Spaceship Inspirations

In the ever-growing genre of spaceships, there are many different avenues that one can take.  Lego builder Random Vector from Flickr has some excellent examples of such a theme, invoking an unorthodox use of parts and unique construction.  Just take a look at some of these amazing MOCs!

The Kel Corona space station is a brilliant example of taking an avenue not often chosen.  From the shaping of the bricks to the superb photography, this build sure is an eye-catcher.  The cockpit on the front of the ship also is a separate module that is a self-sufficient vehicle.  Amazing craftsmanship can be further seen in the way that the circular rocket assembly is not only built, but also lit.

The Void Raven is another model that demonstrates a memorable form for a ship.  Its wide array of weaponry and stealth-looking angles make it an aggressive ship that would definitely be a force to be reckoned with.  Having gotten to see this particular model at BrickFair Virginia, I have a profound appreciation for all the engineering and parts usage that went into this model.

"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.

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. 

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. 

Back to the future

I've got a handful of Popular Science magazines from the 1950s, and it's both fascinating and hilarious to look back on what bygone generations predicted the future would be like. These hovercars by timhenderson73 look just like something out of those magazine pages, right between the sexist advertisements and Cold War hysteria:

Tim got some great shaping on these and I love the bubble cockpits and how they accent the sleek, studless surface. The use of a few textured grilles adds the perfect level of contrast.

The builder has a few more hovercars over on Flickr, so be a good fellow and take a look.

Prehistoric speeders

The amalgamation of futuristic technology with prehistoric settings and creatures has always produced entertaining results - think Jurassic Park. Keith Goldman's latest brick-built scene is another beautiful example: a rather unfortunate speeder-bike pilot is ambushed by a Dilophosaurus while his comrade makes a high-speed getaway. 

While the repetition of pieces and techniques (such as all those green Exo-Force spikes!) gives a sense of the vast scale of the prehistoric forest, there are plenty of small details that stand out too. The weaving together of several yellow-orange tooth plates produces a fantastic prehistoric plant design; I love the ammonite printed plate on the front of the lead speeder, and as Christopher Hoffman pointed out on Flickr, the fit between the ski and the ingot element on the underside is "goddamn beautiful." I love this build. 

Well-rounded

legoalbert takes us simultaneously forwards and backwards with this throwback to 2013, the year this futuristic sci-fi tanker truck was constructed - although it's only now been posted. Well, the shaping on this build is awesome. Part usage is minimal - pretty basic large pieces and a simple construction and color scheme - but it gets the job done beautifully, one of those MOCs that doesn't quite seem like LEGO. A few exposed studs and barely-visible ribbing under the tank add some lovely contrasting texture. 

One question though: what's that gunner doing? What kind of future war is this truck fueling? Only time will tell, although I'd love to see legoalbert revisit this concept in a later build.

Suit up

Happy 2017 everyone! For my first post of the year I've selected a glorious mech-suit MOC from recurring bloggee nobu_tary. Isn't she a beauty?

I love everything about this build, from the purposely exposed studs for greebling purposes, to the 1x2 grilles used to add texture to the thighs, to the vibrant yellow-on-gray color contrast, to that big-ass gun. Note the interesting part usages such as a droid torso and pistol in the hand, and the new Nexo Knights battle suit element in the cockpit. 

What's that? Cockpit? Oh yeah, this thing fits a minifig too:

Fantastic work! And for those of you who missed it at the end of 2016, check out nobu_tary's tribute to the new year with his excellent Year of the Rooster build. 

Ending NoVVember with a throwback

Remember M-Tron? I don't, considering I was born seven years after the theme's last set came out. But the space theme holds a place in the heart of many builders due to its campy aesthetic and red/black/trans-lime color scheme. 

Our last NoVVember post this year is an M-Tron inspired Viper from Genghis Don: 

The dark red is an interesting departure from the bright red of the official sets, but the trans-lime touches leave you with no doubt this is M-Tron. I really like the engine technique and the multiple fins/flaps. 

You... shall not... PASS!

NoVVember continues and the Vic Vipers keep coming. Here's a small and simple, yet very creative, design from Shamisenfred, a builder whom I hadn't heard of before but turns out to have some excellent sci-fi builds in his photostream. It looks so alien and otherwordly, and I love that eye-catching gold stripe down the front. 

Here are the specs, according to the builder:

Equipped with two heavy acid plasma throwers, BALROGs are low flying war machines with limited space capability. They are very efficient against infantry and vehicles depending on their armor as the glowing pink plasma they shoot burn through flesh and metal.

Seriously though, if you're a n00b like me and didn't know about Shamisenfred, go check out his photostream for some awesome alien-spaceship goodness. 

Guard those shins

Yep, those are CCBS shinguards (from the Star Wars buildable figures, I think) on this Vic Viper by F@bz. Don't they look fabulous?

This is a really unusual color scheme and F@bz pulled it off beautifully. I'm in love with that trans-lime windscreen, the design of the front prongs, and all those lovely greebles around the engines and guns. Everywhere you look there are innovative part uses and techniques - for example, I love the way the tailfin uses some SNOT to fit right into the slope of the rear canopy; the choice of dark gray "log bricks" as exhaust ports; the lime-and-blue "racing stripe" on one of the prongs... Some well-chosen stickers from official sets complete the model. A fantastic build and one of my personal favorite NoVVember builds I've seen! 

What is this, Ma.K for ants?

October is Ma.Ktober, a theme month based on Maschinen Krieger or Ma.K, a specific strain of sci-fi that focuses mainly on powered suits with smooth shapes. However, Ma.K aircraft and autonomous craft are thankfully all regularly built, as well as more creative takes on the theme like what I've found for our readers today.

Brought to you by D-Town Cracka / Andy is this deceptive toy robot. The presence of Lego's Belville dolls, opposed to standard minifigs, may make it difficult to quickly identify the building scale for those unaccustomed to the dolls. Closer inspection, however, will probably give you a bit of a shock: this killer biped, hilariously advertised as a toy, is not much taller than a minifig itself! Careful use of stickers has helped furnish this bot with a level of detail normally found only on far larger MOCs. As for the pieces it's built from, see if you can spot:

• Pirate hook
• Hero Factory figure arms
• Ski poles
• Nexo Knights arm pieces
• Minifigure arm

I haven't posted in a long time, but this tiny treat was too good to pass up. Bravo, Andy.

An electric angel

Oh hey, Frog is blogging a thing again.

I might've blogged a thing or two by Drazelic before. But in case I didn't, he is a great sci-fi builder who focuses on Tabletop-sized robots, mechs and drones.

This time he brings us a slightly angelic-looking Robot, menacingly floating in the air, wielding a neat, little axe, and an even more menacing rifle.

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!

All of these MOCs are sort of related...

- They're all futuristic 
- All of them use fantastic angle techniques and wedge plates
- I found all of them in my co-blogger Frog's Flickr faves
- What more could you ask for, really?
- Ok, just enjoy the builds...

"Box Truck" by [Carter]:

"Erik's APC" by Dryvvall:

"Robodog" by Gamabomb:

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. 

Spaceport on the dunes

We started off the month in a Castle mood and now we're finishing on a Space streak. This microscale space scene from Karf Oohlu gives off a great 50s/60s sci-fi vibe and I love the texture and color transition from the sand dunes to the sleek metal. 

Swooooooooooooooooooooooooosh

So, first of all, a great apology for not being very active on this blog,or Flickr in general. I'll try to blog more often from now on.

There are a lot of great Lego spaceships out there, but not a lot of them stand out. But This gorgeous Starfighter by Adrian Florea Is simply genius. The smooth transitions of the Dark Bluish Grey slopes and the amazing Stickerwork create a somewhat non-lego-aestetic, which is usually really hard to achieve which such simple shapes.

Apogee

apogee. [AP-uh-jee]. noun. the point in the orbit of a heavenly body, especially the moon, or of a man-made satellite at which it is farthest from the earth.

Or, the name of this awesome spaceship by F@bz:

I have no idea what pieces are used for the ridged section of hull, but I do know I love this ship's color scheme (the dash of red is great) and the generous amount of greebles. There are so many nice textures and designs on this thing.

Edit - Flickr user billyburg says those ridged pieces are battery packs (I assume from trains?), and adds that the background editing in this photo is quite nice - to which I agree.