BrickWorld 2011 Round-Up

Name of Model: BrickWorld

Found at: http://www.brickworld.us/

Details: BrickWorld 2011 has come and gone. Here's a round-up of some photos: Bill Ward's recap part 1 Bill Ward's recap part 2 Bill Ward's flickr photo roundup When lost in.....'s flickr photos marc_buehler's flickr photos martiger's flickr photos Joe Meno's flickr photos the rest of Joe Meno's flickr photos sidersdd's flickr photos Bisonfuehrer's flickr photos Alex Eylar's photos on MOCpages BrickWorld pool on flickr

LEGO Sets Designed by Mark Stafford for the 2010 line

Name of Model: 2010

Created by: Mark Stafford

Found at: http://www.mocpages.com/moc.php/245506

Details: LEGO set designer Mark Stafford was kind enough to create a public portfolio of some of his work. The links above are for his contributions to the 2010 line, although he's also created similar pages for his contributions to the 2009 and 2008 lines. Although LEGO occasionally selects new designers from the LEGO fan community, they generally focus primarily on people with professional design or engineering backgrounds. Mark Stafford is one set designer who did come from the community. He has helped push LEGO towards ideas that are more attractive to adult fans as well as the kids who end up with most of the new sets. Many of his designs feature unusual parts and techniques that can expand the possibilities of what we can build. In a few cases, you can actually see trends from the fan community sneak into some of the kits he has designed.

Alternate Models for Set 5867

Name of Model: (various, but they are all alternate models for set 5867)

Created by: NK DeSign-er

Found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/32900512@N02/tags/5867/

Details: Remember the alternate models for set 4100? How about the 4939 Cool Cars alternate Oldsmobile? That same builder (and former LEGO kit designer) has struck again lately, creating alternate models for set 5867 Super Speedster - 11 of them by my count. One thing I particularly like is that there is a variety of sizes here - 8-wide and 10-wide are well represented, and each race car chassis comes in around 6-wide, and the truck comes in at 14-wide counting the side-view mirrors. Even though these are all cars, they show a good deal of variety.

A brief note about the current state of LMOTD: posts will be intermittent for the rest of the month, and we'll be getting back up-to-speed come July

A Bionicle Vic Viper

Name of Model: Ormurvík Space Superiority Racer

Created by: Patuara

Found at: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=474910

Details: This beautiful mix of Technic, Bionicle, and "System" elements makes a startlingly convincing vic viper. You can sort of tell where parts begin and end (with how much you can spot likely being a direct function of your level of Bionicle knowledge), but the parts gel together in a way we rarely see with elements that don't usually connect seamlessly. In those few places where a piece would normally create it's own gap, smaller pieces are used to fill those gaps. Don't miss the underside, which shows more traditional elements holding the craft together, providing greebling, and giving us sturdy landing gear.

8-wide Maersk Locomotive

Name of Model: Maersk locomotive

Created by: Mad physicist

Found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/madphysicist/tags/sd402/

Details: Here's a new take on the Maersk set released recently - a wider version in a different color. Unless you see them side-by-side, it can often be difficult to tell the difference between Maersk blue and medium blue - which can be used to your advantage if you want to use a wider variety of parts to get the exact look you want. In this case, the issue was size. The builder is very passionate about scale. "Minifig scale" is an inherently nebulous concept, and LEGO's habit of throwing minifigs into things at wildly different sizes makes it even murkier. Having decided that 8 studs wide is appropriate for a train, the next challenge was to work out the details (such as the brick-built lettering on the sides). Many of them are essentially unchanged from the design in the set, but elsewhere - such as on the windows - things look much better.

My apologies about the gap in lately - it's been a rough few weeks for me personally (a death in the family) and I haven't been able to make blogging a priority. We're trying to get back up to speed now. I won't be making up the missing posts.