Ex-Wing (Spooky Star Wars Contest entry)

Name of Model: The Ex-Wing

Created by: daveexmachina

Found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveexmachina/sets/72157608395678726/

Details: This clever entry into the Reasonably Clever Spooky Star Wars Contest is spectacular. Skeletons on a spaceship seems obvious enough, as does breaking a ship into a minimalistic frame or "skeleton" of the ship - but I'd say that actually making the ship into a bizarre, bone-like structure is reasonably clever. I thought about trying to enter this contest with a wreckage of a ship - but a premise of "Not everyone who didn't come back from the Battle of Yavin...didn't come back"? Brilliant. I'm also loving the Bionicle-ized weapons and the astro-ghost droid "RBoo-DBoo". The pilot, of course, is a rebel fighter with an evil skull head. Oh, and in case you didn't get this, this is based on the X-wing Fighter™ from Star Wars.

Halloween Hearse

Name of Model: Halloween Hearse

Created by: modelbuildingsecrets

Found at: http://modelbuildingsecrets.wordpress.com/2008/10/23/halloween-hearse/

Details: Here's an exciting new blog: Modelbuildingsecrets's Weblog features tips, ideas, and creations by a former LEGOLAND Parks master builder. This particular model is timely for Halloween - and visible in the Miniland New Orleans section of LEGOLAND California through the end of the month. I think both the car and the skeleton may be easy to try out in other themes, but I'm not sure if those jumper plates (also known as off-set plates - they're the 1x2 plates with only one stud on top) are actually available to the public in clear. Occasionally, you can spot parts in LEGOLAND parks that haven't actually ever been sold in a kit - sometimes when the professionals need a certain part that isn't available, they can request it (and then the company makes a large enough run of it that the builders for the parks will have it for quite some time after that). They make a great windshield there, though. It's fairly common for LEGO to do Halloween-themed "easter eggs" in the parks and in video games. There are also "Brick Or Treat" promotions at LEGOLAND parks - you can probably find information about events at the parks at the official LEGOLAND parks website.

This is Wednesday's model of the day

Skeleton Crab

Name of Model: Skeleton Crab

Created by: Count Blockula

Found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/countblockula/1281676448/

Details: With the slew of new parts coming out seemingly every season, there are truly never-ending possibilities if you keep your collection up-to-date. This model is one example of what you can do by coming up with another way of seeing the newest parts - the claws for this unusual crab are made out of those new skeleton-horse parts. There's only one picture of this one (making it a bit hard to figure out just how everything is connected), but there's a write-up that's very useful. See, if you look closely you can spot one 1x1 studs-not-on-top brick on the lower end of each horse - those 2 bricks are connected by a 1x6 smooth tile plate underneath. I'm not sure how sturdy this thing is, but this is one clever little model. Clever and scary - it is a skeleton crab, after all!