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.

Juggling klowns from outer space!

In space, no one can hear you laugh! Or scream in terror depending on your relationship to clowns. Builder Blake Foster brings some humor to the outer reaches of the universe with this wonderful LEGO juggling clown mech. I’ve just recently begun a fascination with mechs so I’m always excited to see them come up these days. Most mechs are so very intense so it’s always refreshing when they don’t take themselves too seriously. This one balances that seriousness and humor perfectly with its nicely detailed grey skeleton and additional primary color accouterments. I love the rounded fingertips that mimic oversized clown gloves and the little bow tie is a hilarious addition. The 50’s style bubble helmet is the perfect topper, filled to the brim with the curly green clown wig.

Spaceclowns: Jugglebot

But that’s not all! This is just a smaller part of a much larger model.

Read on to see the rest!

The little space rover that could

If you are planning to explore distant planets in search of scientific discoveries, You could find no more stylish way to do it than aboard this little rover by Mountain Hobbit. Not only does it have the latest in long-range communication tech, but you can even grow all your own food in the hydroponics bay, and scan the horizon with a state of the art sensor package. One of my favorite details is the wheels, which show the side usually faced toward the vehicle, with dark green tiles shoved into the spaces in the rubber.

Space Rover

It’s nice to be outside

We’ll all anxious to get out and about again, and LEGO builder Andrew (CRCT Productions) has found a safe way to do that. Well, depending on your definition of “safe.” I suppose there’s a certain amount of risk in getting up to the International Space Station. And more risk deciding to go on a spacewalk from there. But you have to admit the risk of catching COVID-19 at that point is pretty low.

The Space Walk

Designed in a scant eight hours, this creation shines with quality greebling. An abundance of grey ski poles, binoculars, and 1×1 round flower plates add texture, complemented by a heavy use of 1×2 cheese tile and curved slope. And it may be an obvious thing, but I also like how the astronauts are posed to be floating rather than attached to the surfaces by their feet. It adds some nice context to the build.

The Space Walk

Okay. So this is obviously a depiction of a spacewalk. But did anyone else also think that this was a photo-realistic LEGO camera? Just for a second? I can’t be the only one…

What a great day for a spacewalk

Just because there’s no air in the cold vacuum of space, doesn’t mean there is no style. CheeseyStudios proves this with a space outpost which is not only colorful, but it has a wonderfully eclectic aesthetic, as though a product of many different peoples coming together. The blue and yellow sections are giving me a classic space vibe, while the white top could be right out of Cloud City, and the scaffolding on the right could be NASA surplus. Wherever these disparate parts came from, they certainly come together nicely.

Spacewalk at Outpost 31

Alien brotherhood is a beautiful thing

If alien life does exist in the universe, it would likely come in forms that we can not even imagine, like this pair of critters taking a break outside their battle tank to stop and smell the methane flowers. This digital scene by Ivan Martynov makes about the best use of the hotdog part that I have seen in quite a while, to attach the crowbar-footed legs to the bulbous underside of this most unearthly “tank”.

Medium Battle Tank

What do you get when you have two broken B-wings?

If you have two battle-damaged B-wings in a fight, lug them back to base — put those droids to work and make a C-wing out of them! A couple of years back, I made a list of vehicles that could have been taken out of a page of the Star Wars movies, and I think after a long hunt, this C-wing by Tino Poutiainen would fit right in there up with the rest of them. I love a smooth ship with clean lines and just a hint of LEGO studs spread in the right places. What makes this ship a little unique is its parts usage at the shield generator made up of minifigure legs.

C-wing fleet barrier link

Grab a two-for-one deal at the spaceship yard

The spaceship’s colour scheme would have been enough, but Mansur Soeleman takes it one step further with his latest LEGO model and produces some retro-styled box art to really get the nostalgia pipes flowing. The ship is a greeble-lover’s delight, festooned with a wealth of light grey pipes and grilles, intakes and rockets. I particularly like how tight the blue cabin section is around the trans-yellow canopy, leaving most of the model grey, but enough to make it abundantly clear which LEGO theme has provided the inspiration.

LL-527 Falchion Box Art

In a brilliant touch, Mansur also built a retro version of his retro-throwback, delivering the same distinctive shaping, but using a more limited old-fashioned brick palette. I admire the building skills in these two models, but also love the extra effort of producing box art and two versions. Fantastic nostalgic fun.

Stealth Fighter

If you’re going to create a portal, make sure you know where you’re going

My favorite LEGO builds are always ones that contain story, humor and lots of color. Builder Victor hits all three of these points perfectly and throws in a little absurdity for good measure. As the story goes, Diogenes Trexler ordered a pizza on his home planet that smelled so delicious it attracted the attention of a giant worm. Plotting his escape, our pizza-loving hero created an ill-advised portal that opened on to the bathroom of one very surprised bather.

Diogenes Trexler escaping the Korvonian worm

The landscaping and colorwork in this piece are gorgeous and there is a minimum of visible studs, giving it a very slick look. The worm really pops with its blue colors and excellent shape. The alien fauna is colorful and appropriately weird and creepy. The portal is nicely rendered with transparent pieces and the change between the two universes is wonderful, going from organic shapes to the clean tiles of a modern bathroom. The surprised bather, caught in mid blow-dry is the perfect punch line with his terrified face and hair blowing toward the ceiling. In my opinion, it’s little touches like these that make the difference between a good model and a great one.

Check out the model from another angle to see all the details

A canopy as tasty as a canape

These are challenging times. I’m pretty sick of hearing that. Even more, I’m pretty sick of living it. But occasionally…occasionally…challenges can be pretty great, too. I mean, it’s hard to be too grumpy when great LEGO builders challenge each other and we get to look at the sweet, sweet results. One such outcome is the 4-D4 Recon & Fighter Craft built by Inthert. Challenged to build a ship around a specific 10x4x3 canopy in under 48 hours, the resulting ship still looks like it took months of work.

4-D4 Recon & Fighter Craft

The orange version of the canopy is lifted from 2007 Mars Mission theme, but that’s not the only callback. The black, white, and orange color scheme is also a direct tribute, as are those orange wheels. The curve to the front of the ship is the result of some very tricky building, but it’s the triangular bracing at the ends of the arc that makes me smile the most. Or maybe it’s those tank treads. Or the texture and pattern from those grey wedge plates. It’s hard to make a choice. It’s all just so tasty.

Anyone else suddenly hungry for a re-release of Mars Mission?

LEGO Metroid: My past is not a memory, it’s a force at my back

Samus Aran is one of Nintendo’s most iconic characters through a decades-long successful series of Metroid platformers and first-person shooters. Thanks to Spanish builder L-Di-Ego, the famed female bounty hunter’s personal spacecraft has made the jump to digital LEGO and has never looked better.

METROID: Samus Aran's Gunship

I’m so impressed with how loaded the ship is–this thing is absolutely packed with play features. The ship is ready to take on the dreaded Space Pirates with firing projectiles, adjustable engine intakes, a removable canopy allowing access to the spacious cockpit plus room for the Metroid containment pod, and my favorite, a functioning loading lift for the Samus Aran minifigure.

METROID: Samus Aran's Gunship

If you’re feeling nostalgic we’ve shared a couple of excellent takes on Samus in the past from builders like Eero Okkenen and Logey Bear.

Rover on a remote realm

When you’re traversing the unstable surface of an alien world, it’s important to have appropriate transportation. Luckily, SweStar has provided us with the rover we need to navigate transparent green rubble. The rear wheels are paired to offer steering control, and toothed for peak propulsory power. The front wheels, on the other hand, are smooth and broad for stability and speed. Riding high above the ground, our exploring hero is safe and sound, confident that the sensing sensors will sense any danger, the grabbing grab arms will grab on to anything that needs grabbing, and the slick hull will ensure that striking alien assailants will slide right away.

Rover ESP-1

Star Citizen Vanguard heads to the front lines

Stephan Niehoff revisits the sci-fi video game universe of Star Citizen, the oft-delayed but undeniably gorgeous space combat simulator.

Vanguard

Like Stephan’s Brutus gunboat we previously highlighted, this craft is a herculean LEGO creation packed with neat details and shaping techniques, and given the appearance of metallic wear with a dusting of chalk. If you look closely you can spot an inventive use of multiple orange flippers (aka Frogman’s feet).

The more I see of the game’s vehicle designs the more I’m reminded of Sky-Fi, a favorite sub-genre of LEGO fan building which features (sometimes illogical) flying vessels that repurpose familiar air- and space-craft design elements. The Vanguard looks to me like a very chunky offspring of the P-38 Lightning.