Details: BZPower periodically runs contests in Bionice-based creations. They're now up to BBCC 59, and the theme this time around is "Let There Be Rock". The full entry list is already posted, but the contest ends July 10th. This electric guitar uses Technic beams for most of the body, with gears for the knobs and Bionicle elements for the head, cord, and pickup.
Details: Recently featured on Brick Town Talk (which you should be reading in addition to this blog anyway), this Burberry store stands out as a high-water mark amongst recent highlights in the Cafe Corner standard of modular building (I post those highlights over at Brick Town Talk instead of here at LMOTD, but I did feature another model by the same builder this past March). Some of my favorite bits here: The Grand Emporium's awning technique recast in gold using parts from the Battle of Alamut, the use of a wheel and a dish for a unique gold-ish flourish at the top, and a group of bracket-plate-tile testures on the second floor (this actually adds up to the width of a normal brick and gives you that vertical stripe effect). I'm also a big fan of the studs that face toward the front of the building - the added texture looks great, and it's a feature that tile-crazed LEGO fans tend to forget actually looks pretty good in many contexts.
Details: Remember the Pinball Machine we featured back in 2007? Someone inspired by that model has now created a Mindstorms NXT version. This one is also purist - all LEGO except for the ball (I suspect they could have used a LEGO ball too). Only 6 NXT bricks were used, compared to 13 RCX bricks in the original. A substantial amount of instructions are up at the site above, including source code (you know, for all of us with 6 spare NXT programmable bricks and over 8000 spare LEGO pieces to turn into a pinball machine).
Details: Last weekend at Brickworld, a new Star Wars set was announced. A sort of revival of the UCS (Ultimate Collector's Series) line of scale models of large vehicles, this is, well, a large, exceptionally detailed version of a Star Wars ship. Most surprising, however, is the unusual construction - it appears that a several new sizes of Technic beam are included in this set in large quantities for the wings. The full announcement is at the link above, and you can also check Shop at Home to see if it's in yet (currently expected to come out on September 1st 2010).
Details: Every once in a while, you find a new way of looking at a part and suddenly have an interesting new model idea. That was the case here, when the element widely used as a window arch or a car wheel well mudguard suddenly turned into the face of a dog. From there, it wasn't hard to build full bodies to create a group of dogs. Two of the dogs even make use of other wheel well arch elements!
Details: I've featured fairly recent photos of LEGOLAND parks before, and usually, you can spot a few new easter eggs in each round of photos. This time, we have a new photoset that shows what the park looked like 11 years ago. Most of the buildings look completely different - I'm not sure if there are any true repeats between this photoset and the last set of LEGOLAND Windsor photos I featured. Between the way things have been improved with newer elements and colors, and the newer landmarks that have been added to the park, things have really changed!
Details: Recently, The Brick Scho recreated the Biltmore Estate in microscale. The use of tiles inside of arches to make doorways is a clever way of imitating the building's architectural style. While it's hard to capture many details at this scale, this rendition is pretty recognizable when evaluated next to the original.
Details: Plenty of exciting new items have shown up at LEGO Shop-at-Home recently. Among them are the new collectible minifigures. They're selling quickly (and with a limit of 5 per order), so if you want them you better hurry. If you're looking for an interesting way to display them, check out the links above - LEGO's "club" is offering complete instructions and parts lists to build a display podium (pictured here), a Ninja gate, a Skateboarder ramp, a saloon door for the Cowboy, and a stage for the Magician. Perfect vignettes for the minifigures!
BZPower periodically runs contests in Bionice-based creations. They're now up to BBCC 59, and the theme this time around is "Let There Be Rock". The full entry list is already posted, but the contest ends July 10th. This electric guitar uses Technic beams for most of the body, with gears for the knobs and Bionicle elements for the head, cord, and pickup.
