Giving a fresh new twist on the classic LEGO grey-and-blue space theme, this shuttle by Horcik Designs is a perfect example of what fans like to call Neo-Classic Space. Despite its relatively small size, the shuttle seats two minifigures abreast in the trans-yellow clad cockpit, and the addition of lots of stickers adds a bit of extra flair that makes this spacecraft feel more industrial.
I’m starting to get suspicious that LEGO builders are creating pug-themed creations because they know I’ll feature just about every single one. Well, keep it coming! This pug astronaut by 鄭 仲恆 appears to be surprised by something he sees off in the distance above him. The space suit is well-constructed and realistic, with a bubble helmet to encompass the pug’s bubble head and bubble eyes.
Here at The Brothers Brick, we can’t help ourselves sometimes — we hope the talented builder doesn’t mind — and we took it upon ourselves to give this lovely space-pooch some adventures. Here he is landing on the moon. Or was he already there and he’s been surprised by the Apollo 11 crew landing next to him?
See more of this adventurous space pug’s adventures in space!
It doesn’t take a big model or a lot of pieces to be clever with LEGO. In fact, one of the best ways is to take take a piece and find a use for it so good that it looks like the element was purpose-made for it. Case in point: the hood of the tiny speeder by F@bz, which was originally the barding (blanket) of a Friends horse. It’s also worth pointing out the background made of brick anti-studs and spaced plates, with a Mars Mission aero tube in the foreground.
Our friends over at New Elementary are holding a contest in honour of the reintroduction of teal-coloured LEGO elements by LEGO. There are some great prizes to be won, including two Grand Prize winners receiving a copy of 10260 Downtown Diner. The competition is based on the ‘Mark Stafford Killed Teal’ story (if you do not know this story, it is explained on the competition page), and a previous build of mine that jokingly showed Mark Stafford killing Teal by sweeping it into a furnace.
Your entry should be a LEGO creation depicting the following: How might Mark Stafford kill teal again? The closing date is 22 February 2018, so there’s still time to get building and enter. All the details, rules and entry form can be found over on New Elementary’s contest page.
Cassette players scream eighties so loudly that it seems kind of redundant to mark tapes as “80s mix”, but Jarekwally still decided to bring out the nostalgia even more. The builder was inspired by his father’s stories of how they used to pirate music nearly forty years ago with a radio and a tape deck. Cassette players are so iconic, you don’t even need to have 80s nostalgia to be inspired by them.
Jarekwally’s build is not the first time we’ve seen cassette players in LEGO, which kind of makes sense, as tapes are just blocky technical items with a limited variation of texture — which translates into bricks very well. What I love about this particular version is the use of chrome silver around the cassette slot and the underside of a plate as the speaker mesh. Simple indeed, but inspired.
Check out these other LEGO retro audio instruments:
Take a journey back before the launch of humans, robots, and Tesla Roadsters to space with a LEGO 1950s retro rocketship built by Jason Hlavenka. Slick transitions from the cone shape on top to the cylindrical body and quad fins at the bottom make his model pop.
The Volkswagen Golf GTi Mk1 first went on sale in Germany in June 1976 and was only available as a 3-door version. Although the Golf was meant to be a small, fuel-efficient car model, a group of VW engineers worked on the sport version in their spare time. To many, the Golf GTi Mk1 is the boy racer’s car of the 1980’s and Joe Perez has captured its distinctive form in LEGO.
Click to take a look inside Joe’s VW GTi Mk1 and under the hood
The Guardians of the Galaxy (film or comics) have brought many unique and interesting spaceship designs to light, most notably the protagonists’ personal way of transport, the Milano. LEGO has released some of its own versions of the spaceship as official sets but none to nearly the scale or amount of detail as BenFifteenTheChicken‘s recent build. The photography is top-notch, the lighting is amazing and the shadows compliment the shape very well.
The model sports more studs on its surface than is usual, which gives somewhat of a UCS kind of feel to it. Additionally, I think that the angles Ben has used would not work nearly as well if the whole creation was tiled or if he had hidden studs in a different way.
Fans of this model may also enjoy this minifigure scale Guardians of the Galaxy Milano we featured last year.
Galaxy Squad was one of my favorite space themes since the original space theme I grew up playing and building with. This pair of microfighters, created by Leonid An and Vlad Lisin , would look right at home with some of the official pairs of microfighters from the Star Wars theme. It is no simple task to re-create larger vehicles with such great detail and still built to fit a minifigure.
I hope these two microfighters spark more re-creations at this scale.
Polish builder Marcin Grabowski is no stranger to large spacecraft. We featured his DragonFLY-class dropship last year, and he’s recently completed this wonderfully angular starfighter set against the planet Mars. The heavily armed, predominantly white fighter fighter is complemented by technical components in shades of gray. The lines of yellow make the vehicle look like a racing ship, and I love it.
You can see the top and rear of the spacecraft better in this multi-angle collage.
I realize polar bears are an endangered species and killing machines, but can you blame me for wanting to pet one? Especially so after seeing this extra cute LEGO recreation by Jens Ohrndorf. The build expresses a lot of character and that is not just a consequence of using the eye tiles. The subtle angle of the neck and the shaping of the back are very characteristic for a polar bear. It is a feat of photography that Jens made the bear not blend in with the ice base under it.
The builder calls the photo on his Flickr Icebear 2.0, because it is actually a remake of an older build. The older version is well worth taking a look at, but the improvements in the updated build are quite obvious.
Though the original Lanz Bulldog wasn’t built for beauty, this model of the classic German tractor by Nikolaus Löwe truly shines. Combining SYSTEM and Technic parts, the model has some nice design touches; a brick-built seat, elegantly curved rear mud flaps built from Technic beams, a vertical exhaust pipe (for a hot bulb engine, perhaps?), even running boards. The hood and sides of the engine compartment blend Technic panels and beams for a clean look.
Click to see more views including a peek under the hood of this tractor