Today’s post is not a car. Or even a boat. Or an aircraft. In fact we’re not really sure what it is, but we know we like it. The delightfully strange Dwalin Forkbeard is behind this floating weirdness and you can see more at his wilfully odd photostream here.
Micro-scale creations are usually pretty, well… micro. Not this one though. Measuring a massive 1.5 meters long, built from around 25,000 LEGO bricks, and weighing 23KGs, Edwin Kornstanje’s 1:200 replica of Holland America Line’s Nieuw Statendam cruise ship is one of the largest fan-built models we’ve ever featured.
Decks feature full interiors, with bars, restaurants, lounge rooms, a spa, a casino, and two swimming pools, all of which have been recreated beautifully in miniature. The real ship is currently being constructed in Italy and is due to launch in 2018, but Edwin’s magnificent replica is ready to sail now. Book your ticket to see all of the incredible details at Flickr or Eurobricks, and you can read more about the builder in Series 1 of our Master MOCers interviews by clicking here.
The Flying Dutchman is a ship that has been condemned to wander the oceans for all eternity. It’s origins lie centuries ago and it has been celebrated in plays, films and operas. Now it has been created in Lego bricks too.
This particular version has been built by W. Navarre on Flickr. The hull looks just as worn and battered as wooden ship should look like after years at sea. It also features a nice balcony for the captain at the stern. Click the link in the text to see the ragged, brick-built sails in more detail and hope this never crosses your bows.
Being a car blog, we generally expect our Vipers to be made by Dodge, rather than a fictitious manufacturer from Earth’s colonies in outer space. Then again, years of blogging sci-fi builds has left us with as much understanding of the genre as the Elves have of their long-term, index-linked pensions superannuation, so we have an excuse.
This particular Colonial Viper Mk II has been built by Chris Maddison for this year’s SHIPtember festival. The 104 stud long SHIP is in stark contrast to the mighty battlecruisers and huge cargo carriers that people usually build. Instead it’s a single seat, lightweight space-fighter (though it does weigh 23lbs!). Click this link to see the album on Flickr, including the removable cockpit and greebled engines.
It’s Shiptember, one of the online Lego Community’s many tenuously-titled bandwagons, and we’re jumping aboard! This gorgeous build is a 3ft long mini-figure scale replica of the 1776 ten-gun privateer ‘Oliver Cromwell’. It’s been built by redmondej of Flickr aka Fred Miracle of MOCpages, and there lots more to see at his photostream and MOCpage. There’s may be a chance that we’ve misunderstood ‘Shiptember’…
…with the man your man could smell like. It’s a bloody big boat too, as this incredible sailing ship by Flickr’s Know Your Pieces is at least three times bigger than you think it’s going to be. Just like your Mom. There’s more to see on Flickr – click the link above to cast off.
You don’t need ten thousand bricks to appear on The Lego Car Blog. Around one hundred is plenty, as proven by Flickr’s Johnni with the lovely 1946 Alfa Romeo 6C Freccia d’ora pictured above, and Robert4168 with his superbly inventive micro-scale ‘Buccaneer’s Dread’ pirate ship. See more of each via the links.
“Not a Car” is The Lego Car Blog’s default title for the ‘planes, trains, boats, spaceships and other stuff that we occasionally feature here which is not a car (or truck, or lorry, or other motorised thing with wheels). JPascal Taipei has created this tug boat, only it’s not a tug boat, it’s sort of a spaceship. Only it floats in the air, so it’s an airship but it doesn’t have a gas bag, so it’s not an airship. You begin to see why sci-fi causes chaos and confusion in the TLCB editorial suite. Regardless, we think that it’s rather nicely designed and we like the clockwork winch play feature. You can see more of it and its Lego siblings from the strange world of Ian McQue by following this link to JPascal’s Photostream.
This lovely Town-style car ferry was discovered by one of our Elves on Flickr. It’s an unusual build for TLCB, but we like cars and the most interesting places to drive them are often on the other side of some water. It’s also a thoroughly excellent build, looking realistic, yet sturdy and playable too – exactly what a Lego Town model should be. We reckon it’s good enough to be an official LEGO City set.
You can see more photos, including the interior details, courtesy of Flickr’s Luis Baixinho – click the link to climb aboard.
We continue today’s wintery theme with a truly astounding mini-figure replica of the RMS Titanic by Certified LEGO Professional Ryan McNaught. Built from 120,000 LEGO pieces this incredible model took over 250 hours to build and depicts the moment on that fateful night in April of 1912 – a few hours after an unseen iceberg ripped a gaping hole in the ship’s hull – when the cruise liner split into two.
There’s more to see of Ryan’s spectacular build, including photographs of the ship’s interior and the carnage within, at the link above.
Previous bloggee Vince Toulouse completely baffles TLCB writing team even when he’s making a car, so this gloriously whimsical Cruise Airship is so far outside of our comfort zone all we can do is post a link to something silly.
Despite our vernacular incompetence when it comes to anything without wheels (and, if we’re honest, most things with wheels too), we can say with confidence that Vince’s latest build is absolutely worth visiting – we could peruse this ship’s gorgeous detailing for hours. And so we probably will. See you at Vince’s amazing photostream.
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”.
The Lego Car Blog is often a loud and noisy place to work in, largely thanks to our Elfish workforce. It was therefore with some trepidation that we exited the executive express lift this morning and found the office in total, complete, peaceful silence. Rounding the corner of the reception area, we came across the sight of 3,284 Elves staring up in rapture at a strange glowing object, hovering above them. What was this strange apparition?
It turned out to be Alysa Kirkpatrick’s wonderfully original contribution to this year’s SHIPtember building month. Coming in at over 100 studs length in all direction, weighing over 17 pounds and comprised of over 20,000 parts, this has to be a SHIP in anybody’s book. Click this link to see Alysa’s WIP photos, which give an even better idea of the impressive scale of this build.
The calm in our office didn’t last for long and soon scuffles broke out over who had found the model and how many Smarties bonus such a giant creation was worth. Mr. Airhorn soon dispatched our fractious workers back into the internet, questing for more SHIPs for our SHIPtember summary, which we hope to publish soon.
Master MOCer VFracingteam returns to The Lego Car Blog today with a truly spectacular pair of tug boats. Each is a near-perfect replica of a real ship in the Iskes fleet, and they are unbelievably well detailed. You can see more photos, including some superb close-ups, on Flickr at the link above.
This incredible recreation of a 1960s tug boat, the ‘Smit Steenbank’, comes from nautical extraordinaire Konajra. Featuring some of the best detailing that you will ever see in Lego form and measuring 80cm long, Konajra’s latest ship shows just how far Lego can be taken as a modelling medium. We highly recommend visiting Konajra’s Flickr account to see all of the spectacular images – click the link to join us in astonishement.
