What the 2010 movie sequel TRON: Legacy lacked in terms of story, character development, and avoiding the Uncanny Valley, it more than made up for visually – thanks to the design sense of architecturally-trained director Joseph Kosinski. And while we have seen plenty of LEGO interpretations of the iconic vehicles and characters from both TRON movies, Joe Perez has created the most curve-licious LEGO light cycle to date, at a scale I would never have imagined possible. Breathtaking…
OK, so Disney’s Zootopia isn’t out yet, but the trailer is hilarious and makes this movie a must-see for me. Jordan Schwartz, a fan of all things Disney, gone ahead and made a fantastic sculpt of Nick Wilde, one of the film’s new protagonists, and it looks spot on. The sly look Nick is giving us is too perfect.
You never know where you’re going to find your inspiration. How about your favorite manufacturer of MIDI controlers? Yep, perig perig devoted his latest spacecraft model to Livid Instruments – a small company which produces computer music equipment. We can only guess how exactly the overall design was influenced by the author’s musical experince, but the result is gorgeous as usual. The color scheme is what impressed me the most; together blue and olive pieces work miracles.
The Castle theme has a long history within the LEGO community, and builders all over the world have produced magnificent creations in every size, shape, and color. Luke Hutchinson (Derfel Cadarn) is one of the originators of the now-common “ramshackle” style, characterized by the odd angles and an organic approach to the scene. His beautiful creations inspired me to start building with LEGO and posting my creations online many years ago.
So, naturally I was very excited to see a glimpse of his latest creation in a teaser pic a few months back. He continues to improve his own building style, pushing his creations further and further, influencing many other builders in this theme.
We had a chance to talk to Luke more about his creation and his approach.
The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools is a private school affiliated with its namesake. Donors recently provided funding for a new arts wing designed by architects FGM and Valerio Dewalt Train. As a thank you gift to the donors (Mellody Hobson and her husband George Lucas), the school commissioned alumnus and faculty member Dave Kaleta to build a LEGO replica of the new facility.
Since the gift was planned to coincide with completion of the building, Dave was given access to blueprints and even the building site itself. Even though the gift was intended for the Lucas household, Dave tells me that he resisted requests to include a minifig Yoda somewhere in the display, since the donors themselves had insisted that the new building be named in honor of American photographer Gordon Parks (1912-2006).
See more photos in Dave’s album on Flickr, along with his build notes and description of key architectural details.
LEGO themes come and go, but some of them stay in our hearts forever. Korean builder bigcrown85 makes us shed some tears with a beautiful remake of some old Model Team sets.
Experienced readers might recognize these legendary vehicles. The jeep on the left is based on the awesome 5510 Off-Road 4×4 from 1986, and the truck on the right is a remake of the B-model from 5571 Giant Truck, which was released in 1996.
The builder has refurbished both cars, making them black and red, improving the chassis and upgrading the interiors with all new pieces (he even placed a coffee machine right behind the seats in the driver’s cab!). And the title “Black cat rally team” refers to the giant truck’s alternative set name. A crouching cat was used as a radiator cap, and you can find one on the hood of the jeep as well. What a lovely touch!
All in all, both cars offer a nice representation of how present-day Model Team sets could possibly look: massive, stunning and handsome.
Gregory St doesn’t post Flickr images often, but this Batman mech caught my eye. I think it does well at being chunky and slightly menacing, but still fun and comic-book like. I could see this leaping off the page of a classic-era Batman comic, rather than stalking the gloomy streets of the po-faced movie version of Gotham. This is what Batman should be about – a sense of menace and impending violence, accompanied by a faint whiff of camp ridiculousness…
Looking back through their Flickr stream, I’ve enjoyed seeing how the builder has posted different designs all based on the same mech frame. It’s interesting to see how color choices and changes in little details can create a totally different feel from the same base structure. In particular, I liked their interpretation of Lord Business from the LEGO Movie a while back…
I’d like to see more of these builds. Maybe some other comic book heroes?
In addition to 21028 New York City (which I reviewed here a couple of weeks ago), LEGO has also just released 21027 Berlin and 21026 Venice as part of a trio of new city skyline sets.
In contrast to the $60 price tag for NYC, both Berlin and Venice retail for $29.99, and I’ll be reviewing these two smaller sets together today.
Read the full review after the jump!
At least, he will try. Just imagine torokimasa‘s adorable LEGO Kylo Ren throwing a tantrum and vandalizing First Order equipment! While the technique the builder used for the lightsaber blades would have been lazy for any other lightsaber, I think it works great to emulate the unstable blade effect on Ren’s crossguard saber.
I was determined to stay away from the Star Wars stuff for a while following the glut of excellent models prompted by the release of The Force Awakens. Yet these figures from Luc Byard are simply too cool not to post…
Immediately recognizable, the Princess and her beau have never looked cuter. The shaping is excellent, avoiding some of the blockiness which can come with chibi builds, and the attention to detail is impressive whilst staying with the chibi-aesthetic – those blasters in particular are spot-on.
Luc has also had a crack at Darth Vader in this building style. It’s good, but for me it hasn’t quite hit the sweet spot between recognisable, fun, and cute which really set the Han and Leia figures apart. I hope Luc keeps going though, more figures in this style would make me very happy indeed.
Australian builder Shannon Sproule has created a LEGO model of one of the seemingly less graceful birds of prey – the vulture. Shannon says he based this build on the griffon vulture, and with an average wing span of 2.5m (8 ft) in real life, these birds are impressive creatures.
The position of the outstretched feet, ducked head and ‘flaps down’ wing position has really captured the body positioning of a typical griffon vulture landing. While the vulture appears to be coming in to land near some carrion, the birds-eye view spares us from the sight of a decaying animal… just use your imagination.
Back when MTV was still a thing, a prophetic documentarian named Mike Judge introduced Generation Y with a new set of role models, in the form of two hopeless morons named Beavis and Butthead. Fans of the show will no doubt recognize Beavis’ sugar-induced alter ego Cornholio, hilariously recreated here in LEGO by TBB favorite Jimmy Fortel. Heh heh, heh… ARE YOU THREATENING ME?
