Pink poison

The Brick Bucket's fearless reporting takes us once again into the Iron Builder arena, home now to a peculiarly pink battle between Grant Davis and Kosmas Santosa (kosbrick). The seed part at stake is the 4x4x13 curved panel, more commonly known as the "hot air balloon segment," in any and all of its three existing colors. 

The Brick Bucket's intrepid journalism has now discovered the source of the pink variety of these pieces: they must be harvested from the abdomens of a very rare and beautiful spider deep within the jungles of Iron Builder Land. But there's a risk to be taken for beauty, as this spider is not just pink; it's deadly poisonous. Watch your step...

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The history of the world is at stake!

In 480 BC, King Xerxes of Persia sent a massive army to invade the Greek city-states. A tiny force of Greeks (the subject of the movie 300) stalled the Persian advance at the pass of Thermopylae, giving the Greek general Themistocles just enough time to launch a naval defeat of the Persians in the straits near the island of Salamis. This deterred the Persian invasion, led to the proliferation of ancient Greece, and ultimately shaped the history of the world. 

That's not what's going on in this scene by Micah Beideman (Hacim Bricks), but it could very well be something just as important. Maybe that trade ship is holding the future king of a country? In any event, there's a Greek trireme involved; that was enough to kickstart me into history mode. 

Note the nicely constructed mountainous background, and a pretty cool part use on the trireme: a flaming sticker from a Racers set holds a cheese slope on the front of the ship! 

Arrival at Fornax K7

The good folks at the ABS Builder Challenge have wasted no time cleaning the arena floor from the Season 1 Finale and getting Season 2 all set up. Mark Erickson (Mark of Falworth) is one of the four contestants in Season 2's inaugural round, and he's setting a tough precedent: a lovely, whimsical alien-planet-landing scene that seems straight out of the Pikmin games. 

The minifigures have apparently landed in a human-scaled world, where flowers are tree-sized and pebbles are boulder-sized (but only to the little plastic dudes). The seed part is in fact the red bucket element, put to use very nicely in those flowers. And the whimsically positioned stems, leaves, and tufts of grass? It all looks terrific, as does the spaceship itself, with a Classic Space design and that nice bulbous moon-lander shape. 

Cheep cheep!

It's always nice to see new builders on Flickr, and it's even nicer when they're posting MOCs as good as this one. Josephine Monterosso (jigsawjo) just showed up this month, but she's already posted probably 20 different builds ranging from mosaics to mecha. I'm only highlighting one of her builds in this post, but I highly recommend you go give her a follow and check out some more of her work!

This bird's nest must use just about every flexible brown part that's been produced - flex-tubes, bullwhips (thanks Indy Jones), and vines, as well as a few rigid parts. It has a very nice natural aesthetic and looks just like a real bird nest, complete with a couple of eggs that hopefully will soon reveal a couple of baby birds, mouths agape to receive a fresh worm or two from mama bird. While actual egg pieces technically exist (from the Angry Birds sets), I like the use of the light-blue minifig heads here, presumably as robin eggs. 

Into the jungle

This jungle temple by Jonas Wide is chock full of creative building techniques and part uses. The structure has a really nice decaying feel that blends well with the mayhem of the jungle - vines growing everywhere, monkeys scurrying about, birds chirping loudly... it reminds me of a quote from the author Orson Scott Card: "The natural world is beautiful, and it is beautiful again when it reclaims the ruins of humans who are gone." 

Something that works really well here is the blend of different shades of green - there's the olive-green grass, dark green of the vines, and medium shades used for the trees. It offers a nice contrast and adds that natural touch to the build. Also noteworthy are the microfigure "statues" set a half-stud into the walls of the temple, and the incredible multi-layered, intricate construction of that tree nudged up against the ruins. (I'm also a fan of that spindlier tree on the other side of the build, but I don't know what the pieces used for the leaves are!)