Category Archives: Building Techniques

Not sure what SNOT is? Want to learn innovative new ways to create awesome LEGO models of your own? Peruse our posts about LEGO building techniques to pick up tricks & tips from the best.

Le-Go Yo-Yo

Lino Martins (Lino M) claims this Yo-Yo is 100% LEGO and who are we to argue? I’m also wondering if this model doesn’t have the fewest pieces of any we’ve blogged here.

Working LEGO Yo-Yo

And to let you all in on a personal shame: if you give me a yo-yo I will be ‘that annoying yo-yo guy’ until it breaks. Not the one who can do tricks, the one who just makes it go up and down constantly. I get so mesmerised.

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Functioning Lego bumper cars arena

Nuno C creates this classic amusement park attraction featuring bumper cars that actually move. The mechanism is described as a system of gears underneath the floor that moves magnets that pull the cars. This technique has been used in at least two instances but none as complex as this. See the video on Flickr.

Bumper Cars

Here’s the video:

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T’Met Monastery

Oftentimes we see applications of a new building technique on a small experimental model, but rarely do we see them applied to a large creation. I am delighted to see tiberium_blue‘s T’Met Monastery, which not only uses Technic liftarms for its massive stone walls but also depicts a refreshing subject of a fictional sanctuary inspired by a Star Trek Vulcan monastery.

T'Met Monastery

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RAILBRICKS Issue 10 is out

RB_10_cover

RAILBRICKS issue 10 is just out. Chock full of the usual trainy goodness with a focus on recent events. And it’s happy editor birthday to Elroy Davis who marks one year in charge of RAILBRICKS.

RAILBRICKS Issue 10 is now available for download. The new issue features stories covering some fan events from the past summer, as well as tips and building instructions.

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Machinations in the Boardroom

To get the necessary overview of what’s happening in the LEGO world, we here at TBB often have to rely on various sequences of small pictures — it’s just not possible to review hundreds of LEGO photos a day in deep, individual detail. Sometimes, amazing LEGO models get overlooked as a result. So we’re eternally grateful to readers like Chris Edwards to make sure we don’t just blog LEGO models that “looked good from the thumbnail.”

This fantastic photo by Nathanial Brill (Shuppiluliumas) is a perfect example of what we might have missed if we were only looking at a tiny version of the picture.

The Boardroom Take 2

Low light emanates from the walls and ceiling, illuminating the scheming executives. Outside the window, Nathaniel uses microscale buildings to provide a clue to the scale of the city in which these captains of industry plot their hostile takeovers.

It’s definitely worth taking a look at the large version on black. And don’t miss the setup shots.

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New brick separator adds Technic axle pusher, tile-removing wedge

Paul Lee just got back from a trip to Billund, where he picked up a brick separator with some new features.

Brand New Debricking Tool

Paul says:

The brand new debricking tool. It’s smaller. Streamlined down to about the footprint of a 2 x 10 plate. There are many notable new features. There is a technic axle pusher for removing those stubbornly embedded axles. There are of course the standard top and bottom brick removing configurations. Also new is the pointed wedge at the back end of the lever, very useful for popping tiles and splitting plates that the other end can’t. It basically doubles as an ABS thumbnail. It’ll do whatever you would do with your thumbnail without ruining your manicure. Lastly, another nice added feature is the jumper plate offset in the underside, allowing the removal of jumper plates that the previous version of the tool could not handle.

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Lab Tracks

Brian Williams (BMW_Indy) is definitely not a LEGO purist and likes to do things his own way. With results like this I can see why. Whenever I see something new by Brian I always find myself questioning my own rules.

I’ve never seen The Wild Wild West TV show that inspired this creation, but I have to admit I’m tempted now. The idea of a lab on track is pretty cool.

Lab Car Interior

This was an entry for the Spaghetti Western contest on Eurobricks and you can vote for your favourite train here.

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Sparrows

These sparrows by Schfio are extremely well built. At first glance they look real. It blows me away when a builder can capture such a great look in something so small.

DSC_1318x

Many thanks to Bruce for the heads up!

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Hurricane Irene

Built as an entry in the “Wind” theme for the MOCOlympics, this scene by Blake Baer is very sobering. What really struck me was the realism of the scene and power inherent in nature. The waves, the power pole through the house and the foliage on the trees really give this a sense of the power of the hurricane.

Hurricane Irene

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Not the castles you’re used to

Not only was it really difficult to choose a `lead’ shot for this amazing collection of castles, it’s quite hard to quite describe the bizzarre form of creative genius RoxYourBlox has used for them. They’re casles, but not as you’ve ever seen them. Making tidy work of both LDD and excel for the trigonometry he (I assume) has created some of the oddest geometric castle-like structures I’ve ever seen. And you should see the one that didn’t make it to the brick.

Crazy castle

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LEGO Catwoman Line Art

This is simply incredible. I passed it over several times because I thought it was a drawing. People are always saying that some build or other doesn’t look like LEGO. Well, this one really doesn’t. This build is nothing short of outstanding. Mark Anderson built it. Obviously, he is awesome.

LEGO Catwoman Line Art - Full

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Lego Trump International Hotel and Tower

Sean Kenney recently built a 10 feet tall model of the Trump International Hotel and Tower with 65,000 Lego pieces. Different from other skyscraper sculptures I’ve seen, this one simulates the effect of the reflective glass on the actual building. This was achieved by building a pattern of the reflected skyline inside the transparent “glass” bricks. The illusion is simply stunning.

See more details and the techniques used on MOCpages. The model is on permanent display in the Chicago Lego store.

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