Tag Archives: Sci Fi

Awesome Akira-inspired alternate LEGO build of 10298 Vespa 125

My childhood consisted heavily of trying to create the alternate set builds on the back of the LEGO box. But builder Gerald Cacas must’ve been watching the anime Akira when he created this excellent alt-build using the parts from 10298 Vespa 125. While not in the same color as Kaneda’s red bike, this is still a beautiful recreation in baby blue, heavily relying on all the curved slopes from the Vespa model. The way in which the bike wraps around both wheels is astounding given the part limitation! All that’s missing is a brick-built Shōtarō for this thing to start zipping around Neo-Tokyo.

From this angle, you can really get a sense of how detailed the console is, as well as the engine located just in front of the back wheel. Both are absolutely marvelous, feeling futuristic and modern despite lacking that specific parts palette. It’s amazing that this pop culture touchstone is so easy to communicate with hardly a printed or textured piece!

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Well, he’s not called Stanley Ku-BRICK for nothing, I suppose...

Take a look through Shannon Sproule‘s Flickr photos, and you’ll see his interest in toys extends beyond the plastic bricks we cover on this website. He may not be the most prolific builder, but he’s a skilled toy photographer. What that does mean is that whenever his LEGO gets put in front of the camera, the results are stunning. Best of all? He’s also got a keen eye for retro sci-fi styling! Take a look at his latest scene. It’s a hotel room with a robot concierge, which sounds fairly innocuous. But the framing, the lighting (I love the backlit anti-studs above the bed!) and the positioning of the figures give this a real sense of foreboding. It doesn’t help that the concierge is keen to point out the escape routes in the caption. If you mixed The Shining and 2001: A Space Odyssey into a film, I bet this is what the poster outside the cinema would look like. Stanley Kubrick would be proud!

Now that’s what I call sci-fi

Although I didn’t grow up during their heyday, I’m a bit of a sucker for that retro, 70s sci-fi aesthetic. You know, original-series Star Trek, Silent Running, Alien, that sort of thing. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, Keith Goldman has perfectly encapsulated that (as he so often does) in his latest creation. The build itself is impressive, but the composition is particularly stellar. Keith says the off-kilter angle was deliberately chosen to evoke the unsettling intrigue of a comic book cover. In fact, all it needs is a title in a dramatic font, some catchy quotes, and a little ’50c’ sticker to make it look exactly like that.

The sense of scale and position is quite deceptive: initially, I thought we were looking up at some massive space cathedral, but the little white trophy ‘nanofigures’ give us our reference. This means that that skeleton in the glowing green cell, tank, pod, or whatever it’s in must be enormous. That’s what I love about this piece. No backstory, but by poring over the details you start asking questions which quickly set the imagination running. What facility is this, and where do all those tunnels go? What’s in the yellow pods? What (or who) was that skeleton? Who are the figures gathered around it? Most importantly, why is it there? Somehow, I don’t get the impression this is a zoo…

“Incoming message on the viewscreen, Captain”

Builder Paul Hetherington is totally feeling some classic sci-fi vibes with this bridge scene. Given the four spooky spacemen on the viewscreen, the crew of this intrepid starship must be shaking in their space boots! As is typical with his designs, I’m in love with Paul’s use of repeated patterns throughout the ship’s command center. It’s just trapezoids for days along the walls and in the ceiling! And all of them in pearl metallic gray, contrasting well with the blue, light gray, and yellow throughout the rest of the scene. My mind immediately goes to a mash-up of classic Star Trek and LEGO Classic Space, which I’m sure is the intent. And right in the center is a beautiful LEGO-inspired art piece by Robin Thompson, depicting the long forgotten crew returned for revenge!

From this angle, you can get a better view of all the switches and dials available to the starship’s crew. I particularly enjoy the use this two-wide windscreen, my favorite LEGO part! And the lighting along the floors and pillars fits right in with the sci-fi aesthetic.

Floating up to the city in the sky

Far from Norman Greenbaum’s lyrics but still suiting the rhythm, this futuristic flying city by Builder Umbra-Manis certainly looks like a paradise all its own. A microscale aircraft sits on one side of the city’s extended air-docks, leading into a thick, walled courtyard. Trees exposed to the open air line the exterior of the platforms, using brown claws with green flower studs attached to the versatile, hexagonal NEXO Knights plates which make up the structure’s base. Nice parts usage certainly abounds in this model. Minifigure rollerskates with trans-yellow tombstone plates, as I call them, make great little courier vessels which enter the city and circle its interior. The sculpting and coloration of the buildings make me feel like I’m playing a LEGO version of a Ratchet and Clank level which is nothing to complaing about.

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Beware the rings of Llyria Y9

Few LEGO builders do other-worldly creations quite like Bart de Dobbelear. His latest creation is a super bit of sci-fi workmanship, inspired by a digital piece from another artist. At first glance, I wondered if there had been some photoshop trickery at play to achieve the repetition of the rings, but on closer inspection, they are indeed four distinct rings. (I really should know better than not to expect such attention to detail from Mr de Dobbelaer!) The greebling is superb, but the real skill lies in the restrained use of pieces. In doing so, the build can show off its tremendous physical depth while keeping the look of the rings consistent. Moreover, they look simultaneously ancient and futuristic. Quite what the rings are for is unclear, and Bart says as much in his description. However, he does mention a few “mysterious disappearances”, with caution being warranted at night…

… So you’d better have your wits about you, as he has treated us to a night-time version of the build as well! The blue light wire is something Bart has used to great effect before, and understandably so – it really elevates the build to something truly alien. If we don’t hear from this TBB favourite for a while, it may well be because he got too close to the rings on Llyria Y9…

Explore the cosmos with Captain Future!

Eric Druon lovingly recreates the Cosmo-Liner spacecraft from the 1978 anime Captain Future. The ship is really cool, from both a design and LEGO model perspective, bringing to mind visions of a deep-sea diving vessel. The viewport of the ship is hexagonal as if it’s destined to be made of LEGO! This calls for the use of the transparent blue canopy from the 2000 Artic LEGO toy line. The color palette of the ship is simple and quite clean, letting the canopy shine as the focal point. Looking at the design, I can’t help but think the original designers were inspired by TIE fighters. Star Wars premiered a year before the anime aired, leaving room enough for the artists to be inspired by that hit movie. Regardless of the ship’s origin, this build is inspiring in its own right!

Fun fact, the anime was based on the pulp sci-fi character Captain Future. The character’s original adventures were published in the eponymous pulp magazine from 1940 to 1944. The anime was imported into many countries and was particularly successful in France. It was in France that the character’s name changed to Capitaine Flam.

A sci-fi build that tickles us pink

With a cheap string of LED lights placed inside a tube of transparent bricks, Andreas Lenander has added some big budget atmosphere to his latest build. The resulting rosy glow perfectly illuminates the power core chamber, creating a sci-fi scene that you can almost hear humming with life. The roller coaster track used as scaffolding adds an industrial flair that makes this power source feel functional, while also casting some subtle zigzag shadows onto the surrounding walls.

A dragon that’s both sci-fi and fantasy

This blaster-wielding LEGO dragon by builder Sandro Quattrini is a glorious mix of D&D and cyberpunk. The sculpting on the figure is exquisite, as we’ve come to expect from Sandro. The visor design feels both like it belongs to Geordi La Forge and the Mouth of Sauron. I love the use of these 12-tooth gears for the dragon’s teeth. And the feather pieces making up his goatee are wonderful. Combine that grin with the attitude conveyed in the figure’s pose, and the message is clear: no one in sci-fi or fantasy tells this guy what to do!

And before I go, we’re just going to have to talk about that blaster! Much like the figure, the gun incorporates the mechanical and biological into a single design. The use of the red Dragon Masters horse helmet is particularly nice. Of particular note is how Sandro has used minifig hands here. While on the top of the weapon, they provide a natural flow indicating a dragon’s spine. However, on the underside of the barrel, they’re used in a rigid line, in keeping with the artificial aspects of the blaster. Two sides of the same part.

Call of Duty zombie mode ray gun perfectly recreated in LEGO

If there’s a quartermaster of the LEGO building community, then it’s got to be TBB alum Nick Jensen. Time after time, Nick’s incredible LEGO models turn out more like carbon copies of the weapons he’s imitating. And this ray gun from the Call of Duty franchise is no exception! All of the details are spot-on.

See all the accurate details Nick has built into this Call of Duty ray gun

I’d love to see this robot lift a crate of forks…it’d be so dang literal.

Sci-fi builder extraordinaire Tim Goddard never fails to impress. Part of what makes his creations work so well is how much thought Tim seems to put into the fictional functionality of his builds. This forklift bot is a perfect example. By eschewing a typical humanoid form and anchoring the droid’s shoulders on an a-frame above its face, the droid looks more than ready to handle weight loads several times its own mass. And the slight angle in the hips gives a sense of life and character to the build. Tim goes the extra parsec by placing the robot on a base that makes perfect use of angled tiles and ingots to suggest a massive sci-fi locale in a very small space.

Behold where the fate of the galaxy is decided

In the far future, the Galactic Council prepares for another lengthy debate. Bart De Dobbelaer has constructed this fascinating creation, which shows alien council members seated around a strange centrepiece. The spiked orb is encircled by train tracks in medium azure and, according to Bart’s lore about the build, the orb might be an artificial intelligence unit used to assist in the governing of the galaxy. The layout of the model almost looks like a city due to the variety of protruding structures and piping details. Medium azure features again, creating a colourful outline around the build while contrasting against the grey. With an intriguing orange glow emitting from below the orb, it leaves the observer to wonder what mysteries lie in the depths of this structure.