It’s been a while since we’ve checked in on Caleb Flutur‘s collection of insect automatons, so let’s see what he’s been up to! First up is this amazing butterfly, which is absolutely chock-a-block with inventive parts use. Two sizes of whip are used as antennae, with barrels and golden flowers forming the thorax. What really completes the look are the wings. These are made from canvas pieces from 75148 Encounter on Jakku and really look the part.
The expansion of Caleb Flutur‘s LEGO steampunk insect menagerie continues apace. This time, he has cooked us up a cracking grasshopper. This might be my favourite of his mechanical bugs so far! The gold highlights look great, without being too overbearing; ditto for the reddish-brown ‘wooden’ parts. The black sausages are a fine – if fragile – solution for the antennae. The elements that jump out to me, though, are the shock absorber and spring elements used for the hind legs. It’s such a good fit, yet somehow it doesn’t seem like an obvious choice of a part. It makes it look like this thing really could spring up at you!
We truly don’t mean to feature every last LEGO creation Caleb Flutur has built lately but damn, son, that guy is prolific! He’s clearly having the best week ever with his series of Steampunk-inspired creepy crawlies. He says he’ll be posting one a day until…we don’t know when. We’re amused, if not a bit bugged out. We can feature other things but the rest of youse haven’t exactly been doing anything to exterminate this onslaught of jeepers-creepers. You know who you are! Build something, will ya? We just might feature it. In the meantime, check out some other things that bug us imensely.
Caleb Flutur had always wanted an old brass scale to display, so he decided to build one. Looking like it just came out of an apothecary shop, Caleb’s work definitely measures up to the real thing. Capturing such an ornate design with such a limited color pallet must have been tricky, but the final looks to balance form and function brilliantly.
When it comes to weird mechanical mashups, Caleb Flutur seems to have the market cornered. Fresh off the back of his addition to Sodor’s territorial defense , he has gone in an altogether different direction with this pair of steampunk insects. A lot of steampunk builds like to accentuate the use of, well, steam, but I like the focus on the electromechanical here. After all, that was one of the great advancements of the Victorian era. The clockwork fly makes ingenious use of a pair of window panes as wings. Meanwhile, the spider has a great whopping filament bulb forming its thorax (another Victorian bright idea). I normally think spiders get a bad rap since they eat all sorts of annoying bugs, but this is one arachnid I’d rather not have hanging around my house…
Caleb says this is the first of a few steampunk creatures in the pipeline, so we’ll be keeping a beady eye out for more! In the meantime, why not whet your appetite in our steampunk archives?
Caleb Flutur didn’t have to go this hard for the pun, but we’re glad he did. By transforming the classic children’s character “Thomas the Tank Engine” into simply “Thomas the Tank,” Caleb has produced a surprisingly accurate military vehicle. Sure, it’s made from primary colors and has eyes, but look at the details! The intricate tank tread mechanics, the machine gun atop the turret. And it had to be done while incorporating some of Thomas’s iconic striping, which actually ups the difficulty level beyond what a regular tank would require.
