We highlighted BobDeQuatre’s amazingly cool white space dragon ship back in 2014, and it struck us as a highly unique concept executed remarkably well. In the intervening years, we haven’t seen much of the space dragons theme, but now Bob is back with an overhaul of the Whitefang. Now bigger and badder, the ship retains its basic structure and curved shaped based on the dragons of Eastern mythology, but loses the obvious cockpit in favor of a more organic look.
Two heads + two tails + a castle on its back = one excellent Oriental dragon. The Tokyo Tag Team brings us this cracking LEGO creation — all teeth and claws and roof shingles. The castle itself is a great little build, with the dark green roof providing a smart contrast to the orange scales on the dragon.
The twin heads are well-built, with some good angled brickwork to provide the shaping. I particularly like those dark grey whiskers up front — a nice touch which adds an appropriately Eastern mythological feel.
In addition to the great new sets for Friends, LEGO also revealed new additions to the Elves line at the New York Toy Fair today. Continuing with the Goblins and their devious king, three new sets were revealed today. These sets will be available June 1.
UPDATE (June 1): The summer wave of LEGO Elves sets is now available.
41187 Rosalyn’s Healing Hideout ($49.99, 460 pieces)
As Hagrid mentioned way back on his second day with Harry, “…yeh’d be mad ter try an’ rob it.” And because we long identified that Harry doesn’t always listen well and the first couple of books are chock full of foreshadowing, our heroes do in fact successfully rob Gringotts. I mean, it totally helps when you ride an angry dragon’s back out of the vaults.
Jared has recreated the scene of the dragon breaking out of the top of the bank, right before the last mad dash for freedom. The poor thing looks properly emaciated and pale from all its time in the dungeons.
With the heat rising everywhere, it’s time to bring in some ice. Some beautiful, well designed, sleek, dragon ice. Cecilie Fritzvold has brought us this lovely beast. I like the trans-blue highlights. The bone-like ridges add great texture to the dragon’s body, making it look particularly dangerous.
Girls’ themes like Friends and Elves have granted us a huge variety of new pieces, from minifig accessories to some lovely dragon heads and wings. So as soon as the 2016 Elves sets were revealed in January, it was just the matter of time before the fan community found better applications for all those new parts. LEGO 7 makes a perfect upgrade of the fire dragon from Elves set 41175.
I’m quite confused, as all the armour parts go amazingly well with each other and the whole figure is truly impressive, but I still can’t take my eyes away from the dragon’s face. Just look at those charming eyes and cute teeth! And who could know that the new wings would have such an astonishing color gradient. Simply perfect!
Letranger Absurde gives us a lovely dragon crest, perfect for decorating our new throne room. I like the simplicity of the build. The blue helps the dragon stand out well, which is excellent as the dragon has excellent shaping. It’s very clear and recognizable.
As promised in our 2016 New York Toy Fair coverage, I’m happy to share our first dragon review from the LEGO Elves line! LEGO sent us a copy of 41176 The Secret Marketplace. You’ll be able to find this set beginning in March. It has 691 pieces, and we expect it to retail for $59.99.
While my esteemed colleague may have been impressed by Letranger Absurde‘s hourglass, I feel no guilt in posting another one of Letranger’s remarkable LEGO creations just a day later. This amazing undead dragon incorporates numerous LEGO bone and horn pieces, proving that in some cases LEGO pieces are indeed best used as originally intended. The graveyard backdrop with a gloomy tree is also wonderful, once you can peel your eyes away from the dracolich.
The old saying says that “Two heads are better than one”. I don’t think that is the case with this Ettin by Letranger Absurde. I think two head make for more trouble than one when it comes to giants, at least in my personal experience. Yours may be different. I really like how the two heads have different looks and personalities though. Very nice touch. This two-headed Ugly was built for the Mixels D&D contest. Get your out googly eyes and build some beasties!
It’s time for some awesome Bionicle. Behold the great green dragon Zaldrīzes by Mitch (Gamma-Raay). He looks like he’s about to leap up into the air and swoop off with a roar.
I like the rear shot above because it showcases the dragon’s white spine, the Ninjago sails, and the sawtoothed tail so well, but the front view of Zaldrīzes is no less formidable. The light blue fringe on the skull also ties in beautifully with the tip of the dragon’s tail.
While we’re at it, Mitch also proves that you can build a pretty awesome spaceship from Bionicle, too! Annapurna is from last year’s SHIPtember (which I’m sure we’ll be hearing about quite a lot over the next couple of months).
Regular readers will know that we’ve featured many LEGO dragons over the years, but I think on this occasion YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID now that heavy-duty character builder Shawn Snyder has decided to get in on the game with this recreation of Tolkien’s Smaug. From head to tail it’s 28 inches and the wingspan is a whopping 35 inches!
We used Sauron’s seeing-stone to track down the damp cave that Shawn hides in, and dispatched our goblin hoard to interrogate him about his latest bunker-busting creation…
TBB: You’re best known for creating large figures and busts of humanoid characters from videogames such as Halo and Assassins Creed, or movies like Iron Man and Predator. What inspired you to attempt a monster this time?
SS: I’ve actually wanted to make a dragon for quite some time. It wasn’t until ArchLUG did a collaborative build of Laketown that made me commit to finally attempt it. After all, Laketown needs a Smaug!
TBB: Tell us about the build. How did you get such a large yet detailed model to stay in one piece? Did it present any new building challenges for you?
