Tag Archives: Freighter

SHIPtember Roundup


It’s the last day of September, which means the annual building bandwagon ‘SHIPtember’ – wherein builders create colossal spaceships measuring one hundred studs or more – is concluding too. Which is good news if you like cars, or you’re Sci-Fi Incompetent.

TLCB Team are of course both of the above, so expect lots of “this is a Really Massive Spaceship”, and little else, in the rest of this post…

Anyway, on to the first creation, and it’s a Really Massive Spaceship. Constructed by Oscar Cederwall, it cleverly utilises a LEGO Crane Support Element down the centre, and there’s more to see via the link above.

The second creation in our SHIPtember 2023 roundup is a Very Large Spaceship Indeed, and sports a veritable rainbow of colours. Nathan Proudlove is its maker and there’s more to see here.


The third SHIPtember model appearing here comes from -Soccerkid6, whose 106-stud racer ‘Falchion 55’ is a Truly Sizeable Spaceship. Ingenious parts usage abounds throughout the design and there’s more of No. 55 to see via the link.


On to the fourth creation in our SHIPtember roundup, this Decidedly Enormous Spaceship by Andreas Lenander, with three superbly constructed engines, beautifully neat asymmetry, and – at least to the eyes of this car blog – wearing Honda racing colours. Click here to see more.

And so, much to the relief of the proper Lego sites that can actually do sci-fi, here’s the final model in our SHIPtember Special, LegOH!’s brilliant ‘Octan Mining Ship’. A Spaceship of Gigantic Proportions, LegOH’s entry packs in a variety of spacey details, none of which we can explain, but that you can see more of via the link above.

There you have it; TLCB’s immensely incompetent roundup of some Really Massive Spaceships for 2023. Don’t be fooled by our crap write-up though, each is a phenomenal build and well worth checking out, even if – like us – you don’t understand sci-fi whatsoever.

All can be found on Flickr (plus a lot more besides), and you can make the jump to hyperspace via the links above. Take a look whilst we get back to writing about things that have wheels and engines.

We’re in Deep Ship…

TLCB rarely partakes in the annual monthly bandwagons that occur across the online Lego Community. We’ll pretend it’s because we’re too cool, what with our executive washroom and sauna, endless groupies, and the fleet of exotic cars bought by the riches that blogging about Lego brings, rather than we have no idea what they’re about or what the rules are.

Today however we’re jumping on said bandwagon, seeing as a) it’s the last day of ‘SHIPtember’, and b) last night’s Presidential ‘Debate’ simultaneously makes us want to leave this planet immediately, and for a neat title summing up both this post and the state of American politics.

The first of today’s ‘SHIPs’ is ZCerberus’s astonishing ‘LL885 NC Repair Freighter’, a huge orange behemoth carrying out a useful and humble purpose, which is a nice contrast. Spectacular building techniques and incredible attention to detail make this a must click, and you can do just that here.

Today’s second ‘SHIP’ comes from previous bloggee Sunder_59, entitled the ‘DCV-08 “Barra” Construction Drone Carrier’. Designed to transport construction drones to orbiting building sites, Sunder’s creation features all the ‘SHIPtember’ buzzwords you’ll find used with abandon on smarter Lego blogs than this one, such as ‘Colour Blocking’, ‘Greebling’, and ‘Bricknipinia’. OK, we made that last one up. See more via the link!

Our third and final* ‘SHIP’ explores something that’s completely alien in American politics; working together for a greater purpose. Constructed from three separate ‘SHIPs’, the ‘TriPerron Nomad Explorer’ allows up to three individual planetary explorers to combine for longer interstellar travel, then splitting again when their destinations differ. All the ‘SHIPtember’ buzzwords that we don’t understand found in Sunder-59’s build above apply here, only in threes, and there’s more to see courtesy of Simon Liu on Flickr.

And so that ends our (somewhat limited) round-up of ‘SHIPtember’ 2020. You can take a look at each build via the links in the text above, which is where we’ll be, trying to find out if any of them can be built in full size so we can escape the impending doom* about to drag America into the gutter. We would say the U.S election can’t sink any lower, but there are still two debates to go.

*Bonus SHIP. If these penguins can escape after we trashed their home, perhaps we can too…

Galactic Plastic

Lego Heavy Light Spaceship

Crap. A space build. Oh well, here goes…

This is the ‘Heavy Light mk/5’, so called because on Earth it’s quite heavy, whilst in space it’s very light. This particular mk/5 Heavy Light is one better than the mk/4, but it’s not quite as good as the mk/6.

Nailed it.

OK, maybe not, but whilst we’re waaaay out of our depth with sci-fi we can see that this is a stunning build, and if you’d like to see more (including a more accurate description), head over to Nick Trotta’s Flickr photostream via the link, whilst we find a car to blog….

Cat’s Anus

Lego Cargo Ship

The Lego Car Blog Elves, held captive over Christmas, have all been released back into the internet to continue their unending and poorly paid search for the web’s best Lego creations.

Upon unlocking TLCB Towers this morning a particularly speedy Elf had already returned with a find, and is now happily consuming the rewards associated with a meal token. So what did it find?…

Lego Space Freighter

Built by TLCB favourite David Roberts, today’s post is a curious spaceship of feline colonising design. Not in that its purpose is to conquer the universe’s cats. Nor is it piloted by cats intent on universe domination. Rather – and there’s no delicate way to put this – it looks a bit like a cat’s arse when it’s taking a shit…

Despite this unfortunate anatomical resemblance it is a lovely build, and it has an intriguing back-story too. You can discover more of both the ship and the story which spawned it at David’s Flickr photostream via the link above. Just bring a plastic bag and a small spade.

Lego Space Freighter

Swanning Around

swan-01

Whilst most of the sci-fi Lego world has been focused on building massive SHIPs for SHIPtember or trying to come to terms with the perpetually enigmatic Ma.Ktober, Tim Henderson has taken his own path with the “Swan“. Tim says that it’s the biggest spacecraft that he’s built but it stills looks a nice size to take for a swoooosh. Added to this are plenty of opening hatches and play features. The ship looks to be a great toy, as well as being good to look at. As its origins are in the Corellian shipyards of Star Wars, that will keep another cohort of spacers happy too. What’s not to like? Click this link to enjoy the comprehensive back story and greebles on Flickr.

swan-02

In the meantime, at the other end of the size scale, is “Lord Cockswain’s Endangerer”. Worth blogging for the name alone, it’s a nice example of economic micro-scale building. Grantmasters is the builder and here’s the link to his Photostream.

endangerer

A Lesson in Photoshop

Lego Space Freighters

This is how you do it. The brilliantly named Tim Schwalfenberg (aka One More Brick) gives us a masterclass in Photoshop with his three micro-scale freighters heading for their warp-gates. Jump through at the link above.

Goliath

Lego Goliath Space Freighter

Lots of spacey creations today, but fear not – the cars will return tomorrow. The third and final sci-fi build of the day comes from Clayton Marchetti, who has uploaded this collaborative build to MOCpages. It’s called a Goliath Space Freighter and you can see more at the link above.

Salvage in Space

Lego Space Ship YardThis incredible photograph was found by one of our Elves on Flickr, and put simply this could be the sci-fi creation of 2013. Built as a collaboration between Si-MOCs and Ricecracker the scene consists of two spectacular spaceships either side of a 3ft high ‘space wreck’.

The ships’ function is one we’ve previously not seen explored in Lego before; the dismantling and recycling of end-of-life spacehips. Given this is such a well documented and widespread industry for sea-going vessels it’s surprising that no-one has made the leap into sci-fi with it until now.

Over to Si-MOCs to explain both the process depicted above, and the features of the year-long build:

“RS Industries deploys several scrap fleets to salvage derelict SHIPs in space. The RS HUDSON is a demolition class scrap vessel – when docked with floating wrecks, the RS HUDSON has a retractable arm which is capable cutting into hulls of SHIPs.

Cubes are cut out and sent to waiting Dumpships which transport the raw cubes to the RS UNWIN which continues to process the cubes further. Refined materials are loaded into cargo containers ready for shipping.”

The RS HUDSON and Space wreck (aka Space rock, aka ice house) are the two largest LEGO structures I have ever built, it has been almost a year long journey with Isaac (Ricecracker) who conceived of the idea of SPACE wreaking SHIPs. Through many ramen meals the idea of a pair of SHIPs came together.

The SHIP is about 180 studs long, and the wreck/rock is like 3 feet tall. The RS Hudson has a NXT (for the ‘arm’) and two powerfunctions (front conveyor belt and engine pulsing), the wreck/rock has one (for glow fluctuation)- which takes a combined 24 batteries to operate.”

To see more of this astonishing build, visit the image above on Flickr here, where you can find links to further images and video content.

Lego Spaceship Salvage

Quarian Envoy Ship

Lego Spaceship

Full of Quarians. Probably.

Jason Corlett on MOCpages recently uploaded an incredible spaceship. 4ft 2″ of incredible spaceship. Based on the Envoy Ships in Mass Effect 3, his version uses around 4,000 pieces and took 100 hours to construct. See the full gallery at his MOCpage here.

Not really cars at all…

Unlikely Flying Machine

Not a car

With MOCpages broken (again) we’ve sent the Elves a little further from their usual haunts. To Brickshelf’s ‘Space’ categories in fact. Which means that today’s post stretches our blog name a little, but hey, who doesn’t like Spacey MOCs?

The first (above) is by forrest-john, and is entitled ‘Unlikely Flying Machine’. It certainly doesn’t pay much attention to aerodynamics, but it looks cool and that’s what counts.

Our second MOC today (below) comes from figueifoto, and is the sort of Classic Space freighter that makes the whole office go ‘oooh’. Liveried in the famous blue hue of the early sets, its style pre-dates even the Blacktron/M-Tron/Futuron years. See more of both MOCs via the Brickshelf galleries – just click the links.

Also not a car

Also not a car

Boxing Clever

Lego Freighter

Inter-Planetary Removals

Earth getting a bit crowded? Fancy a change of atmosphere? Then why not move across the galaxy with Box Traveller? LEGOLIZE IT MAN put down his foreign narcotics just long enough to build this rather lovely cosmic removals van. See more on Flickr.

The 8th Passenger

Lego USCSS Notromo

From Ridley Scott’s 1979 masterpiece ‘Alien’; the USCSS Nostromo

This hulking black freighter is one of the most important spaceships in cinema history. Probably the first spacecraft that wasn’t all sleek and light inside, the Nostromo was more like a seagoing cargo ship; dirty, lived in, and not all that palatable. And it contained something that would definitely put a dent in its resale value when, after answering a distress call, the unfortunate crew discovered that there was another life-form sharing their air…

Before the franchise descended into the whole Alien Vs Predator farce it was also one of the few stories where the sequel (Aliens) was as good as the original, something only matched by The Godfather.

Anyway, the MOC: This stunning recreation of the Nostromo is the work of Mihe Stonee on MOCpages. Containing over 9,000 pieces and at over 70cm long it features complete landing gear, engine detail, lifts and communication systems. View the full gallery at the above link.

Moving Out

Lego Spaceship

Not quite a car…

This is not a car. In fact it’s so far outside our vehicular remit we wondered whether to post it. But… there’s something about that entrancing blue glow…

The beautiful picture above is the work of Pierre E Fieschi on Flickr, whose Tesseract space freighter and accompanying Battleship escort are the product of both some serious brick-based talent and a deep working knowledge of the intricacies of Photoshop. View more of his incredible works by clicking on his name above.