They say space is full of stuff of all sorts — Death Stars, teapots orbiting the Sun and even a red roadster. Sheo. explores some of the most distant corners of the outer space to find an interstellar… fish. Yes, he calls his latest LEGO creation a giant space fish, and it’s hard to argue since we have no idea what else can be floating up there! The real highlight of the creation is, of course, a gray sphere right in the middle of the body secured with some crazy amount of red tentacles. Does this creature look intimidating? Absolutely. But can a lonely traveller escape its attraction..?
Tag Archives: SHIPtember
LEGO Exodus Black from Destiny 2 stands nearly 3 feet tall
It’s that time of year again for SHIPtember — one month to build a spacecraft over one hundred LEGO studs in length (approximately 31.5 inches). I haven’t participated successfully since 2014, when I built UNSC Savannah from Halo: Reach. 2018’s build worked out much better, so I present my LEGO model of Exodus Black, a colony ship from Destiny 2.
See more photos of Nick’s Exodus Black after the jump
The Valzaleer spacecraft has a beautiful veneer
This incredible spaceship by AdNorrel features distinctive profile shapes and smartly integrated LEGO pieces. The lovely bits of filled-in details within the crevasses and armored surfaces of the starship are great examples of greebling done well. Not too out of place, not too overshadowed — there’s some real inspirational craftsmanship here.
I don’t want all of my articles to become running checklists of parts, but see if you can spot the messenger pouches, croissants, and frying pans. It’s a really fun scavenger hunt kind of model.
Click to see even more of the Valzaleer
Frigates of mass destruction never looked so good
As September looms nearer by the day, seems like builder noblebun is already flexing his muscles for the upcoming SHIPtember event where fans of LEGO battle to outdo one another creating huge ships. Sounds simple? The challenge rules just say the SHIP needs to be 100 studs or longer (also known as a Seriously Huge Investment in Parts). This digital build is outstanding for the seriously smooth texture that makes it feel like the lines are all actually part of a futuristic design and not the signs of LEGO elements pieced together. I seriously love how the microfigures were used as part of the centerline texture and greebling effects.
The Y axis is an important dimension of space
If you think about it, it is absurd that spaceship designs are very long 99% of the time and in the worst case, not very high or wide. It is logical that people have associations with naval ships and aeroplanes, even contemporary spacecraft – but even the latter are designed as they are because they need to launch into space through atmosphere. It is 2018 and it is about time we start living in the future and open our minds to more ways to think of a spaceship – like this vertical design by Daniel Church.
Besides the obvious main feature of the unique vertical design, I love the translucent sections, from the gently curved lines spanning across the whole spacecraft. to the three hollow hexagonal constructions. The blue is balanced by larger less detailed sections of gray and black. If you do not look at it closely enough, you just might miss the grilled ends at the top and bottom, which look great and finish off the creation beautifully. The builder also reveals that photography was a great challenge; so great in fact, that even though the spaceship was built and completed for the SHIPtember project four months ago, but the pictures were only done recently. Well worth the wait, if you ask me!
Move over Saturn V, meet the Jupiter V
We are now fully entrenched in October, but SHIPtember is still with us with this late entry by Tim Schwalfenberg. Living away from his home (and his LEGO collection), but still wanting to participate, Tim was convinced by a friend to construct an alt-build of the LEGO Saturn V and voila we have the Jupiter V. Making good use of printed elements Tim has created a sleek molded body using most of the Apollo launch vehicle, even using the stand as a kind of outrigger for a necessary splash of colour. Combine all this with some fancy editing skills and the Jupiter V looks quite capable of boldly going to a galaxy far, far away.
Against all probability, a sperm whale is called into existence above the surface of an alien planet
SHIPtember may be over, but there’s still plenty more spacecraft measuring over 100 studs in length left in the sea. Feast your eyes on Christian Benito‘s fin-tastic, Spelljammer-inspired SHIP. In addition to a snazzy design, this beast has an articulated tail, exposed “rivet-style” studs, crystallization along the head, and a heavy-duty turret gun. What else could a space whale SHIP ask for?
For more photos of Benito’s creation (including several interior and work-in-progress shots) check out his Flickr page.
SHIPtempber is over and it looks like we may have a winner!
SHIPtemper is by far my favourite month of the LEGO building calendar — we get to see inside the imaginations of the most talented builders and see what they envision for the future of humanity. This year, when friends Sean Mayo and Tyler Clites got together, not only did they create two of the most beautiful SHIPs to enter cyberspace this year, they also filmed a time-lapse of their build so we can see into their process.
Sean’s Kel Corona is a deep space scanning station that’s 110 studs long. Creating curves in LEGO is always a challenge, but the payoff is spectacular — the lines, the colours and the small touches all contribute to make this SHIP spectacular.
Meanwhile, Tyler’s Bishop is seen here on its voyage to the Yens galaxy. The color choices are brilliant, the dark blue and vibrant LEGO yellow contrasting against the grey. The angled protruding air intakes on the side are sublime and I am loving the use of the new squared macaroni pieces as the company logo.
Click more to see more pictures and the video
Cruise around the galaxy in sleek style
Spaceships can come in all shapes and sizes, and this build by Inthert manages to capture an unusual form with brilliant brickwork. Its organic shape makes it stand out — a beautifully curved structure, something challenging to achieve in LEGO. The key in making a great spaceship model is making one believe what it can potentially do. What sells this is not only its aerodynamic shape and the depth of functional-looking details, but enough bulk and build around the engines that it genuinely feels like it could have sufficient thrust to make warp speed.
The side profile certainly gives you a sense of how curved and elegant the model looks…
Set shields to maximum! Incoming unidentified battlecruiser!
Extending to a length of 125 studs — or for better scale, the length of 4 LEGO modular buildings — this battlecruiser dubbed the Basilisk was designed and built by Pico van Grootveld, and it’s a thing of stunning beauty. The belt frame built in yellow gives it a sturdy and unique texturing for a spaceship’s body. The army green all over makes it feel like it’s a tank-class battleship not to be messed with, especially with the menacing looking fins — or spikes shall I say!
What do you get when you combine Star Wars, a weird black blob thing, some creatures, and lava?
The answer: You get a Hag Titan, or more precisely, this spacecraft by Shannon Sproule. Built for the annual SHIPtember building challenge, it just goes to show you don’t need thousands of pieces to make an interesting SHIP (Significantly Huge Investment in Parts). I love the way it looks like a half-mechanical, yet half-alive alien creature.
Early in the build process, Shannon made a neat collage showing some of his inspiration sources for the ship, including a Star Wars Trade Federation transport and a weird black blob with tendrils that is likely some kind of parasite (a shark’s egg case, actually), various creatures, and various lava fortresses. It is interesting to try and spot how each inspiration had small effects on the final build.
Plunder the wastes from the comfort of the Khagaan landship, built from 25,000 LEGO pieces [Video]
Not all great LEGO spaceships need to be colored variations of “realistic” gray, nor must they be actual ships in space. Master of motorized LEGO builds mahjqa has built a jarringly beautiful planetary exploitation crawler or “landship” named Khagaan, which has two smaller, fully motorized rovers to gather resources and space junk. The main vehicle is 43 inches long (109 cm), weighs 20 pounds (9 kg), and the builder says he used 25,000 LEGO pieces to create it.
It’s not often that we’re fooled into thinking that a LEGO video is a render rather than the real thing — it’s more frequently the other way around — but watch through to the end of mahjqa’s video to see behind-the-scenes footage proving that all but the background and dust are practical effects (the real-live feline interloper proves it).
See more photos of this amazing trio of LEGO vehicles