All the range in LEGO castles these days is the worn, weathered, somewhat ruinous look that should be familiar by now to readers of this blog. W. Navarre himself has built in that style, but the large keep he recently built looks somewhat more defensible than those ramshackle hovels. One notable decision was to build the central tower studs out, then tile the whole thing from top to bottom. W. Navarre does manage to work in substantial detail to avoid the loathed “Big Gray Wall” syndrome.
Eero Okkonen built this dreamy scene for the Finnish LEGO club Palikkatakomo‘s summer building contest, themed “Finding, Discovering.” Featuring a lovely twisted tower and an underwater walker, the scene defies categorization into the conventions of “steampunk” or “dieselpunk.” Then again, the hats worn by the divers are rather hilariously twee.
You can read more of the backstory for this scene on Eero’s blog, Cyclopic Bricks.
Orangutans are my favorite of the extant great apes. These beautiful, critically endangered creatures live gentle, often solitary lives in the forests of Sumatra and Borneo. New Flickr member AnActionfigure is quickly demonstrating mastery of animal figures in LEGO — this LEGO orangutan was the first model AnActionfigure posted, and his/her photostream is already full of beautiful creatures. Not only is this LEGO ape wonderfully sculpted mostly from basic bricks, the little pops of color from the plant and this male orang’s beard add some great visual interest.
Korean builder Amida Na has created a series of fantasy characters with individual backstories that he calls Tales of Samsara. As an avid character builder myself, I’m always fascinated to see innovative scales, styles and techniques being used for these kinds of builds – and these are just brilliant!
Because there’s no such thing as too many Star Wars builds, Cecilie Fritzvold has created these neat minifig-scale replicas of two locations from the least worst of the prequel movies. (Check out her photostream for alternative angles).
Dex’s Diner
The Jedi Archives
While my esteemed colleague may have been impressed by Letranger Absurde‘s hourglass, I feel no guilt in posting another one of Letranger’s remarkable LEGO creations just a day later. This amazing undead dragon incorporates numerous LEGO bone and horn pieces, proving that in some cases LEGO pieces are indeed best used as originally intended. The graveyard backdrop with a gloomy tree is also wonderful, once you can peel your eyes away from the dracolich.
rongYIREN has been bringing us mecha and hardsuits with an organic feel for nearly as long as we’ve been blogging mecha. Rong’s latest is inspired by the 8-bit video game TwinBee, released on the original NES back in 1986, which those of you in the impoverished West couldn’t play until it was re-released in a DS compilation in 2007. I love the red cockpit on blue and gray legs.
This month’s building challenge over at LUGNuts has an elvish theme that I won’t pretend to comprehend. But apparently Lino Martins gets it, and here’s his submission: a recreation of the Tom Daniel Monogram model kit that started it all, the Beer Wagon.
Like the original, Lino’s version is finished in “Pilsner Yellow”, features a beer stein shifter, chrome stacks, chain driven fat rear slicks, chrome keg fuel tanks and a totally illegal in-cabin personal beer keg. And while this beauty may seem all above-board, remember this is a Lino creation. Which explains the following scene of drunken elvish debauchery. CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!
Sometimes there isn’t a need to reinvent the wheel, just change about half of it and give it a fresh paint job. That’s exactly what Zach (zachmoe) did with his amazing micro-scaled ship:
This ship might look slightly familiar, it’s based on Rob (dasnewten)’s Prometheus which we’ve featured before. Zach made it his own by upgrading to a quad engine arrangement, and adding the delightful little dock on the side. And if you’re wanting to try to build your own version, Rob has graciously provided some breakdown so that even us non Titans of Space can build one.
Kiwi builder Grantmasters has been plugging away at the Cheyenne dropship from Aliens over this past week. Calling it done for now, he’s shared this fantastic build that highlights the dropship and an APC (which fits inside) in a cool diorama. While the highly functional dropship is excellent, I also really appreciate the contrasting backdrops — the planetary surface and the power plant.
A while ago we blogged Michał Kaźmierczak‘s gates of Erebor from The Hobbit, and now he has added an interior that is just as grand. Check out this photo with the builder to appreciate the scale of the creation. More photos of Erebor’s exterior and interior are on Flickr.
