When our workers first dragged this creation from Adam Dodge into our office, we thought that it was just another smushed Elf. Then we realised that it was a fantastic mash-up of Star Wars and a monster theme. Adam has built this version of the 6206 TIE Interceptor, called “Blinky”, for a “Monster Mash” contest at his Lego User Group. We wish him good luck with the judges and have great pleasure in presenting this blast from the past.
We rarely post virtual creations here at TLCB, but today is Back to the Future Day (the date that Marty travels forward to in back to the Future Part II) so it seems appropriate to go digital!
This lovely LDD recreation of Biff‘s Ford Super Deluxe from the Back to the Future franchise comes from Flickr’s Peter Blackert, and you can climb on your hoverboard and head over to view more by clicking here.
It’s another tenuously titled month in the Lego community’s calendar, but as is often the way with these things, it’s sci-fi and thus TLCB staff are completely baffled by it.
Whatever Ma.Ktober is, this entry into the annual bandwagon by D-Town Cracka is a rather lovely build, and you can see more on Flickr at the link above.
Fictional cars rarely feature here at TLCB, because they are – mostly – crap. This one, entitled ‘Gravity GT1’ isn’t crap at all though (although a wider windscreen would be nice), and it’s also one of the shiniest Lego creations we’ve ever seen. Builder Harry Gravett must have been busy with the furniture polish.
Harry’s creation was suggested to us by a reader, and you can see more of the Gravity on either MOCpages or Flickr.
It’s a cheap day at The Lego Car Blog editorial offices. Smarties are made in neither black nor white colours and so we were unable to reward the Elf who brought in RGB900‘s Police Off-Roader. This stylish, futuristic vehicle looks perfect for all terrains and riot control too. It’s one of a series of 5-wide trucks from this Taiwanese builder. We found a rather nice fire engine in RGB900’s Flickr Photostream, so it’s a red Smartie for us!
This year’s Febrovery kicks off with a vehicle from Shannon Sproule that harks back to the days of Victorian motoring, mixed with NASA and Classic Space aesthetics. What do you mean, “It’s still Ma.Ktober?”. We’ve got a chicken transporter, complete with its own wattle, by Angus McLane to post too. One of these days The Lego Car Blog staff will finally understand sci-fi…
Normal service will now be resumed.
The Showtime television show ‘The Tudors’ seemed to mostly consist of breasts interspersed with historical inaccuracies, but seeing as we quite like the former of these we’ll let it slide.
It didn’t feature any hot rods though, and we have no idea how the English royal family that came to power following the War of the Roses gave its name to modified early 1930s Fords, but sometimes the car world needs a good mystery. Is it as simple as it has two doors (Tu-dor)?
Anyway, whatever the logic, this Model Team Ford Tudor hot rod looks the business. BricksonWheels (co-author of The Art of Lego Scale Modeling reviewed here yesterday) is the builder, and there’s more to see at his photostream via the link above.
Here at The Lego Car Blog we firmly believe that you can never read too much, so it’s with great pleasure that today we can bring you a review of a book that could be tailor made for this blog – The Art of Lego Scale Modeling.
Created by two of our Master MOCers, Dennis Glaasker and Dennis Bosman, and produced by the awesome guys at No Starch Press, The Art of Lego Scale Modeling brings together some the most brilliant vehicle builders of the current generation.
Running to over 200 pages No Starch’s latest publication features more than fifty incredible Lego models from twenty-four of the very best Lego model makers in the world – including the authors themselves – neatly divided into several categories, including trucks, ships, heavy equipment and motorcycles.
As we’ve come to expect from No Starch Press, photography and print quality are excellent, with double page spreads used throughout to score maximum visual impact. All of the models included are accurate replicas of real-world vehicles, and alongside each is a brief description of both the build and the model’s full-size counterpart. Most of the builders and many of the models have featured on blogs like this one over the past few years, but however impressive a Lego model may look on a computer screen, they are far more so in print.
The final few pages of the book are given over to a ‘How to’ section, although this section is fairly short and is clearly not the main aim of the publication.
It’s actually this topic that we would like to see more of in future Lego books. Whilst Lego building is intuitive to many of us (and after all, it should be – any child can design their own creation without any difficulty at all), we’re continually amazed by the number of ‘Please can I have instructions’ and ‘How can I build like this?’ emails and comments that we receive here at TLCB.
The Art of Lego Scale Modeling does not set out to answer these questions. Moreover ‘Art’ in this case refers to the visual brilliance of its subjects, rather than the act of doing something, and it excels at sharing this through print. As a coffee table visual stimulant for any fan of Lego, or even just for fans of vehicles and machines, it has set the bar beautifully high.
The Art of Lego Scale Modeling is available to buy now directly from No Starch Press as well as from several well-known online retailers for as little as £19.99. More like this please No Starch Press!
Lego versions of the Mad Max – Fury Road vehicles are appearing e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e, but we don’t mind – they are the perfect cars for this little corner of the internet. This one comes from Jin Kei, and it’s one of the key cars from the epic post-apoc movie. Join the madness at the link above.
The darkening skies outside The Lego Car Blog’s skyscraper can mean only one of two things. 1) The Elves have opened an apocalyptic portal to Hades again or 2) it’s autumn and time to brace ourselves for various sci-fi themed building months. The TLCB editorial staff are renowned for our lack of comprehension of sci-fi. We would actually be more comfortable facing a hellish hoard, armed only with Mr. Airhorn (our Elvish research team is pretty hellish and we deal with them on a daily basis). However, we have a duty to our readers to bring you the best of what internet Lego has to offer. So we’re girding our loins and proudly present our SHIPtember 2015 Review. SHIPs tend to be long and pointy, but we thought that we’d focus on some of the more unusual SHIPs from this year’s Flickr thread.
At the top of this post is Pico van Grootveld’s massive EVE online custom Scorpion battleship. Coming in at 130 studs long by 120 wide and 70 tall, this SHIP is a real departure from the typical long & thin configuration. Click the link to see more photos of this monster, include one of Pico attempting to “swoosh” all 22lbs of it. Also going wide was Matt Bace with his Klingon D5 Deuterium Tanker. It’s unusual for us to feature a virtual build but the quality of the details on this SHIP, especially its wings, warrants its inclusion. From reading conversations on Flickr and MOCpages, Matt has also thought carefully about making his Klingon ship structurally sound, which can be lacking in some LDD models and Klingon starships too.
Bob Hayes went down the retro route with a SHIP right out of Dan Dare and covered in studs. Patrol Ship 014 comes complete with a crew of six minifigures, a cargo bay and one of the smoothest hulls in SHIPtember (Bob says that he thinks of studs as smooth, a bit like Nick Barrett does).
Looking like Blacktron’s version of Blake’s 7’s Liberator from Hell, Josh Derksen’s “Demon’s Maw” is an impressive piece of design and engineering. This SHIP is approximately 112 Studs long and 50 studs in diameter and contains two Power Functions XL motors, plus a load of lights from Brickstuff. It’s worth clicking this link to see the working star drive and appreciate the scale of this build.
Possibly the most graceful SHIP in this year’s collection was Michael Steindl’s “Mikajo”. Michael used brick-bending type techniques to create the compound curves of his SHIP’s wing in just three days. This was a real contrast to his other SHIPtember build, a huge, thuggish Blacktron Missile Boat.
Lastly, TLCB regular F@bz, came up with this eye-catching use for all of those brick separators that accumulate at the back of your Lego collection. His Juuken Spaceship was built in a day a features 36 of the orange tools.
We thought that we’d finish this post with a contrast to the SHIPs with their thousands of bricks. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again on this blog: it’s not how many bricks you use but how you chose to use them that counts. Featured below is Simply Bricking It’s “Shiptober”.
We have no idea what this sweet little bi-ped mech is for or is doing, but we like it. The Elves don’t it seems, seeing how much they tried to bully the lucky Elf that found it for it being pink, but that Elf received a pink Smartie to munch on so it’s pretty happy. You can see more of whatever this is at Pascal’s photostream here.
Communist revolutionary, ‘Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Soviet Union’, and Ming the Merciless inspiration Vladimir Lenin is one of the most influential figures of the 20th century, pioneering the development of communism and the Marxist socialist state.
Decreeing that all resources should be under common ownership – thereby removing the need for money, reliance on social class, and inequality – Lenin was driven around in a 1915 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost, modified by Adolphe Degrease in 1922 to run on tracks, whilst 6 million people died of starvation during the Povolzhye famine. Yay communism!
Nevertheless, Lenin’s Silver Ghost was a very cool vehicle, and today it resides in Russia’s Gorky museum. If that’s a bit far to travel, previous bloggee Karwik has the answer, with his gorgeous Town-scale version of the unique vintage Roller. Click the link above to make the jump to Flickr.
The Mercedes-Benz Arocs creations keep on coming! The latest to grace these pages comes from Eurobrick’s Samolot, and it’s one of the most impressive developments of LEGO’s 42043 set that we’ve seen thus far.
Featuring remote control drive and steering, suspension and pneumatic outriggers, Samolot’s Arocs truck includes as many functions as the official set, and that’s before you get to the junk in the trunk…
Mounted over the rear wheels is a platform suspended by six pneumatic cylinders (controlled via a Power Functions electric compressor), which can raise, lower, pitch, and yaw. Insert some patrons into said platform along with a large TV screen and this Mercedes-Benz Arocs becomes a flight simulator ride!
Samolot’s creation is one of the engineering highlights of the year so far, and includes five Power Functions motors, three Power Functions switches, ten pneumatic cylinders and six meters of pneumatic hosing.
You can see all the details on Eurobricks by clicking here, alongside a full description and, best of all, a video of the flight simulator in action!
