Posted by
Dan
at
7:43 PM
| Name of Model: Happy Valentine's Day |
| Created by: Schneider Chung ("Schfio") |
| Found at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/schfio/32898475325/ |
Details:  Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner. This is the most adorable thing you will see this Valentine's Day. The characters here are Fabuland figures - but here, the original Elton Elephant and Bonnie Bunny are only used as "gifts" that the larger, sculpted versions of the characters are giving each other.
As cute as Elton and Bonnie are, the details of this model only make it more captivating. Note that the arms get thicker further away from the body to capture the curvature correctly - the "top" of each arm (actually built sideways) is made from rows of headlight bricks with 1 x 1 tiles connected to their fronts. The curved effect this creates is subtle, but an excellent use of the half-plate-thick offset you can get from a headlight brick. Clip plates hold the bunny's eyes in place and also form her eyelashes. Plates with rails fill some (roughly) half-stud-wide spaces that otherwise wouldn't look as round. The elephant's ears even achieve the difficult "cupped" effect by carefully weaving plates together in different directions - and I still can't tell how his eyes are attached. Bonnie's mouth is exquisite - a minifig cap sits on top of a precise jumper plate construction that conceals part of a set of whiskers built as a studs-up mosaic.
Schneider Chung hadn't posted on Flickr for a while before this, but he remains one of the best at building in his signature studs-not-on-top style. I highly recommend that you explore the rest of his photostream. We've previously featured a few of his adorable Easter-themed animals.
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Posted by
Dan
at
3:41 PM
| Name of Model: HAPPY EASTER DAY 2012 |
| Created by: Schfio |
| Found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/schfio/6902015022/ |
Details:  The reigning champion of cutesy Easter models is back to one-up last year's impressive model. I do wish we could see a different angle of this bunny's face - the minifig helmets used for eyes look pretty good from this photo, but I'd love to see how it looks from the side. The egg cart is priceless, continuing the studs-out approach and even including wheels built out of plates instead of using regular wheel and tire parts. The best detail may be the necktie, though, making use of two red plates with clips attached sideways to get the double-sided plate effect - it's not a difficult technique, but most people wouldn't think to have made the middle of the bowtie sideways facing outward so that could work.
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Posted by
Dan
at
11:00 PM
| Name of Model: Happy Easter 2011 |
| Created by: schfio |
| Found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/schfio/sets/72157626422017053/ |
Details:  You may have heard that it was Easter this past weekend. For the occasion, this builder created this spectacular sculpture of a baby chick with easter eggs. Although the building-in-all-directions technique is still fairly novel (and frequently done with the aid of a computer), this builder has started making it a main part of his style and incorporated elements that can't easily be specified in a computer-generated design. Note how the little wings are attached by a clip instead of being sculpted on. The use of round eyes and a nose pushed between studs perpendicular to it are also great touches (which also serve to emphasize that this design is more than just a computer-generated pattern). |
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Posted by
Dan
at
3:16 AM
| Name of Model: Baymax |
| Created by: lisqr |
| Found at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/43699326@N00/15801224498/ |
Details:  lisqr recently built Baymax as he appears in Disney's adaptation of Big Hero 6. The studs-out technique for building sculptures has gotten more popular lately - I still usually associate it with Schfio, one of the best builders currently working in that style, but it seems like everyone is trying their hand at it now that you can get travis bricks on the Pick-A-Brick wall at LEGO stores (and LEGO seems to be putting out more exciting studs-not-on-top elements in sets as well). Bruce Lowell is also rather famous for this style of building, and the head on this model is an obvious riff on his classic Lowell sphere (have I really not written about any of Bruce's models since 2007? Time flies).
The arms here are actually made from a great use of a different sculpture technique - loosely matching up various sizes of slopes and wedges. I believe I spy (please correct me if you think I'm wrong) a 2 x 1 curved slope, a 1 x 2 tile, and a 10 x 1 curved slope on each front edge, with a pair of 12 x 3 wedge slopes making the top and bottom of each arm. Even with all those slopes, it looks like the front and back edges are angled in further to get it to look just right.
...and I didn't even mention the great use of string on the robot's face yet.
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