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

Union Pacific EMD SD70 1:16 model is over 27,000 LEGO pieces

I know lots of people who are constantly nagging about disproportional 6-studs-wide trains from official LEGO City sets. Now I have a solid argument: a mind-blowing 1:16 scale copy of the Union Pacific EMD SD70 ACe Locomotive. When Dennis G (bricksonwheels) finally posted pictures of the finished model, I mistook them for photos of a real locomotive. Just look at this beauty!

This EMD SD70 is just the second brick-built train by Dennis, who is much more famous as the author of alluring scaled copies of trucks. This time the locomotive is more than 56 inches long (140 cm) and consists of more than 27,000 pieces.

Click through to see more of this amazing train

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Slow and steady and heavily armed wins the race

What I love about the famous 21109 Exo-Suit set is not the exo-suit itself, but that totally adorable mechanic turtle. It looks so clumsy and intimidating at the same time and I would be happy to see it as a polybag set one day. Peter Reid‘s turtle production line has been running for about 6 years already. Finally, a huge weaponry update is here and it is super badass.

It’s not one, not two, but three heavy launchers which can be placed onto turtles’ shells. The contrast between small mechanic animals and enormous cannons is brilliant. And I like different colors of 1 x 1 round tiles in the head of each turtle – it immediately creates a particular character for each of these three models.

Only 19 Mondays more till vacation

Thanks to this lovely Tiki Fruit Hut I finally realized how tired I am of snow, biting wind and heavy winter coats. Miro Dudas created the hut to look like a sweet postcard from a faraway tropical resort. And even some fetching girls in the picture can’t make me take my eyes off this awesomely executed thatch decorated with reddish-brown carrot tops.

Mi-171 helicopter good enough to be an official LEGO City set

From the very first sight of it, Sergey Antokins‘s scale model of a Mi-171 helicopter charmed me with its neat design. Its structure is skillful enough to surprise you with a couple of unusual building techniques, but at the same time, stays clean and straightforward and looks totally like a slightly refurbished LEGO City set. I give bonus points for this pleasing white and blue color scheme — we finally have a model of a civilian aircraft to blog!

Click through to see more photos of this great helicopter

And as it always has... Rock crushes Scissors

LEGO’s 1×1 tiles with rounded corners, which can be found in the Mixels series 7 sets, look like one of this year’s most interesting new parts. And Takamichi Irie has devised the most hilarious way to introduce them. Here’s a diagram of the rules of the legendary game Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock as presented by Sheldon Cooper in popular American sitcom The Big Bang Theory. These nails look both cartoonish and realistic at the same time. I can’t wait to see tons of different uses of “nail” tiles in upcoming models.

An impressive tribute to a legendary rally team

I bet you’ve heard about the Kamaz Master Rally Team, especially in connection with the globally known Paris–Dakar Rally. The team retained the title for the last four years straight. Unfortunately, this year the international crew of Iveco PowerStar was a little bit more skillful and lucky. Still, that doesn’t hold Silva Vasil back from praising the Russian team and their outstanding results.

Silva, being a professional graphic designer, focused not only on the bodywork of the truck, but also on the chassis — and he absolutely nailed it. It’s quite hard to believe, but the truck is fully motorized, driven by 1, 2 or even 4 Power Functions motors depending on the type of chassis. No wonder the whole project took the builder about a year to complete. Go and take a look from various angles – it’s absolutely worth it.

Aww, look at this little lovely muzzle!

But watch out for the grasping claws and vulturous eyes. Even though Nikita Lazarev named this creature a Mimicute, believe me it is definitely not as harmless as you may think. It greatly resembles a red panda, and I do find red pandas cute, but his little snout gives me the heebie-jeebies.

Nikita did a great job of not only making the Mimicute small, but actually look small (and cute, of course). The tiny nose, a neat mantelet, short clumsy arms and legs – all these contribute a lot to an image of a seemingly huggable creature from another world.

Oh! What fun it is to ride in an Arctic Truck Mk II!

Well, the winter holidays are long gone, but Kirill doesn’t want the outdoor fun disappear. So, here is his Arctic Truck Mk II – an ultimate snow-rover in the scale of a regular Technic minifigure. One may find the exterior quite plain, but Technic vehicles are all about functionality.

Check out this video to see this impressive crawler in action.

And I can’t help mentioning a couple of the builder’s other models.

Click to see more great Technic vehicles by this builder

Point of no return

Nick Runia’s Bridge of Lost Souls is exactly what you get when you can’t decide on the final design of your brick-built medieval tower; you just build both of them! This diorama, on the one hand, is a massive tower with sturdy walls buried in verdure. On the other hand, it’s a gloomy evil tower surrounded by inanimate rocks.

But what really deserves attention is the bridge itself. It might not be that noticiable considering huge towers on the both sides, but it is the point of smooth transition between good and evil. And the way warm sandy colors flow into cold ones is truly great. Finally, let me point to astounding roofing of knight’s tower and leave you tete-a-tete with the author’s photostream.

It’s not how you build your car, it’s how you race your car

I can clearly remember the time when Fast & Furious 3 was released and how hyped up my friends and I were about drifting and stuff. And now Dmitry Verbilov brings back that thrill with literally just one picture of his newest Mitsubishi Lancer EVO IX. The car itself is a neat model and looks great with the windscreen piece and mudguard parts from Speed Champions sets. Dmitry also managed to shape a nice-looking front part, not to mention some complicated patterns on the front doors. However, I’m mostly impressed by the usage of cotton wool pieces to imitate white smoke coming from burning rear tires. Even though it’s not a regular LEGO piece, it’s a brilliant trick to make a picture look dynamic and impressive.

This retrofuturistic trike is right from the Victorian era

If you haven’t looked through Vince_Toulouse’s photostream before, please, do so now. His creations are absolutely out of time (and space). And this dark blue trike adds to the collection of bizzare vehicles just perfectly. It’s quite a remarkable model where ultimate style meets a bunch of skillful building solutions.

All the world’s a stage...

…and all players are utterly creative combinations of pieces. Letranger Absurde’s vignette depicting a theatre stage blows my mind with its extremely unsual usage of a regular frog animal piece: once for the actress’ hairdo and several more as seats in the hall. When I saw this little masterpiece for the first time it took me a moment to decide what astounded me more — the fact that I can distinguish the emotions of these tiny little microfigures or the rats in the background…