About Alexander

Alexander Alekseev is an active member of the Russian LUG since 2007. Linguist by education, he believes that LEGO pieces are the most effective mean of self-expression and communication between people.

Posts by Alexander

Echo Base, this is Rogue Two... I’ve found them!

Let’s play a simple game: How fast can you count all LEGO sets that contain a model of a T-47 snowspeeder? Well the problem is that there are too many snowspeeders — not only in official sets, but also built by a huge number of talented fans. And each time I see a new iteration of this iconic spacecraft, I tell myself “It can’t get any better, this is perfect!”. But somehow Brickdoctor made his own snowspeeder too outstanding to be mistaken for any other build.

It’s not the choice of pieces or the shape of the speeder, but its awesome wings that make it so cool. Bricks placed with their studs not on top (a technique commonly referred to as SNOT) doesn’t make the wings look heavy, but tiny gaps between the pieces create a stunning pattern as if the speeder is covered with reflective armour plates. If you’re interested in how this T-47 looks inside like, visit the builder’s Flickr stream.

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Green is the new black

Blacktron is definitely not the most popular space subtheme, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t look as awesome as the others. Stephan Niehoff grabs a ton of transparent green bricks and creates a splendid diorama of a futuristic quay.

The boat itself isn’t that sophisticated, but, no doubt, looks like a top-class stealth vessel. Bonus points are for a couple of huge engines in the back of the boat. I’m especially happy to see some of the close-up shots — go and have a look yourself in the builder’s album! There are many more eye-catching details, including a couple of soldiers by the boat and a brilliant crane.

A brand new LEGO brand store

If you’re interested in LEGO, you’ve got to know everything about toy stores in your town or city. But Adeel Zubair knows about toy stores a lot more than any of us; he knew to build the perfect one.

Not only is this an outstanding modular building with an exterior worth being placed in one lane with the legendary Green Grocer, but also a masterpiece of store marketing — just have a look at what is hidden inside!

Here are the lovely wooden duck and the lovely green dragon on the first floor, while the ground floor is all about shelves full of the newest sets. And don’t forget to check out the awesome Pick-A-Brick wall! Many more pictures are in the album on Flickr!

These flowers smell of metal and machine oil

Johnnie Brick Xavier shares with us an unusual ritual of petal harvesting as it seen on some faraway planet inhabited with robots. We don’t know why they need these petals, or what they call these weird looking flowers, but at least we can be sure that the harvest will be rich this season.

Technically speaking, using of a specific part in high quantities doesn’t always result into something this beautiful. Johnnie made a great choice of pieces for this vignette and managed to recognize an unusual shape of quite an ordinary plate 1 x 2 with towball on side.

Born to fly ...and submerge

Soviet engineers were people with great imagination. Of course, at that time they didn’t have access to LEGO bricks, but even today their peculiar projects look awesome in plastic. Polish builder Ciamosław Ciamek presents Ushakov’s Flying Submarine — a hybrid of a military airplane and a submarine. Not only does it sound cool, it also looks cool. It’s gray, cold and bizarre even for an ambitious Soviet project.

All are not supercars that are called Porsche

…Unless a vintage tractor is a supercar for you. DB_Kit Fisto entered the latest Build the Porsche of your Dreams contest not at full speed, but definitely with class. His massive tractor is a scaled replica of the Porsche Super from 1960s. That was the time of truly beautiful agricultural machinery, much more elegant than the modern!

The design of this vehicle is simply fantastic thanks to amazing combinations and connections of System and Technic pieces. My favorite part is that small technic corner panel above the front axle placed right among regular plates and slopes. This is how you build a Super tractor!

Cause it’s better when your mechanical companion has four legs instead of just two

If you follow the latest trends in LEGO mecha design, you’ll know that four-legged machines are very popular right now. We already covered the Lego Junkie’s version of Mack from the upcoming game ReCore. And now Simon Liu suprises us with his own vision of the cute yellow robot. I love it for its larger scale and great amount of greebling on the legs. And bonus points for the beautiful building solution used to make the blue core: a clear sphere filled with transparent blue pieces.

Meanwhile, it looks like there’s nothing that can stop Gamabomb from churning out similar quadrupedal masterpieces right now. His transport mech is very on-trend, but isn’t mainstream at all. And it has everthing you like, even that old orange hockey helmet.

This LEGO version of the famous Pixar desk lamp is utterly adorable

While Finding Dory tops box offices all over the world, yu chris pays a tiny yet sweet tribute to the animation studio behind our favourite movies. It’s simply impossible not to recognize the famous desk lamp, whose name, by the way, is Luxo Jr. Here it is a second before it will smash the poor letter ‘I’…

The lamp features some simple but smart solutions. Apparently, the inner structure of the lamp is made with a handful of basic Technic beams, but I love them tiled on the outside. Thus, the lamp looks solid, and its proportions are also great. As usual, more photos are in the builder’s photo stream.

Kvelertak is a terrifying mech with a creepy name

Well, the next time I want my mech be petrifying I’ll thumb through a Norwegian dictionary to choose a name for it. Gamabomb names his one Kvelertak which stands for “stranglehold” in English, and it suits this machine just perfectly.

Most of the sand green parts come from set 8410 of the Ben 10 product line. Many of them are action figure arms, but this time they are not only arms but also legs, as the mech has three different modes, including a crab tank mode with some huge guns on its back.

With this 648L grapple skidder you can harvest the forest like never before

Kirill Mazurov, who has once blown our minds with an incredible ER-1250 bucket wheel excavator, keeps proving his talent for elaborate Technic models. The original John Deere 648L skidder is a heavy logging machine, and even in this scale (only half a meter long) it does look massive yet extremely smooth and stylish.

Believe it or not, there are 9 PF-motors inside this little beast. Together they are responsible for 8 various functions which makes this model as functional as the real one. And if you’re still not impressed, here’s a video of the skidder pulling trees and climbing some hills:

You can find many more awesome creations in Kirill’s photo stream. Don’t hesitate to check it out!

Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device in LEGO

Leonid An is running awesome building experiments on some of the new parts. The result is this gorgeous handheld portal device from the Portal video game. I am guessing this build started with the white large figure armour piece, which has the same shape as a part of the original portal gun. However, the rest of the weapon is no less excellent and features a couple of great building solutions including these three minifigure hammer pieces on the other end. Take a moment to appreciate the peculiar scale of the gun; it is not too large, but has enough details which make it instantly recognizable.

“Goliath” will take care of your aircraft while you pick up your luggage

This summer, the LEGO City airport gets a huge update, including a variety of new airplanes. But before you grab any of the new sets from a store shelf, are you sure your airport facility is equipped well enough? In case it isn't, take a look at this inconspicuous workhorse by EROL.

“Goliath” is an amazingly compact and well-thought aircraft tug. A Power Fuctions connector and an IR reciver on the top of the vehicle gives out its main function – it can be remotely controlled. The heart of the tug is an M-motor, which is not the most powerful one, but thanks to a low gear it is able to tow up to 1.5 kg (3.3 lbs). But my favourite touch is a couple of red Light & Sound flashing lights. This piece is about 25 years old, but it looks awesome even in modern creations. And here is a short video of the tug in action: