Tag Archives: Mansur Soeleman

Star Wars by way of IKEA makes for cozy living

Season 2 of Andor is fast approaching and I couldn’t be more excited. For the thrills of a rebellion blazing into action, yes, but also for more scenes of Syril Karn’s home life with mom. TBB alum Mansur Soeleman is also a fan of Syril’s dining nook and used it as an inspiration for a cozy apartment vignette for his Star Wars Factions character Jani Pryce. Mansur describes the aesthetic as “Space IKEA,” and I’m here for it.

Mansur built the three room apartment for the Star Wars Faction role-playing game, where participants were challenged to create a scene of civilian life. (I just love the idea of getting XP from building beds instead of blasters!) Mansur went above and beyond, presenting both Jani’s ~~Scandinavian~~ New Republic modern abode as well as a towering slice of the exterior, complete with a motorized elevator. With its clean lines and minimal greebling, Mansur’s apartment perfectly cpatures the look of an Inner Rim world sheltered from scum and villainy.

Cozy up for a closer look at Mansur’s Star Wars apartment

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Cruisin’ for a bruisin

TBB alum Mansur Soeleman is back with a heavy-duty LEGO cruiser that can dish it out with the best of them! Using only one technic plate, a slope, and two plates with bars, Mansur has built a gun turret that he’s peppered across the ship. I count seven visible, can you find more? Be sureake in all of the fascinating greebling between the armor panels on ship. And speaking of armor, gander at the tiny rounded indent just below the command deck, to the right of that turret. Mansur has added some extra texture using a pair of finger hinge pieces from yesteryear, likely to reverse the stud direction in the span of a plate. But, the star of the armor show is the 8x1x3 slope. Mansur has used six of them just on this half of the ship to create the angular and geometric paneling. With all of that done, all that’s left to say is “punch it”!

Behold, the Ancient Navigators!

TBB alum Mansur Soeleman transports us to a faraway galaxy with this intriguing, visually striking LEGO depiction of the inner sanctum of a cadre of alien shipbuilders. The Star Wars Factions RPG provides inspiration for the scene, but the otherworldly costumes and architecture evoke a sense of mystery that would feel at home in any far-flung space opera. Each of the “Ancient Shipwrights” wears a distinct outfit that wouldn’t feel out of place in the Dune universe, though you can spot a Guavian Death Gang mask from The Force Awakens in the leader’s elaborate headdress. Beyond the figures, the antistud floor (regular plates turned upside down) adds an interesting texture to the scene. And while the holo hovering above their heads obviously isn’t LEGO, it certainly adds to the effect. (To get the full experience, see the scene animated here.)

Star Wars; going through some Dark Times

The brilliant thing about a huge franchise like Star Wars is once you’ve established a look and feel, once you’ve established some rules, Star Wars can keep expanding into infinity. The Brothers Brick alum Mansur Soeleman presents a LEGO diorama of the Mos Sakàa Town Center from the Star Wars: Dark Times RPG. I can wax ad nauseam about the major release movies all day, but I’m a bit less polished when it comes to some parts of the Expanded Star Wars Universe. With that said, I’ll let Mansur do the talking in his own words. “The people of Antolous I have scraped together a humble life on this rock. Few settlements dot the harsh orange landscape, but the oasis town of Mos Sakàa is the de facto capital of the desert planet. Built up from the ruins of a watchtower, Cestila Marroquin’s humble cantina serves as a seedy hub for the revolt against the invading empire…”

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Teal sqaudron is the best squadron

Star Wars fighter squadrons started out with colors like red and gold and then expanded to cooler names like Rogue, and Phoenix, but there are so many other colors to choose from. Sophisticated colors like magenta, and chartreuse. But if you ask me, the best color is teal. TBB alum Mansur Soeleman, who is known for his unconventional attachment methods, has cobbled together an amazing starfighter inspired by the Fireball from Star Wars: Resistance. With lots of angled sections and loosely attached plates, tiles, and slopes the fighter looks like it could break up in a strong wind, but that only adds to the salvaged and heavily modified aesthetic that was what made the original models look so interesting.

Setting the bar with a setting of LEGO bars

Sometimes, one can forget that LEGO is more than just studs, tubes, and minifigures. There are so many other connections available to the savvy constructor. And there are few as savvy as TBB alum Mansur Soeleman (lamborghiniwafflesauce), as we can see in his space-y creation titled The Mirrorheim. Featuring so many twisting tubes and clipped panels, his model is a paragon of micro space construction. And while I can’t speak to its fragility based solely on these pictures, the desire to “swoosh” this teeny starfighter all over the room is irrefutable.

The fragile beauty of microscale LEGO spaceships

I have reason to suspect our very own Mansur Soeleman must be a wizard. Why? Well, look at his latest LEGO creation. Not only is it a super rendition of Spike Siegel’s Swordfish II from Cowboy Bebop, it looks to be held together with magic. I’d be worried about breathing near this for fear of something falling off. There are so many pieces that look like they’re barely hanging on to each other, but it works so well! And what pieces they are, all in such a tiny package. Wheel arches, the venerable sausage piece, a rubber ring and of course, the sword at the front. Well, it is known canonically as the Swordfish II, so there had to be one in there somewhere, right?

The return of LEGO Elves?

I wish.
That’s why I (Mansur “Waffles” Soeleman) along with my friend Tom Loftus decided to take a break from our usual spaceships and build something fantastical. Our usual greys became pinks and lavenders, our usual mechanical greebling became wild, organic foliage. Tom wanted to build a tree, I wanted to replicate some of Scotland’s coastal cliffs. Combined with recent plants in wild colours and the release of the Acorn Boy and Night Protector in the recent Collectable Minifigure Series, our collab build became an homage to LEGO Elves.

We are fans of the bygone LEGO Elves theme which ran from 2015 to 2018. Its signature look was bright colours, cute dragons, and wonderful characters with elemental powers and matching outfits, albeit they were the less favourable minidolls. In short, it was a Tolkien-esque fantasy version of LEGO Friends. Despite there being an established lore (which I admit I’m unfamiliar with), Tom and I decided to make something original, but with a similar aesthetic.

Mando’s Naboo hotrod has a lot of engine for a little ship

As The Book of Boba Fett continues to shell out the hits, it’s also managing to throw us all for a loop. Dank Farrik, has it been fun! Chapter 5 had plenty of LEGO fans excited for the Razor Crest’s replacement and it was exactly the inspiration that fellow TBB contributor Mansur Soeleman needed to bust out a quick ship. Not one to take all the credit, he’ll have you know that his version of the Mandalorian’s new N-1 Starfighter is “a severe de-modification” of his dear friend Tom Loftus’ original yellow and grey model, which the curious can find images of only on Brick Vault. It just happened to be sitting on his desk while he watched the episode so it was a natural process. While the bones are there, I’d say Mansur’s efforts moved this far from the original. After all, there are only so many ways to skin a Womp rat. Known by most as Lamborghiniwafflesauce, or Waffles, he’s somewhat of a Greeble King amongst the LEGO fan base. Employing these skills, he opened up the design to show off the interior of the two modded J-type engines, along with the additional rear engine added by Peli Motto.

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Thinking outside the box with a friendly landspeeder

My friends and I buy each other small LEGO sets that do not compute with the space-y things we build. We buy LEGO Friends, Trolls World Tour, DOTS, and the like. It’s all a joke of course, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t try to build from them. I (Mansur “Waffles” Soeleman) received LEGO Friends: Andrea’s Bunny Cube from fellow builder Gubi, and I knew I had to use the big cube pods in a build. Previously I used a Ninjago arcade pod in a Classic Space build, and the medium blue of this bunny cube wasn’t going to be that off-putting. I just had to hide the bunny face…

The Friends cube offers plenty of connection points both inside and out. Having one facing up and one facing down provided a good start, as one of them would be the cockpit. Hiding the hinges at the side is always a challenge, but it was nothing that greebling couldn’t fix. The addition of side engines also hid the irregularities of the cubes. One thing that seemed cooler in my head was the inclusion of the cloth pieces representing the “bunny’s ears”. They add more colour despite their texture and shape clashing with the mechanical nature of the landspeeder. After the struggle of attaching the engines from the top section which hides the printed bunny face, I could finally relax and go all out with the underside greebling…

TL:DR; Even the strangest of LEGO pieces can serve as the foundation for a good build. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Cat squadron, standing by!

Sometimes you and your buddies see something nice that you want to build in LEGO. It could be anything, inspiration is all around us. I (Mansur “Waffles” Soeleman) have a close circle of fellow builders that we like to call “vehicle dudes” and “teal squadron.” Consisting of Caleb Ricks, Gubi, Thomas Jenkins, Pande (Malen Garek), Tim Goddard, Tom Loftus (Inthert) and more, we get on a group call on Friday evenings and build. During this time, we discuss things that happen in the world of LEGO, Star Wars, and everything in between. It is during one of these remote group build sessions that we discovered artist Spacegooose and their colourful starfighter drawings.

It was their similarity to Star Wars ships that drew us into building them. Their varying styles and functions have enough similarity to belong to one group, and so our builds became a small collaboration. With blessings from the artist who eagerly awaits their designs in LEGO form, we decided to include our own artistic spin as well as matching the original artwork.

Click for detailed pictures and descriptions of each spaceship

Felt cute, might bring down a Super Star Destroyer later

I love it when LEGO builders use unexpected pieces in their creations. There’s even contests revolving around using a seed part in a variety of builds. After all, LEGO is all about creativity, and thinking outside the box. I (Mansur “Waffles” Soeleman) grew up with Technic and Bionicle, which both contain strange LEGO parts that you don’t see mixed with the usual building system. However, I am a firm believer that even the most unconventional LEGO parts can fit perfectly with the common ones. That was partly my inspiration in building a perfectly minifigure-scale RZ-1 A-wing Starfighter from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.

Find out about the build process and the weird parts Waffles used to build his A-wing!