Tag Archives: Dieselpunk

Five mechs for fighting in the wasteland

Bartosz Sasiński has been busy building LEGO models this 2024. His new line of light-blue mechs are part of a diesel-punk series named “For Fuel!” The hero of this lineup is the sword-wielding M-D1 walker brandishing the golden blade from various Ninjago sets. This build features a number of rarer parts used to great effect: The horns in bright light blue are from 76414 Expecto Patronum, and the gold tubes were only available in two sets from 2021.

Amazing build and massive sword aside, I’d argue the greatest strengths of this walker are two-fold; its outstanding color-scheme, and its party of allied mechs. The medium blue of the armor contrasts with iron brown of the mechanical parts. These fighting vehicles have seen some hard use in unforgiving conditions and the rusty color of the struts and joints reflects that.

M-D1

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This dinky destroyer takes to the skies in a big way

When I first set eyes on this dieselpunk-esque destroyer from Sunder_59, I assumed it was a 100-stud long LEGO brick-built behemoth. (‘Tis the season, after all.) In the end that’s wrong on two counts: this clocks in a fair bit short of 100 studs, and it’s built using virtual LEGO bricks, not real ones. But it’s no less a terrific design for it! The fact I thought it was bigger than it actually was tells me that Sunder has done a great job conveying the heft of a giant spaceship in microscale. That’s a result of both careful parts use, and a really clean design. I like the unconventional colour scheme as well. Always a bonus of working in the digital realm, without its pesky limitation of having to use bricks that actually exist!

Drammen class destroyer

In truth, I think the reason I fell for it is because I’m a sucker for dieselpunk. This won’t be the last time we feature some, and it’s certainly not the first. Have a look at the LEGO dieselpunk builds we’ve featured before.

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When Dieselpunk art imitates Dieselpunk art

This new LEGO creation by Sandro Quattrini and we’re all pretty thrilled, by golly. I’m loving the intricate details, the ape-like stance, and the fact that this thing resembles a walking airplane. I seriously want to live in this world for a little while. It turns out that you can as this is based on the work of famed concept artist Emerson Tung and his A6M-S Koumuri Jethead art . This isn’t the first time we’ve been impressed by Sandro’s work, in fact, he was named The Brothers Brick Builder of the Year in 2022. Nor is this the first time he has been inspired by Emerson’s work. Check out our Sandro Quattrini archives to see what I mean. This may be the most interesting thing I’ve seen all day and I’ve Googled potatoes and jelly.

Jethead

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Dieselpunk for the electric age

We have here an electric automobile, rendered in LEGO, named after Nikola Tesla. Thankfully, though, Flickr user Ghost Hunter Gunn doesn’t spend their spare time making questionable decisions about social media sites and acting like a second-rate Bond villain. Probably. Of late, they’ve spent their spare time upgrading an old build of theirs. This creation is a digital render, but is still faithful to the original. And what a cracking design! Dieselpunk always looks cool to me, but sometimes strays a bit too much on the greasy side. Ghost Hunter Gunn has really leaned into the art-deco with this one, producing great results. It’s definitely more of a looker than the Cybertruck, that’s for sure….

Paragon 'Nikola' hovercar

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Skypunk 2021

It’s probably safe to say that terms like steampunk and cyberpunk have entered into the common lexicon. Complex worlds, either created around clockwork and steam power or technologically permeated societies, have become pretty popular amongst mainstream society. But what about dieselpunk? Or its partner, skypunk? Thankfully, the nature of the monikers is to get the idea across pretty quickly. Personally, skypunk is one of my favorite concepts. Worlds full of floating fortresses, sky battles in agile, obscure fighter planes, or common people shlepping about on islands in the sky. Today, I want to take a look at the latest skyracer model by builder Sylon-tw.

Skyracer part 2

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This Dieselpunk Dragonfly takes to the skies

Imagine a world, an alternate reality wedged somewhere between the 1920s and 1950s. It’s a little gritter and not as optimistic as say Steampunk but everyone wears a cool uniform, the radio shows are campy and the password to get into all the best speakeasies is; Dieselpunk. That is the world this LEGO creation by Asgardian Studio lives in. The builder tells us it was fun to render the red color scheme with a black and white checkered pattern and a smattering of orange highlights. This massive model has a 75cm (29.52in) wingspan, rotating propellers, retractable landing gear, and a fully detailed interior. I love the twin-fuselage, tri-propeller design, but the bubble eyes and dragonfly wings make this one awesome Dieselpunk model! We will surely look to the skies for more great works by Asgardian Studio.

Dieselpunk Dragonfly

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Chugging along toward the future of the past

The retro future of LEGO transport has a lot of options available to experience, including this cloud skimming, Dieselpunk Boat by builder Mark van der Maarel. His use of curved slopes and modified plates to form the smooth shaping of the hull is simple but exemplary, as is the chosen colour scheme. The rusted and worn look of such a craft, along with the eccentric crew, screams of adventures aplenty.

Dieselpunk boat

The deck crane brings the functionality needed for this sky trawler, though the highlight for me is another simple addition for the sake of detail: the boat hook. This necessary piece of equipment adds a nice touch of realism despite only being constructed from two pieces, a pirate hook hand and a rigid hose. It makes me kind of curious to know what he is puling in at such a height.

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An ace Sky-Fi fighter

When it comes to the “Sky-Fi” Dieselpulp style of LEGO building, one man is the undisputed master of the air: Jon Hall. He strikes again with his latest retro-flavoured aircraft — the P-98 Nemesis. The shaping of the hefty triple-fuselage structure is excellent, and there are loads of lovely touches on display — the strong colour-blocking, the raked exhausts peeking from beneath the engine cowls, and the racks of ordnance slung under the wings.

P-98 Nemesis

Packed full of Jon’s trademark attention to detail, the model includes custom stickers, a folding undercarriage, and a detailed cockpit interior. Check out this view of the seat and the instrumentation panel with its trio of joysticks. And don’t miss the spanner mounted up-front as a gun sight — great stuff.

P-98 Nemesis

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Peace through superior air power

Take a WW2-era Mustang, mix in a dash of muscle-car, then shake with a liberal helping of Dieselpunk. The result? Jon Hall‘s excellent new LEGO creation, the Fe-47 Rapier — a “sky-fi” fighter plane of formidable proportions. The colour blocking on this baby is fierce, the splashes of yellow adding real visual pop to the tail, nose, and engine cowlings. And the overall shaping is classic alternate-technology building — familiar enough to be immediately recognisable, but odd enough to make you look twice.

Fe-47 Rapier

One of the things I love about Jon’s creations is the attention to detail he lavishes on every aspect. The custom decals are an obvious highlight, but my favourite touch is the undercarriage — managing to let this bad boy land, despite the bulging lower fuselage…

Fe-47 Rapier

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Dreadnought delivers the whale mail

A cute pocket battleship combines forces with a whale, apparently to deliver the mail, in this LEGO creation from Revan New. I genuinely have no idea what is going on here, but I like it. First up, we see the chibi-styled dieselpunk dreadnought sailing into a moody sunset, a companionable whale matching the ship’s course…

Drεαdnϙught

And then the true nature of this partnership is revealed — some sort of oceanic postal service…

"I'll send you a message with the white post whale"

The styling of the little dreadnought is smart — I particularly like the curve of the hull and the maroon striping. Those deck guns are pretty good too. And then the whale itself has a friendly face. Who wouldn’t want this guy turning up at the door with their Amazon packages?

All-in-all, this is nicely built, nicely photographed, and nicely crazy. Just the sort of stuff we like round here.

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The Retro-future is bright: a chat with French builder extraordinaire, Vincent Gachod [Interview]

This week we were able to sit down with Vincent Gachod from Toulouse, in the south of France. While balancing his job as the head of video production at a french university and raising two kids, he finds time to create some incredible LEGO builds. Let’s pick his brain and see what we can learn from this master of the brick.
The Mechanic
TBB: How did you get into the LEGO hobby and what inspires you to build?

Vince: I started with LEGO in the mid 70’s with bricks from my brother’s collection. My first set was the 374 Fire Station of 1978. After my “dark age” in the 90’s, I came back to LEGO with my son and his first sets. I’m inspired by lot of influences (movies, animation, videos games, books, magazines, cars, architecture…) but I’m more inspired by the details : a car’s wheel, a plane’s engine or a vintage vacuum cleaner! I often start a MOC from a single detail like a car’s grille or an exhaust pipe. I spend a long time working on details.

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Aeronautic adventures await

Take to the skies in style with Ted Andes‘ latest LEGO creation. This single-seater aircraft has a dieselpunk feel, with an impressive level of detail for such a small creation — much of it down to the intelligent repurposing of Bionicle armor pieces. The brick-built clouds around the plane give the whole image a wonderful cartoonish sky effect, but the highlight of the model for me is that slight downward angle on the nose turbine — a lovely touch.

Aeronaut

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