Classy automobile

It's not often that the LEGO building community sees a larger scale highly detailed car, but when one "rolls" around, people definitely take notice.  LEGO artist Bricksonwheels' beautiful rendition of this 1935 Duesenberg SJ Dual Cowl Phaeton certainly begs a double take, not only for the supreme detailing throughout, but also of the flashy chrome decorations.  I really applaud the work here; the scaling is just perfect.

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. 

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. 

Seasprite

Contrary to what you might have been expecting - perhaps some delicate aquatic creature, or a type of magical fairy - the Seasprite is actually a big hunk of metal. Drat. 

As usual, Ralph Savelsberg (Mad physicist) has knocked it out of the park with this build. According to Ralph, the UH-2A Seasprite was used by the US Navy as a utility helicopter and a plane-guard helicopter for aircraft carriers. I'm a big fan of the bright contrast in colors (that orange is one of my favorite colors!), as well as the techniques used to create tapering slopes and the greebles used in areas like the landing gear. 

It looks like Ralph also managed to include a sliding door and retracting landing gear, which adds a nice bit of functionality to this excellent display model. 

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.

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! 

Micro monsters

LEGO 7 has put together two expertly built microscale monster trucks, in a race to the finish on a dusty desert track. 

The bush element used as a dust plume is great, but my favorite detail is how the wheels are connected - the hubs aren't specifically molded wheel pieces, but just 1x1 cylinders. This allows them to be attached to a pair of handlebar elements, giving the splayed-out look of heavy-duty suspension as these monsters bounce across the rough terrain. Fantastic microscale building!

Cars and trucks and things that go*

*Just trucks this time

We're constantly praising microscale builders here because of the difficulty of creating an appealing, recognizable model from just a handful of pieces. The latest micro masterpieces I've found are these trucks by Robert Heim (Robiwan_Kenobi). Check out some of the part uses and, more interestingly, the ways these builds fit together. There are some great techniques used to achieve the necessary angles:

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:

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.

Moon cheese miners

Anyone remember that Wallace and Gromit episode where they go to the moon and find out it's made of cheese? 

Maybe that's what inspired Galaktek to build this model of some intrepid space miners carving up the cheddary landscape:

They came prepared - they have a crane...

...a barge...

...and even some sort of rat alien thing...

I really love this MOC, and I haven't been building for a couple weeks but this inspired me to break out the bricks again. So kudos to Galaktek for that. 

You can check out even more images in the Flickr album!

Woo-hoo! Mario win!

I only recently got a Wii U and I've really been enjoying Mario Kart 8. This little model of one of the trademark karts, by Cecilie Fritzvold (cecilihf), is accurate to the game and reflects all its signature charm. The photo-editing is top notch as well, but I think my favorite little detail is the banana peel constructed from three whole banana pieces. Banana-ception?

UPDATE (4/23/16): Here's another Mario Kart MOC from the same builder, this time it's Yoshi on a bike!

The Yoshi design is very similar to cecilihf's green Yoshi that we blogged a few months ago. Oh and check out that green shell - good stuff!

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. 

Pretty in pink

 

That's actually magenta, but either way this hoverbike by nobu_tary is a delight to look at. The colors pop but aren't overstated and the shape is fantastic-the subtle angle the back thrusters are set to is perfect. Lastly, lest you miss it, I'll point out the use of parts from the Cars line in the undercarriage. Brilliant.

13-piece plane

When you're building with only a tiny handful of parts, every piece counts. As far as I can tell, this Fokker D VIII plane by Karf Oohlu uses only 13 pieces, 14 if you count the 6x6 tile base. But even at this scale the model is still easily recognizable, and is full of details thanks to the minifig guns, 1x1 cylinder with "wings," and Batarang (!).