Tag Archives: Airship

LEGO Steampunk “Swallow” takes to the skies!

“L’hirondelle,” a mighty LEGO creation by Gus (aka Faëbricks), is the fastest vessel in the Royal Navy. Its name is French for “The Swallow,” a bird known for its ability to feed mid-flight, so what better name for an airship in search of prey? Mighty wind turbines and a streamlined hull (love the hidden rowboats giving it the curved shape) work with the elongated balloon to keep the airship aloft and stalking the skies. Its crew are hard at work, having repurposed Fremen stillsuit masks as breathing apparatuses in the thin air. I also love the cannon on the gear swivel, ready to unleash hell in any lateral direction. There’s also that wicked-looking blade at the prow, ready to poke holes in anybody who comes too close. All in all, it’s not an airship I’d want to mess with.

l'Hirondelle

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Steam on!

“In a world of floating islands, Elias . . . knew every lever, every pipe, and every sound it made. But his eyes often wandered atop the workshop, where his air balloon stood, waiting to lift off.” That’s how Gus (aka Faëbricks) begins the tale surrounding this tall vignette called “Sogno di Volare,” and personally, he had me at “floating islands.” The model has clear industrial, steampunk vibes from the brick foundation to the moored airship—and speaking of that airship, how cute is that thing? It’s a compact, one-seater model perfect for gallivanting around those floating islands. Sogno di Volare

As Gus continues: “One day, he promised himself, he’d set his balloon free, leaving the steam and noise behind, and float into the wide, open sky.” Here’s hoping our little engineer gets his chance.

 

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Friendship takes flight

A mother and daughter are transported to the sky on an elven airship bursting with the colors of the seasons in this fantastic LEGO model from builder Josh Parkinson. He blends inspiration from the colors and parts Friends, Elves, and Dreamzzz lines with a dragon figurehead from the Ninjago Water Dragon, and a mysterious power source built from an illuminated Trolls pod. I love the forest foliage spilling over the deck, the cozy captain’s cabin, and especially that azure figurehead! Josh’s ship captures the whimsy and imagination of LEGO’s modern era. Now, what was the Elvish word for “Friend,” again? I feel like that might come in handy on a quest…

The Dragon Airship Adventure

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This Capital Airship is a capital idea

Builder Jesse Gros seems to be the LEGO Steampunk King of the World. And why not? I mean, just take a nice long, steamy gawk at all those Victorian Steampunk details. I like the organic-looking feelers up top, the rear-facing mechanical doodads and the gear-encircled portal window that somewhat resembles a giant eye. I have no clue what any of it does but I am enamored nonetheless. Along with plenty of gold filagree, it is understood that Steampunk may contain copious amounts of brown, but this model instead employs black and dark green for a refreshing change from the norm.

Capital Airship - RV

Continue reading →

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By Air Mail, to the future!

When the land is flooded and we take to the skies to avoid global warming, LegOH! is here to allay our fears that we’ll still be getting our mail on time in this LEGO airship build.

LegOH! has managed to cram a lot of detail into this diminutive vessel that I love from the limited colour palette, the steampunk inspired furnace keeping the airship aloft to the wrought iron details and, of course, the cargo of letters connecting this brave new world of aeronauts.

This reminds me, I must stick the holiday post in the mail…

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A regal ruler of the skies

Looking for inspiration for what to do with your pick-a-brick stash of curved window frames? Look no further than this beautiful airship by Kai/Geneva featuring several of these window frames as the perfect curved fuselage. I’m also a big fan of the crisscrossed LEGO strings wrapped around the fabric envelope. The majestic airship also features some Bionicle blades to deter any passing pirate who thinks this ship is easy prey.

Queen's Ferry

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Sailing across the wild blue yonder

Here, Markus Ronge presents a brilliant LEGO series of microscale Steampunk-inspired flying ships based on minifig scale versions he’d previously made. Each one brings something different, but what brought this to my attention was how each build is nearly two-dimensional in design. That can bring its own challenges, but Markus has afforded each build remarkable detail, and the brick-built clouds against the sky blue background really accentuate these builds.

Micro Skytanic

Above we have the Skytanic on a majestic voyage. The gold highlights on this royal yacht add that extravagance you’d expect to see in a luxury liner, as do the white, red and black colours.
There’s something pleasing about the angled smoke stack, too, as the vessel gently charts its journey across the seven skies…

Click to see more these microscale models

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The sky pirates have returned in this epic mashup of Ninjago and Pirates

Ninjago has done a lot of settings over its decade-long run, but for me, by far the coolest wave was the Skybound storyline from 2016, which was basically a Ninjago mashup of steampunk and pirates. It’s the LEGO theme we never not from Disney’s Treasure Planet. So this fan redux of some of the sets by Markus Ronge just ticks all the right boxes for me. Markus has taken the already-fantastic idea from Ninjago of sky pirates and turned the dial up to eleven, with slightly more “realistic” designs (you can call a flying pirate ship realistic, right?). The color scheme is on point with the browns and oranges, and check out that bone dragon figurehead on the revised Misfortune’s Keep. I reviewed the original 70605 Misfortune’s Keep back in 2016, and as cool as I thought that set was, this would have blown me away.

Sky Pirates' Air Junk "Misfortune's Keep"

But what really blows me away about Markus’ model is that it’s not just a redux of the Skybound sets, but it’s also a mashup with the LEGO Ideas 21322 Barracuda Bay Pirates set, another set I loved. The Misfortune’s Keep ship breaks down into a sky pirates wrecked base!

The Golden Teapot

And let’s not overlook the splendidly simple yet beautifully stylized way Markus has chosen to display the models, with a simple graphic and brick-built stands.

 

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This Friends/Ninjago mash-up will leave fans of both themes wowed.

I think it’s a universal truth that fans love a good mash-up. Marvel and DC. Ninja Turtles and Star Trek. Transformers and Back to the Future. Smush two well-known properties together, and you often end up with something greater than the sum of its parts. That’s certainly the case here, with Michael Kanemoto’s take on two familiar LEGO themes. Friends and Ninjago fuse to become FRIENDSJAGO – a tale of BFF Ninjas, who have captured the airship of the evil warlord Ragamadon (that’s Regina + Garmadon). But Ragamadon would rather see her ship sink than let the ninjas have it, so she’s used her four swords to burst the ship’s balloon.

Friendsjago: Quarter view

This alternate reality take Ninjago’s Destiny’s Bounty represents over 100 hours of build time. The entire model is three feet tall and nearly as long. But, perhaps most impressive, the build is suspended in midair on a single 1×4 Technic brick. Gravity-defying feet than I can only contribute to the combined powers of Spinjitzu and friendship.

Ship details

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Spires in the Skies

Markus Rollbühler surprises us with a creation that could be straight from a fairy tale. Inspired Terry Pratchett, Markus created this giant turtle with a settlement on its back. The turtle is a lovely build, using owls for legs and acorn tiles for eyes. The best thing about this creation has to be the use of the ninja neck scarf to create the dome roofs of the settlement and the smalles airship (which is cute as a button). The bigger airship uses a combination of the magnifying glass and the barbell weight. After seeing these I want to build an entire fleet of cute little airships.

101 Bricks: Spires in the Skies

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Jenny and me was like peas and carrots

While I know the quote I used for the title is from the wrong movie, I do love this build of the Jenny Haniver from Mortal Engines like I love my peas and carrots. Built by Markus Ronge, it’s a gloriously red airship from that post-apocalyptic movie by Peter Jackson that most people didn’t see (including me) judging from the box office results. But just because the movie was a flop doesn’t mean the LEGO build is. In fact, with the many angles of the cockpit, the custom wing sails, and the full interior, not only does it look true to its on-screen counterpart, but it also looks awesome in its own right.

"Jenny Haniver" of Mortal Engines

I love seeing really old pieces in builds, so the tiny windows that are part of the forward cockpit are a treat to behold. The sliding doors on the side actually work, and the whole thing comes apart to access the interior. Because an airship home needs an interior, right? A place to eat some peas and carrots before starting an attack run on London…

„Jenny Haniver“ of Mortal Engines Detail

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Set sail amongst the clouds

It’s a Sky Pirate’s worst nightmare when The Valvalevidan hoves into view. AdNorrel‘s massive steampunk flying vessel is a wonderful LEGO creation — beautifully detailed, and packed with functional-looking elements. The overall shape carries a faint whiff of Jabba’s Sail Barge from Return Of The Jedi, but that’s no bad thing. I love the touches of gold and the striped sails, and those lanterns on the raised rear deck are excellent.

LEGO Steampunk Airship

The airship is 80 studs in length, making for a formidable construction project which took 9 months to put together. However, all that space is put to great use with some fabulous details. Here’s a close-up view of the impressive motors which keep the ship moving when the wind drops… Continue reading →

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