Tag Archives: Spaceships

As rare as a blue lobster

Sometimes it feels like every spaceship I see out there in the LEGO building community is either a single-seat starfighter or a giant capital ship. Sometimes the fighters are tiny, sometimes they themselves are giant, and some of the capital ships are minifig scale and others are microscale. But wouldn’t it be nice to see something else with more frequency? Like, what about the civilian ships, or even the military support vessels? Someone has to move the supplies from Planet A to Planet B, right? Well, thankfully we have Blake Foster, who has made us a small, minifig scale Neo-Classic Space (NCS) cargo shuttle. Called the Blue Lobster because it grips two containers at a time in its mechanical claws and it’s blue, it is the ship you hire for small jobs, when you don’t want to spend an entire nation’s GDP to move a few crates.

The coherent color scheme is perhaps my favorite aspect of NCS ships, and the Blue Lobster does not disappoint, with the obligatory yellow canopy and the blue and grey body. The grey greebles are perfect, using my favorite greeble element, the piston bar, and the Nexo Knights droid torso to great effect around the engines. I also love those crates; each is a work of art in itself, with some fascinating geometry making them work. Now, I need to move in a month or two, and I think my family’s belongings could fit in those crates (if we were minifigures, that is); maybe I should ask Blake if this cosmic crustacean is up for hire.

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Now I know my A B Cs...

…Next time won’t you sing with me? With several toddlers roaming the hardwood, I sing the alphabet song frequently around my house. It’s a classic. That also seems to be what Dave Kaleta is singing with this gorgeous poster shot of all of his alphabet starfighters, built out of LEGO in collaboration with his young son. We have featured several of them on their own, like B and C, among others, but all together they are gorgeous.

And while we usually don’t promote contests here at The Brothers Brick, I can’t resist pointing out that Dave really is inviting you to sing the space alphabet song with him by entering your own alphabet starfighter into his contest (clicking the image below will bring you to the rules). It ends May 9th, by the way, so you have time to get some entries in!

See details of a few starfighters not seen before on TBB

So Atlantis and Neo-Classic Space walk into a bar...

Most spaceships I have seen are just machines, a tin can hurtling through the cosmos propelled by some rockets or thrusters. X-wings, Star Destroyers, the Enterprise, Discovery One, and so on, all fit this paradigm. Most LEGO space creations fit the same pattern, be they Classic Space, Galaxy Squad, or Star Wars. But do they have to be? Galaxy Squad offered a glimpse into what semi-organic spacecraft could be with the Buggoids, and Insectoids back in the day did too. Thankfully, to show us a true hybrid of machine and alien, Rubblemaker has brought us the BR4-1N, a fusion of Neo-Classic Space and some deep-space dwelling creature.

See more of the hybrid here

Why should the Empire always get the cool ships?

While brainstorming ideas for my own entry to the Assemble the Fleet Contest, I went down a bit of an internet rabbit hole of ships and concept art from lesser-known Star Wars video games. Among them was the Assault Frigate Mark II, only seen in the Star Wars: Empire at War RTS games, which I took one look at and dismissed as impossible to recreate in LEGO due to it’s almost entirely rounded shape. A few weeks later, to my dismay and excitement, The Brickforce proved me very wrong with his beautiful microscale rendition of the ship.

Making good use of the multitude of new rounded, angled, and sloped pieces LEGO has released the past few years, the builder has managed to skillfully recreate the rounded form of the ship, with minimal gaps between the bricks for a smooth look. The splashes of color top complete the build, both incorporated into the complex shaping of the hull and in the Nebulon-B-esque pod array coming off the bottom of the vessel.

Woop-woop! That’s the sound of the space police!

They say the vast emptiness of space is entirely silent. It must be so in most parts of the universe, but definitely not anywhere near Sheo.‘s bizarre LEGO space police station. The sirens of such creepy police pods must sound totally far out. It doesn’t matter which world’s laws these guys enforce; you’d better slow down swooshing by this station.

She’s kinda cute, but the tentacles creep me out...

How do you make a giant red alien lady laugh? With ten tickles! Ha! Get it? Tentacles… Ok, in all seriousness, I’ve never been into Anime, but the images that come out of it can be awe-inspiring sometimes. The highly stylized art form has a strong visual presence, to say the least. And this LEGO build by Sheo. has a strong visual presence, too, with that red alien lady and a spaceship in the background. The ship is the Sidonia, from the Manga and Anime work called Knights of Sidonia. The red figure is Tsumugi, a genetic hybrid of human and alien, designed to fight off the bad aliens with her giant body and immense powers. I love the use of ten tickles, er, tentacles to create a ragged organic shape, and the pirate hats for breasts is inspired. The end result is something disturbingly close to human, but still very much alien. Does it match the source? I don’t really know, and don’t much care, because as a LEGO build, she’s awesome! As long as she keeps her distance.

So love has blinded you?

I admit it. I love the prequel trilogy of Star Wars movies. It is not for the scintillating dialogue or the powerful acting, though, impressive as those are. No, it is for the cool spaceships and the deeper look at life in the galaxy. There’s more to the thousands of planets than a few military bases and super-weapons, after all. One of those cool spaceships is the Venator-class Star Destroyer, used by the Republic. Fans of LEGO have been clamoring for years for a UCS (Ultimate Collectors Series) model of the ship, and, quite frankly, I’ll be surprised if they ever get it due to an anti-prequel bias. For now, though, they can be content with seeing this microscale version built by Stephan Niehoff. It’s got everything it needs: blasters, thrusters, greebles, and most importantly, the dual bridges and the dark red stripe along the top. Now it’s time to take out some Separatists!

Genius inspiration is fleet-ing

Capturing great details on a spaceship that fits in the palm of your hand is a refreshing surprise from TBB Veteran, Letranger Absurde, and this pair of spaceships, while inspired by Star Wars, stand alone as a lesson in master parts usage. Take the fighter, made from a single LEGO minifigure robot head mold from the Galaxy Squad theme, where the facial visor serves as the cockpit canopy. And the red 1×1 tile on the side of the frigate nose picks up the circle design on the sides of the fighter beautifully.

Color out of space

We see plenty of spaceships here at The Brothers Brick but we rarely see any that are quite as colorful as this one. A LEGO builder who goes by the name of F@bz has conjured up a space tanker that would look right at home in a carnival…parade…fire? Carnival parade fire. I’m seeing some very retro pieces that may have been pilfered from some old Aquazone sets from about 1996 or so. The tanker pieces, or at least the ones with the “AT.02” decal, come from the Exo-Force Mobile Assault Tank from 2006. If ever F@bz gets tired of this colorful model (but who would, really?) it can get pried apart using the two new dark turquoise brick separators included in the design. Now that is totes fabs!

Hauntingly alien gunship mixes science and nature

If you hear it buzzing in the sky, it is already too late to escape. This LEGO creation by [VB] is equal parts cutting-edge technology, and nightmares. The array of transparent blue garage door elements evokes a dragonfly’s delicate wings, while the twisted mass of tangled brains under that dome… shudder. Oh, and if you are wondering what that big ridged part forming the main body is from, that is a Throwbot container.

Rendered speechless

These days it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to spot digital LEGO creations. Renders and 3D modeling have progressed to the point where all the easy “tells” are gone, and you really have to know your subject matter to spot custom colors and parts. (And that’s assuming there are any to look for!) But virtual creations can go so many places that physical models can’t, allowing for builds that can even make you wonder if they’re based on LEGO bricks at all. I mean, look at the A-10 Asimov, created by noblebun. This ship is gorgeous. And also a complete flight of fantasy.

For starters, Noblebun has made great use of the ability to recolor parts. There big pieces like the front quarter-domes, in a I-wish-they-made-that matte dark grey. A minifigure’s police hat cast in light grey becomes part of the engine detailing. And unfortunately the chromed-copper discs sitting under those Technic gears aren’t standard issue, either. Some pieces are completely outside of the released shapes that LEGO offers. The curved pipes include custom nested 90 degree bends that we can currently only dream of. But, wow, do they look fantastic.

More importantly, though, is how these fantasy parts are built into the whole. There are some really great building techniques in play here. Check out how the use of inverted and standard sloped brick combine to create the white band. And how that same combination, built slightly differently, creates the impression of vents in the grey areas.

A rear shot showcases the amazing build in the engines. To me, they’re reminiscent of the jet exhaust on the UCS Batmobile. Just much bigger, more complex, and more awesome in general.

This is the sort of deep fake I can really get behind. Sure, this creation may only live in the realm of pixels and math, but I’m okay with that. It’s an amazing feat of construction and imagination.

Starhawk Battleship, ready for duty

Builder Andrew of CRCT Productions gives us one of the lesser-known hero ships of the Star Wars galaxy, the Starhawk-class Battleship. A creation of the New Republic in the final days of the Empire after the events of The Return of the Jedi, the Starhawk was a smorgasbord of cannibalized Star Destroyers and other warships. Three of them fought valiantly in the Battle of Jakku, taking down a Super Star Destroyer with its powerful tractor beam cannons on the nose.

This build is incredible. For having little source material, Andrew did a fantastic job at getting all the known details into his Starhawk. The yellow and blue markings are a nice touch, breaking away from the Imperial grey seen on nearly all the large warships in the Star Wars films. Other features include the smooth surfaces, neat angles and attention to the smallest of details, which give this LEGO creation the illusion that it might not be LEGO at all: it might be the real deal, an actual Starhawk.