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.

Mining with spaceships and portals

Everybody likes a good Classic Space model, and this crystal mining diorama by Brick Knight has all the right details. From the characteristic grey-blue colour scheme with yellow and black stripes, to antennas and recreations of vintage sets, all placed on a tan landscape, just like the box arts of the 1980s. The cracks filled with green minerals break up the landscape very well, but the main focus is obviously in the sci-fi elements like space stations, spaceships and most notably the round portals. The builder explains the diorama as an uninhabited planet where the Classic Space explorers discovered a new energy source and are mining it for its engineering uses.

Click to see more of this space outpost

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Thales Orbital Defence Orcinus Class PAD Gunboat

Immersed in and inspired by a broad range of innovative source materials in sci-fi — from novels and short stories to TV and video games — builders of LEGO space creations have no boundaries to their creativity. Tromas proves this by not only building a chunky, believable starfighter but also giving it a chunky, believable name with a chunky, believable backstory. This gunboat sports a massive quad cannon toward the rear, with lovely orange stripes on a white hull. The reclined cockpit configuration has a viewport built from a transparent hexagonal wing piece integrated among wedge plates. But what really draws the eye are all the little technical details around the edge — not your usual gray greebles, but hyper-realistic black and gold thrust nozzles, white sensor arrays, spots of sand green, and more.

The rear includes no less detail, with primary engines that match the color scheme of the small directional nozzles.

Check out more pictures of this great spaceship after the jump

Yo ho, yo ho, a space pirate’s life for me

There’s a definite futuristic spin on this pirate ship created by Bricksam, but the only thing cooler than pirates are sci-fi pirates. The skull & cross-bones figurehead on the bow of the ship suggests that this ship does not come in peace, and the Jolly Roger flying over the stern confirms her intent. No sails are required on this particular ship, but there is some lovely hull shaping and lots of details. The colour blocking with dark green, black and more traditional brown for the main deck gives a real ‘scavenger ship’ feel to this vessel.

The view from behind shows the ragged Jolly Roger and the main deck more clearly. Those glowing rear engines mean that this ship does not need water or wind to power her plundering travels.

One tiny leap for mankind

Our first look at the forthcoming LEGO Ideas Saturn V model prompted a bit of discussion amongst the staffers here at The Brothers Brick. A comparison of the portion of the set revealed thus far with schematics of the original rocket suggests the model is going to stand 3 feet tall. That set me thinking — what size would the astronauts be at this scale? Well, once you have a thought like that in your head, what else can you do but get building?

This started with the little figures and went on from there. Once the Saturn V set is released, I plan on building a launch tower to stand alongside it, with these little guys trooping across the gantry to board their ride. We choose to go to the teensy-weensy moon.

To infinite creativity and beyond!

I understand that this somewhat technically and conceptually simple sculpture of Toy Story‘s Buzz Lightyear may not appear terribly innovative, especially having been built by one of the most renowned LEGO builders in the community, Tyler Clites. But context is the key here, as this was made as a live build at a festival, in 10 hours with no planning. I have rushed builds myself before, but never at this level. I think it’s safe to say that not many people are capable of making a creation this impressive in so little time, at least not at the scale of Tyler’s Buzz Lightyear.

Pod 3 on station for all your outer space maintenance needs

A lot of the LEGO spaceships we feature here are large capital ships or nimble starfighters. David Roberts brings us an interesting change of pace with a heavy-duty maintenance pod — the sort of workhorse utility vehicle which keeps the solar system running. The striping and the brick-built ID number are excellent, but what caught my eye were the manipulator arms, the thruster design, and the cockpit design. A shout out for the landing skids too — a nice little practical touch in a building genre often obsessed with style over realism.

Vibrant hulking Mobile Defense Tank

Jme Wheeler has created the MDTDX Fiona Far, which is meant as a re-imagining of the official LEGO set 7706 Mobile Defense Tank. The builder notes that they thought the set “had a lot of cool things going for it, but the actual build was flimsy and lacking a bit in substance”. Starting with that basic idea, Jme rebuilt the set from the ground up, including adding more flexibility in the form of four sets of movable caterpillar tracks to replace the original’s rubber treads.

See more of this re-imagined LEGO tank

First look at the LEGO Ideas Apollo 11 Saturn V rocket coming in June [News]

LEGO announced last summer that the Apollo 11 Saturn V rocket would be among the future projects turned into an official set from the crowdsourcing platform LEGO Ideas, targeting a tentative release date of summer 2017. Today LEGO has released a teaser image of the Saturn V, giving us our first official look at the final model. They’ve also confirmed a June release for the set.

Although LEGO has given no indications yet on piece count or pricing, it’s clear the model will be massive, and significantly larger than the 2003 Saturn V Moon Mission set. Judging by the scale we can see in the photo above, the rocket will likely stand more than two feet tall, with the main rocket stage about 12 studs in diameter.

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Smashing LEGO like a Rock Star: a conversation with Canadian Iron Builder, Tim Schwalfenberg [Interview]

This week we headed up to our great neighbor to the north to track down Tim Schwalfenberg. Tim lives in Canada, is 21 years old and is currently studying Materials Engineering at his local university. He also likes to publicly smash his LEGO builds too, but more about that later.

TBB: Hi Tim! Can you tell us a little about yourself and your relationship with the Brick?

Tim: Sure! I have found LEGO to be a great creative outlet when I need a break from all my calculus or physics courses. While I’ve been building almost as long as I can remember, it wasn’t until my first year of university that I started to look at LEGO with the intention of making anything beyond the rainbow-warrior spaceships of my earlier years. Through a combination of some inspiring creations I stumbled upon through MOCpages and finding myself with too much free time on my hands, I decided that to try out this LEGO thing more seriously. Thousands of pieces and hundreds of creations later the LEGO hobby has become an incredibly important part of my life. The itch to build has become a constant companion that is easily rewarded by long hours tinkering away on a table-scrap covered table.

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Explore the moon in this tin (tin) tank

What better way to explore the lunar surface than in a LEGO version of TinTin’s moon tank? Stefan Johansson has nailed Herge’s classic design, notable for its twin bubble cockpits upfront. The tank’s blue and grey colour scheme is accurate, and it’s making we wonder if the original comic strip from the 50s provided any inspiration for LEGO’s original Space theme? Stefan has included figures of Professor Calculus, the Thompson Twins, Captain Haddock, and TinTin himself, all clad in fetching orange spacesuits. All that’s missing is Snowy the dog popping his head up under one of the domes.

Space pod arriving at Martian Outpost, please mind the gap

I’m fairly sure this LEGO “Martian Outpost” is a human outpost on Mars rather than a place for Martians to hang out. The dark orange-red environment in this diorama by KW Vauban certainly looks like Mars to me, and there’s a lot of action despite the microscale size of the build. Centrally, a railed transport vehicle approaches a shelter — suggesting we are seeing only a small portion of a much larger habitat. My favourite part? The sliding doors closing behind the ‘space saucer’ that has just left an underground area. I want to peek inside those doors to see what’s down below!

There’s a whole story in this microscale diorama, but the builder hasn’t given us any extra information — just this smart little snapshot in time.

Formula Z for zero gravity racing

It’s the lead up to the Formula Zero Gravity Championships for Octan Racing’s Tigress. Piloted by a rookie racing under the name Octana, this larger-than-minifigure scale racer is ready for its paces. Builder Tim Goddard has used a variety of interesting techniques to get the amazing angles and sharp lines of this beastly speeder.

The body appears to be an extension of the cockpit window, which has been wrapped around a massive rear engine. Plus, there’s the great use of regular and inverted tall slope bricks opposite each other to create interesting panel lines. Slap on a hefty rear stabilizing wing with a handful of maneuvering thrusters and coat liberally with Octan livery and you have yourself an incredible racing monster. As the competing teams continue to work on their racers for a warm up race in Leicester this weekend, I think Octana and her ferocious feline are in for a fantastic racing season!