As Dan mentioned a few days ago about his Tsing pair of starfighters, Johnny Frye (Dr. X) works hard to improve his LEGO creations.
Johnny’s Hr-18 Interceptor (right) was very cool, to be sure, but by creating an Hr-22 Attack Fighter variant in different colors (below), he made the design truly pop.
Johnny doesn’t build to get blogged (and nor should you), but it’s this kind of commitment to improvement that earns our respect.
Alvaro Gunawan (Pyrefyre) has been churning out cool variants on a hardsuit he designed, including this post-apoc version. With minifig legs for arms, it’s fully articulated, and has even inspired some excellent cover versions, like an Armored Paratrooper by KryptonHeidt.
Most recently, Alvaro posted the GSF-702 “Bumblebee”:
I love the slight twist to the rotors, and true to its name, the gun swivels forward from the rear:
Dean Hofmeyer (Unique Name) knows how to build a great RAMM aircraft, as well as appealing to my vanity.
Here’s the Eisendämon with Dean’s earlier Hauptpanzer:
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Oh, and Dean, I would’ve blogged this anyway. ;-) Definitely blogworthy.
| In a feat of LEGO naval engineering rivaled only by Malle Hawking’s USS Harry S Truman and Ed Diment’s HMS Hood, Jumpei Mitsui (JunLEGO) completed his World War II battleship Yamato today. |
LEGO battleship Yamato has some very impressive specifications:
Jumpei’s LEGO version is based on the way Yamato appeared immediately prior to the fateful Operation Ten-Go in 1945.
Jumpei built LEGO Yamato to answer the question he posed to himself all the way back in elementary school: “How big would Yamato be from a LEGO minifig’s perspective?” A third-year college student today, Jumpei can now demonstrate exactly what that would look like!
Breaking through the language barrier, Jumpei pioneered the use of Bricklink among Japanese LEGO fans to source the two hundred thousand LEGO elements necessary to build Yamato.
Yamato includes wonderful details like the Imperial chrysanthemum emblem on the bow and a brick-built Japanese navy flag flying from the bridge. The superstructure is especially impressive.
See more photos of this amazing LEGO creation on Jumpei Mitsui’s website and in his LEGO Battleship Yamato gallery on Brickshelf (when moderated).
Not to be confused with the fictional Space battleship Yamato, the real Japanese battleship Yamato was launched in 1941, and remains the largest battleship ever constructed by any navy.
Having fired her guns against Allied forces only once during the Pacific War, Yamato was sunk in 1945, taking nearly 2,500 of her 2,700 crew to their deaths.
Six years in the making, Jumpei Mitsui’s LEGO battleship Yamato is major news in the LEGO fan community. The Brothers Brick will get in touch with Jumpei and try to arrange an interview for our English-speaking readers. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy the pictures.
BrickArms has just introduced the first wave of 2009 custom minifigure guns and accessories for sale in four different colors matching LEGO’s palette. Check out all 14 new items at brickarms.com!
We’ll be doing a full review of these new items shortly. In the meantime, you can read more about the 2009 BrickArms accessories and see pictures of prototype versions in our preview of the 2009 Brickarms Bazooka, MGL, Lewis gun, and more.
Ralph Savelsberg (Mad Physicist) has made a wonderful model of the De Havilland Mosquito used by the RAF in World War II. His proportions and clever cockpit designs (as well as the special working features) are what really make Ralph’s planes stand out from the usual offerings.
Soren Roberts may be best known for his mecha, but this tank certainly demonstrates that he’s capable of building outside his comfort zone. It’s frequently when a builder leaves the genre he or she is best known for that truly interesting things happen.
Luis (TerremotoQuake) presents a sleek and deadly armored personnel carrier called the Vector. In addition to the ultra-smooth tiled exterior, the interior is just as immaculate. But purists beware, this APC seats non-LEGO army soldiers, seemingly chosen to show the smaller-than-minifig-scale of the creation.
Brad Edmondson’s (Tristarian Arms) futuristic hover tank is “a labor of love” – a project that had its inspirational roots from many years back during the builder’s teenage years. Check out the backstory on MOCpages and see how Brad has poured his soul into this fine creation. There is also a Youtube video showing detail shots of the model.
David Luna has outfitted his medics with a jeep modified to carry stretchers. I hadn’t ever seen one of these before, they really did exist!
He’s done an excellent job on this recreation. I’m really liking how he used the all-purpose BrickArms monopods on the stretcher racks.
Here is another picture, with stretchers in place:
Finding a cool set of names for a series of LEGO creations can be hard. RAMM builders take advantage of the German propensity for concatenation, while Jacob (Memory) has been borrowing from Japanese mythology for his decidedly futuristic walker.
Vincent Cheung spent just 10 nights to build this amazing creation from the anime series Space Battleship Yamato. The model measures about 150 studs long, that’s the equivalent of four feet.
Via Klocki
