MOC: Venusian Balloon

This is a MOC I made recently for the Lego Ideas challenge Exploring the Cosmos. The challenge requested either a space inspired vehicle or base. I quickly landed on the idea of wanting to do something atmospheric, as I like the idea of alien life maybe being buoyant creatures existing in the upper atmosphere of Venus, or within the vast cloudy environs of the gas giants! 

I could have taken that exploration down the base path, with some sort of floating observation platform or city, but as someone who has long held a fascination with airships as a form of transport, I thought a balloon based vehicle would be fun to play with.

Here's my little blurb from the original Ideas submission, which outlines the world this vehicle exists in, and what it can do:

An airship for scientists travelling between the floating research bases in the high semi-habitable layers of the atmosphere of Venus! While the surface of Venus is inhospitable due to high temperature, pressure, and acidity, higher altitudes provide a climate similar to Earth. This balloon is used to travel between the floating bases established to allow scientists to explore the planet from this safer environment, and if lucky, to catch sight of rare flying creatures that were found to also inhabit this gentler part of Venus.

The build includes a balloon with adjustable propellers to steer and move. The one-person capsule suspended below gives the pilot views of the cloudy world and the strange creatures that live around them. The seating and control section of the capsule is connected with a single stud to make it easy to position the pilot inside, while one side of the capsule hinges open to allow this.

Also included is a cloudy stand, and one of the Venusian aliens.

Continue after the jump to check out more of the design:

Adorable Star Wars minifigures wearing ship costumes!

Behold one of the most adorable series of Star Wars MOCs ever: Minifigures wearing tiny costume versions of their ships! These delightful miniature designs were created by Nick Chen, who posted them on Flickr. I've picked out a few of my favourites below, but there are many more, representing characters and ships from most of the Star Wars films.

Amazing sinking Titanic build

Behold a very impressive MOC from The Brickman, the sinking Titanic. Building a minifigure-scale of the Titanic is a pretty impressive construction in itself, but this goes much further, including that startling and physics defying break in the hull, which also gives this model so much more life than it would otherwise have; capturing a second in history.

The build was in fact a joint effort, between Ryan McNaught (aka Brickman), Mitchell Kruik and Clay Mellington. It is made from something like 120,000 bricks, and took more than 250 hours to build. It also has a lighting system ready to create the last flickers of power before the Titanic disappears into the deep. You can see more images, like the detail of the break below, in The Brickman's Flickr gallery.

Dinosaurs like to be MOCed

With the release of Jurassic World imminent I've got dinosaurs on my mind, and so it seems do many other Lego fans, are there are come great new dinosaur MOCs in the wild. Continue below for a look at some of my recent favourites.

Starting with Tim Goddard's ankylosaurus and predator pairing, which he apparently built for a feature in the second issue of Bricks magazine.

There's a slightly friendly encounter for Timofey Tkachev's triceratops family, which you can also support on Lego Ideas.

Lego particle accelerator

Check out this really impressive working Lego particle accelerator, doing important work to help Lego scientists understand the fundamental building blocks of the universe:

This delightful ball spinning-build is by JK Brickworks. And you should definitely check out their blog and youtube channel, they have many other equally impressive and creative builds.

Amazing Lego interiors

Check out these beautiful interior design sets, made by Flickr user Littlehaulic. This first retro modern design really caught my eye, with the vivid blue details and that groovy bubble chair:

Here are a couple more room designs from Littlehaulic, with some ingenious details. I'm so used to Legoing at minifigure scale or smaller, I often forget a bigger scale can make excellent use of Lego elements, as seen here:

You can see more of these interiors, and other creative builds from Littlehaulic, in her Flickr gallery.

Ghostbusters HQ gets to Lego Ideas review

Another Lego Ideas project has hit the ten-thousand supporters mark, and is therefore now awaiting review. The Ghostbusters HQ project will join others in the next review period starting in September.

The large set is designed to compliment the existing Ecto-1 Ghostbusters car set, which can be accommodated in the garage on the ground floor. The other floors of the building are furnished to provide all the facilities the Ghostbusters team require.

The fact Ideas has already generated a Ghostbusters set seems to me to be both a blessing and a curse: Clearly Lego have already determined brand-fit and marketability, and based on how well the Ecto-1 is performing they will be able to determine if other sets are also likely to be successful. However, like the Minecraft sets, if they have established other Ghostbusters sets could do well, they might just go ahead and make them anyway, without any input required from other Ideas projects.

It's also quite a large set, so Lego would have to be really confident Ghostbusters sells. Plus if it were to be sold without the Ecto-1 included, there would literally be a big car sized void in the model - I rather feel the building is lacking without the vehicle it houses.

Anywho, I'm sure the Lego review panel will let us know something soon enough. Until then you can see more of model on the Swiss Ghostbusters website. And continue after the jump for a video of it being built:

Fossil Museum, and other dinosuars from Lego Ideas

A few days ago a new project appeared on Lego Ideas, and instantly became my new favourite: Fossil Museum is the kind of Lego set I dream of; it's got dinosaurs, it's got a nicely thought-out design, and would slot neatly into wider Lego world. I love dinosaurs, and fossil skeleton displays are at the heart of that love; the wonder and the majesty of a fully assembled dinosaur is just spectacular; you don't need fancy interactive exhibitions and overly designed displays to appreciate the beauty of these amazing animals.

And it seems I'm far from the only one, the project has had a remarkable rush of supports in just its first few days. The creator, whatpumpkin, had included a range of dinosaurs, so there's something for all dinosaur tastes: Stegosaurus, Apatosaurus, Spinosaurus, two Deinonychus, and a Pteranodon. If you haven't already, please add your support, and let's get this great design made into a real set.

Dinosaurs have come up in several nice Lego Ideas projects (indeed I have thoughts on a making a couple myself), continue after the jump for a look at some other great dinosaur projects you should support!

Behold, the new face of Kong

I've been working on improving my King Kong model (and Lego Ideas project) recently, and saved the trickiest bit for last, his face. I quite liked the old face, but felt it was very much an impressionistic take on a gorilla, lacking the character of Kong. The detail of the brow was also all wrong, set back from the eyes, rather than above them.

I went through many iterations of the mark II face; struggling to get the details and proportions to work, but have finally landed on what you see here, which ended up not retaining any of the details of the mark I face. I hope the new face comes across as more expressive, emotive and characterful. Much of this comes from the use of the new printed eyes from the Mixels sets, which are maybe a little more cartoony than is ideal - If this ever did get made into a set I would hope new printed eyes that are more gorilla-esque might be created. For now these eyes will do though. The brow design also means they can move, which gives Kong some different expressions.

More images after the jump:

WALL•E gets to Lego Ideas review

Another Lego Ideas project has passed the ten-thousand supporters mark, and thus is now in the pool for review and consideration for production as a real Lego set. That project is WALL•E, built by no less than one of the animators from the film, Angus MacLane.

MacLane started building the Lego version of model while working on the film, and refined him over the course of the production. The version pictured here is his most recent iteration, and I hope pretty much exactly what Lego delivers as a set, as it's pretty spot-on.

I think this project must have a pretty good chance of going to production: It's bang on brand-fit, got the weight of someone associated with the film being linked to it, and Lego already has a relationship with Disney. I'd certain buy one!

You can see more photos of WALL•E on MacLane's Flickr gallery, the newer version of the model is at the top of his gallery, and the older version can be found in an album.

Lego Ideas King Kong update: New body!

Continuing work on updating my King Kong model for my Lego Ideas project, I set out to improve his back legs this week, but before I knew it that lead to me reworking bottom, arms, and chest too!

My initial objective was to redesign his legs to allow him to stand upright. Kong does this a few times in the films, most notably right at the top of the Empire State Building, so I felt it was an important pose for the model to be able to pull off. The mark I Kong could almost do it, but because of the shape of his legs and the body around them, they had to be twisted in at a weird angle. It was also perilously unstable!

To make the pose possible I decided to use a completely different hinge, the really strong Technic beam joint found in AT-AT walker sets. This made for a really stable joint, but also meant completely redesigning the leg and adjacent body to build the beam ends in, in place of the brick connected joints I used previously. I also made the legs come out from the center of the body slightly further, so they have more freedom of movement without hitting the sides of the body. All the rebuilding also meant Kong’s bottom was destroyed, so I completely redesigned that to look better, and fit around the new joints.

And then there was more I had to change, which you'll find after the jump:

New York World's Fair Astro-View

If you're a reader of my Star Trek site, The Trek Collective, you might recall my Drex Files in Exile post on the New York World's Fair, which included the iconic Astro-View towers, buildings which were transplanted onto a Star Trek matte painting and made forever a part of the future. Later their flying-saucer-esque design prompted them to appear in Men in Black too.

Well having become familiar with those buildings, I found myself starting to build the Astro-View towers out of Lego recently. A little while later I had created the model you see here.

My model includes a working elevator (in so much as you can clip it to any point on the rails it would have glided between back in it's operational days), and a row of luminaires (the distinctive street lights that could be seen throughout the fair).

Pleased with my little model I also decided to submit it to Lego Ideas, where, if ten-thousand people support the project, Lego might consider producing it as an actual Lego set. So if you like these buildings, in the real world, Star Trek, Men in Black, or for some other reason, please do pop over to Lego Ideas and add your support.

PS, my Lego King Kong project is also still seeking support on Ideas, I'd be delighted if you could support and share that project too!

Lego Ideas King Kong update: New hands!

I have started work improving the model for my King Kong Lego Ideas project. I decided to kick things off by improving his hands. This was motivated by the wrist connection being a weak point in the model, and the new ball-and-socket joints introduced this year offering a new way to connect the hand.

The new hand uses the ball joints, which alas are not available in black, so don't blend in seamlessly. I also redesigned the entire hand assembly, using two SNOT-plates to hold together many of the elements together in a sort sandwich, making a much more stable body part. This also allowed me to set the part holding the thumb on slightly further back, so the thumb now closes into the palm of the hand better. I also switched out the finger elements from the parts I had used a pen to make black (as the part is not available in black) to the grey colour the part is now available in, which more or less matches other "fleshy" bits of the model.

To test out his new-found dexterity, I treated Kong to a giant-sized banana. It turned out to be less of a treat for poor old Ann Darrow, as you'll see after the jump:

Minifigure head clock

Here's a cool creation from Etsy creator Jean-Philippe Lannoy, a Lego minifigure-head clock, made from Lego, of course. This is available now from Lannoy's Etsy story, MakeItBrickIt, where it can be bought either pre-assembled, or as a kit, complete with instructions, to built it yourself. Everything but the clock kit at the center is Lego, even the wall mounting!

Super Heroes invade the Death Star

Check out this fantastic MOC of the 10188 Death Star set. Flickr user r5_n2 has taken the basic layout of the Death Star set, and filled it with super heroes (and SpongeBob SquarePants) getting up to their antics:



Here are my favourite locations from the build, but be sure to check out r5_n2's Flickr set for details of every part of this reimagined Death Star; it's full of jokes and quirky scenes:

It's... Lego Monty Python

Well here's a Lego product I've love to see, but for reasons of multiple non-child compatibly issues, sadly never will: Flickr user Rifiröfi has created a brilliant series of could-be sets designs based on Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Here are my favourites, including lovely details like a Lego Holy Hand Grenade, and cow-catapult. See the full series on Flickr.

King Kong, my first Cuusoo project

My first proper MOC in far too long, and also my first submission to Cuusoo: King Kong, eighth wonder of the world!

King Kong is one of my all time favourite films, both the original 1933 version, for it's pioneering visual effects and incredible atmosphere, and the 2005 remake, for bringing Skull Island alive so vividly, and giving us a much more touching relationship between Kong and Ann Darrow. I've yet to see the 1976 version, although I get the impression I'm not missing much there... The original is, incredibly, eighty years old this year!

To celebrate Kong's birthday, and to challenge myself to build something other than a spaceship for once, I decided to build Kong, and have also submitted him to Cuusoo, in the hope he might one day become a real official Lego set as well! As one of the icons of cinema he certainly deserves that privilege!

I've based my Kong mainly on the more realistic gorilla anatomy of the 2005 version, but I hope he feels right standing in for either incarnation. He has articulated hands and limbs, and a poseable head, so it's possible for him to stand on all fours, just about stable up on his hind-legs, and he can also carry Ann.

I've cobbled Ann together from existing minifigure prints, so a bit awkwardly she has white socks on with her white dress. If the set got made I'm sure she'd have a better outfit designed. I think the Hollywood starlet hair is perfect for her though.

Most of the parts in my design are readily available, although I did use the bulb-pin type pieces for his fingers tips, to give them a nice organic roundness. These are currently only available in transparent colours or metallic silver, so for the purposes of finishing my model I actually coloured a few in with a marker pen! The first time I've modified a Lego piece in that way - I feel like I've committed a crime, but he looked silly with bright coloured see-through finger tips! Should the Cuusoo project get the required support, and Lego chose to carry that element of the design over to the final set, then that part would become available in black, or maybe dark grey (to match the other fleshier highlights), for the first time.

When I was initially thinking about making him I had in mind that I would couple him up with the T-Rex (or V-Rex in the remake), to recreate the encounter between the two in the film. As I was building him I realised thought that Kong on his own would be quite a large set by Cuusoo standards so far (his torso alone is the size of the Delorean), so for the Cuusoo proposal I've just done Kong on his own. I'll probably still have a crack at making a T-Rex for fun too though, and maybe a biplane as well, for another fun combination.

There are a few more pictures after the jump. If you like my build, or you're a fan of King Kong, or just like gorillas, please make your way to the Cuusoo proposal and add your support. He'll need ten-thousand supporters to be put to the Cuusoo review for consideration to become a real set. So please also share him around your preferred social media to help drum up some support! It's a long shot given the number of Cuusoo projects already in review, but I really like the idea of the eighth wonder of the world becoming the eighth Cuusoo set!

MOC Daleks

Everyone excited about Doctor Who's 50th anniversary, and the forthcoming regeneration to Doctor number twelve? Good, so you should be! Especially as the Daleks are involved, and Daleks are cool (like bowties, and fezzes, and stetsons...). Lego builder Steven Locke would evidently agree with that, as it seems he's a bit of a Lego Dalek specialist; if you check out his MOCpages you'll find all variety of Daleks, from the classic greys to the technicolour horrors that seem to be being quietly forgotten lately.

Here are my favourites from his collection: The greys, the brilliant ironside Daleks ("WOULD YOU CARE FOR SOME TEEEEEA?"), and the lovely bronze Daleks of the new era, including the impressive Emperor and Supreme Dalek variants:

Be sure to check out Steven Locke's MOCpages to see more of his Dalek creations. I shall leave you with my very favourite Dalek quote, from comedian Frankie Boyle, on Mock the Week some years ago:

WELCOME TO MY DALEK POETRY READING,
THIS ONE IS CALLED DAFFODILS.
EXTERMINATE DAFFODILS!