Tag Archives: Military

Tanks and fighter planes, dioramas of World War II battles, dreadnoughts and battleships — LEGO builders have an obvious fascination with the arms and armor of the military-industrial complex. Find all these LEGO weapons of mass destruction right here on The Brothers Brick.

The Right Shot

Sometimes, getting the right photo of a creation seems to be as important as the construction itself. A poor photograph can reduce a great creation to mediocrity, and a great photograph catch the eye, drawing the viewer in to examine more closely.

The latter was the case with this vertical tank by Ribbitz over on flickr. When I saw a thumbnail of this photo in my contacts’ streams, I had to take a closer look. While I might like it if the gun weren’t slightly cropped out, the composition is still quite nice. The viewer gets the impression of a hulking, heavily armored artillery vehicle. In fact, the creation is quite small, and reveals nicely detailed legs.

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Théo shows off his curves

This little artillery platform by Théo (Titolian) is simple but looks lovely. I quite enjoy the curved cross-section, as well as those incorporated into the front. The part use for the back of the missile pod (a fire truck basket, if I’m not mistaken), is also quite nice.

Militarized X-wing

Zane Houston shows us what the X-wing might look like if it were a modern military craft. It features folding wings and landing gear. The builder states that there’s more militarized Star Wars ships in the making. Will we see a TIE fighter soon?

Plausible deniability

Photographing a low-contrast LEGO creation in low light seems like a recipe for disaster, but Brandon Bannerman (Catsy) manages to pull it off in this top-down shot titled “Long Way Down”:

The photograph itself rewards closer examination, and be sure to click through for the backstory.

Cuteness Overload

I was stunned when I came across this photo in Cole Blaq‘s flickr stream. The colors in the thumbnail seemed so intense that I had to take a closer look. I have to admit, I never thought I’d see someone use those tentacles for anything other than tentacles.

CVT-GS39 “Shrike” VTOL combat aircraft by The Brothers Merz

Joe & Will Merzlak, aka The Brothers Merz, deploy the CVT-GS39 Shrike.

Check out their photostream for dozens of other awesome sci-fi and future military vehicles.

DRP-09 Dropship by Cole Blaq

There’s a certain beauty hidden in this hover ship by Cole Blaq. It’s blocky and chunky, but in all the right ways. I love the various angles that come together in the cockpit area on the front, and the use of tiles sticking out to represent armored windows is great.

The icing on the cake? It can carry that little truck posed in front of it.

Motorized Leopard 2 tank

Paul (Sariel) of LUGPol completed an accurate and functional model of the Leopard 2 German tank. According to former Armor Officer Brad Edmondson who sent me the link, this is “by far the best representation of a Leopard2 tank in Lego yet.” You can check out the video of the model in action on Youtube.

Nazi Death Camp in LEGO

Arguably the most controversial LEGO creation of all time may have been Polish artist Zbigniew Libera’s 7-piece “Konzentrationslager“.

Nearly 15 years later, yoshix presents “Todeslager”.

A line of prisoners walks in the snow toward a building labeled “Showers” while other prisoners are forced to unload coal for the gas chamber’s engines. A guard leans his rifle against the wall of the building. The barrel of a sniper rifle pokes from the window of a watchtower overlooking the scene.

So, what do you see in this diorama? (Let’s set aside speculation about the builder’s intent for the moment, because — let’s face it — those kinds of discussions are hardly fair and rarely interesting.) What does it say to you?

And how does it fit into the broader LEGO military building “scene”? Are there certain subjects that should never be depicted in LEGO? If so, what are they, and why?

New BrickArms direct-printed minifigs indistinguishable from official LEGO figs

Our friends over at BrickArms were kind enough to send along a couple of their new direct-printed custom minifigs a while back, and they’re quite possibly the single greatest leap forward in minifig customization technology since Brasso.

Will Chapman uses a solvent inkjet printer that bonds the inks with the minifig’s ABS plastic, resulting in printing that I can’t distinguish from minifigs printed in a LEGO factory. And unlike the waterslide decals intended for “gentle play” or “display,” these are likely to withstand much heavier abuse.

I honestly haven’t oohed and aahed over a new BrickArms product in a couple of years, and kind of thought their ability to surprise me was long past. But I have to admit — perhaps a bit grudgingly — that these new direct-printed minifigs may be the coolest thing ever.

Dragonfly Gunship by Aaron Dayman

I just love the dark green color scheme and ruggedness of this gunship by Aaron Dayman.

Bell ‘Huey’ UH-1

Mike Psiaki‘s revamped Bell ‘Huey’ UH-1 model bears great semblance to its common and reliable real life counterpart. I especially like the details on the rotors, but best of all, Mike has generously donated this model for sale to Creations for Charity, which means you can buy it in November.

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