A Shot in the Dark

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Lego Hoverbike

This stunning image was found on Flickr today. It’s the work of David Hensel, and it depicts his intriguing ‘ZECR Hoverbike’ concept. The build itself contains all sorts of Nice Parts Usage (NPU), but what really caught our attention is the superb way that David has photographed his creation – we’d even go as far as saying this might be the best photo that we’ve blogged this year. You can see the image in further detail at David’s photostream via the link above, and if you’d like to learn how to take higher quality photos of your own creations you can read some handy hints here.

Here Comes The A-Team

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Lego Technic A-Team Van RC

In 1972 a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the A-Team.

Or if you can’t, you could just build their van (which we always thought was a highly conspicuous vehicle for escaped convicts sought by the Government). Anyhoo, previous bloggee Chade has taken this latter approach, and a fine job he’s done too. His Technic recreation of the A-Team’s iconic GMC Vandura features working lights, remote control drive and steering, and – more unusually – powered opening doors; sliding on the side and twin-hinged at the back.

There’s more to see of Chade’s build via MOCpages, Eurobricks and Flickr. Click the links to make the jump.

Lego A-Team GMC Vandura

Harvest Festival

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claas-harvester

It’s been Harvest Festival at TLCB Towers this morning. One of the Elves returned triumphantly from Michal Skorupka’s PhotoStream driving this superb remote controlled Claas Lexion 760 combine harvester. With thirteen Power Functions motors powering everything from the drive and steering to the combine head rotation and elevation, the feeder, and the rear spreading mechanism, there was plenty for the aforementioned Elf to do.

Lego Claas Combine Harvester

As is traditional with Power Functions models, he proceeded to use the machine to reap his colleagues. So whilst we clear up the mess, we suggest that you enjoy the video of the harvester in action below. Michal has chosen a rocking backing track for his video.  Those of our readers who might prefer a more traditional track should follow this link.

Pneumatic Backhoe – Picture Special

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Lego Technic Pneumatic Backhoe Loader

This magnificent pneumatic Technic backhoe comes from TLCB favourite Máté Lipkovics aka Lipko, and it’s one of the best pieces of Lego engineering you’ll see this year.

Lego Technic Pneumatic Backhoe Loader

A Power Functions motor operates duel pneumatic pumps, allowing Lipko’s model to run two sets of pneumatic functions simultaneously. These include the backhoe; which can rotate, elevate and tip the bucker, the front loader; which both elevates and tips, and the rear-mounted stabilisers.

Lego Technic Backhoe

If that wasn’t enough there are mechanical functions too, including all-wheel-steering, both by Hand-of-God and the steering wheel, pendular suspension, an opening hood and a rotating driver’s seat.

Lego Technic Backhoe Pneumatic

There’s lots more to see on three of the major Lego-sharing platforms, click the links for all the details on MOCpages, Brickshelf, and Eurobricks.

YouTube Video:

A Tiny Giant

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bwe-mini

Looking at gonkius’s PhotoStream, we’re pretty sure that he already owns a 42055 Bucket Wheel Excavator. Is one enough? Obviously not, judging by this nice little bit of micro-scale building. Once again proving that it’s not how many bricks you have but what you do with them, our Elves’ tiny minds were instantly attracted to this tiny machine.

24 Legacy

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Lego Technic Mercedes-Benz Arocs SLT

Ah, 24. A brilliantly innovative TV show that started out superbly and then went on for much, much, too long. With the ‘exciting’ news that Fox are commissioning the show’s return as a spin-off (sigh… seriously, just make something new you lazy feckless uninspired f…), we thought we’d jump on the bandwagon and post something 24-related, because we’re cynical and it’ll generate extra hits.

This is a 24 wheel Mercedes-Benz Arocs SLT and Nooteboom trailer combination, and just like the TV show it looks ridiculously, unnecessarily, long.

Unlike the TV show though, it’s superb all the way along. The truck is the work of newcomer JLW Bricks, and it’s very loosely associated with LEGO’s official 42043 Technic Mercedes-Benz Arocs set. With no Power Functions motors in (or out of) sight, JLW’s truck relies on some good old-fashioned mechanics for its functionality, and we like that very much. There’s working suspension on all four axles, Hand-of-God steering on the first two, and a replica straight-6 engine under the cab.

Attached at the rear, and adding another sixteen sets of wheels, JLW has recreated Jaap Technic‘s brilliant eight-axle Nooteboom trailer, making this one of the longest models that we can remember featuring.

There’s more to see of both the truck and trailer at the Eurobricks discussion forum, where there’s some excellent outdoor photography in evidence too. Click the link above to make the jump. Beep… Beep…  Beep… Beep…

Lego Technic Mercedes-Benx Arocs & Nooteboom

There’s Children Throwing Snowballs, Instead of Throwing Heads…

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Lego The Nightmare Before Christmas

…they’re busy building toys and absolutely no one’s dead. The bemused words of the delightfully spooky Jack Skellington, from Tim Burton (and – weirdly -Disney)’s magnificent 1993 animated fright fest ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’.

This beautifully built scene from the movie comes from Flickr’s César Soares, and it’s scarily good. Lego Purists will find Jack Skellington and the Mayor of Halloween Town’s heads particularly frightening.

Lego Nightmare Before Christmas

Aside from the terrifying thought of the aforementioned Lego brick mutilation, even purists would have to agree that this cartoonish recreation is something rather wonderful; Jack and the Mayor look almost as though LEGO created official movie mini-figures themselves.

There’s more to see of Jack, the Mayor, and the glorious Mayor-Mobile hearse at César’s photostream – take a trip to Halloween Town at the link above.

Lego Mayor Mobile The Nightmare Before Christmas

Stay Classy

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Lego Technic Alfa Romeo 1932

Long time readers (and probably even short time readers) will have worked out that this is not a classy blog. However every so often we put on a shirt, leave the decaying ruin that is TLCB Towers, and sit in a real restaurant to eat something that actually came out of the ground. With metal cutlery and everything.*

Anyhoo, this is one of those moments, as this could well be the classiest creation that we’ve published all year. Built by marthart of Brickshelf it’s a 1932 Alfa Romeo Spider, and it’s absolutely gorgeous. It also has a working engine, steering, leaf spring suspension, and opening doors and hood.

There’s more to see at marthart’s Brickshelf account via the link above. Put on a tie and join us there.

Lego Technic 1932 Alfa Romeo

*As opposed to staying in the office eating Sugar Puffs straight from the bag again.

Elf Wash

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Lego Technic Excavator Grabber

Well we’ve found our favourite creation of the week so far… This excellent-looking Technic tracked excavator comes from previous bloggee Horcik Designs, and it’s a thoroughly wonderful machine. Wonderful because it has no less than three pneumatic cylinders providing movement to its arm and grab. Wonderful because those cylinders are fed air by a Power Functions driven electric pump. And mostly wonderful because it can pick up a TLCB Elf by the ears and dunk it in a bowl of soapy water, all without us ever having to touch it. Thanks Horcik! You can see more of Horcik’s superb Elf-washing machine on Flickr – click the link above to take a look.

Lego Pneumatic Excavator

Mechephant

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Lego Elephant Mech

Nature’s greatest all-terrain-vehicle makes one heck of a mech. A Mechephant as we’ve called it, because we’re lyrical geniuses…

Found thanks to Bricknerd (yes, we know – we’ll kick an Elf…) it’s the work of Mitsuru Nikaido and there’s more to see here.

Nice Paint Job

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bmw-m3

Only the toughest, most elite* of TLCB Elves is sent foraging in MOCpages nowadays.  “Bonk, Smash, Thud” isn’t just the noise of MOCpages breaking again, it’s also the sound of malnourished Elves collapsing with hunger.  It’s hard to find good Lego vehicles and get Smarties to eat when the site crashes for so long, so relatively regularly.  MOCpages has been the spiritual Lego home for many top quality builders over many years.  Sadly, more and more builders have become inactive there and fled to other websites.  However, there are still gems to found on the ‘pages.

A case in point are the cars built by Rene Scheruebl.  Rene’s latest vehicles are in the Lego Speed Champions, 6-wide scale.  They include a Mercedes 190 Evo, an Audi 200 V8 and the BMW M3 Sport Evolution featured here.  Building these cars must require very steady hands, as they all feature tiny decals and neatly painted stripes.  Whilst the techniques might offend purists, the results are impressive and well worth a visit to Rene’s MOCpages account; if the website happens to be working…

*Fattest actually.  The low chance of meal tokens is a good way to sneakily put them on a diet.

What’s in the Box?

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Lego Space Lorry

This is a Space Lorry, which is just like a regular lorry, only in space! This one, complete with a magnificent back story, comes from the unique mind of David Roberts, and it’s used for transporting artificially-grown* mini-figure hands across the planet of Bysedd VII to supply the intergalactic greeble trade. See more at the link above.

*Coincidentally there are a lot of one-handed mini-figures on Bysedd VII. We have been told this is an unrelated phenomenon.

Octan Offroad

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Lego Ford F150 Raptor

LEGO’s fictional petroleum company, Octan, have been around since 1992, with their ‘sponsorship’ appearing on all sorts of vehicles over that time. This Ford F150 Raptor in full off-road spec by Flickr’s Peter Blackert (aka Lego911) is one of our favourites to appear in a while, and the Octan sponsorship looks very at home. There’s more to see, including a few images of the Raptor in a brick-built desert landscape, via Peter’s photostream.

Eight Squared

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Lego Technic Scania 8x8 Truck

This neat Scania dump truck was discovered on Eurobricks today, and at first we thought it was a simple, although good-looking, mechanical model. However the exterior is deceptively bland, as it’s hiding some proper engineering genius underneath.

Builder TomasHubik has managed to squeeze in a fully remote controlled 8-wheel-drive, 4-wheel-steering chassis, complete with a differential between each pair of wheels and different turning radiuses between the first and second steering axles. Not only that, a Power Functions Medium motor allows the load bed to raise and lower too.

We’re as baffled by how all that fits inside as we are by your Mom’s corset, so we’ve taken the unusual step of publishing a photo of the chassis in this post too. You can see more of Tomas’ build, including a larger version of the image below, at the Eurobricks discussion forum – click the link above to see if you can figure it out.

Lego Technic 8x8 RC

Rock Raiders

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Lego Pneumatic Rock Excavator

Ah, Rock Raiders, one of LEGO’s thankfully short-lived late ’90s themes where they’d run out of ideas and decided to re-hash the ‘searching for magical crystals’ story just one last time. And the logo looked like a sexual diagram. We weren’t fans.

Anyhoo, we are fans of whatever this is. Suggested by a reader and built by previous bloggee Desert752Kirill it’s apparently a Heavy Rock Loader, and it looks like something from one of Thunderbirds weirder storylines.

Weighing 5KG and measuring almost a meter long, Desert’s creation is a goliath of the Technic world. It has gargantuan features to match too, with (by our count) twenty six pneumatic cylinders. These control everything from the boom elevation and extension, bucket tilt, the superstructure rotation, the four immense outriggers, and the adjustable-height suspension. The bucket also has a mechanical self-levelling function, and the model can operate with both normal and crab steering.

There’s lots more to see at Dessert’s Flickr photostream, the Eurobricks discussion forum, and of course, via the excellent video below. Click the links and be amazed…

YouTube Video: