Builder Miro Dudas knows that the formula for success is to build Baby Yoda or anything from The Mandalorian, really. I have not yet seen the pivotal series from Disney+ but in gleaning from the official trailer, internet memes, and prior TBB articles about The Mandalorian and Baby Yoda, I’ll try to surmise the plot of the entire series. Here goes:
(any spoilers are purely coincidental)
Continuing on my fad of building “hard sci-fi” spaceships that look like they might have been designed by NASA or SpaceX, after completing the Vanguard, I found myself with a handful of leftover modules. So I set about building another ship and employing some of the techniques I’d learned and adding others. Last time my ship had topped out at 89 studs in length, but the I.E.A. Discovery rings in at 120 studs.
One of the main things I wanted change was the color scheme. Although the solid black-and-white motif is very classic NASA, I was trying to build a spaceship of the future, so perhaps a little color was in order. My two chosen highlight colors were sand green and flame yellowish orange (or bright light orange, if you prefer Bricklink’s nomenclature). Both are vibrant and bold, while still capturing the vintage space-race color palette I wanted. Continue reading
As we welcome the new year, let’s take a quick look back at the highlights of 2019. We dove through our archives and compiled this list of the LEGO models that were most popular with you, our readers, throughout the year. These MOCs, as LEGO builders call them, are sure to wow, just as they’ve captured the imaginations of thousands of LEGO fans around the world already.
Don’t forget to check out the 2019 TBB Builder of the Year and 2019 TBB Creation of the Year awards as well, as judged by our staff.
We’ll start at number 10 and work our way up to the year’s most popular custom LEGO creation.
It finally happened! This new creation by Angelo Favretti has me at a loss for words. So instead of coming up with the words you can fill them all in Mad Libs style and post them in the comments section.
This (adjective) spaceship is totally the (possessive noun) knees! I like how it is divided into (a number) sections, each more (adjective) than the last. I’m willing to wager my (noun) that this took a metric (unit of measure) of time and LEGO to complete. We’re all (adverb) blown away by the amount of (verb ending in “ing”) greebling this thing has! It’s like a (noun) exploded in (a place) and this is the (adjective) result. I think the gray (plural noun) and the white (plural noun) are (adverb) nice parts usage. (Brothers Brick staff member) says this might be the (adjective ending in “est”) spaceship we’ve seen all year and (famous person) just might agree. Let’s hope for more (adjective) (plural noun) like this in 2020!
Woodlice are terrestrial isopods and, among other nicknames, are affectionately known as “roly-poly pill bugs” for their ability to roll into a ball. Though this ability is a natural defense mechanism, Japanese builder Moko drew inspiration from the woodlouse for their latest LEGO mech. Moko’s mech emulates the woodlouse’s segmented body thanks to staggered round shell detail elements, which appeared in black in 2012 Hero Factory sets Black Phantom and Toxic Reapa. This black armor is also reminiscent of the crab-like Garthim from The Dark Crystal.
As an added bonus, Moko’s woodlouse mech rolls into a ball just like the real thing. While the real life woodlouse does this to protect itself, I think it’s safe to say this mechanical critter can also use it for quick getaways. Now, that’s using your exoskeleton!
The first season of the Mandalorian has now finished on Disney+ and while we have some time to wait before season 2, we can still revel in the LEGO creations inspired by the show. The planet Nevarro makes a few appearances, and First Order LEGO has recreated one pivotal scene. The landscape is sufficiently textured to give the model the same gritty feeling as the show. Additionally, the buildings are built using many small pieces, making them as aged and weathered as we’ve come to expect from the Star Wars galaxy. To avoid getting too spoilery, I’ll just say that the scene is filled with all the right details, from droids to moisture vaporators, that make it unmistakably Star Wars. Check out the rest of this builder’s photos and see what other details you can spot.
As a longtime LEGO space builder, I found I was ready for a bit of a change. After years of building Star Wars and video-game inspired spaceships, I wanted to try my hand at building a spaceship that is, paradoxically, a little more down to earth. Rather than ships bristling with big guns or outfitted with wings, I decided to take my visual cues from movies like Interstellar, The Martian, and of course, NASA’s own designs. Several years ago I built the space shuttle launch system for the theme, and since then I’ve been working on a couple of spacecraft. I’ve displayed them at a number of conventions, but over the holidays this year, I finally polished them up and photographed them. The first ship I built was the Vanguard, part of the fictional Interplanetary Expedition Alliance, mankind’s first attempt at visiting nearby planets and their orbiting bodies.
I built it as a series of discrete modules, and then strung the modules together to create the larger spacecraft. I like this technique because it lets me play with small structures of a few dozen elements at a time, which also results in a look similar to the real International Space Station’s modular design. Continue reading
The premise of Gremlins was to never expose these adorable Mogwai to bright light, never get them wet and never, ever feed them after midnight. But how do they know what time zone they’re in? Plus it’s always midnight somewhere so did they take that into consideration? They broke the rules anyway and drama ensued but in the 80’s you didn’t really need cohesive plots to make a movie watchable. All you needed was Phoebe Cates. Grantmasters proves you don’t need a ton of LEGO to recreate a pretty convincing facsimile of Gizmo, the adorable star of Gremlins who wasn’t Phoebe Cates.
When we last checked in with Christophe Pujaletplaa almost a year ago, he’d just finished adding roads to the microscale LEGO city he calls Microville. It’s now grown to more than 11 meters squared, or close to 100 large 48×48-stud baseplates and gained a waterfront.
Christophe has been continuously working on the city since 2010, slowly adding more streets with detailed buildings, along with the occasional larger upgrade. The waterfront section adds new beach real estate and an industrial port next to the airport. Continue reading
Sometimes you see a LEGO part and you think “now what will I ever do with that?” I’ve always loved the greebly, mechanical look of the ripcord housing element, but for the life of me I’ve never found a use for it. That’s not a problem for Cezium, though, who whipped together this brilliant digital model with two whole rows of them for the teeth–er, excuse me, railgun housings on this sentry bot. This just goes to prove that old LEGO building axiom: all pieces are useful if you have a sufficient quantity of them.
Alex “Orion Pax” Jones is a very focussed builder. All his LEGO building time lately has been spent on creating as-accurate-as-they-can-be digital Transformers Generation 1 characters. There’s so much to love about these as they instantly transport us back to a time when morning cartoons were not streamed and you had to wake up early to tune in to what now are amazing pop culture classics.
Click to see more Generation 1 Transformers
Let’s look at it this way: Stormtroopers always miss their shots and Jedi constantly use their Force push capabilities to render those poor troopers in weak plastic white armour lifeless. Letranger Absurde shows off this exact scenario taking place in (almost) real-time with an unarmed Stormtrooper. That red light saber, says a lot, doesn’t it? Hint: EVIL! The character build is stunningly simple yet gives off a maximum punch with the pose giving off a dynamic in-motion feel.
