A Clever Dragon

Name of Model: Dragon

Created by: takamichi irie (legomichiiiiii)

Found at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/legomichiiiiii/24578934281/

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). The builder recently started a blog in English and Japanese: http://blog.livedoor.jp/legomichiiiiii/

Simply Frabjous

Name of Model: 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves...

Created by: Hans Dendauw NPD

Found at: http://www.mocpages.com/moc.php/338186

Details: This creation pays tribute to Lewis Carroll's classic poem with a brilliant MOC based on Tim Burton's Jabberwock. Not only does it capture the source material extremely well, it also uses fantastic parts usage and shaping to make a surprisingly complex MOC look sleek and whimsical. I highly suggest checking out the MOCpages page to fully appreciate the great design. This was made as part of a VirtuaLUG layout at Brickworld. It is also the most maxome creation I think I've ever seen.

Giganthor the Dragon

Name of Model: An extremely dangerous creature known as the Giganthor has escaped from the forbidden dungeons. It slaughtered civilians and soldiers alike but only one man stood his ground. If he is not careful enough he too might perish under the dragons wrath.

Created by: Unitronus

Found at: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=470544

Details: Although the tricky use of color, solid landscaping, and clever minifig placement could steal the show here, the focus is clearly on the monstrous dragon. A frightening sight with an even more frightening number of points of articulation, the dragon is shown here mid-battle, just after fatally maiming a minifigure. The combination of slopes and spikey bits is very evocative of a scaly skin texture. Don't miss the bits of Bionicle chain hanging down, making it instantly clear that the dragon has escaped.

A Bioncle Swamp Dragon

Name of Model: Fenrakk Swamp Dragon

Created by: Brickthing

Found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brickthing/tags/dragon/

Details: Making something that is not a simple action figure out of Bionicle parts: check. Rare colors? How about dark blue AND bright light orange? Clever techniques? How about using rows of sockets to create a pose-able neck? Yes, this fully qualifies as LMOTD bait. The spiky spine on the back of the neck makes fantastic use of the Visorak foor element in quantity. I'm really surprised by how well some of the clunkier parts seem to blend in here - the head makes use of a few parts I'd be tempted to call useless, and that's before we get into the wings or the tail fin.

Wyvern

Name of Model: Wyvern (An organic building study - www.brickstud.com)

Created by: Jordan Schwartz

Found at: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=451244 and at http://mocpages.com/moc.php/235476

Details: Before we start: this creature is called a wyvern - it is not a dragon, but it's very similar to a dragon without arms. It's supposed to look that way and the lack of arms is completely correct for the subject matter. Now, with that out of the way... This is the first time I've seen the tauntaun horn elements put to good use. Tan cheese slopes (currently exclusive to the Tower Bridge kit) make up most of the body, as well as the feet. Inspired by the many dragons (such as the Hideous Zippleback we featured recently) that use many articulated sections to make poseable necks, Jordan (also known as Sir Nadroj) tried to make the whole body using a similar technique by using a long tube as a spine and then using various clip parts to connect the rest of the body. The result is a surprisingly successful "organic building study". Heck, even the mix of the colors on the ground stands out.

This is Wednesday's model of the day

It's Train! It's A Dragon! It's the Tragon!

Name of Model: Enter the Land of The Tragon....

Created by: Megs (Megan Rothrock)

Found at: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=153247

Details: This is a 9V train, coming in at an intimidating 12 studs wide (most sets are 6-wide, and that "scale" remains popular with hobbyists as well. It's also a fantastic dragon with some great colors. Lime isn't always the easiest color to work with, but this sort of thing is what that color is made for (there are some other great uses of color here as well, but I'll let you find them yourself). There's also an impressive amount of clever angles in here - this photo of the head/locomotive alone shows several great tilted sections that blend together nicely for an organic look. This is one of Megan Rothrock's older creations. She's since gone on to work on set designs for the LEGO company and write regularly for BrickJournal magazine. Short of becoming a collectible minifig, that's as close as you can get to being a rock star in the LEGO world.

Minifig Scale "Hideous Zippleback" Dragon

Name of Model: This sly two-headed dragon is the largest and the most unusual of the dragon species. One head breathes flamable gas while the other head lights it by making sparks, creating lethal explosions.

Created by: Unitronus

Found at: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=447042

Details: Medium lime is one of those rare colors that you almost never see people use. It's just too difficult to gather up enough of a parts selection in some colors to really build much of anything. Today's featured model is the first I've seen rise to this challenge. Apparently based on the movie How To Train Your Dragon, this dragon's construction uses a plate with clip/pneumatic T technique to create this dragon's two long necks. That's right - a fantastic use of a rare color that only uses one part, repeatedly (quantities of obscure parts like this are usually available for sale on BrickLink). I can't speak for how true this is to the source material (I've never seen the movie - how was it?), but I love the scene built around this dragon. The landscaping looks very realistic and the diverse plant life adds extra detail without being too distracting. Most (maybe even all) of the plant techniques have been used before, but they're used well here - I specifically like how bushes were stacked upside-down to make a tree. This builder has apparently decided to stick to the theme of making minifig-scale models based on the movie How To Train Your Dragon; a second model has already been posted.

Bionicle Dragon

Name of Model: Vayland Dragon Redux

Created by: Ahava516 (Patrick Biggs)

Found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahava516/sets/72157624836845380/with/4939608143/

Details: Remember the wings from the 6495 Time Tunnelator kit? I'm sure I'm not the only one who was young in the nineties (OK, not that young...) - the Time Twisters subtheme (and the larger Time Cruisers theme) gets derided for absurd set designs, but they actually came with a slew of rare and hard-to-find parts. The wing element from the Time Tunnelator finds some new use here by obeying the standard rule of bizarre LEGO elements - everything is more useful if you have a large amount of it. Suddenly small printed sail "wings" become giant dragon wings, suitable for an awesome giant Bionicle dragon. While this particular dragon first surfaced at BrickFair 2010 (where it also looked great in person), it's actually an updated version of a model originally built for the fiftieth BZ Power contest (which was invitation-only for previous Bionicle-Based Building Challenge winners). EDIT 9/11/2010: Looks like I may have referenced the wrong part and set above. The exact printed pattern visible on the wing elements in the photo above is actually this one, found in three sets (in the Adventurers and Ninja themes) between 1998 and 2000.

Been feeling sluggish lately...

Name of Model: Been feeling sluggish lately...

Created by: MooseBot

Found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/moosetech/4275146873/

Details: One 1x8 plate. Two sets of minifig hands and arms. One 1x1 tile with a clip on top. One dragon tail. That's it - 7 pieces. It all comes together perfectly. That dragon tail element came out in 1993 for the Dragon Masters faction of the Castle series, and although that style of dragon is now long gone (the company even changed , crocodiles using this element showed up in kits as recently as 2009. Yet we haven't seen anyone come up with such a clever alternate use for this before. So now that we all know - start flipping over dragon tails!

More Dragons

Name of Model: the-DRAKKHEN

Created by: Izzo

Found at: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=237558

Details: As you may have noticed, there was no model of the day yesterday. Frankly, there are just too many awesome models in that photo pool! I'm still not done looking at all of them. I'm doing another bloated gallery of pictures today as well - maybe tomorrow I'll get back to posting a "daily dose". I have previously mentioned one of Izzo's fantastic dragons. Now he has completed a series of several dragons, as if to tell a story. Not all the dragons are as good as that first one I mentioned, but they are all fairly impressive. If anyone knows the story or a link to page with it, send it our way and I'll add it to this post. In the mean time, the rest of the Dragon series is today's "modelS" of the day.

Detailed Lego Dragon

Name of Model: Original diorama featured Dragons - scene 03 Exterminators

Created by: Izzo

Found at: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=238556

Details: Have a look at the details on this dragon! Not only is this a nifty-looking dragon at first glance, but a close look reveals dozens of unusual uses of LEGO parts. I'd start to write about the details, but I wouldn't know where to start. You'll just have to take a closer look yourself.