"There were a lot of explosions for two people blending in"

Rogue One is the best Star Wars movie of all time,* and one of the best scenes in the film is the battle on the planet Jedha. A mythical city home to ancient secrets of the Jedi and the Force comes under assault from Imperials and rebel insurgents alike, and amidst all the new characters and vehicles, the tried-and-true AT-ST still finds a place in the fight. I'm a fan of the official Jedha AT-ST set, but this midi-scale version by the Rogue Bantha himself, Tim Goddard, is equally fantastic. The use of myriad small elements that comprise the guns, joints, and armor show Tim's renowned skill for sci-fi building. 

*You heard what I said.

Cute characters from a galaxy far, far away

A few Star Wars character builds have sprung up in my Flickr feed over the past few days, so I decided to compile them all in one post. 

The first is this Admiral Ackbar figure by Djokson, whose signature CCBS-pieces style lends itself to some fantastic part usage: 

The next two figures are both by Miro Dudas (Miro78), and both feature Princess Leia. First, here's Leia's disguise as the bounty hunter "Boushh" from Return of the Jedi: 

There's some excellent part use on this figure too, notably the "letter E" tiles on the mask, Technic pins to form the staff, and various ball joints, binoculars, and the like for greebles. The textured 1x2 bricks work great to provide texture to the pants. 

Also featuring this pants technique is Leia in her Hoth outfit from Empire Strikes Back: 

The rounded, smooth elements and lack of facial features give this figure a charming, inquisitive demeanor, almost non-LEGO. Character builds are always stunning when pulled off correctly, and these three are certainly well done. 

Star Wars goes micro

Cole Blaq, usually known for his creative abstract builds, has taken his building skills to the Star Wars universe to recreate the StarScavenger and the Eclipse from Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures. I'm really impressed by how nicely they turned out at this scale - they may be even better than the minifig-scale official sets!

Luggabeast

Wow, sorry for the lack of posts this month! I've been surprisingly busy for summer break, but hopefully soon we'll be blogging more regularly. I was talking to Frog and Aaron today about some potential new ideas, and we're also going to be bringing another pretty well-known blogger on board pretty soon...

...but enough about that; you came here for the MOCs. And Robert Lundmark has provided today's fare - an excellent model from a galaxy far far away, specifically from The Force Awakens. Behold Teedo astride his Luggabeast:

This is on a larger scale than the official-model Luggabeast from a recent set, and is therefore much more detailed.

If you love highly detailed and accurate Star Wars builds, there's much more where that came from, so follow the link to Robert's photostream for more amazing builds from across the galaxy...

Marvelous minifig hands

Ah, the minifig hand. Since the dawn of time this seemingly insignificant  part of the LEGO person's anatomy has been used for almost anything a builder could think of. Today we have two MOCs which I was going to blog individually but then realized that both these builds contain a smart use of the humble minifig hand. So here we go: 

First up is this microscale Hoth scene from Jeremy Williams (Bricking It). This was built a couple months ago for NEW ELEMENTARY but I missed it then, so here it is. Check out all the great part usages at this tiny scale, including a metal ingot, roller skate, and of course those tiny hands...

(Sidenote: we've chosen this build as our June 2016 cover photo over on Twitter! Don't forget to follow us, and all that!)

Our second MOC is also from a licensed theme, but from the more magical side of things - a Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets vignette built by Markus Rollbühler ('rolli). Not only are some sand green hands put to good use on the basilisk, but there are also some arms (and skeleton arms) in there. Plus that crow bar tongue. 

Beware of the Draygon

One of my favorite sci-fi builders, Tromas combines unorthodox, creative vehicle designs with a great cast of minifigures, as well as detailed descriptions and backstories. His latest is a prototype YB-81 "Draygon" Bomber from the Incom Corporation, the Star Wars manufacturer responsible for (among other things) the X-wing and the Snowspeeder. Although Tromas's build isn't a real Star Wars ship, it certainly seems like it could be one. 

We recommend that you check out more images (including underside and interior shots and some hints at the construction methods) in the Flickr album, and there's also a video - because this bomber lives up to its name! Also, take a look at that minifig: while not the main focus of the model, it really completes the look, combining some rare parts into an interesting and fitting character. 

Out-of-this world editing

There are so many things to like about the subject of this post. The build itself is by _Tiler - a nice Eta-2 Actis Jedi Interceptor. However, the idea for the build comes from Sydag, who has built an entire series of Eta-2s in this style. He also seems to have some serious photo-editing chops, because the thing that really sets this MOC apart is how it looks on the Star Wars background:

I do believe that's Coruscant down there, and I like the subtle color similarity between the planet and the astromech dome. The fitting together of slope bricks in the wings of the starfighter is also noteworthy. A great build and presentation, and a great partnership between two talented builders!

Brick Bucket Review: 75074 Snowspeeder [Microfighters]

5/5

Appearance - 3/5 
Construction - 4/5 
Playability - 4/5 
Pieces - 5/5 
Minifigs/accessories - 5/5 
Value for money - 5/5

75074 Snowspeeder is part of the second wave of Star Wars Microfighters sets, released in January 2015. It retails for £8.99 / $9.99 / 9.99€ with 97 pieces, yielding a prices per piece of 10.3 cents. 



Verdict: The minifig is excellent, and for some people it may be the only reason to buy this set! I have my issues with the design of the Snowspeeder, but based on other reviews I've read, I don't think those complaints are likely to apply to other people. If you want a fun, swooshable, inexpensive set, this is for you. And if you're a MOCer, it's an excellent parts pack!

This was an impulse buy, and I was surprised to find out the set has been available for over a year already! I wasn't really interested in Microfighters, but this set might have changed my mind entirely. Read on to find out more...

Crush them! Make them suffer!

"Army or not, you must realize... you are doomed!"

The easy part of this was deciding to blog umamen's General Grievous figure - it's just so good! The hard part was deciding which Grievous quote to use as the title of this post...

"Your lightsabers will make a fine addition to my collection."

Snowspeeder: Evolved

LEGO fans love Star Wars (but then, who doesn't?), and FBTB is running yet another building contest from a galaxy far, far away. The challenge is called "Star Wars Evolved" and participants have to build an updated version of a Star Wars vehicle. 

This entry from Legopard really caught my eye because of how unusual the design is. It took me a minute to realize the Snowspeeder influence, but after I figured it out, I totally see it. The little details like orange-and-white color scheme, big silver guns, and harpoon shooters keep it recognizable despite the shape. 

Elite Imperial speeder bike

This little Star Wars-inspired speeder by Uspez has been sitting in my "to blog" folder for a while now. I keep getting drawn back to it, and every time, I notice something new. Check out the HERO FACTORY jumper part used on the hood, and the way those chrome pipes are nicely tucked into the speeder's body. 

(Wow, we've really been starting off the new year going a bit heavy on the sci-fi!)

Star Wars AND Bionicle? Oh my!

So, earlier this year LEGO released a series of big-build-Star Wars figures, which turned out rather disappointing in my eyes.

Now BZPower has started a contest to recreate Star Wars characters mostly using Bionicle elements. And boy, the results are outstanding.

First of all, Sparks brings us an amazing recreation of Ahsoka Tano from TCW, making some sweet use of the new pieces introduced in the official sets.

Then there is thisisnothingatall, who brings us not only a Battle Droid, but also a STAP for it to fly on. I especially like the really greebly limbs, and the upper part of the STAP.

Another iconic droid was build by Onuku, who brings us a small, but not less brilliant recreation of R2-D2. This MOC has NPU all around, I especially love the use of rubber bands.

We even get to see a moc from the new Star Wars Episode VII. Tremah brings us a beautiful recreation of Kylo Ren. The shape of the helmet fits perfectly, and the overall shape looks fitting.

Back to the galaxy far, far away

The Brothers Brick is running a "Pimp Rey's Speeder" contest and some of the entries so far have been awesome. My favorite is probably this Back to the Future-ized version by David Hensel (Legonardo Davidy):

"It's a known fact that speeders go faster when you can time travel!"

Burnt sienna

_Tiler uses the relatively new shade of dark orange to great effect in this Star Wars landspeeder model. It pairs quite well with the brown and old dark gray. But color isn't the only interesting thing - the curves and angles of this build flow seamlessly together despite their complexity. This is a very nicely made replica.

Wow, I've kind of been missing out on posting for a good bit of time now, and things been just as busy for Aaron, Frog, and Thomas as far as I can tell. We'll try to get some more posts up soon; a few really great MOCs have been uploaded to Flickr recently that deserve to be featured here, I just haven't had the time. I'd also like to take a look at the recently-revealed Doctor Who set, but we'll see what happens. Stick around :)

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!). 

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. 

Brick Bucket Review: 75099 Rey's Speeder

3/5

Appearance - 2/5
Construction - 3/5
Pieces - 3/5
Playability - 2/5
Minifigs/accessories - 5/5
Value for money - 4/5

75099 Rey's Speeder is one of the new Star Wars sets for late fall 2015. It's the smallest of the sets based on The Force Awakens (with the exception of battlepacks). There are 193 pieces in this $19.99/25.99€ set, resulting in a CPP of 10.36 cents/piece. 



Verdict: A pretty average Star Wars set. Some nice pieces (especially all that dark red), and great minifigs. Good for anyone excited about The Force Awakens!

Editor's Note: Today Dead Frog presents a review of a set so new, we don't even know all the information about it! Rey's Speeder is one of the Star Wars sets from The Force Awakens, and technically we aren't even supposed to have pictures of these sets yet... but thanks to "a little toy store somewhere in Germany," Frog has picked up a copy to review here. So now, without further ado, The Brick Bucket is proud to present (as far as we know) the internet's first-ever review of this brand new LEGO Star Wars set!   -Tate


Read the review after the jump!

The Force Awakens set images and analysis!

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Scrolling through my Flickr feed this morning I was presented with something really really cool: images of the new Star Wars sets from The Force Awakens, posted by THE BRICK TIME! After seeing these images, I can say I'm extremely excited for these sets to come out - even more so then before. In this post I'm going to do a little preview/analysis for each set saying what looks good and bad about the design, pointing out new parts and techniques, and making price estimates. 

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... 

Boba Fett

I've been on a Star Wars kick lately, but even without that, this Boba Fett figure by nobu_tary absolutely deserved a post. Look at how well it fits together! Every piece has a purpose and blends seamlessly into the MOC, giving it a very polished, almost non-LEGO appearance. I really can't stress enough how good this build is. 

I also thought the dark red fire-hats on the jetpack were a pretty nice part choice: 

Lime green on patrol

For a refreshing take on the AT-RT walker from the Star Wars universe, the talented Brick Productions build this mini version using lime green instead of just the traditional grey. 

I like the usage of minifig arms on the feet, the complicated building in the joints, and those two lime green spikes filling in the gaps on the front.