Brütal Legend is the satirical video game about heavy metal that was remarkably well received, considering its unusual premise. Matt De Lanoy brings us the epic sculpture of the game’s hero, Eddie Riggs, who’s voiced in the game by none other than Jack Black, of course.
Click to see more of Eddie Riggs
….And if this scene by Grant Davis is any indication, it involves hours of watching television re-runs of Pokémon. Grant’s model is a representation of artwork shared by Deviant Art-user, Nerd-Scribbles. Some impressive-looking techniques were used in constructing Pikachu’s native habitat, including hundreds of dark tan jumper plates used to form the curve of the Poké Ball’s wall. Pikachu looks pretty iconic, right down to the gaping mouth shouting its signature “PIKA!” Grant’s version may be missing the purple Gamecube found in the original artwork, but rumor has it Ash keeps Pikachu on a pretty tight leash now.
Most fans build LEGO trains in a scale known as L-gauge, or roughly minifigure scale (somewhere around 1:40 scale). But that wasn’t big enough to capture all the details André Pinto wanted, so he designed this fiery orange engine in huge 1:15 scale, making it nearly two feet long.
Click to see more of this massive engine
The Sirius is a fictional vessel first appearing in the Tintin graphic novel The Shooting Star, and later in The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham’s Treasure. It was named after the SS Sirius, the first steam-powered ship to cross the Atlantic under its own power. This wonderfully detailed boat by Stefan Johansson is so accurate compared to images of the vessel John-O.88, a trawler that inspired the author, that it is easy to mistake it for a wooden model.
The curved hull is particularly impressive, along with the riggings, made up of various lengths of LEGO string elements. On deck, Tintin is ready to plunge into the depths in his diving suit, while Snowy, Thomson (or Thompson?) and Captain Haddock look on.
As the gateway to the Klondike, Seattle boomed during the gold rush of the late 1800’s. And with the explosive growth of Amazon in recent years, the Emerald City is experiencing a new boom. Everything here is surging: the economy, the population, house prices, and consequently homelessness. King county now ranks #3 in the nation for homelessness, after New York and Los Angeles, 47% of whom lack proper shelter.
I decided to use LEGO to illustrate this problem by imagining Seattle as an Architecture skyline set, featuring the Space Needle, Pike Place Market (complete with brass pig and gum wall), the Columbia Tower, Smith Tower, ship yards, and a plethora of street-side tents.
The good news is that local government has just levied money to finally attack this humanitarian crisis, no thanks to Amazon. The Seattle-based retail giant, now one of the most valuable companies in the world, threatened to halt all of its downtown expansion rather than cough up less cash than they probably spend keeping their cafeterias stocked with kombucha and avocado toast. Meanwhile the company’s founder – now the world’s richest person – allegedly ponders sinking the bulk of his fortune into advancing space travel.
Maybe before we start putting people in tents on Mars, we should first try to reduce the number that are forced to live in them down here…
Last time we featured builder Wesley, he took us to the smoky skies above the trenches of WWI with a magnificent trio of early aircraft. This time he’s set the clock forward a few decades to the Battle of Britain with this gorgeous Supermarine Spitfire Mk.II, created in a nifty scale that’s slightly smaller than minifigure scale. He’s taken off a few of the panels to show the plane in service, which also acts as an added bonus in showing us how it’s built.
Unless your name is Luke Skywalker or Wedge Antilles, being given the orange flight suit of a Star Wars rebel pilot must be a little like getting a red shirt on Star Trek — chances are, you’re not going to survive to the end of the battle. Koen offers a great LEGO Brickheadz-styled take on one of these everyday heroes of the Rebellion. The model’s helmet is fantastic, managing to adopt the blocky-aesthetic whilst remaining remarkably accurate to its inspiration. Nice use of printed tiles for the chest plate too. Whilst Koen leaves his pilot anonymous, the figure does sport a quite magnificent 70s-style moustache. As a result, unless anyone tells me otherwise, I’m going to assume this is Luke’s childhood friend Biggs Darklighter — Red 3.
Some say they’re bloodthirsty ravagers, others say they’re just a pestilence upon the galaxy. Whatever the case, we can agree that the Spaskito, the stringing-est spaceship to ever buzz your planet, is terrifying, with a huge blaster and six wing spikes. Built by F@bz, this little craft makes great use of the Nexo Knights hexagons (aka Nexagons) for shields on the ship’s sides. It’s got a cockpit just large enough for a single minifigure–or is it a minibug?
Despite the clean, aggressive-looking front, the builder has worked in some great greebling in back with a much more old-school approach to engine technology.
Builder Patrick B. is taking us back to a fond childhood memory in the Hundred Acre Wood with this quintet of beloved characters from A. A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh series, consisting of Eeyore, Tigger, Pooh, Rabbit, and Kanga and Roo. Oh joy! The ears are the standout technique on each of the characters, made of various tiles and slopes, but my favorite detail is Rabbit’s whiskers, made with lever handles.
Bonus fact: Winnie the Pooh was translated into Latin in the 1950s, and Winnie illie Pu proceeded to become the only Latin-language book ever to make it to the New York Times Best Seller list.
Hot on the heels of one LEGO vehicle inspired by The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, along comes another brick rendition of Captain Nemo’s steampunk automobile. Lego Fjotten‘s version comes in screen-accurate white, and features the trademark six wheels and beefy split bonnet. A surfboard piece provides some smart curves up-front, and the rear tapers nicely. The presentation of the model is excellent — the cobbled street and the black ironwork of fence and lamp-post add a suitable Victorian-era feel.
The TBB cover photo for June 2018 is Sandyman’s Mill by Patrick B. Now visiting our social media pages will make you want to be a hobbit and live in The Shire!
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Remember those awesome little buffalo from a short while back? Or these even tinier ones a little further? They were a product from the brilliant mind of Jens Ohrndorf. And now Jens is at it again with another adorable animal: a mole! No buffalo this time, but we are equally impressed with the latest creation.
The best part of this cute build is probably the use of the magnifying glass to make a little ring around the eyes. It works so perfectly it even gives the creature the appearance of whiskers. I wonder if it’s also a play on the fact that moles have pretty poor eyesight.
