Some time ago, Peter Reid inflicted the cutest little robots on the universe and things have never been the same. Christened “Blips”, they have covered the galaxy in a widespread epidemic of love, hate and rampant insomnia. This picture is a collection of their vehicles and it’s a thing of beauty. I could see this as a poster on the wall in my LEGO room. Hmmmm.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s 1943 novella Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) is a profound allegorical study of human nature, disguised as an illustrated children’s book. And it’s the 2nd best-selling book in modern history – topped only by the Lord of the Rings series. So it’s quite surprising I’ve never come across any LEGO interpretations of this book …until now!
Hong Kong builder Andy Hung has created this clever diorama featuring the titular prince on his asteroid, surrounded by the planets and stars – all built from standard LEGO pieces (including a lot of black!).
Tim Goddard (Roguebantha) has been on something of a cosmic constabulary kick lately, bringing forth a number of glorious models from that best-of-the-80’s LEGO theme, Space Police. So far he’s got a large landing craft, a nifty little runabout, some smaller vehicles and drones, and my favorite, the quintessential icon of the omnipresent State, a watchtower. The models have all been given a healthy dose of modern building techniques, while still incorporating the classic aesthetic. Updating old themes like this is a popular trend these days, but as long as they’re this well done, I don’t mind. Here’s a gallery of all Tim’s cool Space Police models.
As a child, I loved the Tintin Explorers on the Moon, I must have checked it out from the library dozens of times. I’ve seen many fantastic attempts at building the rocket Tintin and friends take to the moon, but this latest by Tyler Clites (Legohaulic) is the first build of the lunar tank I’ve seen. Simply put, this is awesome, this scene captures the right atmosphere, from the lunar surface to the brick-built Snowy under one of the domes.
Vince Toulouse demonstrates his signature art-deco-retro-future building style with this latest vehicle, the Polar Transport. In red, I think this one nicely complements earlier blue and green creations that we featured a while ago.
Inspired by science magazine covers of the 1930’s, this juggernaut’s profile is simple, but it’s packed with beautiful curved details, and makes clever use of some vintage pale orange Scala parts to introduce an accent color rarely seen in LEGO creations.
After yesterday’s foray into Classic Space, Chris Perron (thebrickbin) must have known that like a SpaceVampire – I needed more! So magically this jaw dropping atmosphere masterpiece popped up:
It’s a gritty scene where the brave men and women of the First Space Police patrol some cyber-punkish district. I’m not sure who they’re looking for, but with that heavy duty SP1Koma Think Tank backing them up, these boys and girls of the black, blue and trans red are well looked after!
And as a second bonus link, this beauty by Moritz (nolnet) was in my blog queue for awhile it’s just so damn fun and cool:
The model itself is top notch, but what turns this from awesome to #BennyAWESOME is the remote control action:
The combination of Trans Yellow, Blue and Grey (with bits of yellow and black) will always have a special place in many builder’s hearts. It’s the definitive Classic Space colour scheme and it always delights me when I see it, and see it done well.
Today is a great day because Jarek (Jerac) worked his usual magic and unveiled this amazing build to the world:
Chalk full of gorgeous details and super clean lines, this is the sort of Classic Space Starfighted I’d kill to have!
But today is Friday, the best day of the week and as a special bonus B Mauro (bread_man_017), in a seemingly coordinated attempt to make me happy also posted his Classic Space Starfighter:
While it might not be as pretty as Jerac, B’s version has some pretty great wing play action.
Hopefully this is a sign of more great Classic Space builds to come!
I can’t think of a more prominent Starfighter builder than Nick Trotta (tardisblue), he has possibly the highest blog rate of any builder I can think of… and Nick’s latest build does not disappoint, based on Geoffrey Ernault’s concept art, he gives us another mind blowing creation:
What really sets Nick apart (aside form the clearly impressive creation), is his patience and iteration on his builds, behind the scenes he works and reworks the build until it hits this unbelievably impressive state. Don’t believe me? Check out the behind work in progress shots:
And for a bonus, for those that may have missed it back in Novvember, here’s Nick’s ever present and jaw dropping contribution to the VicViper build month:
It was apparently an Interstellar sort of evening last night. In composing my last post, I ran across some other things I wanted to share, which conveniently finishes the first stanza of Dylan Thomas’s beautiful poem.
Endurance by ウィル
Do not go gentle into that good night,
TARS by Yong Hoon Yoon
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
TARS by Je hyung Lee
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
More Interstellar builds for you to check out:
Iain’s Lander on Miller’s Planet
SPARKART’s TARS
Riskjockey’s Ranger
tsower’s Ranger
ウィル’s Micro Endurance
One of the biggest inspirations in the Lego space community has been Homeworld, the pair of fleet-building space RTS games from 1999 and 2003. With the gorgeous remastered editions released this past Wednesday, I don’t think there will be a better moment for a quick retrospective on how this incredible franchise has influenced builders over the past decade.
Danny Rice’s Porphyrion wasn’t the first Homeworld inspired build to be posted, but 9 years later it remains one of my all-time favorite MOCs. This masterpiece introduced a number of techniques that changed how SHIPs are built (particularly the use of paneling to create large angled hulls), and remains one of the best spaceships ever made out of Lego.
Many of Rob M’s builds are based around a combination of Homeworld and Japanese model-building, resulting in a glorious fusion of clean hard angles and bright splashes of color. This reimagining of a Taiidan gunship is one of my favorites from him.
Adrian Florea built this fantastically detailed recreation of a Vaygr bomber, using a wide variety of stickers and printed tiles to build what is perhaps one of the most faithful models ever made out of Lego.
These are only a small sampling of my favorites; be sure to check out the Homeworld Lego pool to see more examples.
Finally, a Lego Ideas project was just launched to have official sets produced from the Homeworld franchise, and I’d encourage everyone to support it – it’s a gorgeous game, and it’s directly responsible for pushing the frontier of space building.
Fans of classic British sci-fi sitcom Red Dwarf will recognize these nifty micro creations by Elspeth De Montes as the titular mining vessel and it’s diminutive companion Starbug. Note: Any readers that complain about the absence of the Blue Midget risk being branded as a… smeeeeee-HEEEEED!
