It’s been nearly a century since World War I, but the echoes of that horrific conflict still echo across the years. Each November 11, people all across the world pause to remember all those who died in the war. Here in the States, Veterans Day honors everyone who’s served in the armed forces.
Jason Allemann has built this gorgeous scene “to honour all those who have fought for freedom in the world.”
A collection of Lugpol members (Pit, Mrutek, Rasch, Ciamek, Glaz_Pimpur, Misiek, Zgredek and Kris Kelvin) have combined forces to produce this stunning diorama of the Eastern Front. The diorama is presently on display at Gdansk Town Hall and if I was near the area I’d certainly be checking it out.
The diorama is full of amazing details, wonderful buildings, decay, flora and excellent military vehicles. Kris has a collection of his shots and a lot of links to further shots in this set. This is my favourite diorama ever and sets the bar very high. I’m even more amazed that with so many cooks the broth is so delicious.
PS. If anyone can provide links to the other builders please post them below.
I’ve been enjoying Kaptain Kobold‘s fun little LEGO creations for just about as long as I’ve been blogging, and I’m especially enjoying his latest set of microscale arms and armor from World War II.
Alan’s Renault FT-17 tank and Heinkel He 162 “Volksjäger” fighter jet illustrate that you don’t have to put a lot of parts together to make really great, recognizable models.
My favorite is this Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter, complete with spinning prop and tiny guns.
LEGO M4 Sherman tanks are the single most popular tank to build, so it’s nice to see a builder break out of that mold and reproduce in LEGO a less popular but more interesting tank design. PhiMa does this with the tank that preceded the Sherman, the M3 Grant.
Three reasons I think the Sherman is so popular are because 1) They were the most common tanks by the end of World War II, 2) The convention is to build them in gray (standing in for olive drab) and gray is a fairly common color in LEGO, and 3) The structure above the chassis is fairly straightforward (though the curves are hard to get right in LEGO). In contrast, M3 Grants were used widely by British forces in North Africa, requiring tan instead of gray/olive, and they’re a lot more complex — especially with those two turrets — above the treads.
But PhiMa’s version isn’t just about the pretty exterior; he’s built significant playability features into the model, including a full interior and detailed engine.
Ed Diment (Lego Monster) will be arriving in New York City in two weeks with his USS Intrepid aircraft carrier to assemble and display it at the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum.
Ed will be there for two full days, Friday April 15 and Saturday April 16, after which the LEGO Intrepid will be on display through September. This is a great opportunity to meet Ed and see his epic World War II vessel in person.
Read all the details on the Intrepid Museum website.
Immediately after the start of the Normandy invasion on D-Day, Allied forces began a battle for the strategic port city of Cherbourg that lasted more than three weeks. My diorama highlights the aftermath of the battle, when townspeople begin emerging from the rubble, while Free French partisans hoist the Tricolour above their safe house.
The diorama features an updated version of my M4 Sherman tank:
For more photos, check out the photoset on Flickr, and you’ll be able to see this in person in just over a month as part of the Operation Bricklord collaborative display at BrickCon 2010.
Like many LEGO builders, I spent the first decades of my life building in isolation, lucky to get suggestions or critique from a sibling or rare friend who also played with LEGO. But in the last 10 years — particularly the last 5 — the LEGO fan community has grown to include a critical mass of people who build in just about every possible genre.
People with shared interests who spend time together online will inevitably run out of solely positive things to say, and as a result, a culture of constructive criticism has emerged among LEGO fans. Balanced against this impetus to critique everything are the planning and research that individual builders put into what they create. In contrast to the solo building those of us in our 30s did 20 years ago, builders today have a wealth of sources right at our fingertips.
What effects do research, critique, and discussion among community members ultimately have on the quality of the LEGO creations we build and share? Since I’ve been on a bit of a building spree lately (amazing what you can do when your LEGO collection is sorted), I thought I’d step back and share my experience.
Read on, and share your own thoughts in the comments…
Before I set out to create a Dodge WC54 ambulance from World War II, I spent a couple hours finding the best pictures and determining where and when they were actually used during the war. Given that many World War II photos were taken by service personnel and are therefore in the public domain, Wikimedia Commons is a great place to find historical photos.
Historical re-enactors and scale modelers also run dozens of sites that pull together vast amounts of careful research. For both my ambulance and later battalion aid station diorama, I turned frequently to the WW2 US Medical Research Centre.
Originally planning to broaden my D-Day beachhead diorama, I confirmed that WC54s were used at Normandy, and even found a photo of WC54s sitting on Omaha Beach. Good enough to start building.
Targeting 1/35 scale, I translating the real vehicle’s length, height, and width into studs and bricks. Remembering what I’d learned from my wildland fire engine, I built from the top down. I struggled with the front, since I had to combine half-stud offset for the three/five-wide hood with SNOT for the grill and bumper, plus tiles (with no studs to sturdy connections on top) for the fenders.
I figured it out, though, and pleased with my results posted pictures to Flickr:
Checking back a while later, I saw a stream of notes from our very own Tim, whose windscreen I’d reverse-engineered for the original ambulance. I gritted my teeth and clicked through. (Honestly, I hate taking criticism, especially when it’s wrong. I’d vented a week earlier that too many of the suggestions to “improve” my M4 Sherman tank took it in more interesting but less historically accurate directions. That’s just plain annoying.)
Tim had seen the mini-rant I’d posted in a Flickr group we both frequent, and his critique was spot on. He made specific suggestions based on the source material I’d used myself, providing solutions where I hadn’t thought the model could be improved. The result is the version I included in my diorama, posted separately below:
The story arc (if you will) started with research, moved through community discussion and critique of the creation itself, and ended with a substantially improved LEGO model. This same story plays out every day in the LEGO fan community today — something that would have been nearly impossible 20 years ago and highly unlikely 10 years ago.
Side note: Looking to future World War II vehicles I might build, I’ll be relying on a copy of World War II AFV Plans: American Armored Fighting Vehicles
Nearly all of the book’s schematics are printed at 1/35 scale, which avoids eyestrain from the WIP-held-against-computer-screen method I’d been using before the book arrived in the mail.
So, what’s your experience with the balance between research or sources of inspiration and constructive criticism?
Dan Siskind of Brickmania has just released a three-pack of WW2 vehicles, with custom minifigs and accessories. The set includes a German SdKfz 124 Wespe self-propelled artillery, American M8 Greyhound armored car, and British Universal Carrier (better known as the “Bren gun carrier”).
At $300, the set of three vehicles certainly isn’t cheap, but spending the time — and bricks — to get it right as Dan does for his custom sets isn’t something you can do for only a few bucks. (I built most of my recent American World War II military vehicles from outside my existing collection, so I know it can get expensive just to assemble the necessary parts from half a dozen BrickLink orders.)
I bought a couple of sets last year to see whether they were worth recommending to readers of The Brothers Brick, and I can say unequivocally that they are.
I’ve shared in the past my ambivalence toward violent LEGO, but there’s something unique about World War II that has fascinated me ever since I was little. My grandfather and great uncle served in the US Army during the war, and I grew up in one of the countries that both inflicted a great deal of suffering and suffered deeply themselves before losing the war to the Allies.
Over the last couple of years, I’ve really started enjoying the unique challenges presented by building a LEGO model based on something “real.” LEGO has interesting scale challenges, and I think too many LEGO vehicles are too tall or too wide.
My M3A1 Half-track has a three/five/seven-wide hood, with an eight-wide cab and crew compartment. It’s my favorite so far (even though the tracks should have four road wheels, not three).
I’m less happy with my M4A3 (76)W Sherman tank, which has to be far too tall to capture the right details in the suspension, and I missed the shape of the rear section behind the turret. Because it was my first tank, I spent a lot of time looking at tanks built by other builders — especially BrickMania’s M4A2, Phima’s M4A3E8, and Milan CMadge’s M4A3E8.
Because I come from a family of pacifist non-combatants and conscientious objectors, my convoy of military hardware wouldn’t be complete without a US Army Medical Corps Dodge WC54 ambulance. Like the half-track, the ambulance’s hood is three/five/seven-wide, with a six-wide cab. The recessed spare tire seems impossible at this scale, unfortunately, and getting the shape right means it does not fit a fig.
Now to build some sort of massive World War II diorama to put these in…
Milan CMadge has been building LEGO versions of the Normandy Invasion for nearly a year now, culminating in his latest diorama featuring a German bunker built into the cliff (complete with interior), a pair of LCVP “Higgins Boat” landing craft (one more fortunate than the other), and even an amphibious Sherman tank.
See detail shots on Flickr.
Now, to connect this with my own Omaha Beach diorama, along with Darth Yoda’s, for a massive LEGO D-Day Omaha beachhead…
Though not the sort of achievement that makes me proud to be human, the Focke-Achgelis Fa 223 “Drache” (Dragon) was the first helicopter to enter production, though Nazi Germany was only able to manufacture about 20 during World War II. I had no idea it even existed until Aleksander Stein built one from LEGO.
Here’s Aleksander’s Fa 223 in action over southern Bavaria:
As Ed Diment works on his minifig-scale USS Intrepid aircraft carrier, Ralph Savelsberg (Mad Physicist) has been contributing World War II era fighter aircraft.
Ralph’s latest plane is the Imperial Japanese Naval Air Service’s Mitsubishi A6M3 “Zero” carrier-based fighter, or 零式艦上戦闘機 as I grew up knowing it. Long before I fell in love with the Corsair, the Zero captured my imagination, and Ralph’s LEGO version captures it accurately in brick.
A couple weeks ago, Ralph also posted a new pair of US Navy fighters, the F4U Corsair and TBF Avenger:
