Tag Archives: Space

From giant space carriers to starfighters, moon bases to moon buggies, whether you love LEGO models inspired by real-world space programs or science-fiction, you’re in the right place.

6395 goes GARC

Andrew Lee (onosendai2600) took the classic Town racing set 6395 and applied a liberal amount of GARC to it. The result is the most delicious group of space raceships I have ever laid eyes on.

Andrew built 4 very distinctive and unique ships to represent the different cars from the set. Each one is awesome in it’s own right, and I am finding it very hard to pick my favourite. But I am going to have to choose the blue one, if for no other reason than it has an Ice Planet 2002 tile.

You simply have to browse through the full photoset to see all the brilliant details of each ship!

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Robby the Robot

Eric Druon (baronsat) has created a wonderful rendition of Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet. The use of the inside-out tires for the legs and arms works so well…and the greebly details are wonderful too!

Pete Reid’s hardsuit hits 10K on LEGO CUUSOO [News]

Last time we highlighted the awesome hardsuit designed by Peter Reid, his LEGO CUUSOO project had just over 6,500 supporters and we were rooting for it to hit 10,000 for the Fall Review Cycle starting last September 3rd. It’s taken a little while longer, but I’m overjoyed to see this highly original, truly creative project hit 10K!

This just happened today, so no official comment from LEGO yet, and based on what we’ve seen over the last several months, it’ll probably be quite a while before we learn whether we’ll all be able to buy a copy of Pete’s suit (well into the next review cycle), but congratulations to Pete for this important first step!

When You Need Some Heavy Weaponry...

…call in this guy. This mech by flickr user Bockaderunner sports some terrific heavy weapons, and looks great to boot. The posing of the mech is awesome, and gives it a much more dynamic presence than a simple at-attention pose.

Interview with LEGO Classic Space designer Bjarne Tveskov on MOCPages

David Alexander Smith recently interviewed former LEGO designer Bjarne Tveskov, responsible for creating many of the iconic LEGO Space sets from the “Classic” era of the 80’s and 90’s, including favorite themes like Blacktron.

DS: Was the reverse engineering required to build the alternative builds considered a play element (I loved making these models just from the pictures).

BT: To some degree, yes. Mainly it was and is a question of ressources; it’s takes a lot of time and effort to create building instructions, so for LEGO play themes there were generally only one main model. But especially with the smaller sets the customers had a decent chance of reverse egnineering the B-models. I recall doing the B-models for the Blacktron Alienator, a set with a really nice assortment of elements. I still quite like this set and the alternative models are rather different from the main model. (Also like how the box design guys made the footprints on the space surface at the image on the back of the box, even though the model isn’t actually able to lift it’s feet from the ground!)

Read the full interview over on MOCPages.com.

G.I. Joe + Classic Space = Win

When I first saw Jason Heltebridle’s (Moctagon Jones) latest creation, I immediately thought Cobra POGO. In my books anything that reminds me of a classic G.I. Joe vehicle is glorious…the fact that Jason built a cleanly designed and nicely detailed space vehicle helped too I suppose.

Ninjago: 70502 Cole’s Earth Driller [Review]

When I was buying sets to review, I had wanted to purchase 70501 Warrior Bike, but unfortunately wasn’t able to get it, so I settled instead for 70502 Cole’s Earth Driller, which is similarly sized. Although I still want to get the Warrior Bike eventually, I’m happy I got Cole’s Earth Driller, because it turned out to have more interesting pieces than I’d thought. It has 171 pieces, and retails for USD $19.99.

The set consists of a lone bad guy, and the eponymous earth driller, driven by Cole, who always gets the black vehicles in the Ninjago color-coded universe. Inside the box are three bags (not numbered), the instruction book, and a sheet of stickers. Now, those who have read my previous reviews know I’m not a fan of stickers. But I applied all save one (the canopy sticker) of the stickers that came in this set. They were simply too cool and too useful for me not to apply (though I’d still rather have printing). The best of the lot was easily the big sand green sticker which goes just under the front of the cockpit. I’m not sure exactly how the designs on it and on the black stickers go with the aesthetic of the Ninjago world, but they look purpose-made for Steampunk builders. Bravo, I say. The earth driller is a good sized vehicle for a set of this price, being around 30 studs long, and of course has a huge drill on the front. It’s the same mechanism as was introduced in the Power Miners sets, with the larger black part spinning in counter-rotation to the pearl gold drill when the vehicle is driven forward. The whole car is built on a Technic frame, which makes it tremendously sturdy. Both the drill and the 4×4 circular plates in the rear wheels are new in pearl gold, and I’m always happy to get new pieces in that color.

The minifigs included are standard fair for this wave of Ninjago, but cool nonetheless. Cole is simply a black version of the red warrior Kai in the Fire Mech set (read my review here), though there are some subtle differences in the printing between the two, such as different logos and buckles. Likewise, the bad guy is very similar to the one in Kai’s Fire Mech, except that I guess this one is higher ranked, since he’s taller and sports pauldrons. He also has a different, cool blue mask for a face. The pauldrons are a new piece to this line, along with the ninjas’ super swords. Cole’s sword here is identical in shape to Kai’s yellow one, but Cole’s is trans-bright green with a trans-black infusion. Here are links to the inventory pages.

This seems a very solid set for the price, though I do wish it had at least one more play-feature, like rear suspension or a pop-up missile or something. It’s a very chunky, heavy vehicle with a huge drill on the front, which I suppose is precisely what you’d want on a real earth driller, but it leaves me wishing for something more. The minifigs are great, and I’ll definitely be getting more of the stickered pieces.

Gratuitously garish GARC

It’s been a while since we’ve seen a genuinely successful LEGO bandwagon — remember Cave Racers and IATTAR? — but it looks like GARC (which, as you may recall, is a thing) is taking off quite nicely.

One of my favorites so far is this garish beauty by Uspez Morbo that he calls the “Techno Ohmu” (Uspez gets additional points for the Miyazaki reference).

For the uninitiated, “GARC” stands for Galactic Asteroid Rally Circuit, and each space-racer must meet the following requirements:

Must have 2 crew members per ship (pilot & navigator)

No weapons

Must look FAST :)

The crazier the colour scheme the better

In addition, the builder of the LEGO model must post a picture of the racer being swooshed. Why? Because SPACE! Duh.

No less garish but in somewhat more traditional colors, this GARC racer by Ted Andes sports a spoiler to keep the “Torranix Quattro 5” firmly pressed to the racecourse in the vacuum of space.

Finally, halfbeak gets in on the action with his “Ajax Xenojet-Z” in my favorite color.

Ouch! I’m off to rest my weary eyes…

The pure innocence of moonlight

I’m generally not one for monochromatic LEGO models, but the shape and details of Nate DeCastro‘s latest all-white starfighter really grabbed my attention (especially after taking a second look on Klocki). Check out the “Q-49 Chandra’s Virtue”:

The canopy opens to reveal another highlight of Nate’s fighter — the interior of the cockpit:

Star Wars: 75002 AT-RT [Review]

My local toy store is stocking up on the first wave of 2013 sets, so I’ll be reviewing several in the near future as I get time. Today, though, I’ll start with one of the new Star Wars sets, the 75002 AT-RT.

With 222 pieces, it’s actually quite a steal with an MSRP of USD $19.99, and even more so for being a Star Wars set, which notoriously are more pricey than their non-licensed counterparts.

It includes an AT-RT walker, which is basically the Clone-Wars equivalent of the AT-ST “chicken walker,” for those who, like me, don’t follow the Clone Wars cartoon series. In order for it to have something to shoot at, a Droideka and battle droid are included. The box contains three bags, one each for the droideka and figs, the legs, and the cockpit. The construction was extremely straight-forward. If you’ve built a two legged LEGO walker before, you’ve basically built this set. The faceting around the cockpit is pretty cool though, and the blue color-scheme does look fantastic here. And a word about the blue pieces: in the past few years, LEGO has been having issues with their plastic, and some shades seeming more transparent and slightly off-color (blue being one), and thus looking cheaper. I happily noted, though, that the blue pieces in this set look terrific, even to someone as picky as I. There’s a small sticker sheet included, as the only printed pieces are the minifigs. I decided not to apply the stickers, especially since two of them go on rough-surfaced slopes, which is a terrible idea. Those pieces should always be printed.

The Droideka is some huge version I’m not familiar with, though it is pretty awesome, having what basically amounts to an artillery piece in the middle. I’m not sure how big it’s supposed to be in scale, but it towers over the minifigs.

The minifigs in this set are pretty standard if you’re a Star Wars collector, consisting of Yoda, a 501st Legion clone trooper, and some variant battle droid. I believe the clone trooper is a new design, with yet another new helmet style. (I think. I lost track a long time ago.) The battle droid has a single red dot of printing on the torso, which to me seemed like a pretty insignificant result for LEGO to go through all the extra work of sending the piece through a printer.

I didn’t encounter any unfamiliar or new pieces while building it, though there are some useful pieces. It did have an unusually large amount of spare pieces. However, if you’ve got any of the previous iterations the Star Wars walkers, and you’re not a Star Wars collector, I’d recommend giving this set a pass. I’ve got nothing particularly negative to say about it, but it’s really not a terribly interesting set. It is one of the few Star Wars sets with a high piece-to-price ratio, though, so it would be a good one to nab on a sale when it’s even cheaper.

That’s No Moon

Flickr user Legorobo has built a gorgeous microscale rendition of the mighty fortress at the heart of the White Comet Empire in the classic anime Space Battleship Yamato. Legorobo has taken it an extra step, though, and added both lights and motors to complete the fantastic effect.

GARC...it’s a thing!

Because spacers take things that are awesome and make them more awesome by adding SPACE!!!!

Further information…