You know you’ve seen a great spaceship model when it inspires you to try to build your own, and this model by Leonardo Lopez does that for me.
The design of the Tizona is excellent. With four huge thrusters, this thing looks like it can go really fast, and the two main canons fit the design beautifully. The cockpit is also very creative and fits a minifig inside, but what strikes me the most is the unconventional shape and amazing colors.
When building vessels with LEGO, you either go big or stick to regular boat hull parts. But this time FiliusRucilo presents something brand new — a modular ship.
Behind this simple exterior hides a three-part structure plus a detachable deckhouse. This concept, introduced in modular buildings, provides huge opportunities for customization of each part. In the description, the builder suggests removing the middle part to fit the ship into small dioramas. In the same way the ship can be extended to become a long barge.
Whenever I want to see a LEGO creation about sailing, I take a look at Arjan Oude Kotte’s photostream. Once again he has not failed me with his latest addition to his portfolio, a charming bait shop. The asymmetric structure of the shack is full of amazing details and greebles. A perfect number of items and minifigures are scattered around making it a very lively scene!
The scenery is very warm thanks to the choice of colors both for the model and the background. It makes me want to take a stroll on the pier and spend a couple of hours listening to the sound of waves and watching people go by. Unfortunately, I live in a landlocked city and all I can do for now is to take a look at his Flickr album.
This extraordinary LEGO Mayflower was built by kaitain for Warren Elsmore’s new book, Brick History. The ship is gorgeous (especially those sails!), but what really makes this build stand out is the incredibly detailed map-like base that the ship floats on. Inside the circle, you’ll find the shorelines of Europe, Africa, and North America. Also, there’s a compass, a school of fish, a whale’s tail fin, and of course, ocean water, which is made up of 22,000 tiny translucent blue dots.
Furthermore, each of the base’s four corners depicts a different scene related to the Mayflower’s journey. The northeastern corner shows the Mayflower loading supplies in London. The southeastern corner shows the Mayflower and leaky Speedwell leaving Dartmouth for their second attempt at the crossing. The southwestern corner shows the landing in Cape Cod and the northwestern corner (my favorite) shows the Plymouth colony.
Check out more of kaitain’s photos on Flickr.
Jonas has found his sea-legs and built a glorious tall ship named Taurus. There are no biblical flood warnings ahead as this ship was built to sail the LEGO seas only. Who could predict the ship would encounter a sea monster, perhaps even the Kraken herself, from the depths of the beautifully sculpted trans-clear waves.
As well as the fantastic sea monster and brick-built icy sea, Jonas has added some great details to Taurus. I particularly love the anchor (why use a LEGO anchor when you can build your own?), the ship’s bell at the front and the cute little cannons that might as well be tooth picks facing up against the Kraken.
Jonas’ ship is not the first to encounter a Kraken or sea monster during a voyage, it seems to be a recurrent issue for LEGO ships:
Ryan McNaught is a professional LEGO model builder, and there’s absolutely no question about his building skills when he produces models like this or a life-sized Tardis. The breathtaking scene of the final moments of the Titantic show its stern lifted high in the air, the vessel splitting under its own weight before sinking over two miles to the sea floor. Supporting the significant weight of the ship’s stern through the thin connection in the ship’s keel is an incredible feat of LEGO engineering.
Click to see more photos of the sinking LEGO Titanic
Since it is NoVVember, and it has become tradition, people are making (and we are posting) a lot of Vic Vipers. To shake it up a bit and still get your required dose of interstellar machines, here’s a build called “Gravitator I3” by David Steeves. Proving that one of the best aspects of flying around in space is that you don’t need to worry about pesky air resistance, this starfighter has some outrageous curves and shapes, and we love it. This is definitely one of those models that could easily be mistaken for a regular model that isn’t made of LEGO.
Although SHIPtember is already over, some great creations are still reaching our planet. This time it’s a massive 127-studs-long battlecruiser by art_xxx13.
Simplicity (in the best sense of the word) is what I love about this ship. You won’t find much greebling or large solid panels here. Still the contour of cruiser looks diverse – thanks to regular slopes which, for instance, create the main command tower’s rather complex shape. Additionally, there are only three basic colors – light bluish grey, black and a couple of touches of dark red. And they are what make the battlecruiser realistic and credible; I do believe that this is what heavy ships in deep space look like.
Moreover, the spaceship has an impressive prototype. Take a minute to appreciate how accurate the brick-built model is to its concept.
Two things that I really like are history and LEGO. The combination of the two makes it all the better! James Pegrum, creator of the long running LEGO series History of Britain shows us his latest awesome historical LEGO build portraying King Rædwald returning home after a battle.
Apparently the battle didn’t go too well. His dead son is on the same boat heading to the burial mounds. Better luck next time, Rædwald! The builder says his longboat was inspired by the 4th-century Nydam Boat excavated in Denmark and the 7th-century ship-burial at Sutton Hoo in England.
On a side note, this is an entry to the Medieval Ships category of this year’s Colossal Castle Contest.
When it comes to scale models of sea vessels, Dutch builder Arjan Oude Kotte is in a class of his own. When he unveiled a gigantic minifig scale version of rescue vessel the Grampian Don a couple of years ago, we were impressed by all the details and his sculpting of its bulbous bow. But in preparing to show the model at the STEAM expo, Arjan finally completed it with decals, a daughter ship, and built-in lighting, making for one of the most atmospheric and realistic presentations of a LEGO model that I’ve seen in a long time. I can almost feel the cold sea air!
Peter Mowry has expanded his fleet of ships with his lastest, the White Whale. I’ll save you all from a terrible Moby Dick joke and keep that to myself.
I very much enjoy Peter’s ships, and find their shapes and universe fascinating. We’ve previously featured Solacium and The Marquis, so he’s got a proven record of beautiful ships.
This space-faring fleet carrier by Markus Rollbühler is ready to ferry your troops and spacecraft in luxurious style to your next invasion destination vacation. The bright colors and and brilliant blue energy source let your feeble enemies know you’re not just in it for the loot — you’re in it to look good doing it.
It’s good to see more and more space builders branching out from the standard dark-grey-with-light-grey-highlights colorscheme for spaceships. Don’t get me wrong: I love industrial grey as much or more than most builders. But lately, the building community is increasingly branching out to alternative colorschemes, and we’re all better off for the variety that brings.