Or so John Moffatt (John Moffatt) and Ian MacDonald (ABS doohickies) say. I think they’re just channeling awesome in this collaborative build. There are so many great details on this ship. My favorites are the ring (electromagnet perhaps?) on the front, the radar dish, and the engine arrangement itself. This ship has utilitarian workhorse written all over it (in gray). Make sure you check out some of the detail shots to get a good feel for this lovely bit of monochromatic space.
While it’s fair to say that a lot of characters in the vast Gundam franchise run around dressed as giant robots (sorry, “mobile suits”), some of them do also use spaceships. And among the more iconic of those is probably the Archangel from ‘Cosmic Era’ spin-off Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, recreated here in mega-swooshable LEGO form by lisqr.
Ordo is a multi-theme builder whom we haven’t featured nearly enough, I think. (Frankly, I suspect the broader LEGO builder community tends to overlook fellow builders whose primary theme is Star Wars — it’s a bit unfair, and I admit to passing over some pretty good Star Wars models myself from time to time.)
Ordo has begun dabbling with steampunk, and this little vignette is packed with detail — as both steampunk and vignettes should be.
The small steam-cycle and robotic drone are nice little steampunk builds in their own right, but it’s little touches like the key on the vignette’s base and the scattered pink flowers that really distinguishes Ordo’s work from so many other builds in the genre.
Be sure to check out Ordo’s photostream if you haven’t already — there’s lots to like.
Apparently, I’m not the only one who finds the LEGO Simpsons Collectible Minifigures vaguely unsettling. Nooroyd has put the Krusty the Clown head to good use as rubber masks hiding the identities of a pair of bank robbers. Beyond the use of these minifig parts, the scene is wonderfully photographed, with overhead and ambient lighting.
Jonas (Legopard) built a steampunk version of Boba Fett’s Slave I. The caged appearance of various parts of the ship is fascinating, and the introduction of dark green adds a nice touch of color.
Welcome back fight fans, to Sin City Nevada for another round of Friday Night Fights. Tonight we take a break from System and dive into the wonder world of Bionicle. Let’s go to the tale of the tape.
In the red corner we have Eero Okkonen (Pate-keetongu)Â and his General Killjoy:
In the gold corner we have Alexander (VBBN)) with his Pallas:
As usual, constant reader, you are tasked with deciding, by way of comment, which of these Bionicle Brutes will win the battle. On the last edition of Friday Night Fights, Fire Trucks, Galaktek’s futuristic firetruck won 7-2. Tune in next week for another action packed edition of Friday Night Fights!
Suckmybrick just unveiled a series of 16 despots and notables, ranging from tinpot dictators to messiahs, and all sorts of historical figures in between. The caricatured style means there’s something to love about each of them, but for whatever reason the bad guys tend to be my favorite; who can stay mad at Kim Jong Il with those adorable glasses, or Castro and his tousled beard?
Thanks to reader (and coworker) Chris Byrne for the tip!
“All alone my pet?”
As a kid the Old Hag scared me a lot, still does to this day, but this delightful rendition of the Old Hag from Snow White by Millie McKenzie (Leda Kat) is amazingly cute and adorable:
The Old Hag is the fantastic centerpiece to the build, but I really like how she framed the build and all the details in the window, the broom and the chair.
Arjan Oudekotte (Konajra) does not post new models all that often, but given the size of most of them, that is understandable and they are always well worth the wait. His latest model is the largest ship he has built to date, with a length of 196 cm (or roughly 6’5 for those of you who prefer antiquated measurement systems) and built out of roughly 32000 elements.
The ship in question is a Dutch ocean-going tug called the Zwarte Zee (Black Sea). The ship was launched in 1962 and until 1984 served with the famous company Smit International, known around the world for large maritime salvage operations. As usual with Arjan’s ships, it is highly detailed and has a beautifully sculpted hull (in dark red, no less). I had the pleasure of seeing this behemoth with my own two eyes last Sunday, but if you want to take in all of it, I encourage you to take a look at Arjan’s album on flickr.
During WW2, the Grumman Corporation was the main builder of fighter aircraft for the United States Navy. At the start of the war, they built the classic F4F Wildcat. This was only the second US Navy fighter with then novel features such as a fully enclosed cockpit and a retractable undercarriage, but it was outperformed by the Japanese Navy’s A6M Zero. To counter this threat, the Wildcat was followed by the larger and more powerful F6F Hellcat.
Sydag has now built the ultimate Grumman prop fighter: the F8F Bearcat. For this Grumman fitted the Hellcat’s R2800 Double Wasp engine to a much lighter and smaller airframe. The result was a bit of a hot rod, with far superior performance. The aircraft also incorporated a bubble canopy, greatly improving the pilot’s view to the rear. Bearcats entered service too late to see combat in WW2 and, with the advent of jet aircraft, they were transferred to the US Navy Reserve, where they received the orange fuselage stripe visible on Sydag’s model. The aircraft were retired from US service in the fifties, but their performance made them an attractive choice for air racing and Rare Bear, a much-modified Bearcat, still holds several world records for propeller-powered aircraft. I obviously like the aircraft, but I like how it is presented even more, with part of a hangar as the backdrop and surrounded by maintenance equipment and aircraft parts, including a spare engine. The classic hot rod (the kind with wheels) is the proverbial cherry on top.
