The air force of DIetterr89

It does not happen very often that there is a post about a single person's creations, but it is worth making an exception today.

As I started to build war planes a while ago, my goal was to find a scale that is the smallest possible,  but still gives me enough room to incorporate many interesting details. I have settled at 1:48. This is the scale at which the MiG-15 and the Bf-109 has been built, and this will be the scale for the next few too. I have never dreamt that it would be worth going smaller.

But the planes of Dieterr89 prove that it is more than worth it. He built an entire air force at 1:70. This is a Messerschmitt 109. It represents the shape and colors of the original aircraft as truly as possible:

Its opponent from the Eastern front is a Lavochkin La-5. This is a truely unique build, you cannot find many Soviet WWII planes built from LEGO. To make it more special, it has a radial engine:

In the case of the desert Ju-87 Stuka it was an extra challenge to build the fixed landing gear and the angled wing:

Its "attacker" is a Spitfire, also in desert camouflage:

As the war progressed, Mustangs started to fly their long range escort missions with jettisonable external tanks:

Its opponent is one of the first jet fighters, a Messerschmitt Me-262. I think this looks even better than the other ones:

We left two modern planes to the end. This is an F-16 Fighting Falcon:

Its pair is a Soviet-build Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-29. Notice the nose bending down a bit:

Excellent collection, let's hope there will be more soon!

Beyond the hobby

LEGO is very popular all over the net: if you would like to build, you will find a lot of help: you can get bricks from Bricklink, older sets from Ebay, instructions and inspiration from one of the many community sites.

But for most of us, this is a hobby to spend our time and money. Well-known builders sometimes create instructions for their creations but frequently they don't. This is no surprise: many of the models gathering fame are complicated, fragile or contain special pieces.

An interesting exception is Daniel Siskind, the man behind Brickmania. He built his own business to create and sell sets without any official ties to the LEGO Company. Wars that happened for real are a taboo for LEGO's own designers (for understandable reasons) and this is the gap Brickmania tries to fill: the website offers more than 50, mostly military themed sets starting from World War II until armies in recent history.

The models are built from real LEGO bricks. Since these models are much more special than the ones you can buy in LEGO stores, they are noticeably pricier. For example this Jeep at $35 is one of the cheapest models. It is part of the 'Durabuilder' series, which in my interpretation means that it will not immediately fall apart if kids take it into their hands.

For this the buyer gets an individually packaged set in similar quality, but much more rare, including minifigs and other extras depending on the set.

Tanks form the bulk of the selection: there are German, American and Soviet vehicles as well, for example the T-34 below. This set is a lot more complex than the Jeep: it includes a fully rotating turret, a driver and the tracking mechanism. It contains 724 bricks and at $345 is noticeably pricier.

Besides tanks there are other types of vehicles. The CCKW truck below was widely used by US armed forces during WWII. This is a medium set at $100.

There are a few aircraft too, like this P-51 Mustang. Similarly to the Jeep it is also a part of the Durabuilder line. The number of pieces and price at $100 are similar to the CCKW.

There are probably quite a few of readers at this point who think these sets are way too expensive. On one hand this is understandable since LEGO is not the cheapest toy and these models are clearly above the price level of the official ones.

On the other hand it is also clear that the founder has invested a lot of his time and energy into Brickmania. These models were be designed, instructions printed and individually packaged. They are likely sold in much smaller quantities than official LEGO sets. The most difficult problem is probably to acquire the required bricks in sufficient quantities at a good price. For comparison, buying all bricks for my somewhat smaller sized MiG-15 already cost more than $80 and quite a bit of time.

Overall, I think that if you are into military LEGO sets but would not like to spend time designing and buying parts for your own model, Brickmania is a good alternative.

(bricksngears.com is not affiliated with Brickmania in any way.)

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.