Vlad Lisin’s outrageous imagination produced this stunning motorbike, which he says was inspired in part by Treasure Planet. I can’t get over how cool that diver’s helm looks on a retro-future cyclist, and the larger-than-minifig scale is exceptionally well done here.
There’s really no need for me to say anything about Chris McVeigh‘s latest creation… So enjoy the temporary absence of my usual pointless banter, and scroll down for the punchline!
It was 45 years ago today that the Beatles released their penultimate album, Abbey Road, which included such hummable ditties as Here Comes The Sun and Octupus’s Garden. Five years prior to that, the “Fab Four” made their first appearance on American television with the Ed Sullivan Show. Letranger Absurde has decided to capture that moment in this Miniland scale vignette:
And while Abbey Road didn’t exactly produce as many smash hits as the Beatle’s earlier albums, it’s cover was certainly a memorable one, and continues to be mimicked in one form or another to this day …including Miniland form, twice! These versions by minicoop4 and Lauchlan Toal respectively both make great use of forced perspective to recreate the road and cars in the background:
Gordon: I just like to remind people he’s out there.
Grantmasters reminds us sometimes the most obvious use of a piece, in this case the Batman symbol as … well… the Bat-signal can be the most brilliant. Not to take away from his gorgeous micro Gotham, packed with fantastic details and techniques, or the lovely cloud cover with some really unique pieces usages … but that use of that single Bat-piece with two trans-neon-green antenna just transforms this build and evokes so much emotion and awesomeness!
If the creation below doesn’t have you quoting Milton from the movie Office Space, then there’s something wrong with you! After seeing an earlier stapler design by Jimmy Fortel, the amazingly talented Bruce Lowell decided to adapt it to take advantage of the fact that LEGO bucket handles are now available in gray.
Fun movie fact: Originally, Swingline never made red staplers. The movie’s makers had to paint one red. But after the movie’s success, so many people bugged Swingline about it that they eventually did started producing red ones!
If you’re not familiar with Bruce’s work – which focuses on realistic versions of everyday objects – then you really need to check it out. To get you started, here is a tasty roundup of some of the things that Bruce produced over this past summer:
(…no, I’m not suggesting Koala’s are tasty; but I have tried barbequed Kangaroo, and it was delicious!)
Of his latest creation, Gabe Umland says “For some reason post-apoc has fallen out of style, but it doesn’t mean it’s not still cool”. So true! Inspired by this drawing from DeviantArt member Dumitrescu Ioan, Gabe’s diorama captures the ramshackle world of repurposed ship parts on the bed of a long dried-up ocean:
But it’s all the little details that make a scene like this more interesting – and warrant a closer look – right down to the very comfortable-looking interior of an old shipping container:
Military technology often gets repurposed in peace time, so it makes perfect sense that in the future this might happen to Mecha or Exo-suits. A concept that is brilliantly envisioned by Dave Kaleta in the Lumberjack 4000, a terrifying tree killing machine:
This build is loaded with play features for all kinds of arboreal mayhem, including chainsaws, axes, and climbing spurs. But I really love the through-the-chest wood chipper and Buffalo Plaid color scheme! And the choice of a female operator (Lumberjill?) is a nice touch.
This weekend, in the Netherlands celebrations are being held to commemorate the 70st anniversary of Operation Market Garden. This was a bold attempt by the Allies to capture bridges over a number of important rivers in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands and build a bridgehead across the river Rhine. This would bring their forces to the doorstep of Germany’s industrial heartland and, in the words of Field-Marshall Montgomery, would end the war in Europe before Christmas 1944. Airborne Troops were dropped far behind enemy lines to capture the bridges, while ground troops fought their way from Belgium through the Southern Netherlands to relieve them.
It was one of the largest airborne operations of the war, which inevitably involved large numbers of C-47 Skytrain transports, such as the one built by Kenneth Vaessen, still marked with the black-and-white stripes that were applied to aircraft that participated in the D-day landing a few months earlier. (Kenneth actually posted it a few weeks ago, but I decided to wait for this opportunity to write about it.)
Unfortunately, things didn’t work out as planned. The relief columns were held up and German resistance, in particular in Arnhem, was much stronger than anticipated. The allied advance was halted, thousands of Allied troops were killed, as well as thousands of German troops and numerous Dutch civilians. The war lasted eight more months, but much of the Southern Netherlands was liberated during the operation by soldiers from Canada, the UK, US and Poland.
When I saw this photo by Koen (Swan Dutchman), I thought it was 6761 Bandit’s Secret Hide-Out, which was my first Lego set. I then realized that this was a remake with newer parts and more advanced building techniques. You can see more photos on Flickr to compare to the original.
The stakes for SHIPtember just keep getting higher, as Stijn Oom sets the bar up another notch. His Hammerfall GunSHIP is an instant classic; a brutally utilitarian dropship in bulkhead grey, all screaming metal and monstrous engines.
Like all the best SHIPwrights, Stijn sucks you in with the initial enormity inherent to every SHIP, but it’s the details that count and the Hammerfall has those in spades. There are too many to list, so here’s a beauty shot of some of the best.
As if this build wasn’t cool enough, it was based on artwork by the frequently featured Pierre Fieschi. This sort of exchange of ideas between builders is, to me, one of the greatest parts of the FOL community.
Inspired by his favorite song from the hugely popular Disney movie Frozen, Ian Spacek recreated this moment from the scene in which Anna sings the movie’s “I want” song – For the First Time in Forever.
Ian recently unveiled this at Brickworld Chicago, where I was lucky enough to see it up close. And fortunately, our pals from Beyond the Brick were there to interview Ian all about the build too. Wanna know how many log bricks it took to make that roof?! Watch and find out…
