The recent tradition of LEGO releasing special collectible sets for the official Star Wars convention, known as Celebration, never fails to capture anticipation and attention. This year’s event – which also coincided with the 40th Anniversary of Star Wars – happened a few weeks ago and LEGO did not disappoint eager fans. This year’s exclusive LEGO item is a 220 piece set called Detention Block Rescue, and features Luke and Han in detention block AA-23 from Star Wars: A New Hope.
In advance of the release of Alien: Covenant, Grant Masters brings us a fantastically creepy LEGO rendition of a crimson Alien Queen. Clips and minifigure hands do a brilliant job of capturing the unmistakable mechanical/organic Giger styling of this classic beastie. I dread to think how fiddly this was to put together — any time I try to use clips like that something always pops loose. Grant must have the patience of a saint. Nice work on the base too — the dark grey really makes the red figure pop out of the image.
I really hope we get to see something as cool as this creation in the new movie, but I am nervous of suffering the same “anticappointment” I felt with Prometheus.
The LEGO Shop is holding its annual May the 4th “Star Wars Day” sales event, starting at midnight EDT Thursday, May the 4th (9 PM PDT Wednesday, May the 3rd) through Sunday, May 7th. Several LEGO Star Wars sets are on sale, with a free R2-D2 mini-set (on orders over $50), and double VIP points to maximize your savings. The R2-D2 figure is larger than the standard minifig, with a number of unique printed elements.
See all of the May the 4th deals for the US, UK, and Canada after the jump
Excited for The LEGO Ninjago Movie? The movie trailer has been out since February, and we got our first official look at some of the sets last month. But whether or not you’re going to take a pass on the film or are already in line (6 months early), you can surely appreciate this awesome fan design of a brick-built scroll of the movie’s title by ZiO Chao. The lettering is perfect, both for the small text in Latin characters on the top and bottom and the main title with hànzì characters.
Building micro-scale brings a unique set of challenges, and finding the right piece to represent a particular feature can often be a particularly tricky task. Builder yang wang seems to have a knack for it though, as demonstrated by these two delightful domed dioramas. The first is a wonderful Romanesque revival style castle poised on a rock over the sea. The highlights for me are the tiny ship with smokestacks, the small tree made from a brown droid arm, and the spindly towers with golden ski pole spires.
Continuing the colorful creation on a rock under a dome theme, the second build is a vertical wooden town atop a rocky outcrop, complete with bell tower and windmill. I love how the builder has used the grill plates to give the small buildings windows — plus there’s that cute little car made from a rollerskate. And not only does the dome make the building inside look wonderful, it also keeps the dust off!
When two brothers, Jake and Elwood Blues, reform their band in the movie The Blues Brothers, they have high hopes of saving the orphanage in which they were raised from financial ruin. One slight issue is the requirement for musical instruments, and this leads the brothers to Ray’s Music Exchange where R&B genius Ray Charles has a cameo as the store owner. Nate Flood has built a perfect LEGO version of the infamous store, complete with a fantastic ‘LEGO-ized’ version of the famous mural.
Nathan’s build is not just an exterior though, as inside we can see Jake and Elwood strutting their stuff, with Ray Charles at the piano and the guys shaking some tail feathers with their guitars and saxophones.
Imagine a time when the Dominion war is over and the Borg threat has been defused. In this timeline Starfleet will return to its primary mission of exploration. Ben Smith has created the USS Utah, a survey vessel designed to orbit promising planets and use her expanded sensor capabilities to extensively map their surfaces. She is a beautiful ship with those red and yellow highlights and the grey greebles visible just to the rear of the bridge. I love the two shuttles launching from the large central shuttle bay, jetting off to explore the unknown.
Ben’s inspiration for this ship actually stemmed from a piece of concept art of a ship called the USS Iowa by Ryan Dening.
Austria may not have any ocean beaches, but that didn’t stop Austrian builder Sanel Lukovic from building this lovely scene featuring a rockabilly dude hauling his board from his heavily customized “rat rod” to the inviting blue surf. True to the rat rod aesthetic, the vintage car has an exposed engine and what I’m assuming is a rust-bucket body — truly lovely. The surfer features a pompadour hairstyle and a rather hirsute custom torso from Citizen Brick. Sanel completes the scene with little details like a trash can and pilings with tree rings.
Our friends over at the LEGO elements and colours obsessed blog, New Elementary, are running a Typography Competition from now until 31 May, 2017. To enter you just have to design a typeface for the phrase LEGO DNA with only one rule that is explained in detail below.
You can use whichever LEGO elements you like in your typeface design, but the only rule is that you must utilise at least one of the following new pieces pictured here. They are:
That’s it for constraints. Digital entries are not only welcome, but recommended given that at least one of the new parts listed must be included and you may not have many in your collection! The colours don’t matter, and you may use whichever you like, whether or not the pieces exist in those colours in current LEGO sets. The pieces in your design don’t even need to connect in reality – this task is more about design than modeling.
There will be three 1st prizes in this competition (and no other prizes). The three winners will each receive a package consisting of 50 of each of these new tiles, meaning there will be 250 LEGO elements per winner, courtesy of the LEGO Group. A magnificent prize!
Entries close at the end of 31 May, 2017 (in your local timezone).
To enter, head over to the competition post on New Elementary where an entry form awaits.
If you’re in the market for a small LEGO set with fun colors and minifigures that look as equally at home in space as they do in a medieval castle, look no further than Ruina’s Lock & Roller [70349]. This set retails for $19.99 USD, but is currently on sale on Amazon for $15.99. It has 208 pieces, with the primary feature being a substantially sized vehicle called Ruina’s Lock & Roller (hence, the name of the set). The roller is essentially castle dungeon on wheels drawn by a GargoBike rather than a team of horses. Along with the gargoyle-inspired carriage, this set also includes three minifigures and two NEXO Power Shields (Gorilla Roar and Forbidden Power Wrecking Wrath) which are scannable and provide power-ups in the LEGO NEXO KNIGHTS game.
I can scarcely believe it but the classic Bond spoof Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery was released 20 years ago today! To that end, I present to you my latest shagadelic LEGO creations: The out-of-his-era gentleman spy, and his equally time-shifted nemesis Dr Evil. I think I’ve managed to capture Austin’s mojo, but apologies to our evil readers for the lack of any sharks with frikkin “laser” beams. Oh, behave!
One of my most played heroes in Overwatch is tank hero D.Va. I thought her mech was an interesting enough design to build, so I built it in late 2016 using the legendary B.Va skin and Stormbringer’s LEGO D.Va mech as inspiration. Today, I share a building guide for viewers to construct their own MEKA. View the parts list (299 in total), then follow the video below and call in your own Korean mobile exoskeleton.
