Details: This year, Santa's got a new ride. Someone ought to make a movie about this model and use that as the tagline.
There's lots to love in this modernized interpretation of Santa's sleigh and reindeer, but even with all the space-y greebles and twists, it's still faithful to the sleigh-and-reindeer formula. Santa's throttles (in place of reins) round out his one-seater carrying a bag of toys - which also seems to have a thruster of its own beyond the reindeer pulling it. At this scale, a few long Star Wars blasters make for great antlers, and a pair of pearl gold 1 x 1 round plates with holes mounted on what looks like minifig handlebars make for excellent eyes.
Other great details include the use of wheels as hooves, a white Technic wheel to represent the fur around the neck, a minifig ski for the top of the reindeer's head (not to be confused with the larger skis used for the front of the sleigh), and a plate with a tooth for the gold trim on Santa's sleigh. Make sure to check out all of the photos - the Reindeer Mech can be posed in a surprising amount of ways (probably more than are shown).
Details: takamichi irie (legomichiiiiii) recently built this awesome little dragon - it's short enough for a minifig to pet, but definitely fearsome enough to terrorize a microscale kingdom. The head may look a little familiar - it seems to take after an awesome build of Nessie that Sean and Steph Mayo built last year (which I probably should have blogged at the time), but that horns and binoculars technique still works very well. The torso really speaks to me - it's a brilliant use of the thick-pin skeleton torso, with a lightsaber hilt for the neck, four skeleton legs for the legs, and the gargoyle collectible minifigure wings as the dragon's wings. The wings don't look to be swooshable to me (minifig neck accessories tend to have looser connections), but that'd be easy enough to fix with a 1x1 round brick (that's how I'd do it, anyway, but it probably looks better the way it is).
The head and tail demonstrate another technique - using clips in askew connections that are sturdy, but wouldn't be considered "legal" in an official set or LEGO Digital Designer. I think I spy a minifig hand holding that tail in place, with the end that normally connects to a minifig's arm crammed into the skeleton torso (another "illegal" but very useful connection).
Details: In the past few years, there's been a proliferation of seed-part based challenges in the wake of the popular "Iron Builder" contest. I (Dan) did my part by finding a way to make such a game fit in at BrickFair, but most of these challenges revolve around Flickr. Sometimes, like in this case, it's just a couple of builders taking up the challenge for the fun of it. This particular challenge is based around the current small, 5-link chain element. Surely a silly piece, it's much too short to be useful and was originally used for Ninjago weaponry when it first came out. They've found plenty of clever uses for it, although some of them make use of the classic "everything is more useful in quantity" trick.
Details: Pete Strege recently uploaded new photos of his spectacular Green Gables Stadium. Sure, you've seen this before in our Brickworld 2014 coverage, and it also was a highlight of Brickworld 2013 - but it's enough of a stunner to deserve a post of its own. There are many details to love here - the 24-sided architecture covering a 30-inch square (4 of the big grey baseplates) steals your eye at first, but there's also the removable (and well-angled) dome roof, the large minifig heads wearing hats, the dark green lettering in the front, the stunning use of color (sand green, dark green, medium dark flesh, and dark orange cover most of the model), and even a full interior (customizable for a few different sports, although the hat outside makes me think of this as a baseball stadium).
Don't take my word for it - check out all 56 photos in the Flickr album, including pictures of the interior, work-in-progress pictures, and LEGO Digital Designer screenshots showing how the model was designed. The whole thing is beautiful, but I suspect we'll be studying that dome for years.
Details: This might seem a little quick and simple, but I like it. These use the older minifig-holding magnets (from when LEGO sold minifigure magnet sets where the minifigure was not glued to the magnet), and use tiles and minifigures to indicate different locations - specifically, places that Bret might be when he's not at his desk. It's a good excuse to bring some LEGO into a decidedly non-LEGO environment, and we never have enough good reasons to do that. It's different. It's clever. It's practical. It's functional. It's something I wish I had thought of first.
First up, we have a fresh take on the Exo Suit concept that mixes the grey mechanical look with the Ice Planet color scheme. Although inspired by Peter Reid's LEGO Ideas set, this one actually is an entirely new build and not a modified version of the set. Perhaps my favorite bit (although not particularly visible in this photo) is the giant trans-neon-orange chainsaw. It's very difficult to build in trans-neon-orange because so few parts have been made in that color. This particular build relies on the headlight brick, which was only available in trans-neon-orange in 5 sets between 1995 and 2000. The non-functional use of pneumatic tubing is also very effective, and the inclusion of icebergs and a new "turtle" build is a nice touch. Even the printed pieces thrown in work - the "60" tile used as a house number in the 80's makes a neat "09" here.
Name of Model: Ice Inspector
Created by: Chris Perron
Found at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/thebrickbin/sets/72157642419723285
Details:
Finally, the last model that is too good not to blog (even though you've likely seen it elsewhere - normally most of us LEGO bloggers try to avoid covering things everyone else has already covered, but some things are too good to skip): Chris Perron's Ice Inspector. Borrowing the shape of 6989 Mega Core Magnetizer, it's the giant Ice Planet vehicle we all wish we could have had the whole time. The main reason that few people try to build something like this is that LEGO didn't make that style of wheels in that many size/color combinations. Here, that problem is solved by simply building new wheels out of a massive quantity of wedge and slope pieces. The rest of the model actually keeps up that same level of brick-built detail. It's hard to grasp the sheer scale of this model - the trans-neon-orange cockpit uses the same panels as the large base in the series and the top of the apartment complex.
Details: You may remember the spectacular pop-up model of Kinkaku-ji (the Temple of the Golden Pavilion) from a few years back. More recently, the builder has made another excellent pop-up temple - Nara, Japan's Todai-ji. This one also includes the Daibutsu inside the temple. Around the 1:52 mark, the video switches from a demonstration to CAD-based building instructions, complete with part counts for each step. All 8,816 pieces are accounted for, and there's a complete parts list with BrickLink part numbers at the end.
Details: Here's the start of a nice minifig-scale train layout - a shed and a signal house. I love the shed here - it's a very effective use of the "brick" brick element. This is a very classic use of the bricks and it works quite well. The simple ballast for the tracks is surprisingly convincing. I can't wait to see how the rest of the layout looks.
Available at: Amazon and wherever books are sold. (Disclosure: LMOTD received a review copy)
Details: LEGO idea books turn out to be a surprisingly difficult concept today. Sure, there are many classics, going back to the 60's, but there hasn't been a new one since 1997. After all, since 1995, most LEGO lines have been short-lived play themes - it doesn't make sense for LEGO to publish great ideas for using parts that aren't likely to be easy for kids to find just a year or two later. That 1997 idea book was largely out of date by 1999. The rise of the internet hasn't helped either - usually an adult fan will post photos of great uses for new parts almost as soon as the kits come out.
The LEGO Adventure Book, written by former LEGO designer Megan Rothrock, was pitched to Brickset as something of a sequal to the classic 6000-1 Idea Book. While the Adventure Book does have some things in common with the official idea books, it really doesn't feel much like one. This isn't a small book on magazine-grade paper - it's a solid, 200 page hardcover tome. The brightly colored photos are accompanied by English-language text, which continues an adventure story through the whole book. Of somewhat more interest to LMOTD readers, though, is the 14 sections dedicated to specific builders besides the author. Real names, screen names, professions, nationalities, and URLs are given for each builder before a grouping of their models are showcased. The list of builders featured (they have an index on the last page) should sound pretty familiar: Craig Mandeville, Are J. Heiseldal, Moritz Nolting, Jon Hall, Pete Reid, Peter Morris, Mark Stafford, Aaron Andrews, Mike Psiaki, Katie Walker, Carl Greatrix, Sylvain Amacher, and Daniel August Krentz.
Page 8 introduces us to "Megs", the book's main character, and the next 8 pages show us how to build her "Idea Lab". From there we follow her through a number of "worlds" in her "Transport-o-lux". Megs is a minifigure version of the author, and all of the other builders introduced in the book are also shown as minifigures.
It's hard to say how well the LEGO Adventure Book will stand the test of time - the biggest drawback with idea books. It does make use of parts and colors that may turn out to be short-lived. Right from the beginning, we see parts used that are new for 2012 and unlikely to be readily available to kids in any meaningful quantity. Many of the themes represented will clearly appeal to certain age groups (there are two sections that touch on the Yellow Castle, one classic Space-inspired section, and sections for both Power Miners and Friends). Page 15 shows a great bookshelf technique, but the ends of the shelf are a part that's already been discontinued. In some cases (like the zoo scene), hard-to-find and long-discontinued parts are a major part of a scene that can't easily be worked around. The concept behind idea books has always been to inspire kids to build with parts they already have, and it's likely that this book will have no problem inspiring builders in the future. Some of these models will be out of reach for anyone whose collection doesn't span a few decades, but most of the designs are workable or at least easy to modify to whatever parts are available.
While featuring a variety of fan creations makes it easy to showcase great ideas and tie in with additional material online, it also increases the complexity of the models and the odds that kids won't be able to find the parts (or even be familiar with what sort of parts they're looking at). The various sections highlighting hobbyists and their MOCs are more like the official idea books, in that they largely show completed models that fit a particular theme (along with high-level instructions for a few of the models). While these sections are similar to what many LEGO blogs online already cover (ahem), they look great and serve to canonize a few models in a more concrete way than we can on the internet. However, the URLs are susceptible to the same time-sensitive issues as LEGO part selection - if any of these builders' flickr accounts cease to be accessible in the future, it won't be possible to view their other creations any more (of course, that's also the strongest argument for putting highlights of the hobby community into books like this one in the first place).
I was impressed with the variety of themes represented. The official idea books were always somewhat limited in that they stuck with common themes that LEGO sold sets in, but here, unofficial themes fit in nicely next to the "real" ones. Steampunk and mecha have been staples of LEGO conventions for years, and it was about time someone showed them and explained them in a straight-forward, kid-friendly manner that could be perused away from the convention crowds.
The techniques don't disappoint here either. A number of obscure and seemingly useless parts show up in clever places, all across the book. A "rock dragon" in the Power Miners section is a perfect excuse to show Hero Factory parts in a useful context, and probably my personal pick for the most clever model here. The written advice helps as well - concepts like "mirroring" sections of a model or cutting stickers for details can be explained quickly (as compared with in LEGO instruction books, where complete assemblies are pictures multiple times when they're largely the same).
The LEGO Adventure Book is both a welcome addition to the "idea book" genre and easy to appreciate as a hard-copy document of some of the online LEGO community's best work. The story's ending is a surprising and satisfying twist, although I'm not sure kids will appreciate it as much as seasoned fans (I suppose that's what they generally call "fun for the whole family"). We are (admittedly) biased towards this book due to having covered much of the same ground here, but I was surprised by how strong the book is - after all, idea books are rocky territory.
The LEGO Adventure Book is available starting today from No Starch Press. We've previously featured some of author Megan Rothrock's work. She was kind enough to join us at BrickMagic 2010, while she was still working for The LEGO Group.
Details:
We've fallen somewhat behind in covering headline-grabbing new kits recently, but LEGO is still churning them out. One of the ones we missed was the latest Ultimate Collector Series Star Wars kit - the B-Wing Starfighter. From the October 1st release date to December 31st (or while supplies last), LEGO is including an exclusive TC-14 minifigure with the purchase of the 10227 B-Wing Starfighter. Like the last few UCS kits, this one is nicely in minifig scale (as compared to the regular kits, which usually have strange proportions in order to fit minifigures). Both Jedi News and FBTB have reviewed the kit, which looks like an interesting build.
US $199.99 CA $249.99 DE 199.99€ UK 169.99£ DK 1699 DKK
Take on the Empire in the Ultimate Collector Series B-wing Starfighter!
Now you can experience the ultimate B-wing Starfighter from the Star Wars galaxy like never before. This fantastic model features everything you would expect from our premium collector range, including rotating, self-levelling cockpit and realistic wing configurations for landing and flight. And when you’re finished battling in the skies above Endor or helping to restore freedom in the galaxy, place this highly detailed B-wing Starfighter on its own dedicated display stand and fact plaque. Measures 26” (66 cm) wide and 15” (38 cm) high in flight configuration, and 17” (43 cm) high on display stand.
• A highly detailed Ultimate Collector Series B-wing Starfighter model
• Features rotating, self-levelling cockpit
• Features realistic wing configurations for landing and flight
• Includes display stand and fact plaque
• Model can be detached from display stand
• Measures 26” (66cm) wide and 15” (38cm) high in flight configuration, and 17” (43cm) high when mounted on display stand
Available for sale directly through LEGO® beginning October 2012 via shop.LEGO.com, LEGO® Stores or via phone.
Details: Stefan F. brings us this clever design for a support beam that uses a trapping technique to hold angled sections in. The secret sauce is a few 1x8 plates with door rails, cheese slopes connected by Technic half-pins to 1 x 1 bricks, and a few 1 x 1 bricks with studs on two sides to hold it all together. It seems simple once you see the finished result, but it's a clever way to add a more realistic texture at this small scale without having to resort to overly specialized parts. It's not that LEGO hasn't made plentyofpartsthatwilldothis, but sometimes it's the principle of the thing, sometimes you don't have that part, and sometimes you just need that look to fit a certain space that the official parts can't.
Details: This serene edge-of-the-woods scene is so realistic that it's easy to miss the story hinted at in the title (hint: look at what the excited minifigure is looking at). The variety of dense shrubbery and trees looks spot on, only outdone by the stone walls and bridge. There are a surprising amount of interesting angles in this model, although it's hard to tell what technique is holding some of the parts together (in the case of the water, you can see that the parts are loose). The house, the bridge, the horse, and the waterfall are all angled nicely. The fairly simple trees use angles the best, though - a few angled headlight bricks and carefully placed bars allow the leaves to have a realistic droop.
The house itself has fairly simple tudor-style architecture, but makes great use of translucent 1x2 bricks for the smoke in the chimney and plates with flower edges for the cornice.
Details: For the 2012 MocAthalon's "Will it Blend?" (read: theme mash up) category, this model combines Castle and Friends. That's right, it's a celebration put on by Princess Mia. The gorgeous landscaping and intricately patterned flooring steal the show, but there are a number of great details in the scene as well. Dishes of food appear in front of each of the Friends characters. Even the stairs are built sideways to allow for more detail (note the small medium blue lines). All of the girls' pets have meals. Even between the flooring and the columns, there are more carefully placed plants.
Details: Nuju Metru has taken his building in an interesting direction here in that he built these MOCs as a LEGO theme. Instead of a detailed sculpture or gigantic, expensive creation that would never be marketable, he has created a line of playsets. Each and every model has several play features, mostly rubber band launchers (none of that cheap flick-fire stuff) and collapsing structures. The models - or should I call them sets? - cover a variety of price points. Tying it all together is a fantasy storyline. Pictured is the Siege of the Portal. Be sure to check out the different creative sets on BZPower and FlickR.
Details: This stunning minifig-scale recreation of the Grand Palace of Thailand makes fantastic use of color and greebly bits as architectural details. Frequently, the colors don't actually come in the correct shapes to do a straight LEGO rendition of the original building, but here combinations of smaller parts are used perfectly to create a striking resemblance. Quite a few parts are used in surprising ways, but some that stood out to me were the gold flags used as trim on the roof, the use of 1x2 bricks bent into a curve over the main entrance, and the wheels used in the pediments over the first-floor windows. Of course, the gorgeous curves of the building's distinctive domes are the easy show stealer - accurately using lots of small, flouted gold elements to sell the look.
Details: There are enormous spaceships, and then there are enormous spaceships that actually fill up all that space with plausible details. This ship is most definitely the latter - complete with an interior, weaponry, detachable pods, a cargo bay, container modules, and an easy-to-open modular design.
Details: I've previously blogged about the LEGO inside tour and one of the exclusive kits given there, but as additional tours come up, each one gets a new exclusive kit. The most recent inside tour participants received the set I'm featuring today - 4000001 Moulding Machines. The person who took the photos featured here also made a video of the build and wrote a full review for EuroBricks. The set recreates both the current style of moulding machine and the earliest hand-operated moulding machine from 1949. There are even play features - you can press the mould together on the smaller machine, and the larger machine has a slot for a round 1x1 plate to go through as if it were a raw ABS pellet.
You know you want it - and sure enough, someone has loaded it up into LDD and made building instructions.
Details: This fantastic island resort layout was whipped up for LEGOWORLD 2011. Built in minifig scale with all the expected details - landscaping, docks, boats, interiors, waterfalls - you name it, it's there. You can't help but suspect most people didn't even notice the Jørgen and Kjeld minifigures inside - these rare minifigures are used by some LEGO employees like business cards and are highly collectible. Some of the furniture uses a technique with minifig hands and lever bases to make pieces that ordinarily wouldn't connect (such as coins or window panes) into perfect table tops. The stunning scope of this model distracts from such small details, though, and draws attention to the landscaping and water.
Details: We first had a look at this model back at BrickMagic 2011 - where it easily won Best-in-Show. The unusual technique used makes the building mostly hollow. The walls are built with substantial sideways sections, allowing the model to more accurately reflect the look of the original. No detail was spared - door pulls and light fixtures are carefully recreated. Every 1x1 round plate in the roof garden is carefully arranged and attached in just the right place, and the inner atrium appears in perfect detail. Some careful BrickLink purchases got just the right colors and pieces to make every detail exact. Look closely at those doors on the top floor - fairly rare medium stone 6 x 6 tiles were used to ensure a clean, accurate, consistent look, unmarred by the more distinctive textures that 1 x 6 tiles or some combination of tiles would leave. Photos really don't capture all of the details of this model, but it's a masterpiece of architectural reproduction.
This year, Santa's got a new ride. Someone ought to make a movie about this model and use that as the tagline.
). The way the slopes for the nose are combined is already surprisingly sleek, but then you notice that 
