We’ve grown used to seeing precarious cottages and luxurious modern architecture from talented Portuguese builder César Soares, but a large-scale spaceship was not something I expected to see in his photostream — even during SHIPtember. César has built a near-future interstellar colonization ship full of believable details — all pulled together with a great schematic that points them out.
See more photos of this great LEGO spaceship
This SHIPtember Avari-class carrier by Pierre E Fieschi is incredible. Without resorting to a wacky shape or an extreme color palette, Pierre has managed to create a stunningly detailed and realistic-looking sci-fi vessel. It’s got an awesome military green paint job, an open hangar bay, and a cargo bay filled with futuristic semi-truck containers. However, some of our readers may be horrified to learn that this build features a large amount of Mega Bloks and 3D printed parts.
Now before you start flipping tables, just hear me out. Some of these Mega Blok pieces are downright snazzy! The wedge tiles, in particular, contribute to this ship’s clean lines and dynamic design. While I’m not suggesting everyone run out and buy Mega Blok, I do think some healthy competition between name brands can’t hurt.
Over the past week we have focused on the amazing builders who decided to build a SHIP within a month. We’ve looked at pop culture SHIPs, original and very unconventional SHIPs, realistic and near future SHIPs, the super fun minifigure scaled SHIPs, and finally SHIPs based off of one of the most influential games for SHIP buliders: Homeworld.
But before we dive in, I want to congratulate every single builder that participated in this year’s SHIPtember (even those who were too ambitious to complete their SHIPs). It’s an incredibly fun month of building and sharing your work in progress with everyone. You make SHIPtember special.
Today we wrap up our Week of Wonders: SHIPtember edition by revealing the overall best SHIPs, as chosen by the judges, and also the people’s choice.
Again, we have a great prize, thanks to several of members the development team from Homeworld Remastered who have generously signed and donated a copy of the Homeworld Remastered game to the builder of SHIPtember 2015’s Best SHIP – which tradition also dictates will be immortalized as SHIPtember’s 2016 poster boy (much like the 2014 and 2013 winners) and also be featured on next year’s event brick.
SHIPtember 2015 Best SHIP
This year’s Best SHIP goes to the infinitely talented Jonas (LEGOLIZE IT MAN) for his M.U.LLA Battle cruiser:
This SHIP is just a perfect combination of elegant piece usage. Jonas manages to add just the right amount of detail, while keeping it clean and stylized. Or as one judge put it: “This thing has the perfect balance of texture, clean lines, and just perfect color blocking”. And Jonas is not only gifted in the art of LEGO building, but is also quite the doodler and even pre-sketeched his award-winning SHIP.
Our runner-up for Best SHIP this year is Josh Derksen (armoredgear7) with his mammoth Demon’s Maw. It not only looks like some kind of demonic claw, but also has lights and motorized features!
Over the past week, we’ve talked a bit about some of the influences behind builders’ SHIPs. For many builders, the 2003 video game Homeworld has had a pivotal effect on their building style.
This year Homeworld Remastered was re-released with updated graphics, and many space builders fell in love with the game again. So it’s not surprising to me that we saw a lot of Homeworld and Homeworld-inspired SHIPs pop up in SHIPtember.
But what was surprising to me was that some folks from the actual development team of Homeworld Remastered loved our LEGO SHIPs as much as we loved their game, and reached out to offer a few prizes! So without further ado I present the best Homeworld inspired SHIP, as chosen by those developers, who happen to also be LEGO fans:
The best Homeworld SHIP, which will also receive a copy of The Art Of Homeworld, kindly donated and signed by a group of developers, is Pierre E Fieschi with his Maersk Highliner:
With wonderful technique and controversial part usage, this ship launched itself into the top spot despite not actually being in the game, but heavily inspired by it. Quoting the developers: “We love the layering of details. Panels overlapping one another without it being too much noise. And of course this is just outright gorgeous.” and also “That guy’s concept art and other work is legit.”
Second place, as chosen by the development team is Ryan Olsen (Rphilo004) and his Hiigaran Battlecruiser: 
Again, quotes from the development team: “Nicely executed for the size and detail that you were able to get into it. Bravo!” and “It’s PERFECT. The support ships even rock. I wanna buy this or have one made for myself SO BAD.”
Coming in third place was last year’s SHIPtember winner, Tim Schwalfenberg (One More Brick) with his Vaygr Battlecruiser:
Which the keen eyes of the developers noticed was missing the side tower: “That surface detail. Maybe the tower hit an asteroid?”
Today on Week of Wonders we look at the minifig scaled SHIPs.
For a long time SHIPs (Seriously Huge Investment In Parts) had a pretty specific definition. Not only were ships to be 100 studs, but they were almost always minifigure scale with interiors. With SHIPtember some builders have lost sight of the minifigure scale and have built a wide variety of amazing microscale ships. But there’s still something magical about building minifig SHIPs, harking back to our childhoods, where the dream was to build not just a big space ship, but one where there was room to play with our minifigs!
Today we celebrate the minifig populated SHIPs from SHIPtember.
Adam Dodge (Dodge…) has a bit of history of going overboard, from winning awards at cons to doing the infamous SHIPhatTrick – building 3 SHIPs in one month. But his Intercept Invader is the set I would have loved as a kid:
Not only is this SHIP big, it has a full interior and most jaw dropping of all, is completely modular and reconfigurable! That by itself earns Adam big props from me.
Ryan McBryde’s (goatman461) Mercy Brandy SHIP looks smaller than it is:
![[Challenge 2][Cat. B] 3](https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/media.brothers-brick.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/20713790788_a14755d46d_z.jpg)
It’s built and textured like a lot of other microscale ships we’ve seen, but it’s deceiving with a fully detailed bridge: ![[Challenge 2][Cat. B] 6](https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/media.brothers-brick.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/20714990559_bf850c2210_z.jpg)
I particularly like the classy brick built Octan logo.
Not to be outdone, Jake (Jayfourke) has jam packed the inside of his Thames-Class Coastguard Patrolboat:
Not only has Jake added a full interior, but he’s managed to have not one, but two vehicles safely docked inside.
I don’t know about other people, but next year, I want to build a big minifig SHIP.
Today on Week of Wonders, we talk about SHIPs that have that real world vibe that were built as a part of last month’s SHIPtember contest.
Most of the time spacers tend to build fantastic ships from far in the future with Warp Engines or Hyper Drives and all sorts of make believe techno-babble inventions. But there’s a certain few who take a more realistic approach to their spaceships, taking inspiration from today’s space technology and pushing it out just a few years…
Tyler H has created this near-future high altitude bomber, the B-5 MANTA:
At just under 100 studs long, and 144 studs wide, this lovely near space ship has a great shape and I just love the integrated lights and the bottom detailing with the combination of studs up and studs down construction.
Going slightly further into the future, Damien Labrousse (legodrome) has created this inter-planetary traveler, the Galactik Bricks:
The dockable shuttles are just a fantastic touch, and I really like the shaping he has put in the front with the spinning habitat section.
And finally, going far into depths of space is Nathan Proudlove (Proudlove) and his Deep Space Explorer Intrepid:
With its radiation shield (required for deep space travel) this 5 foot (or 1.5meter) model is a true interstellar ship. Nathan has thought about what a real world Benny would need on his travels, and has included habitats, science labs, communication array, solar panels, and of course a SPACESHIP! for exploring those far away worlds.
Welcome to the second installment of the Week of Wonders: SHIPtember edition. Today we’ll take a look at some of the more unconventional SHIPs that were built during this year’s SHIPtember contest.
Usually ship builders will base their builds on some existing ships, or designs and influences from movies, games or books. Then there are builders that just go a completely different route and create something truly unique.
Chris Perron (thebrickbin) leads the pack with this unconventional Castle ship, the Astral Voyager:
With a combination of fantastic rockwork, integrated castles and volcano engines, the Wizard Chris has managed to create a believable magical flying rock space ship.
Alysa Kirkpatrick (d2hiriyuu) has built this Dyson Sphere, a spaceship that is wrapped around a sun, which she calls Astra Luminaria: 
One of the most interesting parts of this build, besides possibly being the biggest SHIP we’ve seen built to date, was that the entire build is a series of geometric shapes, which means that it was easy for her to calculate that there were exactly 20,012 parts used.
Last but not least, (ska2d2) has this … well I’m not really sure best to describe this… I guess as the name implies, looks a bit like a Dragonfly :
What I really liked about this isn’t just the cool build, and strong colour blocking, but the fact that it was based on a Concept Sketch that he did prior to building.
Welcome to a Week of Wonders, highlighting some of the best SHIPs (Seriously Huge Investment in Parts) that were built during SHIPtember. We have some special prizes lined up so stay tuned to the end of the week!
For those that might be unfamiliar and might be asking: What is SHIPtember? Well it is a challenge to build a very large space ship that is at least 100 studs in any orientation, from start to finish within the month of September, or as we’ve now lovingly dubbed it: SHIPtember.
This year we have over 120 astounding ships created by builders. These ships range from complete figment of the builder’s imagination, recreating concept art, taking design cues from existing themes, to recreating familiar ships.
But today, let’s focus on the fine art of recreating ships based off existing properties.
John Boozer (JediKnight219) (yes, that’s his real last name) has been a long time SHIPtember builder, focusing on recreating some of the best pop culture ships from his Transformer’s ARK Ship and last year’s minifigure scale Guardian of the Galaxy’s Milano.
This year, John is back with a vengeance with this incredible take on the Superman Villain: Brainiac’s Skull Ship:
This one was particularly fun to watch watch being built in the last month as it was originally quite hard to decipher what John was working on.
Kevin J. Walter (SkyWalter), who actually won the best IP based build last year with his Goa’uld Mothership from Stargate SG-1 is back this year with the Nazara / “Sovereign” from the Mass Effect game:
I’ve always been a big fan of Kevin’s love of building in black, a very hard to photograph colour, especially given the amount of details he manages to put into his builds.
Not to be outdone, Pico van Grootveld (Brixnspace) built another creature-ish SHIP this year with the EVE online’s custom Scorpion battleship:
While we’re used to many ships being really big, this is really big. Which is extremely impressive given the size and and shaping of the lowered section – it’s quite the LEGO-engineering feat!
And one more for the Pop Culture round up, another Video Game based ship, by Mel F. (Melan-E) with her build from Destiny: The Queen’s Emissary:
Which ironically is the most ship-like of all the ship’s in this post, but none the less a beautiful recreation of the original source that is instantly recognizable due to Mel being able to recreate those distinctive angles.
When all the planets’ resources are depleted, mankind must turn to space to harvest even the most common of material: iron. And when that time comes, the Iron Mountain will lead the fleet of prospectors to find new sources of wealth. This awesome space miner by Sam Malmberg rings in at a whopping 162 studs long, and like most other large spacecraft you’ll see around here for awhile, was built as part of the “build a giant spaceship in a month” challenge known as SHIPtember. Sam has beautifully blended an armor-plated hull with large technological greebly appendages, but my absolute favorite part is Sam’s use of LEGO’s short-lived Aero Tubes and even more impressively, its accompanying Air Pump — a piece I can’t recall ever seeing in a fan-creation before. Oddly enough, just a few days ago I rediscovered the Air Pump in my collection, and thought to myself “one day I must find a use for this…”
Sam says he’s bringing the model to Brickcon in Seattle, which begins tomorrow for registered attendees, and is open to the public Saturday and Sunday. So if you want to check out this model in person, or many of the other models we feature, be sure to stop by. A number of us from the Brothers Brick — including myself — will be in attendance as well, so seek us out and say hi!
There’s been a lot of large spaceships or SHIPs (Seriously Huge Investment in Parts) building this month as part of SHIPtember – the build a 100 stud SHIP in a month contest. Some people feel that a month is slightly more time than necessary, and there have been several SHIP in a day builds over the years – with varying results.
So I wasn’t surprised to see someone attempt this again this year, but I was surprised to see FOUR master builders: Jason Allemann, Michael Gale, Kristal Dubois, Lucie Filteau join together in an amazing 24 hour build (or does this really make it a 96 hour man build?)
I don’t care, cause the end result makes my own personal month long SHIP build kind of small, and lacking in coolness…
Not only does this clock in at the bigger side of the SHIPs built this month, the multiple functions and delightful spinning mechanisms makes this stellar build, regardless of the time spent:
Oh, and yes, there’s a time lapse:
It’s almost time for one of the craziest build theme months: SHIPtember.
Starting September 1st, builders have exactly one month to build a S.H.I.P or Seriously Huge Investment in Parts (or Time for some of the people with larger collections). Each SHIP build must be 100 studs or more (in any orientation). Though for people with school or other ‘real life matters’ there’s PRE-SHIPtember which allows you to start earlier, but you’re bound to the same one month rule.
Last year there were over 100 SHIPs that were built:
So start clearing off your social calenders, clean up your build areas, make those bricklink orders (or don’t if you’re confident) and get ready for some SHIPs!
… Though in previous years, there’s quite the anxious bunch that want to get started and have to wait weeks before September rolls around … feel free to take a stab at the Brick Separator challenge:
Rules are simple, just build something with those pesky brick separators! I know that’ll keep me busy till SHIPtember….
The stakes for SHIPtember just keep getting higher, as Stijn Oom sets the bar up another notch. His Hammerfall GunSHIP is an instant classic; a brutally utilitarian dropship in bulkhead grey, all screaming metal and monstrous engines.
Like all the best SHIPwrights, Stijn sucks you in with the initial enormity inherent to every SHIP, but it’s the details that count and the Hammerfall has those in spades. There are too many to list, so here’s a beauty shot of some of the best.
As if this build wasn’t cool enough, it was based on artwork by the frequently featured Pierre Fieschi. This sort of exchange of ideas between builders is, to me, one of the greatest parts of the FOL community.
