Welcome back fight fans, to Sin City Nevada for another round of Friday Night Fights. Tonight we go big with my favorite superhero: Batman! Coincidentally these two opponents both won the Batman 75th Anniversary contest for BrickFair VA and BrickWorld Chicago, but who will win in the Big Batman Showdown? Let’s go to the tale of the tape.
In the white we have Maddison Stapleton (SunlitEquinox) and her Adam West Batman:
In the black corner we have Tim Lydy (Julius No) with his life-size version of the villain Scarface:
As usual, constant reader, you are tasked with deciding, by way of comment, which of these Big Batman will win the battle. On the last edition of Friday Night Fights, Mini Mecha, Jonas won 10-2. Tune in next week for another action packed edition of Friday Night Fights!
Tim Inman (rabidnovaracer) is a fairly prolific builder of hot rod models. It therefore comes as no surprise that he’d also take stab at the iconic Rat Fink. This sculpture captures the essence of the character nicely. I love the inclusion of flies buzzing about his head.
In a city that never sleeps, only one superhero knows how to get things done. That superhero is Unibat! Or is it Battikitty? Well, whatever you call this adorable hybrid by Melanie F., it’s awesome. Built to the same scale as her other giant Unikitty versions (Seasick Unikitty is my favorite), Melanie’s Unikitty army is well poised for Unikitty dominance.
Here, Melanie poses with her original Unikitty for scale.
Suckmybrick just unveiled a series of 16 despots and notables, ranging from tinpot dictators to messiahs, and all sorts of historical figures in between. The caricatured style means there’s something to love about each of them, but for whatever reason the bad guys tend to be my favorite; who can stay mad at Kim Jong Il with those adorable glasses, or Castro and his tousled beard?
Thanks to reader (and coworker) Chris Byrne for the tip!
Like many guys born in the seventies and eighties, as a child, I spent many Saturday mornings watching cartoons on TV. I used to watch classics such as Transformers, M.A.S.K. and Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors and build them out of LEGO. By the time Pokémon came along, I had lost interest in cartoons (other than Ren & Stimpy). Pokémon struck me as an obvious ploy to get children to spend their pocket money on what were obviously rubbish toys. Gotta catch ’em all, right? Not at all like the cartoons I used to watch.
I have, of course, come to realise that my favourite cartoons were as much about selling toys as Pokémon, but I still think that much of the TV series was a bit rubbish. That said, I also realise that, to many people, Ash & Pikachu are no less iconic than Scott Tracker and T-Bob, or (dare I say it) Bumblebee and Spike Witwicky. This and the quality of the models, means that I cannot overlook these great figures built by Combee!. Pikachu looks particularly cute.
Thanks to Niels Huyzer, who suggested this to me several weeks ago.
So many great builders are gonna be exhibiting at Brickworld this year, I almost don’t know who’s work I’m most excited to see! But a series of busts by Tyler Halliwell (The Deathly Halliwell) will probably be somewhere near the top of the list. Check out this latest addition to his collection, the Sandman, from the Neil Gaiman comics (er, I mean “graphic novels”) of the same name:
And this suitably bling-y bust of Anubis, jackal-headed Egyptian god of the afterlife:
Andrew Lee created this terrific word sculpture, which epitomizes the brick experience for many of us fans.
Anime-style figure sculptures have become something of a trend these days, and Ruby Rose by Mike Dung is exemplary among them. The key to good figure sculpting in this scale is to balance creating details with merely evoking them. Ruby’s face, for instance, is nearly as simplistic as possible, while the bodice is quite intricate; both, however, meld to create a fantastic sculpture.
Mike’s not a one-hit wonder, though. Check out his other sculptures, such as Snow Miku.
Tyler (The Deathly Halliwell) has long been one of my favorite builders of all things Del Toro. He’s probably the only builder that can take the fantastic creatures from Del Toro and sculpt them so beautifully…I regretted not blogging his Faun earlier this year, but thankfully he’s added the Pale Man to his growing collection:
And if that wasn’t enough, Tyler also did another Del Toro movie icon Hellboy:
Bravo Tyler!
Some builds just make you stop in your tracks and do a double take. Jin Kei‘s homage to the Salvador Dali’s The Elephants is one such example:
The steampunk take on the famous painting is brilliantly done keeping the spirit of the original, while still making any LEGO Steampunker happy. The boiler assembly and the simplistic details on the legs just makes me zoom and just ogle some of the techniques used.
