It was very hard choosing a shot of this beautiful Merlin HC3 chopper by Simon T. James. Every picture shows off something new and lovely about this angled masterpiece. And it’s constructed in dark green too making the shaping challenge that little bit harder.
Thanks to TR for the tip.
When Mark Stafford isn’t busy designing LEGO sets or baiting Justin Bieber fans, he builds awesome stuff like this Hikari gunship. From the tiny guns up front to the massive engines in back, the gunship looks prepared to retake Earth from the insectoid horde.
I especially like the mix of red and white Technic. Mark gets bonus points for getting the name of the vehicle to match up accurately with the Kanji character — “hikari” means “light” in Japanese.
The master of Power Functions vehicles Peer Kreuger (mahjqa) posted instructions to build a RC tank chassis. You can see a video demonstration of the chassis on Youtube as well as an example of what can be built on the chassis.
This chibi F-22 built by Jack Marquez (Ewok in Disguise) is a nice model in its own right, without considering the pilot. It’s well built and adorably proportioned. The icing on the cake? It’s piloted by a raptor from the new Dino sets!
I really like this picture by Joe and Will Merzlak (The Brothers Merz). And I almost forgot to blog it.
It’s been a very long while since Brian Kescenovitz (mondayn00dle) has brought us one of his dieselpunk mecha but it’s definitely been worth the wait. His “Badger” Combat Walker features some very, very nice part use and lots of delightful plausible details like pistons and armour plating.
Ralph Savelsberg (Mad Physicist) has packed in the action on his latest iteration of the EA-6B Prowler of VAQ-141 Shadowhawks. I’m especially keen on the opening brick built cockpits but the rest of Ralph’s impressive bag of tricks are all on show.
Or possibly just war machines in camouflage. The hardsuit in this crack team of desert warriors is a true beauty. And much more to scale with minifigs than most I’ve seen. Thanks Chris (Ironsniper) for this compact delight.
It’s been nearly a century since World War I, but the echoes of that horrific conflict still echo across the years. Each November 11, people all across the world pause to remember all those who died in the war. Here in the States, Veterans Day honors everyone who’s served in the armed forces.
Jason Allemann has built this gorgeous scene “to honour all those who have fought for freedom in the world.”
Nick Jensen finished his most ambitious LEGO Halo project yet of building the Sniper Rifle System 99 Anti-Matériel (commonly known as the Halo sniper rifle) for his arsenal of brick-built Halo weapons. I asked the builder to share the process of making the SR99 from inspiration to the finished model. Here is his response.
How It Started
The graphics of Halo: Reach blew me away when I first played it. Textures, environments, and character designs all impressed me, but as a LEGO gun builder, I was most impressed with the detail of all the guns. Since then, I built the pistol and combat knife from Halo: Reach. I wanted to build more weapons from Halo: Reach and I was debating between the shotgun and the sniper rifle. I had the parts and money to make one of them. I went with the shotgun but got really frustrated when I couldn’t find a way to make the pump slide back and forth in the front. So I gave up and started the sniper rifle.
I captured many close-up screenshots of the sniper rifle in Halo: Reach’s theater mode, looked up information about the gun on halopedian.com, used the Halo: Reach action figures from McFarlane, and looked at Perry B.’s version as references. I wanted to include as many details as I possibly can squeeze in. I wanted the final MOC to be perfect.
The Build Process
One of the first things I worried about when I decided on building the sniper rifle was the length. It seemed that I would never build something that was going to be 5.5ft long. I thought about the project from another perspective: building the sniper rifle is like building the assault rifle but with a really long barrel. Breaking the project down into three simple parts (body, barrel, and scope) really eased some doubts I had. The sniper rifle in Halo: Reach is approximately 5.5ft long, so a tape measure locked at 5.5ft was always around for reference. I built the body of the sniper the same way I built the assault rifle, SMG, and pistol: Start from the front and build my way to the back. The barrel was easy and I had a plan in mind from the start. I would cover a supporting rod with 2×2 quarter cylinder bricks. So the only difficult tasks were the body and scope.
Problems
I did drop the gun once during the WIP stage. I got impatient and wanted to hold it as if it were finished, and it fell to the ground. There was another time later on where the front grip collapsed because of its weight.
Facts
Length: 63 inches (1.6 meters)
Weight: Approximately 10.5 pounds
Non-LEGO used: dowel rod, custom waterslide decals
Features: Removable magazine, sliding bolt, moving safety
Time spent building: about 4 months
Piece count: uhh…?
It’s been quite awhile since I’ve built anything with my own Lego, but I’m going to post something anyways. I built this light transport helicopter months ago, and have finally managed to get the photos together. I tried to spice things up with a little scene this time, although it may be too little for the helo.
I’m a big fan of tilt-rotors, though I hear this is properly called a tilt-wing. Either way, the tilting adds a fun little activity, when swooshing this thing around.
