You could be forgiven for thinking this castle scene by JP_Creations is a work in progress. Well in a manner of speaking you’d be right, because it’s a scene of a work in progress!
Category Archives: Models
Flying the unfriendly skies
From his Flickr stream, it’s clear that builder arwen qiea is a Cold War military vehicle buff. It’s an impressive portfolio of (mostly Soviet) tanks, missile carriers and navy vessels from the 50s and 60s. But his gigantic airplanes kind of steal the limelight! Here’s his latest one, a model of the Soviet TU-135, an experimental supersonic bomber from that era.
From that angle, the TU-135 seems almost as sleek as a modern Russian fighter jet. But from a higher vantage point you can see why it was nicknamed the “flying wing”.
So that’s a pretty big plane, right? Nope. THIS is a big plane…
…say hello to the Russian Antonov AN-22, probably the largest turboprop ever built. And the big builds don’t stop there. His version of the Lockheed C5a Galaxy (a heavy transport used by the USAF) is so big it literally eats other LEGO models for breakfast!
And here it is, digesting its meal of tanks and other armaments:
Service with a smile
LegoWyrm has started creating adorable LEGO chibi characters, based on a style originally developed by legendary Japanese builder Moko. Here is his version of the titular heroine from the videogame American McGee’s Alice (click here for bonus gory version).
He’s also churned out some beautifully chibi-fied characters from other games and anime. See if you can name any of them (regular readers should be able to name the last one by now). And tell me that these figures don’t immediately put a huge smile on your face! Just remember to turn away before your head explodes from all the cuteness…
I ❤ HEART URANUS
After enjoying Evan B’s recent miniland scale Firefly lifter, I’m overjoyed to see yet another iconic spacecraft get the same treatment! This time it’s Eagle 5 from Mel brooks’ classic Star Wars spoof Spaceballs, courtesy of Chris Rozek.
And in a matter of days you’ll be able to see this creation – and a million others – at Brickworld Chicago. Let’s just hope Chris can hang onto this build longer than the giant one he traded away in Simon’s Red Brick Game!
Life sized Hatsune Miku built from LEGO
It’s been almost three years since Japanese builder Chaosbrick (カオス煉我) created the first LEGO version of the wildly popular digital pop star and Vocaloid character Hatsune Miku (初音ミク). Since then there have been plenty of other versions, by such builders as Moko, Mike Dung, LegoWyrm and even yours truly. But now Chaosbrick has returned to outdo them all with this life sized version!
Construction of the model began in October 2013 and took 6 months to complete, during which time the builder teased fans with work in progress shots from his Twitter feed. The final model uses over 20,000 bricks, and by all accounts it was quite a feat of engineering to make such a tall and slender LEGO model stay in one piece. But the end result is spectacular in its detail and accuracy, and should meet the expectations of even the most hardened Hatsune fan. Especially with the cheeky inclusion of some brick-built fan service ;-)
Contents may settle during shipping
Marc Reid imagines the logical evolution of the Maersk shipping company (and corresponding LEGO sets perhaps?) into the far future with the MAERSK LINE 976534 SPACESHIP. According to Marc, each shipping container would be a mile long – which by my calculations is large enough to ship an entire shipping company!
I love the idea that the even as the technology and environments change, the Maersk containers would retain their iconic look over the centuries. In fact, I think it’d be cool to see other builders interpretations of the Maersk line in increasingly distant periods in the future. Get to it, my friends!
Tooth and nail
To complete this week’s brief exploration of unusual steampunk creations, let’s go wild …literally! First up, here’s a punked-out Kraken courtesy of Jonas (the guy that gave us the steampunk Batcave and Tumbler).
And to remind us there’s a lot more to steampunk LEGO than simply “using a lot of brown and gold”, who better than Mark Stafford with this overlooked steampunk dinosaur from 2012 (the year, not the movie).
Socket to me
The Iron Builder contest traditionally involves a lot of smack talk from its competitors. But when the camaraderie is expressed through the builds themselves, things can get really interesting. Such is the case with the round currently in progress between Jimmy Fortel and Andrew Lee, which seems to have become part rap battle, part “punning bee”. And since our players are clearly not the physical type, they even crafted warrior women to do their fighting for them!
The “seed” parts for this round are the awesome new Mixels ball and socket joints. Check out the other entries in the contest to see some pretty inventive uses for these parts!
Evolutionary Craft: The Eclipse Starfighter
I don’t find as much time to build now as I’d like, but it sure is fun when I finally get around to finishing a model. My latest inspiration was the Starfighter Telephone Game, a flickr social game. It’s a building game where each participant is mailed the previous player’s ship and then builds an evolution of it to mail to the next player. I’m taking part in the latest round, and when my turn came up, I was excited to receive Aaron William’s sweet yb-E ship.
The result of my efforts is the Eclipse Starfighter. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to use the trans-red corner panel as the windscreen, and fitting it into the ship proved to be challenging. Incorporating the rotating wings for landing, which are locked together and pivot when the engine is rotated, introduced me to using worm gears to lock the wings in place. By using a worm gear, the movement is unidirectional, so that turning the engine moves the wings, but you can’t turn the wings to move the engine.
And here’s the ship next to Aaron William’s yb-E.
“Airship, Airship, AIRSHIP!”
Continuing my Steampunk vibe from earlier in the week, here’s the mother of all LEGO airships by French builder Castor Troy…
Now a mothership is nothing without proper air and ground support. Fortunately, Castor has already thought of that. Say hello to Vampire Hunter …which incidentally sounds like the perfect premise for LEGO to use if they ever wanted to get into the Steampunk game!
Apparently these are part of a much larger Vampire Hunter project that will include a French chateau, haunted house, and plenty of hunters. Look out for that some time next year. In the meantime, keep your holy water and silver bullets handy. And wooden stakes. And garlic. Ok, did I forget anything? And hand mirrors. And crucifixes…
A geared up beast
LEGO Ideas announces female minifigure set
The winter 2014 LEGO Ideas results have been announced, and the next set will be the female minifigure set, which will be named “Research Institute.” Check out the video announcement below or read the full announcement on the LEGO Ideas blog.
