Tag Archives: Starfighter

Mid-scale LEGO U-wing & Blue Squadron X-wing from Rogue One

The UT-60D U-wing gunship revealed in Rogue One (out digitally today and on disc next Tuesday) has inspired numerous LEGO models, from the official 75155 U-wing Fighter set to fan-made creations like the UCS U-wing by Mirko Soppelsa. Adding to his fleet of smaller-scale LEGO Star Wars vehicles, Tim Goddard has built a fantastically detailed U-wing, accompanied by a pair of updated X-wings representing Blue Squadron and Red Squadron.

Like the short-lived 7778 Midi-Scale Millennium Falcon, this scale gives Tim enough pieces to achieve lots of interesting detail (I love the gray section and those blue stripes on the sides of the U-wing) without a huge investment in parts. Naturally, Tim has built fully functional swing-wings for his U-wing.

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Battle above unknown worlds in a vertical starfighter

Nick Trotta’s series of detailed and unusually shaped starfighters continues with a vertical fighter named Volkite. The verticality combined with excellent color blocking and smooth transitions between sections of the craft make an eye-catching model.

On his YouTube, Nick shows a couple videos about Volkite. The video below shows how each chunk of the starfighter fits together (about 18 minutes long). It is a fascinating watch as you can see how the smooth transitions between components are achieved.

If you want to fly far, fly alone

Dart Flyby by Jeremy Williams is a dream spaceship. It has neither huge laser barrels, nor a spacious cargo section, nor an annoying astromech. The best thing about this ship is that it has only one seat. Only you, a massive ion engine behind your back and the endless beauty of the universe before your eyes. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Jeremy’s Neo-Classic Space fighters are way too good to choose just one, so you’d better check out his photostream and enjoy each of his builds.

Rebel commandos board a UT-60D U-wing gunship for Scarif

As I mentioned in my review of the LEGO Star Wars 75155 Rebel U-wing Fighter set released ahead of Rogue One, I wasn’t a big fan of the new vehicle until I saw it in action in the movie. But seeing it dropping Rebel commandos onto the beaches of Scarif and provide close air support like a UH-1 “Huey” helicopter gunship during Vietnam certainly changed my perspective on the ungainly looking Rebel vehicle. Joshua Brooks has created an excellent custom version of the U-wing, and set it against the weathered walls of a hangar inside a Massassi temple on Yavin IV.

As a team of Rebel commandos boards the U-wing, Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor head for the stolen Imperial cargo shuttle.

See more of this great LEGO Star Wars vehicle

Ares-3 off the drawing board

The friendliest looking starfighter you’ve ever seen has made the leap from LEGO Digital Designer to the real world. BobDeQuatre designed this ship three years ago in LDD and has made excellent use of several new bricks to take the design from “cool” to “really something else” during its translation to physical form.

The soft, bubbly white curves stand out against the blackness of space with flashy spectral pink and purple highlights, so at first you might miss the pair of giant, black-armored cannons on the front.
Take a moment to compare this ship to its original digital incarnation, since they’re very much similar ships built with very different styles.

Red firestorm flames catalyzed by blue

Amazing builds can result from one builder’s style influencing another, which is the case with this “Firestorm” starfighter by Tim Schwalfenberg. Tim tributes his spacecraft to Nick Trotta, and I can spot similarities with Nick’s Cloudless 3V especially, but with Tim’s spin on it.

Overall, the Firestorm has a great design to it, with interesting angles to the fins and stabilizer at the ship’s rear. When it comes to the details, I particularly like the gray pipe (or perhaps a cannon?) along each forward prong, and the two side engines with a 2×2 array of square panels, which appear to be minifig Thor’s hammers with the hammerheads facing upward.

Light-up LEGO Y-wing is ready to stay on target

LEGO builders love building LEGO X-wings, and the light-up LEGO X-wing we featured earlier this summer by Maciej Szymański may be the best. No less build-worthy are the plethora of other starfighters in the Star Wars universe, including the venerable workhorse of the Rebellion, the BTL Y-wing strike fighter. Maciej’s hyper-accurate Y-wing is built from 1,900 LEGO pieces, resulting in incredibly detailed sections of exposed machinery.

Click through to see more of this stellar starfighter

This starfighter’s design is terribly good

Designing a starfighter is fairly easy. Designing an outstanding starfighter is, well… a bit harder. Finally we may have a universal recipe for that, courtesy of Cole Blaq. Take out your notepads and write down the ingredients:

– One half of a B-Wing base (choose a firm one, not wilted)
– Two X-wing engine modules (not too big)
– One slung-under TIE fighter cockpit (the juicier the better)
– If desired, one small Star Destroyer laser battery
– A pinch of creativity

Combine well, and freeze on Hoth for 60 minutes. Then serve cold. Sprinkle servings with a pinch of astro-droids.

This battle carrot be for real

Even though there are some spooky carrots in this year’s harvest, most of them fight on the light side of the force. Dvd introduces us to the terrible confrontation between the Vegetarian Republic (cute fluffy bunnies) and Carnivore Empire (even cuter puppies). Honestly, I don’t see any reason for the conflict – I can imagine both sides happily coexisting in any Friends set.

The meat TIE fighter is neat, but the carrot X-wing deserves special attention. The amount of vitamin A in its adorable carrot guns should be just right to feed any imperial trooper, while its sprawling stems are a brilliant engineering solution for better maneuvering ability. Don’t forget to check out the builder’s photo stream for more awesome creations and hopefully more stories about the vegetables far, far away.

This Shadow Hunter fighter’s alien design makes me feel uncomfortable

Great creations are those that are able to stirs emotions — joy, amazement, compassion or even uneasiness. Somehow Sheo. has developed such an unusual building style, that almost each of his works looks a little bit disturbing to me — of course, in the best sense of the word.

When you hear the word “starfighter” you prepare yourself to see an awesome cockpit, some huge engines and a couple of powerful laser guns. But not this time. I can distinguish engines on the back and at least a dozen of gun barrels on the front, but the overall appearance gives me shivers as I can’t tell what these silver wings or round golden tiles are for…it’s convincingly alien. And don’t even tell me there will be Mark III!

Slicing through the stars

While cruising through the myriad of new LEGO uploads on Flickr, I spotted this beautiful but deadly looking starfighter from Adam Dodge.

The high-contrast color scheme quickly caught my attention. But then, I read the name Switchblade. It is aptly titled because this craft can open and close much like its namesake.

The builder describes how the poseable wings provided quite an engineering challenge to fasten on securely. It must have been an intriguing task. It looks great in the final product and the flexibility really makes this starfighter stand out.

This creation was build for the long running Starfighter Telephone Game. The point of the game is to build a spaceship off of the design of the previous person in the line. I think Adam did a great job incorporating some of the style and flair of John Matz’ earlier starfighter (on the left below).

Iridium Dawn – a Starfighter for a new age.

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: