
Big Ben, one of the UK’s most recognizable buildings and a global symbol of Victorian London and the Gothic Revival style, has been recreated as the latest set in the LEGO® Architecture series.
Big Ben, officially known as the Clock Tower, has stood at the north-eastern corner of the Palace of Westminster in London for more than 150 years. It was designed by the unlikely team of Classical architect Charles Barry and Gothic Revival pioneer Augustus Pugin and completed in 1859.
Big Ben is the fourteenth model in the LEGO Architecture range, which uses the LEGO brick to interpret the designs of iconic architecture around the world. It is the first model to be designed by Rok Zgalin Kobe from Slovenia who joins Adam Reed-Tucker as a LEGO architect.
“The most challenging in creating this model was representing the richness of 19th century Gothic Revival architecture in a scale usually more appropriate for modern or contemporary architecture of smooth surfaces and clean lines,” said Rok Zgalin Kobe.
Charles Barry won the competition to build the new Palace of Westminster in January 1836. His initial designs were without the clock tower that would become known as Big Ben. As his own style was more Classical than the increasingly popular Gothic Revival, Barry asked for assistance from Augustus Pugin, a leading light of the movement that left its indelible mark on the Victorian era around the world. The design of the interior of the palace and the clock tower are thought to be his work.
LEGO Architecture products features well-known buildings, and the work of important architects Aimed at inspiring future architects, engineers and designers as well as architecture fans around the world, the range contains a booklet featuring step-by-step building instructions that is prefaced by exclusive, archival history, information and photographs of each iconic building, its design origin, its architect and its architectural features.
The LEGO 21013 Big Ben is available for purchase from June 1 in LEGO brand retail stores, LEGOLAND Stores and online at http://shop.lego.com/. The product is designed for ages 12+ and includes a booklet with facts and history about Big Ben. Recommended retail price is $29.99 or €29.99.
For more information about LEGO Architecture visit http://architecture.lego.com/
An Amazing Contraption: Lego Ball Maze
Check out this phenomenal creation by Jason (True Dimensions). I love seeing real, working objects made with Lego, that function just as well as their traditional counterparts. Jason’s ball maze is fully working, and features an integrated, removable ball storage box, and interchangeable mazes in several different themes.
The Thunderbird Bolts into Action
Jon Hall’s latest Sky-fi fighterplane is quite electrifying, employing a concept that’s rather brilliant and makes me wish I’d thought of it. Rigged with a pair of giant tesla coils, it can zap its targets at the speed of light. Beyond a terrific premise, though, Hall’s work is outstanding as always, with great shaping and coloring.
Captain Smog’s Bank Gets Robbed
Captain Smog, purveyor of much Steampunkery, is back with another delightful model. This time the Imperial Bank is being purloined by surly burglars driving a crazy mono-wheeled mechano-drill. They’d best keep their begoggled eyes peeled for the gilded-age Batman, though!
A Classy Car: Mercedes-Benz 540K
Vibor Cavor’s newest model is a fiery red model of a classic luxury sedan, the Mercedes-Benz 540K. The large scale of this model allowed Vibor to do justice to the small details on this spiffy vehicle. I particularly love the way he designed the grill, and the hood ornament is quite perfect. Most impressively, though, he’s managed to pack in a full interior, including engine, passenger, and luggage compartments.
Microscale Burj Al Arab
The Eurobricks Architecture contest seems to be drawing out quite a few fantastic entries, including this notable depiction by Spencer R of one of the world’s most high-class hotels, the Burj Al Arab. With a design inspired by a ship’s billowing sails, the seventy floor Burj Al Arab is located in Dubai, which is also home to the real-life counterpart of an official LEGO Architecture set, the Burj Khalifa.
The Great Wall Made Small
Flickr user lisqr has built this wonderful microscale model of one of the most impressive architectural feats in mankind’s history, the Great Wall of China. While the real Great Wall was several thousand miles long, lisqr employs a nifty series of connected vignettes to capture the wall’s serpentine path.
Stunning Modern Architecture
I’m not generally a big fan of minimalist architecture, but occasionally I find myself surprised when viewing a particularly elegant example, such as this minimalist home by flickr user LegoManiac/oLaf. The colors complement each other remarkably well, and the shape of the Lego brick lends itself so well to this aesthetic. The design of the wood deck, with vertically oriented brown tiles, is genius, and take careful note of the pool, which is really filled with water.
They Came in Waves
Sandcastles are tempting targets, no matter where in the universe you are, as Bart De Dobbelaer shows in this humorous vignette. Take note of his great use of the microfigs from the Lego games for bits of the sandcastle, and of course the aliens from Series 6 and Alien Conquest.
Cole Blaq’s Cloaked Tomeikoma Is Clearly Impressive
Every time I look at Cole Blaq’s photostream on flickr, I am blown away, with no exception this latest time. I’ve been seeing a lot of Tachikomas and their variants lately, including Cole’s own huge Think Tank, which we featured last month. But Cole Blaq wasn’t content to simply follow the norm with this model: this iteration appears fully cloaked, made entirely out of trans-clear pieces.
EDIT (AB): Cole posted this as part of the Marchikoma Think Tank challenge — I was just waiting for something this awesome to highlight the contest. ;-)