Tag Archives: Toy

Man of the (Acro)year

This one gets me right in the feels. Growing up, I didn’t have any LEGO to play with…but I did have just about every Micronauts toy ever produced. SPARKART!  has re-created one of the great characters – Acroyear – in LEGO action figure form. Making great use of Mixel ball joints, this warrior is super articulated and ready for battle. Aircraft tail fins match up perfectly with the classic helmet’s shaping, and those big chunky feet are super fashionable and provide some great stability to boot.

Micronauts Acroyear LEGO Action Figure

Be sure to check our archives for more retro goodness!

A retro robot to protect your city

Maybe it’s just the booze talking but the 70s and 80s were the best time to be a kid. I mean, you’ve got Star Wars, Micronauts, Shogun Warriors, and of course LEGO coming out with some freaking awesome themes like Castle and Classic Space. Shannon Sproule knows what I’m talking about. This fabulously retro Metorogādo: City Protector Robo combines the awesomeness of Shogun Warriors, the playability of Micronauts, and maybe even some of the awe of Star Wars. This hits all the nostalgic childhood sweet spots for me. And of course, it’s all LEGO…or mostly LEGO—those shoulder fins are some other brand of brick.

Metorogādo: City Protector Robo

Shannon says it was a miracle to find both a left and a right fin in the loose brick bargain bin. And that’s another cool thing about being a kid; while we likely preferred LEGO, we didn’t care too much if some sweet off-brand parts snuck into our collections now and then. It’s the adults who fret over such things. With childhood wonder intact, (booze references notwithstanding) be sure to check out why Shannon consistently hits all our sweet spots.

The toys that made us loopy

Builder Joe Klang is once again creating realistic LEGO models and this time he has his sights on the classic Etch-A-Sketch toy. My own foray into the Etch-A-Sketch arts was short-lived as I found it frustrating. I could draw, that was no problem, but applying my skill to the screen yielded nothing more complex than a wobbly smiley face. To add further insult to my own deflated ego, there are people who are quite good at it. I’m not sure how Joe fares as an Etch-A-Sketch artist but as a LEGO builder, he is top-notch. The complex lettering both on the red frame and old-school LEGO logo on the screen is a testament to his amazing abilities. We were all equally enamoured with his recent and realistic LEGO camera and Atari 2600.

LEGO Etch A Sketch

This wind-up toy robot is programmed to love you all very much

If you like retro wind-up toy robots then set your phasers to Positively Delighted. It turns out Lino Martins (hey, that’s me!) has built one out of LEGO and the result is…pretty OK. It would probably be weird to label my own work as totally awesome, stupendous or earth-shattering so I’ll just go with pretty OK. He’s adorned in fabulously fifties black and sea-foam green with gray and just a touch of flashy silver. Through a series of gears, his chest plates open simultaneously and when you turn his wind-up key his head, heart and arms will rotate. Yes, he has a heart! I think it takes eight or ten or so rotations of the wind-up key to get his head, heart and arms to all settle back into their rightful positions. If I were a real engineer I’d know that for sure but… What am I, Elon Musk?

Wind-up toy robot

Check out this video of the wind-up action. This cheery bot is programmed to love you all very much. I’m programmed to be rather indifferent on the matter but I can create a swell playlist for any occasion so there’s that.

Thar she goes, with a hump like yellow sunshine, tis Moby Duck!

True story; due to an epic storm, nearly 30,000 bath toys were lost at sea, many of them “rubber duckies” (they’re not really made of rubber). While unfortunate, this event lead oceanographers and beachcombers on an odyssey to discover these wayward bath toys around the globe, thus proving that the oceans and currents are truly connected. You may read about it yourself in this book. I wonder if one of these yellow duckies has washed up on Anthony Séjourné’s otherwise serene bridge diorama. The ducky is comically outsized leading me to believe it’ll either destroy that bridge kaiju-style or at the very least cause a massive clog. Either way, it has made my day.

Lego bridge - atana studio

Mr. Potato Head butters our nostalgic appetites

Things that entertained kids in the ’50s were simpler. The original Mr. Potato Head came with accessories but no plastic potato body. Since potatoes were a staple of the American diet back then it was assumed each household had scores of actual potatoes you could pin plastic eyes, noses and ears into. Complaints of rotting vegetables and stricter food safety regulations put a kibosh on all of that and so Hasbro began including the plastic potato body within the toy set starting in 1964. Modern diets have changed, and thanks to my ever-expanding, aging waistline, I have not had a heavy starch in my house in maybe years. Mr. Quinoa Head or Mr. Tofu Head just doesn’t have the same ring to it but thankfully Elijah Bormann buttered our nostalgic appetites with this LEGO version of the iconic toy.

Mr. Potato Head

If you liked this you should check out Elijah’s other stuff as he tends to tickle one’s nostalgic fancy. Mr. Potato Head’s silly face takes me back to a simpler more care-free time when…whether fried in oil, baked with butter and chives or roasted and seasoned with salt and rosemary, I could eat potatoes with impunity. Man, I miss potatoes!

The classic ‘ol Radio Flyer Wagon is still alive!

Scroll fast enough and you’d probably think this version by 1ssac W. is the real deal, not a LEGO build. I have to admit, though I never owned one of these pull wagons they certainly are recognizable as ever! They’re so classically embedded into pop-culture, and I’m pleasantly surprised to learn that the Radio Flyer company is still well and alive till today after a century. Every kid needs one of these at some point in their childhood. I really like the finer details of how the builder thought outside the box to use a trimmed part of red flex hose for the center caps of the wheels, and more for the handle.

Radio Flyer wagon

Build your very own working Nerf dart gun with LEGO [Instructions]

Yes, boys and girls, if you really want to stand out amongst the crowd when all your friends have regular dart guns, here’s one that’s guaranteed to make them go green with envy. Astonishing Studios built a fully working Nerf Dart gun using LEGO.

Nerf Gun Display Standing

Well, the only caveat is you’ve still got to purchase the foam darts, which is going to still put a hole in your pocket.

Click to find out how to build your own

Functional LEGO Nerf gun [Video]

YouTube channel AstonishingStudios has created a nifty little build: a LEGO Nerf gun that works much like the original. Modelled after the Maverick REV-6, the creation not only manages to be almost the same shape and size, but even possesses the ability to fire Nerf darts thanks to a non-LEGO piece – a large spring – which is compressed and held down by a Technic mechanism. Pull the trigger and the spring is released, firing off the dart.

Knock your opponent’s block off with these LEGO Rock ’em Sock ’em robots

The infamous red and blue robots of yesteryear, Rock ’em Sock ’em robots are always good for a little sport when plain old thumb wars won’t do. Bruce Lowell has made this terrific version featuring minifigs as the robots, and it’s just perfect. Go get em, champ!

LEGO Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots

LEGO Omnibot, the fully programmable robot ...with memory!

Back in the mid-1980s kids across the world were begging their parents to buy them an Omnibot.  Toy manufacturer Tomy released Omnibot 5402, and Peter Reid has built this adorable LEGO version. The advert-style background compliments this awesome LEGO robot perfectly. The build was created for a ‘parts challenge’ over on parts-obsessed blog New Elementary and the eyes of the robot utilise the new Nexo Knights part trans neon orange bar with towball. What a great way to utilise this new part!

Omnibot

So just as I get over not receiving a Tomy Omnibot for my 8th birthday, I now long for my own LEGO Omnibot all these years later…

For whom the bell trolls

Despite how well this creation by Takamichi Irie captures the essence of the ubiquitous and inexplicably enduring troll dolls, you might be inclined to dismiss it as just another nostalgia build. But hold onto your hats because, in a comeback that will probably put the Smurfs to shame, toshe loveably ugly “Gonks” are returning in 2016 with their very own animated movie! So get ready to see a lot, lot more of these frizzy haired critters on shelves later this year.

(Of course, we are secretly hoping this image will become the standard now when referring to “trolls” in the online LEGO community)