Builder FLAVIO continues his “Wiffy” series (years in the making) with one such robot fitted with twin rotors. His mech is full of brilliant parts usage, color blocking, and unique design choices; I don’t even know where to begin noting my favorite parts. What I can say is FLAVIO’s mech is one of the finest examples of mech building I’ve seen in a while.
Given the popularity of the manga and animated series, it’s surprising how few LEGO creations we see inspired by Dragonball Z. David Liu corrects this oversight with an adorable pair of custom BrickHeadz featuring Goku in his “Super Saiyan” form battling Frieza in his “100% Full Power” form on the planet Namek. Goku’s spiky golden hair is perfect, and the inverted purple cheese slopes add exactly the right detail to make the evil Frieza instantly recognizable.
Have you ever wanted to experience the thrill of playing LEGO games at a fan convention, perhaps trying out your hand at a Master Build? That LEGO fun is coming straight to your computer through a new live-streaming Twitch show, Battle of the Bricks.
Nick Della Mora, aka BrickinNick, will host the live brick-building competition show, highlighting some of the talented builders in the AFOL community. Each show will feature a head to head battle where two builders using the same LEGO sets will build something new using the same pieces, based on a chosen theme. When the time runs out, viewers will become the judge, choosing whose scene reigns supreme.
The show will air on Friday, April 21st through Friday, June 2nd at 9 PM EST/6 PM PST on Twitch. Shows will be posted on YouTube the following day. Tomorrow’s show will pit Dan (DR.Church) against Caleb Wagoner (Masked Builder), so we look forward to seeing any fun builds stemming from the show.
Australian builder Shannon Sproule has once again created a stunningly unique sci-fi model. Shannon has a real knack for being able to use a minimalist parts palette to great effect in his builds. The repeated pattern of the white tiles on the side of this craft is what initially catches the eye, but the various hits of colour throughout really make the model pop.
Not only is the ORCA nice to look at, but it also would be incredibly fun to play with. With a hidden missile port in the nose and modular equipment hardpoints on the lateral pylons, she is just begging to be swooshed.
Shannon built this for the ongoing Real World +200 contest in the Flickr Starfighters group. In fact my Orcinus class gunboat that we featured last week was built for the same contest. And yes, I did get a chuckle out of the fact that Shannon and I chose to name our ships after the same whale.
For those who are not familiar with the sport of Folkracing, it’s a popular and inexpensive form of rally racing with older beat-up cars, which originated in Finland. The races take place on specially designed gravel tracks, and Nybohov Creation Ltd has created this beautifully colourful LEGO track for some micro rally cars to race around. The details and textures look fantastic, with everything from trees and foliage to landscaping with a couple of colourful buildings.
See more details of this tiny race track
We’ve seen plenty of LEGO Ecto-1’s from Ghostbusters over the years, including not one but two official LEGO sets. Answering the question, “What if the Ghostbusters had franchised their organization on a global scale?”, OutBricks carries the iconic vehicle across the Atlantic with a customized version of his own LEGO Citroën DS design. The builder says “Dr. Romain Sétant gives Monsieur Marchemelleaux the final shot…” leaving to the viewer’s imagination what a Gallic incarnation of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man would look like.
Behold the hulking mech robot warrior that is B-43 by Simmon Kim. With its ominous red light and enormous black rifle, this beast looks like it could take on a small army itself. Look closely at the detail and you will notice minifig arms for fingers, some very cool arm connections, and an additional pair of guns. I love the inventive use of stickers to complete this custom build. The B-43 is well armed, well protected and well… awesome!
Listen up! Here’s something you don’t see every day — a cross-sectional model of the human ear, built from LEGO bricks. The work of South Korean builder Jin Kei, this is a large-scale sculpture with (as far as I can tell) an excellent level of accuracy detail. I’m a particular fan of the shaping of the Inner Ear organs in dark blue, and the rendering of the skull cross section in white with red dots to represent the honeycomb-like structure of bone.
I’d like to see more large-scale medical LEGO sculptures please. Could someone build me a model of a spleen?
Korean builder Bangoo H has created a nifty little display model of the world’s most famous passenger liner. The repeated pattern of blue and white slopes for the waves is a lovely representation.
But you must check out the video below to get the full effect. The mechanism of the rolling waves is truely hypnotic and far more peaceful than what passengers would have really experienced on that fateful North Atlantic voyage.
When you see a surreal and colourful sculpture such as French builder Pistash‘s “Colors in da head”, it will obviously catch your eye. But something else triggered in the back of my mind when I first saw it. There was a subconscious familiarity that drew me to it. Upon reading his description, I realized what that familiarity was. Pistash says that he was inspired by French artist Moebious — in particular, his Hendrix work — and as a teenager one of my favourite posters I had was Hendrix Voodoo Soup, for which Moebious did the cover art.
The Moebious inspiration notwithstanding, I think it is safe to say that as LEGO builders we can all relate to the feeling of ideas and inspiration pouring out of our minds when we build. It is certainly a more welcome feeling than the alternative…the dreaded builder’s block!
There are LEGO semi-trucks, and then there is this beautiful beast by Bricksonwheels. The builder has crafted a 1:13 scale Peterbilt 379 and it is just gorgeous. It has the appropriate amount of chrome to blind drivers running down I-40 in the summer.
This tanker combo is over 150cm long and made of over 9,000 bricks. Much of the chrome is custom. The builder says it took about 5 months of work, including over 200 LEDs (controlled via remote). This creates quite the impressive lightshow! The builder credits Brickstuff for the lights and Bricks4all.nl for the chrome.
Click to see more of this gorgeous truck!
Often LEGO creations are simplified, cartoony versions of what they represent, with some details skipped for a better overall effect. Hardly so in this medieval construction site by Jonas Kramm. There are more realistic details here than I could count, but I should point out the wooden supports and the amazing stone brick construction. Most importantly, the scene feels real. The composition and minifig action really make you feel like you are back in time.
