Monday morning mecha

So you're back at the office, or maybe if you're the age of The Brick Bucket's staff, at school. Back to work. You're just hoping you can make it to next Friday. What could improve your dreary Monday morning? 

How about some delicious LEGO mecha to brighten your day?

First up is Deltassius's "Mowhawk" Fighter-Interceptor Frame:

Next, looking lovely in lavender, we have this LAVTRON Support Mech from Chris Perron (thebrickbin): 

Rounding out our trio is Devid VII's "FateHeart Rz-02a Astraea": 

Racing X-wing

Alexander Safarik (Malydilnar) has built a pretty sweet X-wing model that seems to put a sleeker, faster spin on the original design. The result looks almost a racecar design - erm, a race-starfighter. (?)

One of the most interesting things I noticed was the use of a Speed Champions windscreen for the cockpit canopy (maybe that's why I'm getting the "racing" vibe from this build!). 

Come closer to the light...

So, it's been some time since I last blogged something, but here I go again.

As most of you know, I am a huge fan of well built and thought out BioMOCs. Now Flickr user thisisnothingatall brings us this slightly creepy, disturbing creature. I especially like the anglerfish-esque lamp, probably used to lure prey. All in all a dark, but weirdly beautiful beast.

The faceless mecha

Wow, school started recently and between homework and marching band I've scarcely even had time to take a look at my Flickr feed, let alone write a blog post. But I've got a minute now to highlight nobu_tary's fantastic latest build, a streamlined mecha titled "KUSAGAME." 

The faceless, robotic feel is compounded by the plain gray color, though bits of maroon, white, and yellow (hey, it's the Cadets Drum Corps!) keep it interesting. The shaping, as usual, is also top-notch. 

P.S. With this post, nobu_tary has just tied Siercon and Coral for the title of The Brick Bucket's Most Blogged Builder so far in 2015. So far. 

P.P.S. If the admin/judges of the ABS Builder Challenge are reading this, I will get back to you. Hopefully soon. :P

This in-depth review of terrible LEGO clone brands is the funniest thing you'll read this week

UK AFOL Anthony Tomkins has been hard at work on his "Communist LEGO" review series, which has undergone a massive update this year with 50 new reviews. The lengthy PDF file compiles reviews of dozens of LEGO look-alike sets - "clone brands" - and comments on their quality and shameless ripping-off of LEGO. Well, actually it mostly just rants about how terrible they all are. The document is exceedingly well-researched and nicely put together, and it also made me laugh out loud several times.

My favorite review I've read so far is the one for the BLOCK Tech Armed Forces set, which managed to a) feature nonsensical design choices, b) include unreadably tiny instructions, and c) include models that looked nothing like what was shown on the box art:

"Communist LEGO" is absolutely worth a read, if only so you can laugh (and/or become enraged) at the mis-molds, mind-bogglingly incompetent design, weird zombified minifigures, blatant copyright infringment, and every other cheap tactic practiced by these clone brands. 

Click here to view the PDF

(Via Brickset)

A slick spacetruck

Robert Heim just posted an excellent spaceship. While not quite long enough for SHIPtember, it has some very sleek lines. It's modeled after a movie called Space Truckers, which has cool retro spaceship designs and some really, really weird Google results. (I'm serious, I don't know why I looked at that pig.) Anyways. Also, Robert's really good at repeating parts to make a certain texture, such as the flaps on the cargo containers, the wedge plates on the sides of the hood, or the, um, teeth (?) in the intakes. Also Robert seems to really like curvy builds. So do I.

I'm new here, by the way... hi!

Also that truck has a really cool detail over the windshield. Go look again, you probably missed it.

Small-scale Star Wars

Two recently posted Star Wars builds stood out to because of their small size, which in no way inhibited the models from both looking good and being instantly recognizable. "Economy of bricks" - using a small amount of parts to create a polished small-scale MOC - is a great skill for builders to have. 

First up is this microscale version of Poe's X-wing from The Force Awakens, built by Cecilie Fritzvold (cecilihf): 

Pirate hook-hands and screwdriver elements are used very nicely here. 

The second build is this little R2-D2 model by umamen: 

If you want to build this yourself, umamen was kind enough to put up instructions for his model here. 

Smokin' Joe Ravan

Hammerstein NWC has been building a series of Space Pirates minifigures. My favorite member of the crew has to be Smokin' Joe Ravan, the ship's lookout.

I really like how the builder has created figures that use some minifig parts, but aren't entirely minifigs - they have a larger scale that allows for more detail. Check out the album linked above to see the rest (including a very interesting first mate). 

The baaaa-d seed

simply bricking it brings us this fairly accurate rendering of insanity in his latest build. Insane is the variety of parts used and the contrast between their original intent and application here, such as a Minecraft skeleton head used as the lamb's lower face, masonry lion brick used as a nose, and certain parts forming the voluminous hair that I don't even recognize. Insane is the lady herself, with her craving for extra-rare mutton and eyes rolled up. Completing the trifecta of insanity is a bosom that seems a little too exposed for polite Victorian society...

Superb large-scale animals by AnActionfigure

Although quite new to Flickr's LEGO Community, AnActionfigure has definitely proved competent as a builder - actually, considerably more than competent. Granted, every MOC in their stream so far is some sort of large-scale forest animal, but that's not a bad category to limit oneself to! Here are some of my favorites so far:

Stay tuned to AnActionfigure's photostream - I presume many more of these fantastic animal builds are on the way!

Select your racer

V-Galactic Racing is the most advanced and awesome racing game to day. Jump in your ship and race on tracks all around the galaxy and become the No. 1!

You start out with the Crimson Hornet 3000 but there's so much more waiting for you - just unlock the rides and tracks!*

I love this concept from Markus Rollbuhler ('rolli) - not only the builds, but the presentation as well. These two expertly constructed spacecraft are presented as racers in a made-up video game! That is one nice-looking select menu. The Photoshop wizardry is strong with this one... 

(via BrickNerd)