I don’t know which I love more in this Guilds of Historica build by Jacob Nion – the very believable battle-worn siege tower, or the fantastical yet beautifully constructed rhino that’s pulling it. Let’s hope this practice doesn’t lead to rhino’s in GoH becoming as endangered as they are on our planet!
From the same people that brought Godzilla to our screens over half a century ago, came the Saturday morning kaiju punch-fest Ultraman (ウルトラマン). A staple of Japanese television, this show seems to have experienced regular revivals and adaptations since the first series aired in 1966.
Flickr member umamen has built this perfect recreation of the Ultraman’s long standing, size-changing nemesis Alien Baltan. How a species with crab claws instead of opposable thumbs would ever get past the invention of the wheel is left as an exercise for the reader. But then again, who said this show had to actually make sense!?
According to Marvin the Martian, who peers at us from his telescope on Mars, we are very very curious. Matt Rowntree brings us this fantastic rendition of everyone’s favorite Martian:
While the figure by itself would have been enough for me to share, I love how Matt spent the extra time to build out the famous telescope he is typically seen with. I particulary like the top of the helmet with its fantastic usage of a series of skis. Though the secret fun trick of this build is how he built the rim of the helmet.
While the story line and characters of TRON: Legacy may have left you flat, it was hard not to be impressed by visual design of the movie’s vehicles and environments, which were almost certainly down to director Joseph Kosinski’s extensive background in architecture.
Kosinksi delivered a similar visual treat in the Tom Cruise vehicle Oblivion, which featured some equally eye-catching designs such as the Bubbleship, recreated here in LEGO by Shannon Sproule:
As an added treat for Kosinksi fans, builder Irwan Prabowo has also recreated the sky tower from the same movie, complete with an even tinier version of the Bubbleship:
This is Cale Leiphart and he likes trains, and I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and enjoying his builds for many years now. His latest culmination of train-awesomeness is the Red Lion Station, and is a model of the Maryland & Pennsylvania RR train station and surrounding areas.
At over 3.5 x 17 feet (that’s 5 meters), this requires adjectives which I do not posses to describe the incredible feat. That’s not to say there haven’t been larger builds, but I have a hard time recalling a build of this size that has this much detail packed in. Not only does each of the buildings have a beautiful facade, but each building has a fully decked out interior. It’s so large it’s incredibly hard to even photograph, and is one of those builds that are best enjoyed in person at a display:
I really liked how Cale has gone against the grain and built buildings and streets at non-right angles, a non-trivial feat, to build off-axis roads and buildings:
Not only are the roads difficult to build at an angle, most people would have simply laid the train track on top of the road to avoid complicated brickwork, but Mr. Leiphart, true to form, built it inside the road with some really clever brick work.
As I mentioned before, I had seen earlier versions of this layout last year and it really caught my eye. By catch my eye, I mean I did a double take and went OH-MY-G-O-S-H. Again the size is impressive, but I’m a detail guy, and this nondescript grey building blew my mind. Take a closer look at the sides, it’s not just nicely stacked brick, it’s made up of panels, hundreds of panels attached in some seemingly magical way. Despite being very late on the first setup night, Cale – who was still setting up this magnificent display – noticed our fevered interest and stopped everything and came over to us and showed us the secret of the grey building. This became my number 1 cool must-see thing at BrickFair that year.
Check out the full photo collection here.
As a child, I loved the Tintin Explorers on the Moon, I must have checked it out from the library dozens of times. I’ve seen many fantastic attempts at building the rocket Tintin and friends take to the moon, but this latest by Tyler Clites (Legohaulic) is the first build of the lunar tank I’ve seen. Simply put, this is awesome, this scene captures the right atmosphere, from the lunar surface to the brick-built Snowy under one of the domes.
Flickr member simplybrickingit has created this intriguing triptych of household rooms. Each one is beautifully furnished but completely figure-less, and symbolizes a different aspect of our everyday lives. It’s all very Zen. I love the way the partial walls make these scenes feel somehow out of time.
Vince Toulouse demonstrates his signature art-deco-retro-future building style with this latest vehicle, the Polar Transport. In red, I think this one nicely complements earlier blue and green creations that we featured a while ago.
Inspired by science magazine covers of the 1930’s, this juggernaut’s profile is simple, but it’s packed with beautiful curved details, and makes clever use of some vintage pale orange Scala parts to introduce an accent color rarely seen in LEGO creations.
This creation by Bill Vollbrecht is a building from Balboa Park in San Diego called the El Prado Arcade. The ornate architecture of the model is stunning and is a real treat for the eyes.
Perhaps I am using the word character a bit too frequently to describe models lately, but the parrot built by Dicky Laban has it in spades. It doesn’t just want a cracker; it needs one. It looks so sad and yet adorable.
This is also yet another nice example of how you don’t need to build something ridiculously large for it to be cool and interesting, as long as it has mixels eyes.
Spring has only just started (on the Northern hemisphere), but the restaurant built by Snaillad already makes me long for summer.
This must be because it was inspired by the wonderful art deco buildings along Ocean Drive / South Beach in famously sunny Miami Beach. It looks very nice on the outside and also comes with a detailed interior. Normally I am partial to visible studs on a LEGO model, but I have to admit that this would not look nearly as good if it wouldn’t have such a clean and studless construction.
The combination of Trans Yellow, Blue and Grey (with bits of yellow and black) will always have a special place in many builder’s hearts. It’s the definitive Classic Space colour scheme and it always delights me when I see it, and see it done well.
Today is a great day because Jarek (Jerac) worked his usual magic and unveiled this amazing build to the world:
Chalk full of gorgeous details and super clean lines, this is the sort of Classic Space Starfighted I’d kill to have!
But today is Friday, the best day of the week and as a special bonus B Mauro (bread_man_017), in a seemingly coordinated attempt to make me happy also posted his Classic Space Starfighter:
While it might not be as pretty as Jerac, B’s version has some pretty great wing play action.
Hopefully this is a sign of more great Classic Space builds to come!