About Rod

Rod likes building stuff, particularly steampunk and microscale. He's built for a number of the Dorling Kindersley LEGO books, including LEGO Play and the Awesome Ideas book. When he's not building, he writes, and has published a trilogy of old-fashioned adventure stories. To pay the bills he works in innovation and marketing for one of the world's biggest brewers, inventing new beers and ciders. This is clearly the best job in the world.

Posts by Rod

Under my skin

It’s what’s inside that counts. Or at least, that’s what Helen Sham seems to say with her large-scale brick-built LEGO figure — artfully dissected to reveal the organs within. This creation manages to be both fun and a little sinister — that smiling half-face in conjunction with the staring skull eye is giving me the heebie-jeebies. The different-coloured innards peeking between the bones of the torso are excellent, and I love the choice of bricks for the intestines — spot-on. Best bit of all? Those polkadot underpants. Lovely.

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On a highway to hell

Yesterday brought the sad news of the death of Malcolm Young — a founder member of rock band AC/DC. The news prompted me to build a little tribute model. AC/DC provided the soundtrack to my youth, and I was lucky enough to see them a couple of times.

Don’t need reason, don’t need rhyme,
Ain’t nothing I would rather do,
Going down, party time,
My friends are gonna be there too…

RIP Malcolm Young. Enjoy a drink with Bon Scott when you get down there.

Naval strategy and tactics for beginners

Most people will recall a rainy childhood afternoon or two spent hunting down enemy naval forces, so this fun LEGO creation should trigger a rush of nostalgia for MB’s classic Battleship. jtheels‘ model is a wonderful brick-built rendition of the titular craft from the board game — the 4-peg battleship itself. The ship is immediately recognisable, and the addition of the red and white “hit or miss” pegs is a nice touch.

Mad for it

We’ve featured Martin Redfern‘s Alice In Wonderland LEGO creations previously, but this latest scene — the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party — is a cracker. The table features a brilliant array of teapot designs (some including fireman’s helmets as lids!), and I like the variety of chair styles on display. The surrounding scenery is great, and gives the model a real sense of place — an impression helped by the tight crop of the photo.

As ever, Martin’s work on the characters is excellent. Here’s a closer look at the Tea Party Trio…

Peace through superior air power

Take a WW2-era Mustang, mix in a dash of muscle-car, then shake with a liberal helping of Dieselpunk. The result? Jon Hall‘s excellent new LEGO creation, the Fe-47 Rapier — a “sky-fi” fighter plane of formidable proportions. The colour blocking on this baby is fierce, the splashes of yellow adding real visual pop to the tail, nose, and engine cowlings. And the overall shaping is classic alternate-technology building — familiar enough to be immediately recognisable, but odd enough to make you look twice.

One of the things I love about Jon’s creations is the attention to detail he lavishes on every aspect. The custom decals are an obvious highlight, but my favourite touch is the undercarriage — managing to let this bad boy land, despite the bulging lower fuselage…

Expensive furniture deserves an expensive floor

This is a nice set of LEGO furniture from gonkius — four modern chairs and a smart-looking table. The colour choices are great, and I love the use of the wood-grain printed tiles for the tabletop itself. The bowl of fruit adds a pleasing splash of colour, and the whole scene is well-captured with clean macro photography. But what really caught my eye was the use of ingot pieces for the parquet flooring — imaginative parts choice to create an interesting texture. Might be a bit expensive in real life though!

Tremendous timorous beastie

It’s not often you see a LEGO animal built almost exactly to scale. But this fantastic mouse by Thomas Poulsom (of LEGO Birds fame) looks almost ready to scuttle off around your house in search of cheese. I love the beady black eyes, the pink nose, and the way Tom has done the ears. And the whole creation is enhanced immensely by the short depth of focus — adding a fuzzy close-up feel which further reinforces the small scale. Squeakily-good stuff.

Meanwhile in Valles Marineris

Sometimes it’s the smallest-scale LEGO building which best illustrates the most epic themes. In this cool little diorama, David Zambito depicts the early phases of humanity’s colonisation of Mars. Well, at least I assume it’s Mars because of the use of all those lovely dark orange pieces. The TIE-Fighter windscreens make perfect domes at this scale, and I like the stacked binoculars as refinery towers. The tiny rovers are cool, and the asymmetrical base adds a heap of character and visual interest. But it’s the use of minifig woollen hats as outlying domed buildings which caught my eye — nice touch.

Building will bring you focus

What better way to relax than to rake through the brick bins and create an Oriental pavilion? At least that’s what David Hensel appears to have decided. David clearly felt the roof was the key element of this LEGO creation — and no surprise, it’s wonderfully detailed, and a nice mix of colours without appearing garish. That would explain the shallow depth of field in the photography, bringing the roof into sharp focus and rendering the rest of the scene with something of a haze. This, coupled with the lack of minifigures, creates a strange dreamlike atmosphere. I like it.

One-armed frog mech on the march

Take a look at this unusual LEGO mech by Chris Perron. The colour scheme may be fairly standard for a creation inspired by the Maschinen Krieger universe, but the rest of it is beautifully odd. The frog-like legs have great functional-looking greebles, and the splayed toes of the feet are chunky enough to look like they’d keep this bad boy balanced. The central pincer arm is well put-together, the twisted piping to the rear adds a bio-mechanical touch, and the mech’s “face” manages to be both cute and eerie. Best of all, Chris has built an excellent base — lovely shaping, nice colour choices, and a fabulous depth of detail. This is a cracking LEGO model, wonderfully presented.

Frankie and Vlad, frightfully good friends

Check out this great LEGO bust of Frankenstein’s Monster by Letranger Absurde. Great use of the Mixel eyes to add character to Frankie-boy’s expression, and all the requisite neck bolts and forehead staples are present and correct. But the best bit for me is the extra angle added to the neckline of the t-shirt. It’s little touches like that which separate brilliant models from good ones — tiny details which aren’t required but are the mark of fantastic building.

Frankie isn’t alone of course, maybe that’s why he looks a little pensive. Old Dracula himself is lurking around. No doubt getting ready to head out into the night and feast on the bricks of the living…

I want my Mummy

Tyler has been putting together a range of scary LEGO faces for Hallowe’en this year. Here’s a selection, starting off with an excellent bandage-wrapped Mummy. The shaping is perfect, and the angled tiles as cloth strips work perfectly in this style. The teeth look appropriately jagged and broken, and those eyes peeking through gaps in the bandages are properly creepy. This is one of those LEGO models which looks really simple, but I bet took multiple rebuilds to get just right.

Tyler’s also been kind enough to provide us with a drooling zombie — complete with cracked skull leaking brains…

And it wouldn’t be Hallowe’en without a scary pumpkin carving, would it? Tyler obliges with this cracking little model — a combination of brilliant shaping and smart, restrained colour choices…

About Rod

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