Monowheels are a frequently used vehicle for steampunk characters, spacemen, and 4-armed cyborgs everywhere. And here comes one by martin.with.bricks in the Classic space theme, cruising over the crater covered landscape in style. The wheel has some serious tread, built using the ingot piece, and if you look behind the bike, you’ll see the clever use of profile bricks perfectly spaced to show the tread marks in the sand. The pilot seat is an excellent reflection of the classic space aesthetic.
Getting your food delivered is usually a nice treat, but Ivan Martynov adds an element of danger to things. Rotor Shrimp may make you think twice about ordering that shrimp tempura. But if you do decide risk it, maybe you’ll get to see this LEGO beauty up close. I really like the segregation of colors in the dark tan and grey, and the triangular clip plates on the propeller pods create a really lovely shape. Meanwhile, the mix of round orange tiles and modified plates add just the right pop of color to keep this from being a drab build. You have to wonder, though, did this creature use those tiny legs to build this exo-suit? That seems like it would have taken a really long time.
This isn’t the first creature of Ivan’s we’ve featured. Check out our archives for more!
LEGO released the 7189 Mill Village Raid set nine years ago (yes, you heard it correctly, nine years ago!). To this day this is the only set to feature this particular LEGO goat. Buying a LEGO goat on Bricklink is like buying a kidney on the black market. Somehow adding a goat adds to your creation makes it ten times as good. Hellboy.lego made a beautiful new rendition of this set. And it doesn’t need goats to make it look good. However, he added 4 of them anyway. I am not sure what is being raided in this creation but it would be wise to snatch a goat or two while at it…
My uncle is a great fan of LEGO. He once spoke these wise words: “Making something awesome out of LEGO is not about having a lot of different bricks, it’s about having a lot of the same bricks.” And Hellboy.lego proves him right by using a ton of 1×2 tiles in this creation. Most of the walls and the roofs are composed of 1×2 tiles. Even the blades of the mill are made of them!
One thing that always bothers me about movies about giant metal things, be they spaceships in Star Wars or Jaegers in Pacific Rim, is how they get all that material in one place and assembled. I mean, where did Palpatine get the materials to build that giant fleet? That’s some serious mining operations! Jaegers aren’t as large as Star Destroyers, but the question remains; what factories are churning out those parts? Are they all built in one place, or are different components assembled in different factories and then shipped across the country for full assembly? To answer the question, I built a LEGO scene depicting a giant arm on a giant trailer, ready to be shipped to a shatterdome to be joined with the rest of the Jaeger body.
It was my first foray into building this sort of thing, as I typically consider myself more of a castle builder, but I was reasonably pleased with the arm itself (other builders are designing the rest of the mech, and we’ll assemble the whole thing digitally once it’s finished). It looks the part of a large robot arm, at very least. Harder was making a scene to give it scale, especially since I wanted to include a flying helicopter (and my bricks don’t fly on their own, sadly). I added an arch from a previous build, made up the truck and trailer, and included a previously built helicopter, after making some modifications to it to improve the proportions. But how to get it all in one shot? Maybe other builders are better at photo editing than I am, but it takes a long time for me to splice different photographs into one coherent picture. Four different camera shots went into the final image, in fact, making it kind of like the Jaeger, comprised of many different parts assembled at the end.
For the Rebellion! Arriving just in time to save the day is the Rebel Transport, as seen in this LEGO creation by Thomas Jenkins. If you know your Rebel starships, you’d see many similarities between this ship and the U-wing, made famous by Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Jenkins’ ship features shortened wings and a pair fewer engines from the normal U-wing, but also sports a rear wing connector and a bubble turret.
Another detail I didn’t notice until my third look-through of this build is that the main body of the ship can slide forwards and backward within the wingspan. I’m honestly not sure what the purpose of this feature is, but frankly, I don’t care because it looks so dang cool.
With several soldiers loaded onboard and a speeder bike prepped to launch, this Rebel Transport is ready to deploy anywhere the Alliance sends it.
With many ship festivals and sailing events cancelled this year due to the ongoing pandemic, it is nice to be able to get my ship fix in via LEGO. Builder Lennart Cort certainly materializes the fine craftsmanship of a well-built sea vessel into the LEGO medium for viewers to enjoy in his build of the Dannebrog from 1852.
The Dannebrog is a “ship of the line,” which is a type of naval warship that was produced in the 17th century to the mid 19th century. Cort’s micro-scale Dannebrog certainly exhibits the details necessary for a military ship. One example is his utilization of multiple round 1×1 with bar and pin holder pieces as gun ports. The Dannebrog was specifically an armored frigate of the Royal Danish navy – in fact, the word Dannebrog is the given name of the Danish flag, and through this build we can see this connection via Cort’s use of two red streamer flags modified with what looks like white tape to form the white cross on the Danish flag. My favorite part of this build is actually the brick-built sails that Cort expertly executes using white wedge plates and tiles; he really does an excellent job at making brick-built sails look like the real deal. In my opinion, Cort’s brick-built sails are visually more appealing than the ones featured in the new Creator 3-in-1 pirate ship designed by LEGO. As a whole, Cort’s creation certainly is beauty and must look wonderful on display.
When young Youtube woodworker, Are Baloni decided to build an awesome transforming bookshelf, LEGO builder Deborah Higdon chose to take it a step further. Is it possible to make it with LEGO? That answer is yes, and the outcome is excellent! From the first picture, it looks normal, but wait until you see how it works!
There’s something familiar about the shape of this latest spaceship from Dave Kaleta and son. Those curves look too recognizable, suggesting a meaning beyond the utility of the shape itself. I’m sure it’ll come to me. In the meantime, I can enjoy the unusual colors. I think this is the first time I’ve seen a purple and lavender hull, and the extensive use of transparent neon-green lightsaber blades and radar dishes really makes things come alive. This beauty also has cool action features like an opening cockpit, adjustable engines, and firing missiles. (You can see them in action in Dave’s Instagram post.) It really adds up to more than the sum of its parts.
I’m still at a loss as to what this shape means, though. Maybe I’ll go looking at the other ships in Dave’s growing fleet for a clue.
In a cottage in the woods, there lived a… dinosaur trainer? Sure, why not. This pastoral scene by Isaac Snyder is a perfect blend of simplicity and technique from the textured foundation to the interesting use of spiky vines tree branches. I really like the mostly smooth tile roof, with just a few studs for visual interest. And take a closer look at that door, with those “espresso handles” for hinges… nice parts usage!
In the most chaotic battles of the Clone Wars, soldiers for the Republic knew victory was imminent when they could hear the overhead rumbling of gunships flying through the sky. Just looking at this fantastic LEGO model built by Spencer Hubert makes me, too, cheer for the Republic.
First seen in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, this gunship was a staple of the Grand Army of the Republic. Hubert’s model here continues the traditional red and white paint scheme of most of the gunships seen in that movie, as well as the wing-mounted bubble turrets and front ball turrets.
What’s new about this version are the fully closing doors instead of a side turret. These doors allowed pilots to fly their gunships through the void of space so carrier ships wouldn’t have to get too close to the battlefield.
I always find it useful to reuse printed bricks from sets that I don’t have built anymore. Hubert has done that by utilizing the large printed sloped bricks from the original Obi-wan Kenobi Jedi Starfighter set as detail on the back of the gunship wings. Very clever!
LEGO has produced a lot of castle sets, but in my honest opinion there always has been a lack of travel carts! Markus Rollbühler is here to fill that gap for us. One of the best things about this creation is that the walls of the cart are positioned at an angle. The only straight wall, where the door is located, uses 2×1 cheese slopes to fill up the gap created by the slight angle of the other walls. But that’s not the only thing. This creation is filled with original details! One of the best used pieces has to be the blaster trigger. The blaster adds great playability to the set for kids, but as an adult fan of LEGO, I do not tend to use them. Markus used the trigger piece as table and chair legs and it looks stunning. Have you noticed the candle holder using the scuba breathing regulator. And don’t even get me started on that cute brick-built snail!
Things are getting a little ridiculous here. The level of Grant Davis‘ genius LEGO skills lately is making me want to be better at life. Making a popcorn machine is neat, but what’s really cool is that it functions. Yup, the “popcorn” pieces come out of it just like the real thing, using a motorized piston at the top. It’s an excellent idea that I wish I would have thought of myself. But on top of that, we have to address the font. Can you imagine a better way to replicate that old school cartoony movie theater style?
If you look closely, you can see the piston moving up and down. It “pop” out just the right amount at the right timing to mimic the real thing.
You can see all of Grant’s LEGO builds (including many with a common parts theme) in our archives.