Eli Willsea and Grant Davis built this incredible Pirate scene for BrickCon this year. All their hard work paid off as they took home the trophy for Best Pirate creation. The layout is loaded with fun details. But the best part of it is a functional waterfall that “flows” with bricks. I was very glad that they got that working. It’s a very cool and unusual feature!
Check out this time-lapse video to see how they built it and to see the waterfall in action.
As holiday season approachs, No Starch Press is kicking into high gear with a slew of new titles for LEGO fans. Their latest offering is Steampunk LEGO by well-known LEGO builder, innovator and steampunk enthusiast Guy Himber. This 200 page compilation features the work of over 90 individual builders, and includes just about every notable LEGO steampunk creation of the past five years.
Physically, the book has a definite steampunk feel about it. Its blue and gold hard cover sports a full-color dust jacket (shown here) and all the pages have a high quality satin finish that enhances the sumptuous graphic design. The material is presented in the form an ornate Victorian scrapbook, complete with notelets and other trinkets mounted atop a variety of textured vintage backgrounds.
A cornucopia of building styles are covered here. And while the majority are mini-fig oriented, microscale and life-size builds are reasonably well represented. Entries are 1 or 2 to a page, and organized into logical chapters focusing on different categories such as trains, vehicles, automatons, weapons, sea vessels, airships and even floating rocks. There is also a pleasant ‘interlude’ in the center, showcasing Guy’s memorable Cabinet of Curiosities collaborative project.
Lisqr has discovered a rare albino Saber Toothed Tiger! I like the studs out effect on this. It really gives it the feeling of fur. Also the dark background, little bit of landscape and subdued lighting reminds me of a museum display. The whole build really flows well together.
Oddly perhaps, one of the things I enjoyed most about the Maschinen Krieger models I built myself a couple years ago was not the hardsuits and vehicles themselves but the little bases I made to display them. Matthew Oh takes this to a whole new level with the highly detailed ruins with which he surrounds his SAFS “Wolverine” hardsuit.
Many LEGO builders take our inspiration for Ma.K models from the creations of plastic modelers both working with the original kits and scratch-building in the Ma.K universe inspired by nothing more than their imagination. The cross-section profile of Matthew’s LEGO diorama beautifully matches the aesthetic of what plastic modelers do, while retaining enough visible studs to ensure it’s abundantly evident that the model is built from LEGO. Oh, and that roof!
With Halloween around the corner, I figured it was time we spooked up the place… French builder Pistash has built Billy the puppet from the Saw horror series, which celebrates it’s 10th birthday this Halloween.
He’s managed to really capture the creepiness of a the Billy puppet – not an easy feat with LEGO.
I think I’m going to eat some candy and watch happy cartoons now…. this build freaks me out.
Ian Spacek seems to be on a roll in the ongoing 2014 MOCOlympics contest. In a round focused on board games, he chose to recreate Clue, a classic family game that has been around since the 40’s.
I love the way Ian has captured all the woody tones of the original board, as well as packing the build with many beautiful details such as the floor patterns, furniture and props. Check out MOCPages for loads of close-up photos and a chance to compare Ian’s interpretation with the original.
If you’ve been paying attention to what’s marketable in pulp culture these days, the video game Destiny has pretty popular. It has also become a pretty common excuse: “Sorry, can’t build, playing Destiny”. Jake (Jayfourke) has solved this problem by building Destiny with this fantastic ship:
Even if it wasn’t from a game, the ship design is gorgeous. I love the simple colour stripes, and really great angles that Jake was able to recreate. Though my favorite part, and what impressed me most was those iconic triangular intakes:
This thing looks like it was built for swooshing.
I’m not really a car expert, but apparently neither is Rifflestein. His lastest build is not based on a particular car, but more of a “F1 racer vibe”:
And the kicker? It is built entirely from the Mini Cooper set.
And check out the ever so elegant back:
LEGO has sent The Brothers Brick a copy of the Crafting Box, one of the larger sets from the new minifig-scale Minecraft line. The set includes 518 pieces, and will be $49.99 USD. LEGO hasn’t given us an exact release date, but it should be available in stores around the beginning of November.
Now, I know many LEGO fans roll their eyes at the fact that LEGO picked up the Minecraft license at all, but I love it. I’m a huge Minecraft fan, and I have a bit of history with combining LEGO and Minecraft. I created the first minifig-scale Minecraft creation back in 2011, and was one of three fans involved in the development of the first official LEGO Minecraft set, 21102 Minecraft Microworld. During the development phase of that set, we started off trying to create a minifig-scale set. We quickly realized, however, that it would be very hard to do justice to Minecraft at that scale within the price range that the LEGO Ideas (née Cuusoo) program was targeting, namely $30-$40 USD. The current lineup of six minifig-scale sets is a valiant — but flawed — attempt at doing what the original set could not.
The recovering industries of post-war Europe produced a number of fascinating micro-cars to operate in the narrow streets of countries like Germany, Italy, and France. Chief among these was the Isetta, a gorgeous little bubble-car that ming1903 has faithfully recreated in LEGO.
I’d challenge builders out there to create a LEGO Isetta that fits a minifig and has a functional pop-open front, but this version beautifully replicates the shape of the real-life car.
It has been over 3 years since Tyler (Legohaulic) and I collaborated on a large display. In our newest work, we present a theme inspired by the colorful and imaginative video game Bastion. This is a 7’x7′ display of a floating world shattered into fragments, whose citizens are now rebuilding their lost home. Check out the detail shots on Tyler‘s and my Flickr photostream.
