Steam Battle

Name of Model: Steam Battle

Created by: SlyOwl

Found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/27444109@N04/3317519426/

Details: SlyOwl is a a fairly prolific builder who gets blogged a lot and for good reason. Here's one he posted at the end of February that I didn't see mentioned elsewhere—much to my surprise! Steam Battle is a good dose of LEGO steampunk with a lot going on without overdoing it, and a variety of excellent modern building techniques. Here are three of my favorites in this MOC: The Splashes You've got that boiler unit hitting the water front and center of the MOC and a gigantic clear cylinder dish representing the splash. A bit to the left is a smaller splash but a really cool "freeze-frame" effect like you often see in a photo of a drop of water taken at a very high speed. SNOT Wake This is better visible from a slightly different angle, but you can see some of it here behind the smaller splash. The boat is moving in toward the dock at a decent clip, demonstrated by the use of white, light blue, and light bley built into the SNOT (Studs-Not-On-Top) base. You can also see SlyOwl's use of 1x1 clear cylinders here as bubbles. The Floating Rock I've noticed a number of builders recently using this concept (e.g. Reejoc on his amazing interpretation of the Queen of Hearts' Castle from Alice in Wonderland). Let alone the excellent building techniques, I'm intrigued by the idea of a chunk of dirt or rock that defies gravity and is its own island in the sky, as it were.

NightHunter Chopper Transformer

Name of Model: NightHunter - the Autobot Transformer. I have constructed it for competition on www.doublebrick.ru This robot is transformed to helicopter KA-50 Hokum aka Black Shark

Created by: ZED

Found at: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=306587

Details: It's tempting to try to split this into two models. I could write about how it is an amazing helicopter, with great details, elegant construction, and a decent sense of scale/proportions (which is surprisingly rare in LEGO® helicopters, especially in the official sets). I could write about how this is an excellent "mecha" robot. This is really a Transformers model, though! Which means that this thing is spectacular, and one of the most amazing morphing models we've seen in quite some time. There are some photos showing the transformation as well. Oh, and apparently this was done for a contest at the Russian-language site http://www.doublebrick.ru/ - so maybe we'll be seeing some more exciting Transformers coming up.

This is Tuesday's model of the day