When Cthulhu and his legions come, will they be piloting spacecraft from another dimension? If so, perhaps they’ll look a bit like this tentacled ship by BobDeQuatre. The organic shape is perfectly attuned to warp your mind to insanity until you cry “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!” And once you’re fully assimilated, perhaps you’ll want to create your own using the LEGO Digital Designer file Bob freely provides on his website.
Although an imaginative builder has surely created one, I don’t recall having seen a well-built LEGO marionette before. This puppet of King Gustav I by Nicolas Picot is brilliant, with great articulation and a solid reproduction of the king’s dapper uniform, in particular the upside-down curve-topped fences which serve excellent duty as epaulet embroidery. The king’s steely gaze is also particularly well done, and the mustache seems surprisingly accurate for made of only two pieces.
Graham Gidman reconstructs the barrel escape scene from The Hobbit with stunning landscaping techniques. The use of the SNOT techniques to sculpt the rock formations creates an organic look to the landscape. The flow of the water blends seamlessly with the rocks to the point that it looks like actual water from afar. Take a closer look and you’ll appreciate the fine craftsmanship of this build.
At a recent LEGO convention, Ivan Angeli and Mihai Marius Mihu were watching their displays, and happened to have some brick on hand, so they set to building. Talented builders both, together they produced this breathtaking Faerie Dragon in a single afternoon. I love creations built almost entirely of transparent elements. Many of the intricate elements builders grow to rely upon for complex techniques are unavailable in transparent hues, and many unusual pieces are.
This angry-looking bird isn’t the star of a mobile game or summer movie, but is actually an ingenious interpretation of one of nature’s bigger-billed birds, the African-native shoebill. The real bird stands a remarkable 4 feet tall with an enormous bill for catching fish. Builder Moko has done a great job using the shin guards from the large General Grievous figure to portray the bill, but my favorite part is the expressive eyes. Be sure to check out Moko’s blog for a cool breakdown of the construction techniques employed.
Sergeant Chipmunk is the master of texture. First, it was insanely beautiful, jagged rockwork. Then, a sleek and stylish castle of ice. Now, it’s a deceptively simple castle with extra-blocky crenellation surrounded by autumn-time trees. The new texture? Well, Chipmunk put a handful of 1×1 round tiles to great use by carefully stacking them into dragonscale-like textured walls for his castle. I can’t imagine the zen-like patience this man must have.
It’s been a couple of years since I’ve reviewed the custom LEGO kits designed by Dan Siskind of Brickmania. Back in 2013, I reviewed the Dodge WC54 Ambulance, and writing those reviews really got me started in building World War II models seriously. In the meantime, Dan and his team have continued to release new custom kits, on a near-weekly cadence. One of Dan’s recent Brickmania releases is the M3A1 Scout Car, produced by the White Motor Company between 1940 and 1944. The vehicle served throughout WW2, and its basic design served as the basis of the iconic M3 Half-track.
Like some of the custom kits I reviewed back in 2013, the M3A1 Scout Car is a WW2 vehicle I also built back in 2014, so I’ll be comparing Dan’s version with my own.
Click through to read the full review
When my friend Lego Junkie posted his version of Mack from ReCore a few days ago, I only had a sketch model of heads for the main characters Mack and Joule. His version, as well as new gameplay footage and screenshots from E3 of these characters, was just the motivation I needed to move forward with said sketches.
These larger-than-life sculptures by Bruce Lowell look more like pixelated photos than LEGO creations. Seriously, just squint your eyes a bit and these lunchtime treats look just like the real thing! I particularly love how Bruce captured the Subway and Lay’s logos perfectly, even on three-dimensional surfaces. And while it normally bothers me to see an underlying color showing through to a top layer of a different color, allowing the white layer to show through on the stair-stepped portion of the raw red onions is simply genius!
Tim Schwalfenberg expands his Homeworld Vaygr fleet with this classy Vaygr missile frigate. It’s the second ship of Tim’s Vaygr fleet we’ve featured, after his excellent corvette, and Tim has more on the way to round out the armada. One of the best hallmarks of Homeworld-inspired spaceships is the clean color blocking, and Tim’s interpretation of the Vaygr fleet looks striking clad in white with red stripes. One of the best details is the missile launcher mounted on the side, a fantastic brick recreation of the original model’s detail.
Following up a 1:1 scale Sky-Hook and an incredible minifig scale Songbird diorama, Imagine Rigney is back with another build from the universe of BioShock Infinite. This time around it’s an itty bitty Songbird that you can build from a handful of pieces, and there’s full instructions to make one yourself.
By the way, BioShock Infinite is a brilliant game and one of my all-time favourites. It’s relatively cheap now, so if you haven’t tried it yet, pick it up and give it a go.
Leonid An is running awesome building experiments on some of the new parts. The result is this gorgeous handheld portal device from the Portal video game. I am guessing this build started with the white large figure armour piece, which has the same shape as a part of the original portal gun. However, the rest of the weapon is no less excellent and features a couple of great building solutions including these three minifigure hammer pieces on the other end. Take a moment to appreciate the peculiar scale of the gun; it is not too large, but has enough details which make it instantly recognizable.
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