After a hiatus of several months, Jon Hall has returned with this lovely little fighter with a giant rotating Gatling gun on its nose. My own favorite detail is the air intake in front of the cockpit.
See more photos in Jon’s photoset on Flickr. Jon says he’s back to building after a move, so I can’t wait to see what he shares next!
Welcome to the second installment of the Week of Wonders: SHIPtember edition. Today we’ll take a look at some of the more unconventional SHIPs that were built during this year’s SHIPtember contest.
Usually ship builders will base their builds on some existing ships, or designs and influences from movies, games or books. Then there are builders that just go a completely different route and create something truly unique.
Chris Perron (thebrickbin) leads the pack with this unconventional Castle ship, the Astral Voyager:
With a combination of fantastic rockwork, integrated castles and volcano engines, the Wizard Chris has managed to create a believable magical flying rock space ship.
Alysa Kirkpatrick (d2hiriyuu) has built this Dyson Sphere, a spaceship that is wrapped around a sun, which she calls Astra Luminaria: 
One of the most interesting parts of this build, besides possibly being the biggest SHIP we’ve seen built to date, was that the entire build is a series of geometric shapes, which means that it was easy for her to calculate that there were exactly 20,012 parts used.
Last but not least, (ska2d2) has this … well I’m not really sure best to describe this… I guess as the name implies, looks a bit like a Dragonfly :
What I really liked about this isn’t just the cool build, and strong colour blocking, but the fact that it was based on a Concept Sketch that he did prior to building.
I never thought the Lego T-Rex head would be so perfect for a dino pincher until Takamichi Irie built one. Even though I know it isn’t functional, I’d still give it a squeeze if I had my hands on it.
I just had to share this off-kilter cottage by Christophe. I love the off-angle, and the roof. The swords on the door are a nice touch.
I encourage you to check out more of his flickr gallery, too. There are plenty of lovely examples of cottages and buildings that are just whimsical.
Welcome to a Week of Wonders, highlighting some of the best SHIPs (Seriously Huge Investment in Parts) that were built during SHIPtember. We have some special prizes lined up so stay tuned to the end of the week!
For those that might be unfamiliar and might be asking: What is SHIPtember? Well it is a challenge to build a very large space ship that is at least 100 studs in any orientation, from start to finish within the month of September, or as we’ve now lovingly dubbed it: SHIPtember.
This year we have over 120 astounding ships created by builders. These ships range from complete figment of the builder’s imagination, recreating concept art, taking design cues from existing themes, to recreating familiar ships.
But today, let’s focus on the fine art of recreating ships based off existing properties.
John Boozer (JediKnight219) (yes, that’s his real last name) has been a long time SHIPtember builder, focusing on recreating some of the best pop culture ships from his Transformer’s ARK Ship and last year’s minifigure scale Guardian of the Galaxy’s Milano.
This year, John is back with a vengeance with this incredible take on the Superman Villain: Brainiac’s Skull Ship:
This one was particularly fun to watch watch being built in the last month as it was originally quite hard to decipher what John was working on.
Kevin J. Walter (SkyWalter), who actually won the best IP based build last year with his Goa’uld Mothership from Stargate SG-1 is back this year with the Nazara / “Sovereign” from the Mass Effect game:
I’ve always been a big fan of Kevin’s love of building in black, a very hard to photograph colour, especially given the amount of details he manages to put into his builds.
Not to be outdone, Pico van Grootveld (Brixnspace) built another creature-ish SHIP this year with the EVE online’s custom Scorpion battleship:
While we’re used to many ships being really big, this is really big. Which is extremely impressive given the size and and shaping of the lowered section – it’s quite the LEGO-engineering feat!
And one more for the Pop Culture round up, another Video Game based ship, by Mel F. (Melan-E) with her build from Destiny: The Queen’s Emissary:
Which ironically is the most ship-like of all the ship’s in this post, but none the less a beautiful recreation of the original source that is instantly recognizable due to Mel being able to recreate those distinctive angles.
When most of us photograph a new creation, we’re satisfied if the photo has clean lighting and a nice backdrop. Some builders, however, take things to the next level. Over the past several years, we’ve seen a number of builders apply their superb photography skills to our favorite plastic toy, including Vesa Lehtimäki and Joe and Will Merzlak. Rob D. is a new addition to the ranks of those builders taking breathtaking shots of LEGO, and he’s got some great building skills to boot. One of Rob’s latest photos, portraying an underwater scene of the new LEGO Deep Sea theme, is featured in the current edition of Blocks, a LEGO fan magazine, but my favorite has to be the shot of Rob’s LL-962 spacecraft being maintenanced.
This morning at the Brick Korea fan event in South Korea, LEGO displayed the newest city modular, 10251 Brick Bank. With 2,380 pieces, it’s the third largest modular building yet, and looks just as detailed as its predecessors. It will be available from the LEGO Shop Online beginning in January for $169.99 USD. The full press release is below.
10251 Brick Bank
Ages 16+.
2,380 pieces.
US $169.99 – CA $219.99 – DE 149.99€ – UK £119.99 – DK 1399.00 DKK
*Euro pricing varies by country. Please visit shop.LEGO.com for regional pricing.Make a safe deposit at the Brick Bank! Make a secure deposit at the highly respected Brick Bank, featuring an array of intricate details and hidden surprises. Easy-to-remove building sections provide access to the detailed interior, comprising a bank with an atrium foyer, tiled floor, arched windows, ornate chandelier, lockable vault and a transaction counter
with security glass; a laundromat with printed window, tiled floor and 4 laundry machines; plus 2 second-floor offices with an array of detailed furniture, fixtures and accessories. The exterior of the building features a detailed sidewalk and an elaborate façade with carving and statue décor, decorative roofline, large arched windows, central balcony, clock and an accessible roof terrace featuring a large skylight.
• Includes 5 minifigures: a bank manager, secretary, teller, and a mom and child.
• The Brick Bank features a bank, secretary’s office, bank manager’s office, laundromat and a detailedfaçade and sidewalk.
• Bank features an atrium foyer with wide,arched entrance, triangular-patterned floor tiling, ornate chandelier, oxidized-copper colored skylight, transaction counter with hidden alarm buttons and security glass, and a bank vault with safe deposit boxes and a large round door.
• Laundromat features a printed window, tiled floor and 4 laundry machines.
• Secretary’s office features a wall clock, desk, typewriter, cabinet with opening drawers, fireplace and an espresso machine.
• Bank manager’s office features a large desk with banker’s lamp and approval stamp, leather-look chair, printed portrait, statue and a cabinet.
• Accessory elements include a mug, document, camera, candy, blank white paper, chrome-golden coins, 1 chrome- golden bar and banknotes.
• Remove the building sections to access the detailed interior.
• Unlock the bank vault to access the safe deposit boxes.
• Visit the laundromat for a spot of laundering.
• Stack coins with the coin counting machine.
• Special elements include a printed prize check, printed ground-floor windows, a special printed portrait in the bank manager’s office, plus rare, sand-blue and dark-green bricks, and sand-green window frames.
• Collect and build an entire town with the LEGO® Creator Expert Modular Building series 10243 Parisian Restaurant and 10246 Detective’s Office.
• Brick Bank measures over 10” (26cm) high, 10” (25cm) wide and 10” (25cm) deep.
Check out the rest of the photos of 10251 Brick Bank on flickr.
In the last two years, my fellow Dutchmen Dennis Bosman (Legotrucks) and Dennis Glaasker (Bricksonwheels) have been working on a book titled The art of Lego Scale Modeling. It is one of a number of new titles released this fall by Nostarch Press and currently costs $21.74 on amazon (down from its normal list price of 29.95).
Both of these guys have been building scale models (primarily of trucks) for years and are long-term members of the LEGO community. For their book they have enlisted the cooperation of no fewer than 22 other builders, from all over the world, to present high-quality photographs of some of the best Lego scale models of vehicles you’ll ever see. I got my copy just before the weekend, because I was lucky enough to be able to contribute some of my own models for this title. I obviously cannot be completely objective here. Then again, no reviewer ever is.
The excellent photographs of the models themselves are accompanied by short bits of text, giving some information about the real-world vehicle, and the builds. These are interesting, but the photographs are the stars. If you are a regular reader of our blog, you will already have seen a fair few of the models, such as the Ferrari 458 Italia, by Nathaneal L.. The top-notch photography shows them in a new light.
Although there probably are other scale models out there of similar quality, the Dennises have made a really nice selection of trucks, including a few by the authors themselves, cars, motorcycles, race cars, cranes, aircraft, military models and ships. A few models were built specifically for the book, such as the wonderful Scania by Ingmar Spijkhoven (2LegoOrNot2Lego).
If you are expecting a detailed explanation of how to build models like these, this book will disappoint you. There’s a brief section on how to build them, with a few useful pointers, but a look at the biographies of the builders included in the back of the book will tell you that most of them have been at this for years, if not decades. You can’t learn to build models like these by reading a book; it takes experience. If you’re looking for instructions, you’re not going to find them either. The instructions for some of the individual models alone would be enough to fill most of the book’s 204 pages. You will find plenty of inspiration, though.
As usual with LEGO books from this publisher, the cover and binding seem pretty sturdy. The pictures are nicely printed in a matt-gloss finish and are printed on decent quality paper. This is what you would expect from what’s essentially a coffee table picture book. What I didn’t expect is the size of the book. I would have liked to see it a bit larger (it is about 20 by 25 cm/ 8 x 10 inches). This size was probably chosen to keep the book affordable. The pages are still large enough to give you a good view of the models and to appreciate most of the details, but some would definitely look even better on a larger canvas. This is a minor niggle. If scale models of vehicles built out of LEGO are your thing (and if not, why not?!), this is a title you definitely do not want to miss.
Castor Troy spent the past year working on this massive 6 feet tall creation depicting a fantasy guild of vampire hunters. The elaborate pillar consists of varying techniques of rock work as well as embedded structures, and on top are buildings depicting different ethnicities uniting to fight the vampires. Check out more details of this colossal creation on Flickr.
Many builds featured here are stand-alone creations, frequently based on pre-existing material. So we were truly impressed to discover Tiny Adventure by Korean builder Yosool. Not only does this eclectic collection of brick-built characters incorporate a ton of play features, but each one also has a fully fleshed out backstory, woven into an overarching theme with a very specific goal: To help children appreciate the global ecological problem of adventive animals (aka invasive species).
To find out more about the fascinating world of Tiny Adventure, you can check out the full album of character photos, discover their backstories on Yosool’s website, watch the numerous play feature videos on his YouTube channel, and you can even support the project on LEGO Ideas.
In the builder’s own words: The story starts at a peaceful town of swamp. One day, adventive species suddenly appear, and turn the small town into a huge chaos. These predators are always hungry, and they devour every native species they can find. Extinction is only a matter of time. Tiny and Tale, green frog brothers native to the swamp town, put their heads together to solve the serious problem.”
This microscale basilica by Jens Ohrndorf is adorned with details. I love the creative use of the Death Star part for the dome as well as a lug wrench for the cross. Check out this edited photo of the creation, which could pass off as an actual basilica to those not familiar with Lego bricks.
This mosaic, by Ken Robichaud, is incredibly striking. I particularly like the ragged edges of the cape and how it hangs off the edge of grey background, breaking up the stark lines.
