Smooth Operator

Tridder Rotary Supreme

MOCpages based builder Turbo Charger has a big portfolio of virtual supercars, including some fantasy six-wheelers but he has switched to real bricks for his “Rotary Supreme”. It’s a well known fact that The Lego Car Blog Elves don’t like virtual creations, preferring something that they can really get their teeth into. We’re a bit worried that they might be addicted to the taste of LEGO, especially those chewy Technic flexible axles.

Although the Tridder “Rotary Supreme” is mainly of conventional construction, the careful use of curved bricks has created a car that to quote Blaine R., “Looks like it’s going 200 miles an hour sitting still.” and has a super car meets spaceship quality to it. The pictures are also a good example of photographing black LEGO, which is always a difficult task. To see more, including how the cockpit opens, click this link to MOCpages.

New LEGO Technic! 2015 Preview (Part 2)

New LEGO Technic 2015 42039 Race Car

It’s time to reveal the final new LEGO Technic sets bound for stores in 2015! Yesterday we previewed five of the eight new Technic models due at the start of next year, including the new 42037 Formula Off-Road Racer.

Today we move on to the bigger stuff, including the rather lovely looking green endurance racer above. But more on that in a bit. Firstly, let’s look at two wheels…

42036 Street Motorcycle

New Lego Technic 2015 42036 Street Motorcycle

We start with the smallest of the more complex 2015 Technic sets, the 375 piece 9+ 42036 Street Motorcycle. 42036 looks a nice mid-range set, featuring working front and rear suspension, steering, and (we suspect) a chain driven two cylinder engine. It also comes in a rather attractive light blue hue and includes the common-for-2015 decals seen on many of the new sets that add a bit more visual interest.

Downsides are the matching tyres front and rear – which isn’t particularly realistic – and (possibly) the longevity of those aforementioned decals on the large curved Technic panels. Overall though we like the look of 42036 – a good effort from The Lego Group.

42038 Arctic Truck

New 2015 Lego Technic 42038 Arctic Truck

We’re now into the big sets! New for 2015 is this, the 42038 Arctic Truck, aimed at ages 10+ and containing over 900 pieces – many of which are in the ace 8110 Unimog orange. 42038 goes back to the days of good old fashioned mechanical Technic, and fits a wealth of functionality into its 40cm length, including a linear-actuator operated crane boom, suspended tracks and working steering.

As with some of the other new Technic sets for 2015, LEGO seem to have upped the detail level, possibly at the cost of robustness (how long is that communications ariel going to stay in place for example), but this does look to be a conscious effort to make Technic more visually appealing to those progressing from LEGO’s simpler product themes.

The 42038 Arctic Truck set will reach stores next year, and like most of the new LEGO Technic sets it includes a colourful sticker sheet plus instructions for a second vehicle.

42039 24 Hours Race Car

2015 LEGO Technic 42039 24 Hours Race Car

And finally, the flagship new Technic set for 2015, the 1,200 piece 42039 24 Hours Race Car! We’re not sure what 42039 features in the way of technical functionality, apart from steering and an opening engine cover, but we’re hoping for pushrod suspension and a big piston engine – it’s aimed at ages 11+ after all!

However, we can tell you that 42039 does feature some as-yet unreleased parts/colour combinations that will probably get certain quarters of the online Lego Community very excited, though we’re just happy because it looks a bit like the incredible Toyota TS040, Audi R18 and Porsche 919 hybrid racers from this year’s LeMans endurance race (although LEGO have missed the regulation stabilising fin from their version).

Like the other new sets for 2015 42039 includes a colourful set of stickers as well as instructions for a second model, although perhaps more surprisingly it contains no Power Functions electric components. This means that there are no new motorised sets in the 2015 LEGO Technic line-up at all – something that we’re in no doubt change mid-way through the year.

So until then, which is your favourite? As always our resident experts may review some of these sets after their release (plus you can check out all The Lego Car Blog’s reviews of sets past in the Set Review Library), and if you missed Part 1 of our preview detailing the first five new Technic sets for 2015 you can catch up here.

Gettin’ Dirty

Lego Tatra T148 Truck Trial

HorcikDesigns‘ likes to get his Lego dirty. Truck Trial is his chosen method, and the Tatra T148 is his chosen vehicle. Featuring two Lego Buggy Motors for drive, a Power Functions M Motor for steering, and fully independent half-axel suspension Horcik’s recreation of the famous off-road truck is perfectly equipped to tackle the rough stuff. You can see more of the T148 on Flickr at the link above.

Featured Blogs – The “Concept” Group

Concept Collage

So you’ve 29,243 Lego pieces, perfectly stored in a wall of plastic draws, plus a custom building table and lightbox waiting for your finished creation. The only problem is what to build? How can you deploy that new gearbox or SNOT technique that you’ve invented? Where can you get some inspiration for a new style of Technic supercar or whatever this month’s sci-fi theme happens to be?

Fortunately Igor Tkac has come up with a family of blogs that feature the best of concept art from around the internet. The first blog, Concept Ships, was launched in August 2007 and was included in Wired.com’s list of best art websites that year. This blog was followed by ones for vehicles, robots, tanks, guns and aliens. The pages can be a bit slow to download but it’s worth the wait as the art is displayed at full resolution, so you can zoom in to the details.

We’ve only spotted one Lego post on any of the blogs (Jon Hall’s aeroplanes, below), so it’s still worth visiting The Lego Car Blog to see what the Elves have found on the web. If you’ve some spare time at home, or an idle moment at your desk, click the links in the paragraph above and be prepared to be inspired.

Jon Hall Aircraft

New LEGO Technic! 2015 Preview (Part 1)

New LEGO Technic 2015 42035 Mining Truck

It’s time! As is customary at this time of year we recently launched several randomly chosen Elv… er, we mean ‘brave volunteers’, over The LEGO Group’s perimeter wall by way of the office slingshot. Their job; to dodge the guard dogs and return with images of next year’s brand new Lego Technic sets.

Most of this crack team returned a week or so ago, and we’ve been sitting on their scooped images until now. Today though, we can bring you Part 1 of the 2015 LEGO Technic line-up!

Construction Equipment

First up is LEGO’s yearly default in the range; construction equipment. Pictured above is the new 42035 Mining Truck, aimed at ages 9+ and featuring 362 pieces, whilst pictured below is the smallest and simplest new set for 2015, 42031 Mini-Cherry-Picker for ages 7+.

New LEGO Technic 2015 42031 Cherry Picker

42035 features steering and a tipping bucket, whilst 42031 doesn’t really feature anything at all, save for some mechanical movement of the crane boom.

What is a little surprising is just how ‘Town’-orientated these two sets look, with studded parts, lights and even twelve grill tiles on the front of 42035. We’re not particularly excited by this development, as for us Technic should be about technicality, but we’re sure that The LEGO Group knows what appeals most to their younger audience.

Onwards to the second Technic category guaranteed to be included each year, the racing…

Racing

New Lego Technic 2015 42034 Quad Bike

We remain at the ‘starter’ end of the 2015 LEGO Technic range with the two new racing-related sets. Above is the set with the lowest part count of the 2015 Technic line-up, the 148 piece 42034 Pull-Back Quad Bike. As you probably deduced, this LEGO set includes a pull-back motor for added zoominess, and it looks quite a fun toy for younger Technic fans and Elves alike.

New Lego Technic 2015 42037 Formula Off-Road

This though, is a model more to our tastes, the wonderfully garish 500 piece 42037 Formula Off-Roader. Underneath the bright green bodywork 42037 features the first proper Technic functionality in the 2015 range, with working steering, suspension and a 4-cylinder engine up front. That engine is perhaps a little small for a Formula Off-Road racer, as they are usually fitted with nitrous-equipped 900hp V8s, but it works so we’ll take it! Both sets include some nice bright stickers and squishy tyres, and look robust enough for some stacked-book living room jumping.

Tracks

Lego Technic 42032

The final set in LEGO’s 2015 Starter Technic range is this, the 252 piece Compact Tracked Loader. Like the other small sets in the 2015 line-up, 42032 appears a little more ‘Town’-orientated than past Technic offerings, but it does look quite refreshing in white rather than the usual yellow.

With many of the loader’s 252 parts used to create the two tracks upon which it rolls there probably weren’t many left for LEGO to work with, but nevertheless 42032 does feature a mechanically operated bucket and compacter, which seems about right for the 8+ target.

Like all-but-one of the other new Technic sets previewed here, 42032 includes instructions for a second model, and will reach a store near you in early 2015.

So that’s the small sets out of the way;

What about the big stuff?

Join us tomorrow for Part 2 of the New LEGO Technic 2015 Preview to find out! 

The LEGO Movie, Movie

Bricks in Motion

We loved The Lego Movie here at TLCB. In fact we quite like Lego movies in general – and there are some great short films made from little plastic blocks on the ‘net. Bricks in Motion aim to bring us another one, and in Inception-like ‘dream within a dream’ madness their Lego stop-motion film is about Lego stop-motion films.

You can wrap your head around it via their introductory video below, and if you’d like to support the Bricks in Motion project you can join them via Kickstarter – there’s just a few days to go!

Creations for Charity 2014

Creations for Charity

Creations for Charity 2014 is here!

The amazing annual charity event Creations for Charity is here for 2014! Over the coming weeks some of the best builders in the Lego Community will be donating their own creations that you can bid to own! All the proceeds from the sale of these creations go towards funding a huge* stash of LEGO toys that are distributed to children in need around the world. How cool is that!

Get involved!

You can help this incredible initiative in a number of ways; by publicising Creations for Charity, donating a creation, or bidding on one of the awesome creations available in the auction. Donations open today – if you’d like to give away one of your creations that you think could raise money for children who have nothing then get in contact with the Creations for Charity team, they’d love to hear from you!

The Creations for Charity 2014 store opens on October the 15th, so check in regularly to see what’s available and get ready to bid!

*Over $20,000 worth of LEGO was distributed to children in need across three countries in 2013!

Danananana….

Lego 1966 Batmobile

It’s the end of SHIPtember in the online Lego Community and Flickr is awash with giant spaceships that we – being a car blog – don’t really understand. So whilst the proper blogs get busy with the sci-fi, here’s a 1966 Batmobile!

Before Batman got the Tumbler, he and Robin had to ride around in this. Rumour has it that the constant derision from Gotham’s general public permanently unhinged then-Batman Adam West, and he’s now seeing out his time as a Mayor of a fictional New England town. Still, better than being Robin.

Flickr’s Orion Pax is the builder of this mini-figure version of Batman’s 1966 wheels, and it’s available for your viewing pleasure at the link.

Pre-Piano

Lego Morris Minor

As viewers of BBC’s Top Gear will know, the Morris Marina is fit only for death-by-piano. But what you may not know is that the Morris Marina wasn’t actually that terrible. Underneath it was in fact a Morris Minor, a car widely loved by the motoring public. How fickle the winds of fate have been to those two stalwarts of the British auto industry.

This convertible version of the British classic is the work of TLCB regular Ralph Savelsberg. You can see more of his Lego recreation via his photostream, and you can check out a much more massive Minor (and one that’s far more our bag) here.

Can You Dig It?

Volvo Digger

You might have noticed that we haven’t been posting as frequently as we normally do at The Lego Car Blog. The Elves have been struggling to find suitable MOCs and have started to look a bit hungry. Fortunately we’ve been able to give out a shiny yellow Smartie today, thanks to this yellow monster from Marek Markiewicz. The lucky Elf has kindly split his reward with his colleagues but a single Smartie will only go so far between 213 Elves. Hopefully they’ll find more MOCs in the next few days, or we might have to actually feed our workforce for free.

Marek’s Volvo L250G is built at 1:20 scale, using the bucket from the 42030 Wheel Loader and is even more impressive than his previous Liebherr L580. It’s beautifully detailed, including fully glazed instead of implied windows on the driver’s cab. The loader is also fully remote controlled, via two IR receivers with an L motor for traction, an M motor for steering and L & M motors to control the bucket. You can see full diagrams of the internal working of Marek’s loader by clicking this link to its MOCpages listing. Marek also has an impressive back catalogue on his Flickr Photostream.

Volvo Digger 02

N.B. In an attempt to be more environmentally friendly, TLCB has started recycling. We’ve already used this title twice before. Cut and paste it into the “Search” box, at the bottom of the page, to find out where.

Beaut of a Ute

Lego Ford Model A Ute

This Ford Model A flatbed, or ‘ute’ for our Australian readers, is the work of Aussie builder Parrington Levens. Mr. Levens has utilised* some very old parts for his very old truck, and they look rather nice in this context. You can see more of this beautiful ute on MOCpages.

*Sorry.

Photo Like a Pro

Lego Photography Studio

The very best Lego vehicles in the world feature here at The Lego Car Blog. But the quality isn’t limited to just the build – the standard of presentation must be exceptional too. If you’re here wondering ‘How do I get my stuff to look that good?’, Flickr’s Konajra gives us an insight into the easiest and most accessible way to make your creations look the business.

Konajra’s behind-the-scenes shot above reveals the secret. Simple huh? A plain coloured background – often white but any contrasting colour will do – and curved to remove the shadows in the corners, is all you need to make your Lego creation look like something from The LEGO Group themselves.

Some builders add proper photography lighting to their set-up, but natural light is actually the best way to illuminate your model – so wait for sunny day!

Once you’ve got your shots upload them into any one of the variety of image editing tools, such as Gimp, Photoshop, iPhoto and even Microsoft Paint. Many builders will spend days perfecting their images, but a quick crop, auto-enhance and watermark (if you’re protective) is all that it takes to make a big difference.

Once you’re happy with how your images look you’re ready to upload them to your chosen creation-sharing website, however it’s worth noting that the quality of your images can be constrained by the site uploader. As such we recommend uploading to Flickr, and then using the embed function to transfer your images to your other online accounts.

Follow the above steps and you should end up with photos like Konajra’s ‘Zwarte Zee’ below, and they’ll be good enough to appear on one of the major Lego blogs, maybe even this one!

If you’ve discovered a creation that you think qualifies to appear here at The Lego Car Blog you can check its suitability by visiting our Submission Guidelines page – if it meets our requirements then let us know!

Lego Zwart Zee Ship

The Peoples’ Surface Hopper…

Gerald F

…or Herbie goes to Classic Space.

One of the Elves is the happy recipient of a red Smartie today, having returned from MOCpages with a happy red spaceman and this Lunar Surface Hopper. Its creator, Gerald F, has made our job easier by including his name and the MOC’s title on his photo. Anything that can help with our confusion over sci-fi posts is very welcome, especially as it’s just a couple of weeks away from the ever perplexing Ma.Ktober. Hop on over to see more of this little Classic Space vehicle by clicking this link to MOCpages.

2015 Sets Preview! Sort of…

New Lego 2015

It’s that time of year again when a crack team of The Lego Car Blog Elves is catapulted over the wall of The LEGO Group HQ in the hope of scooping next years’ LEGO line-up. Not all return (we’re pretty sure the guard dogs have learned it’s a tasty time of year), but for those that do fame and glory* await! We’re lucky enough to have sent a (mostly) successful Elf Team this year, and the photos they’ve returned with make for interesting viewing.

Unfortunately all of the images are under embargo at the moment, so it would be wrong of us to publish them just yet, but to whet your appetite here are some early details that we can share of what will be coming to stores in 2015;

Technic: Several small to medium sized Technic sets, some with wheels, some with tracks, and a few with pull-back motors. And a motorbike.

City: Construction equipment galore, a few things swampy and the usual array of emergency services. And a Unimog.

Pirates: Yaarr! They’re back!

Bionicle: (Sigh)

We’ll bring you further details** of the official 2015 LEGO line-up as we get nearer to Christmas; watch out for our 2015 set previews! In the meantime of course you can check out all our reviews of the current and past set line-ups by visiting the ever-expanding Set Review Library. Stay tuned!…

*OK, a meal token and a Smartie.

**Except Bionicle.

Vanbulance

Lego Vanbulance Hot Rod

Uh oh. Our previous post today didn’t end well. Luckily Lego-vehicle-building legend Lino M has recreated real-vehicle-building legend Tom Daniels’ 1974 show rod ‘Vanbulance’, enabling us to patch up the Elves. OK, that’s a lie – the Vanbulance is completely useless for anything medical, but it looks cool and has a huge engine so the Elves are a little less grumpy now. See more on Flickr.