Cool things

A few cool things from the last few days.

We now have official information about the new large X-Wing. It will be built from no fewer than 1558 bricks and will hit the stores in the second half of the year. If I would live in the states and would like to invest my savings into LEGO sets, I am sure I would stack up a few. I predict there will be demand in years.

I think this Soyuz spacecraft is way cool. Even if it does not have any bricks. Creation of pasukaru76.

Dieter89 has built this superb P-51 Mustang. I envy him now. It is a pity that he just missed the great competition (on which I finished in the runner up category with my MiGs).

Our mandatory weekly cool microscale build is this. Created by True Dimensions:

I promise I will get back with my own creations. Sooner or later. See you next week!

Planes, as small as they can be

I hope by now everyone has built his LEGO sets from Christmas. To make January more exciting, Mainman has organized his own microscale build competition for plane builders. The deadline was last week, it is a good time to look at the best nominees.

tbone_tbl was the most productive one, he has built no less than seven planes. My personal favorite is this AV-8 Harrier. All details are in place: the wing is excellent, but I also like the canopy and its surroundings, not to mention the tail section.

The most grandiose plane was built by John Lamarck: this B-17 is definitely the biggest in the field - if this makes sense for a microscale aircraft:

It also has two P-51 Mustangs as escorts:

You are probably not surprised to hear that I have built something too. These two projects have been half done for a long time and the competition has finally gave me the final push to finish them. I already built a MiG-15 at a different scale, but I wanted to build a smaller one too. This is the end result:

All in all, I am not 100% happy with it. The overall shape is ok, but I think the final impression is a bit blocky. I am like this MiG-21 a bit more:

This plane is the most produced supersonic aircraft in the world. Compared to this it has hardly any versions built from bricks. I like how this turned out at this scale.

The field is strong, I am already happy just to be able to participate. It is worth looking at the others too, there are really good ones.

And if you would like to have more LEGO reading for the week, I recommend the newest issue of BrickJournal - the downloadable version is available for $3.95.

Best of MOC

We have seen many excellent builds on the web during the past few weeks, let us take a look at some of them.

_lichtblau_ has been covered on the blog earlier. His latest creations are a black Pontiac with a Plymouth highway patrol, they both have an incredible seventies feel. Although both are minifig scale they both have very car-like proportions. The most interesting detail is the front and back of the police car - the fenders built from bricks laying sideways fit this vehicle very well.

henningb's steam train is at least as professional. My favorite detail is the tracks. Now that I see it it seems very straightforward! The smoke built of ice cream is also quite cool.

Let's see something different. George G has build Middle Earth, more precisely Helm's Deep. It is fantastic how the different pieces form a the details together: the Technic bricks, the ones with brick pattern and the rest. I suspect in a factory set we would never see them together like this, yet here they fit together perfectly.

Like this blog, thirdwigg has high stakes in planes as well as the world of Technic. When you put the two worlds together you get this huge Spitfire fighter from the Battle of Britain:

It is worth watching the video until the end. It has all the features of a real plane except for flying: variable-pitch propellers, 12 pistons, retractable landing gear. Of course it includes full controls as well. It cannot be seen on the video but it has adjustable flaps too. And if that would not be enough it is fully covered and looks like a real plane and not like a skeleton like a typical Technic set.

If you have your eyes wide open you have probably realized that next week we will cover microscale planes... see you then!

Let's build!

Interesting happenings in the builder scene. It is well known that Mainman likes microscale models, especially military aircraft: he has built an entire air force in 1:100 scale like this cool F-15. Now the plane itself has flown into air to let everyone know that there is a contest: everything that flies and is built in 1:60 or smaller scale can be nominated until January 22 2013. I myself am thinking about this and I encourage you to think about it too!

Something else has happened over the week: Mad Physicist posted another building instructions. This is only the fourth time in the history of the galaxy, so let us not underestimate the importance. Unlike the previous models this is a civilian helicopter built of relatively common yellow and red bricks, so it should not be too hard to build one at home.

Although it is more complicated than the sets you can buy in the LEGO shop, in the Mad Physicist universe this is a relatively simple one. If you have all the bricks (or LDD), I highly encourage you to build it. If you do so, don't forget to send me a photo!

The part list can be downloaded from here and the instructions from here (PDF, 7 megs).