Posts by Simon Friesen

Tell the Vic Viper where it hurts

If you don’t like needles, then you’d better hide from this LEGO Vic Viper by Maxx Davidson! This shark-nosed spaceship can make you comfortably numb with whatever is in those giant syringes, while the stethoscope radar can hear you at extreme range. Much like Bionicle before it, this whole build is inspired by pills, so Maxx gave it a classic red and white color scheme and even made the wings out of foil packets! Maxx is a great builder, so if you want to see more of his found-object builds, check out his archive here!

The Sick Viper

The rain in France falls mainly on the track!

It’s said it always rains for Le Mans, and this LEGO build by Sybrin doesn’t disappoint! Each car – with a swoosh and a roar of the engine – kicks up a huge spray of trans-clear plates and 2×2 arches behind it as it tears down the track. My favorite part of this is that the natural shininess of the LEGO tiles in the road makes it look like the raceway is rain-slicked and shiny! Sybrin also did a great job with those custom-made Speed Champions style race cars too; the closest one is a Ferrari AF Corsa #50 , and the far car is Toyota Gazoo’s #7. So of Corsa we were going to make a big hulla-gazoo about this!

Le Mans rain diorama

A fictional LEGO space capsule with an amazing interior

Whenever we get the chance to feature Lech Kulina we get a clinic on fantastic LEGO building techniques. Lech has built amazing model of a fictional near-future space capsule, named for Sagittarius the centaur, that could transport astronauts around the inner solar system. With a build this detailed, you might have expected Lech to make good use of stickers, but he’s elected to use official LEGO bricks for everything. That means that all the red and black outlines around the hatch, viewports, and “4’s” are made from panels and brackets.

Sagittarius

Click here to learn the secrets inside this space capsule!

Zoinks Scoob, I think we’re LEGO!

Crank up the Mystery Machine, the LEGO Scooby Gang – made by Magmafrost13 – are back in action! Daphne is looking chic as ever with her scarf made from a fern and don’t miss the little eyebrow detail Magma gave her. The gang is always trying to get a grip on whatever monster-of-the-week is running around, so they have hands made from little sticks! Finally I’ll draw your attention to the unique nose the builder gave each character. I think they match each character perfectly, and will certainly help Mystery Inc. sniff out some mayhem!

Scooby Gang Chibis

A starfighter that’s hench

Star Wars Outlaws, the latest video big-budget video game in the Star Wars universe, released last August bringing with it great new ship designs for fans to turn into models! Sentinel_Brix built a spot-on LEGO version of the DF-11 Scourge used by pirates and gangs in the game. Brix made sure to add all the tubes and greebles you’d expect to find on a beat-to-hell fighter in the service of a criminal syndicate including a pair of hot rod exhaust pipes (like those on this Diesel Daredevil) venting out the back. It’s got everything you need to arm a bunch of henchmen, mooks, minions, stooges – goons even – and general flunkies to plunder the hyperspace lanes for profit!

DF-11 Scourge Starfighter

A bull that only sees red

What kind of bull has 8 wheels, and can travel over 220 mph? The Eurosprinter Taurus, modeled in LEGO by Ties van Asseldonk (the designer of BDP Series 2’s Logging Railway)! I love LEGO locomotives and I gotta say, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one that looked this smooth before. With the sloping and curves around the cabins and the fine details by the logo, you – like me – may be wondering how on Earth Ties pulled this off. Luckily for all of us, Ties has graciously posted the instructions and digital model on the Open L-Gauge website; a great little space for sharing LEGO train designs. Ties has put on a masterclass, here, and given away his secrets for free. And that’s no bull!

ÖBB Taurus 1:45 scale

A streetcar named...

Renfe got a lot of things right with the 446, but they got one incredibly important thing wrong and people gave it a nickname. So folks, allow me to present – made in LEGO by the expert Julián – the Renfe 446, nicknamed the dodotis, or “nappy”, for its lack of toilet facilities. Put that aside, though, and there’s plenty of great parts and techniques in this build. The ridge along the top of the train is covered in hinged train gates. With its magic wand windshield wipers, this motor car can survive any storm, but the conductor should still be careful; that meat cleaver mirror sure looks like a safety hazard!

LEGO Renfe Cercanías S-446 Coche motor

In space, no one can hear you croak

Our amphibious friends have been making great leaps in the field of space travel, as shown by this LEGO model by Julie vanderMeulen. This ship, dubbed the Pond Hopper, was built to help frog-kind see if the water really is bluer on the other side of the wormhole. With a water-lily radar dish on the back, and gold accents throughout the build, any frog will be able to travel in style in a frog shaped cabin. So say it with me, folks: that’s one small step for a frog, one giant leap for froggy-kind!

Pond Hopper

Fish are friends, not fuel!

I like a heavy motorbike as much as the next guy, but there’s something a little fishy about this LEGO trike by Ian Ying! Maybe it’s the sharp blue-and-red custom color-scheme or the cold golden gleam of the engine (with many parts recolored to pearl gold), but something makes me feel like there’s jaws (and teeth!) closing in. Well, not to worry. With a ride this fast, you’re sure to leave the competition eating your bubbles!

SharkRod1A1

When all you have is a hammer...

If you need to nail down how much great building you can fit into a little vignette, look no further than this fantasy LEGO scene by Cora! Lets start with the real main character of this build: hammers. Cora has created an deeply authentic piece of brickwork out of enough hammers to make Thor drool! As for character design, Cora has kit-bashed a great minifigure out of parts from a bunch of different action lines. And with all that heavy equipment, I do wonder whether the crocodile has delved deep to find this treasure, or if it’s the reason it’s lying there in the first place?

All that glitters...

Well, well, well, what do we have here?

For a lot of treasure hunters, the real treasure was the great LEGO builds we found along the way! This build by Eli Willsea portrays a pair of adventurers delving deep into a empty desert ruin, but what it really shows off is a trove of fantastic building techniques! Down on the floor of the lost well the cracked tiles are made from the immensely useful cheese slope, but did you notice they’re embedded in 1x2x3 windows? On the back wall, Eli uses those windows again with minifigure brackets as decoration. Finally, if you take a look at the well itself, you’ll see that it’s a combination of cheese slopes and 1×1 bricks with sideways studs which fit so well inside an 8×8 dish!

Into the Well

A Bohemian Brick-sody Bash

If you ever wondered what goes on inside your speakers, have I got a LEGO build for you! This retro speaker cut-away by Martin K. spills the secrets of making minifigure music. In this scene, a singer and drummer are in the studio recording their new hit single as a producer and his adorable assistant manage the mixing console. Martin has done a fantastic job with that drum kit. They’re difficult to design authentically at this scale, but Martin makes it look easy! The drummer’s colors mean they side with the Space Police over the dastardly Blacktron, while the singer has ties to the Futuron faction. All I know for sure is they’ll have the out of this world sound of a space oddity!

Inside Retro Speaker