I’ve never seen work by Henrik Hoexbroe but I’ve definitely been missing out. His 1:50 model of the Cutty Sark is one of the most beautiful and accurate LEGO sailing vessels I have ever seen. Most notably his mixing of studs-out sculpting and other techniques to create fluid shapes is a textbook demonstration of what can be achieved in LEGO.
This gorgeous sea-going beauty belongs to Gerard Joosten and I was fortunate enough to handle it at BrickCon 2010. Christened the HMS Brunswick, it weighs in at 124 studs in length, 2.5 feet high and sports a full rig. Most impressive!
In the Adult Lego Fan Community there is a rather famous acronym. It is mostly used in for Space creations, but sneaks into other themes from time to time. That acronym is SHIP and it stands for Seriously Huge Investment in Parts. It generally denotes a ship that is at least 100 studs in length. Someone once said that you aren’t a man until you’ve built a SHIP. I say you can’t call yourself a true shipwright until that SHIP is a fully rigged pirate ship.
Remind me never to go to Azaghal‘s private island for dinner. I’m not quite sure I could stomach what’s on the menu. Not at all.
Bananas in soup is just too much for me.
Chris Malloy just posted this incredible battle at the bottom of the sea. It’s quite a lovely build. The lighting is exceptional.
Forbidden Cove is celebrating their birthday with a fabulous contest with particularly shiny prizes! Chris Malloy (porschecm2) has certainly stepped up with his vignette, The Pirate Aura. I think the whole thing just pulls together nicely, what with the water reflecting the wall and the terrifying face staring back at ye!
Igor Krainovic and Karlo Toth built a pirates diorama for the Kockice Expo. Not shown in the pic are more ships and islands, which you can see in the full gallery on MOCpages.
I’d certainly call this creation of Zack Milenius‘s an unfortunate meeting of opposing elements. Something tells me the pirates and the soldiers just don’t quite see eye-to-eye on issues. Ownership of this small piece of waterfront property being one of them.
Over the past several weeks I’ve been building gifts to thank various people of my university for the role they’ve played in my undergraduate education at Washington University in St. Louis. The past four years have been an intellectually stimulating journey in my study of arts and sciences and the biology major. At the same time, college saw the boom in my Lego hobby, and I am happy to have employed my experience in building to create these tokens of thanks for the people at my school.
This DNA sculpture park was made for my research mentor, whom I had the privilege of working in his genetics lab for three and a half years. The DNA helix codes for a secret message, which can be solved with some knowledge of molecular biology.
The pirate ship was made for my residential college director whom I’ve known since freshman year. This creation was my foray into building the pirate theme, and it was by a miracle that I discovered the resemblance of white windscreen pieces to sails. The exercise vignette was for my physiology professor, who really cared for her students and made a point to drill it into our young minds to exercise and take care of our bodies. Her quote engraved on the vignette got me back into running this year.
The DNA vignette was also given to my research mentor, and it was for the special occasion on his 60th birthday last week. The spiral effect achieved with Bionicle claws contines to be a hit; the effect of this technique far overshadows its simplicity. The vignette of the green ball is a gift for my behavioral ecology professor, one of the funniest and liveliest faculty at the school. I’ve compared attending his classes to watching stand-up comedy, and I hoped to have captured this liveliness in a video showing the motion and sound effects of the creation.
This depiction of our school’s landmark, Brooking’s Hall, is a gift for my super friendly and resourceful four-year adviser. The build uses the medium dark flesh color from the Prince of Persia sets, and the rarity of the colors reflected the $100+ pricetag on my Bricklink orders. The creation is also my first attempt at building an architectural replica, which I am quite happy for the push to expand my building repertoire.
This fantasy aircraft is for my lab bench mentor, who taught me the skills of DNA manipulation and the etiquette of research. I’ve never built an aircraft like this, but knowing his interest in hobby planes, I couldn’t think of anything better to make.
I presented the last of these gifts yesterday, and I am truly flattered by the responses. Each recipient, with the exception of my research mentor, have voluntarily told me the specific place where the gift will be displayed for a long time to come. In the case of my research mentor, I saw the creation on the windowsill of his office the next day I came to lab. From this, I learned that Lego is truly a special medium.
Today I graduated from college. My next step in life is to apply for medical school, and I’ll be taking a year off to work close to home. Thus, this break from my studies roughly translates into an obscene amount of time to build in the upcoming year.
Many people assumed that Crawler Town by Dave DeGobbi was inspired by the book Mortal Engines.
Salthook apparently wasn’t populated by pirates in the book, but they certainly lend a sense of whimsy to the thunderous roar of doom. Dave’s version is also fully motorized, so we can hope for a video at some point soon.
I like the elegant lines, upper hull design and rigging on this Mediterranean Xebec by Tom Jacobs (Bonaparte). It doesn’t hurt that his picture title reminded me of a Camera Obscura song I get stuck in my head.
Wojciech Scrat demonstrates that LEGO sharks seem to be evolving in size — starting with the old-style sharks, continuing with the more recent LEGO Pirates shark, culminating in the LEGO DUPLO shark that rivals megalodon in scale.
The compatibility between DUPLO and SYSTEM is a bit of a moot point here, given the dynamic way that Wojciech has arranged the shark, but two 2×4 SYSTEM bricks would fit on the four DUPLO studs on the shark’s back. Why has nobody built the largest LEGO shark with a frikkin’ laser beam attached to its back? Or an Atlantean king on a howdah aboard his favorite war shark?
(Okay, so my timeline of LEGO sharks is off: The DUPLO shark should be in the middle. LEGO evolution is still an emerging science…)
Forbidden Cove has posted the winners for their first Jolly Roger Contest! I highly encourage you to head on over and check out the fantastic entries.
