FebRovery‘s come early this year! Ilya T.’s greyscale rover is just the thing to kick off twenty-nine days of rover-fueled madness. (That’s right everyone, 2016 is a leap year! So why not use your extra day to build a rover of your own?) I love the tight construction inside the small bubble-cockpit, the conical rear end, and the pop of color from the spaceman’s red suit. But the real selling point of Ilya’s build are those fantastic heptagonal wheels.
Karf Oolhu is the busiest builder I follow. My Flickr stream is regularly filled with his latest creations – always fun, always imaginative, and often packed with interesting parts use. This cute little plane and hangar is no exception…
Look at the propellers. LOOK AT THE PROPELLERS. Ice skates in control lever bases, clipped onto seat backs. Undoubtedly an illegal connection (as in a combination the designers of official LEGO sets would not be allowed to use) but utter class all the same.
This build by WRme2 is simply one of the most brilliant creations I’ve ever come across:
We’ve featured many castle vignettes before, so what makes this one so special?
It’s the windows. That’s not fancy photoshoping, that’s science!
WRme2 has figured out that due to the manufacturing process of some of the earlier LEGO bricks, when photographed with a polarizer you get that amazing effect which he has so brilliantly used in this build.
Here’s what it looks like with portion of a brick under a polarizer (like sunglasses):
For those really interested, he’s also done an equally impressive job explaining the science behind these colourful bricks.
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
The Arvo Brothers (Ramon & Amador Alfaro Marcilla) have recently released their second book called Alien Project. It costs €26 + shipping and can be purchased via the Arvo Brothers website. The main bulk of the book contains detailed instructions for building their fantastic Alien figure and its base. There are also chapters explaining the inspiration behind the project and a rare insight into the development of a model of this calibre. Below is my review of the book.
Click here to read the full review
When I first saw the amazingly detailed 7,500-piece Millennium Falcon the day after Christmas, I knew right away that it deserved worldwide attention. The model was built by someone who went by the screen name “Marshal Banana“, whom I recognized as the builder who’d created the wonderful 10,000-piece Jawa Sandcrawler back in 2011. Less than two days after I’d posted the Falcon, my prediction came true and the Falcon was everywhere, from “geek” sites like Kotaku and GeekWire to major news outlets like Time Magazine and USA Today. But we still knew almost nothing about this talented builder.
Now that he’s back from a well-deserved holiday, I’m pleased to bring our readers this in-depth interview with Hannes Tscharner, builder of both the Falcon and Sandcrawler.
Hannes shares a bit about himself, along with tips on photographing LEGO models and editing the photos for presentation. We also learn how he organizes his collection, what he uses to add lighting to his models, and more.
Click through for our interview with the builder of the 7,500-piece Millennium Falcon!
Jimmy Fortel has built a beautiful microscale model of the Pantheon in Paris. The color scheme makes this look like part of the official LEGO Architecture series – and I’m sure this great little build wouldn’t be out of place in the line-up.
I really like the clean lines and deceptive simplicity of this creation, in particular the use of round 1×1 plates beneath the roof line, adding a nice touch of texture. The pillars at the main entrance are very good, and it took me a while to work out how they were built – the bottom of the pillars are round 1×1 bricks set into the model’s base. This is one of those models which surprises you with how long it can hold your attention, despite its small size.
Apologies if you were hoping to avoid a Star Wars related post but there is a tenuous link to castles and towers, I promise. TBB regular Simply Bricking It, has built our favourite Star Wars droid, R2-D2.
The builder uses a mix of round and regular parts to allow a slight offset position, resulting in the curved shape. The use of alternate round and regular bricks is a technique that has been used frequently in the past for curved ‘tower’ structures (eg. castles, windmills, lighthouses and even spaceships). But I believe this is the first droid I have seen built using this particular technique.
I can’t finish this post without mentioning the vintage tap parts used for R2D2’s leg detailing — a ‘splash’ of inspiration there.
Every year Markus Rollbühler creates some new LEGO Christmas decorations for the tree, and he shared this year’s collection of Disney Princesses in microscale.
From left to right:
The details are fantastic at this scale, making the characters easily recognisable. I love Flounder and Sebastian, created using simple 1×1 tiles or plates with clips and 1×1 plates. Another favourite is R2-D2 who is simply a 1×1 Technic brick resting on a silver 1×1 round plate, two white minifig hands and a blue-based lever – inspired use of parts!
Thanks to Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm in 2012, Princess Leia can be officially described as a Disney Princess too…
Mark Stafford, a current LEGO designer on the new NEXO Knights theme, brought some 3D-printed prototypes and development parts to BRICK 2015 in London last weekend. NEXO Knights is the newest LEGO theme to be launched and is an eagerly anticipated Fantasy Castle theme with a sprinkling of Steampunk in the mix.
Mark brought set 70315 Clay’s Rumble Blade with him, but even more interestingly, he brought some 3D-printed prototypes and a series of development figures & parts to show the design process in more detail. The concept and final builds for Clay’s Rumble Blade show the significant changes that occur as the design progresses.
Click to see the rest of the prototypes!
Following on from Jennifer’s recent post on waterfalls, here are some more creations with brick-built “special effects”. This ramshackle Laketown house by David Hensel features a convincing fireball rolling up from the roof…
It’s difficult to depict fire with bricks without it looking like a pixellated explosion from the 8-bit era of gaming. I think David has pulled it off here, with the outer layer of transparent bricks and the darker colors at the edges simulating an expanding ball of flame.
I recently spotted another brick-built explosion which used very different techniques but created a similar sense of energy and motion. This fantastic tower explosion was part of Marc Gelaberto‘s pirate display at a show in Barcelona…
![[MegaMOC] Fortaleza de Santa Catalina](https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/media.brothers-brick.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/22909109706_0e75c667dc_z.jpg)
It’s like a still from an action movie – the fireball blossoming, shattering the tower’s masonry as soldiers are flung into the air. Check out the priceless expression on this unfortunate soldier’s face!
![[MegaMOC] Fortaleza de Santa Catalina](https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/media.brothers-brick.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/22516864818_8e51dbf401_z.jpg)
I’ve always shied away from building scenes like these, worried they wouldn’t live up to the image in my head. Seeing these great examples of fiery disaster, I feel some explosive action coming on in my building!
I’ve been following the recent builds of Thomas of Tortuga with interest and expressing little yelps of delight whenever a new creation pops up. He’s embroiled in a Flickr-based LEGO wargame called Divide And Conquer which I’m not even going to pretend to understand. However, the creations he’s putting together to represent his fictional nation’s military are fantastic. I particularly liked these armored tractor tank things…
I must admit to a certain ambivalence about rendered LEGO creations – I generally like to see builders put bits of plastic together in the real world. And I’m a firm believer that restrictions on quantity and color drive creativity, pushing builders to develop new techniques. However, these vehicles are absolute class, and I figured I’d let the handful of “impossibly colored” parts slide this time. (Those are pieces which LEGO has never produced in that particular color. But digital parts, of course, can be any color.)
The rest of Thomas’ photostream is stuffed with similarly cool and slightly steampunk military creations – well worth checking out. I’m loving his series of naval vessels (especially this dreadnought), although again some of the “impossible part” use does make me twitchy.
I know some people say rendering isn’t “LEGO building” at all. I’m not sure I’d go that far, and builders like Thomas are making me pay more attention to rendered works. I reckon LEGO creativity shines through, regardless of medium. What do you think?