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.
This spectacular replica of the Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) Nimitz-Class aircraft carrier was discovered on Flickr today. It’s been built by Jon and Catherine Stead and it’s… well, bloody massive!
The real Theodore Roosevelt was launched in 1984, measuring over 1,000ft long and weighing over 100,000 tons. The ship first saw operational duty in 1991’s ‘Operation Desert Storm’ during the first Gulf War, the same year as today’s second US Navy-themed post ended its active service.
The LTV A-7E Corsair II first entered service during the Vietnam War in the late 1960s, flying until it was retired in 1991. Over 1,500 Corsair II aircraft were manufactured between 1965 and 1984, with 98 lost during the Vietnam War.
The neat carrier-based A-7E Corsair II pictured below has been constructed by Flickr’s Dornbi and there’s more to see of his recreation at the link above.
The Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) carrier is currently in operation off the Yemen coast as part of a weapons interception programme. You can read more about the people who are being affected by the ongoing Yemen Crisis by visiting the Red Cross Yemen Crisis page here.
We don’t often blog ships here at The Lego Car Blog, but when we do they’re big. This astonishing polar transport ship is the work of TLCB favourite Konajra, whose latest model has been commissioned by Red Box Energy.
Two of these heavy module ice-breakers are currently under construction for the company, and when complete they’ll be the widest Polar Class vessels in the world, capable of transporting 20,000 tons each.
Konajra’s Lego version is no less impressive; the display is almost a meter wide itself and 1.7 meters long. You can see all of the images on Flickr – click here to make the voyage.
We don’t just do cars here at The Lego Car Blog. See, here’s a boat! You can see more of Konajra’s beautifully detailed Serco Marine SD tug boat by clicking here.
This astonishing ship comes from Flickr’s Konajra, who appeared here last week with this, and who has now reconstructed one of the world’s most iconic vessels in Lego form. It is of course, the Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior.
This is Greenpeace’s third Rainbow Warrior ship and the first to be purpose-built for the charity. As you would expect (although certainly not the case with the ship’s predecessors), Rainbow Warrior III is one of the greenest ships afloat – and not just in colour. Launched in 2011 the ship mostly functions as a sailing yacht, with additional hybrid propulsion used when necessary. It dumps no waste water into the ocean and all components have been sustainably sourced where possible. Sounds like a good approach to building any ship to us.
Konajra’s Lego replica of the 190ft Rainbow Warrior III is actually mini-figure scale, which makes it simply enormous. Every conceivable detail has been finely recreated in Danish plastic and Konajra has uploaded a wealth of photography to his Flickr photostream to support the build – click here to visit the ship’s Flickr gallery.
Finally, whilst we don’t always agree with Greenpeace, if you’d like to check out what they do and why they need the Rainbow Warrior you can click here to visit their website.
