This bird shoe fits the bill

This angry-looking bird isn’t the star of a mobile game or summer movie, but is actually an ingenious interpretation of one of nature’s bigger-billed birds, the African-native shoebill. The real bird stands a remarkable 4 feet tall with an enormous bill for catching fish. Builder Moko has done a great job using the shin guards from the large General Grievous figure to portray the bill, but my favorite part is the expressive eyes. Be sure to check out Moko’s blog for a cool breakdown of the construction techniques employed.

Shoebill

Gotham brick-figures, part 2

The second half of Forms of Gotham collection includes many of the staple Batman characters. The dark knight himself finally makes an appearance, as does his arch-nemesis the Joker. Building such a large group with wide-ranging styles and colors was particularly fun, as was bringing to life some of the most famous faces in comic book history.

The Batman
The Batman by Tim Lydy
The Joker
The Joker by Tim Lydy

The Riddler
The Riddler by Tim Lydy

The Mad Hatter
The Mad Hatter by Tim Lydy

Poison Ivy
Poison Ivy by Tim Lydy

Mr. Freeze
Mr. Freeze by Tim Lydy

Harley Quinn
Harley Quinn by Tim Lydy

Watch the Autumn leaves change from Stonecreek Lookout

Sergeant Chipmunk is the master of texture. First, it was insanely beautiful, jagged rockwork. Then, a sleek and stylish castle of ice. Now, it’s a deceptively simple castle with extra-blocky crenellation surrounded by autumn-time trees. The new texture? Well, Chipmunk put a handful of 1×1 round tiles to great use by carefully stacking them into dragonscale-like textured walls for his castle. I can’t imagine the zen-like patience this man must have.

Stonecreek Forest

The vastness of LEGO Space awaits beyond this door

A good solid door. On any space station, it’s the only thing standing between you and the dark, dangerous, cold of hard vacuum. Sad Brick‘s latest model focuses in on this essential part of any space facility — and this door certainly looks like it can take the pressure.

Freight station

The vehicle and the little droid are cool, and I like the details and texture on the walls. But the door itself is the undoubted star of this show, with huge hinges and the use of slope bricks suggesting an appropriate heft. This is clearly a serious portal — not for casual opening.

Carousel! Carousel! CAROUSEL!

Justin Winn‘s spacemen have been tirelessly going about their day-to-day jobs and even studying for advanced space degrees. So it’s good to see these hard-working minifigs take down their hair and have fun from time to time. Justin spacified Set 10196: The Grand Carousel and his new version is awesome. It has a ton of spacey details but my favorite bits are those custom printed space logo sails that form the carousel roof. They’d look pretty sweet on a space ship too, right?

10196 Grand Carousel - Classic Space Redux

LEGO to release a huge 4,080 piece Cinderella Castle set [News]

A new flagship set for the Disney LEGO license has been revealed today: the picturesque Cinderella’s Castle. The castle is an icon for Disney, being the centerpiece of Disney World. The set will have 4,080 pieces and will retail for US$349.99. We don’t know yet when it will be available.

71040 Disney World Cinderella Castle

The castle has an open back to allow access to the full interior for play and display. It also comes with minifigs of Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Donald and Daisy Duck, and Tinkerbell, with some different designs to the versions in the Disney Collectable Minifigure line.

71040 Disney World Cinderella Castle

Here’s the set with its inspiration, Cinderella’s Castle in the heart of Disney World:

71040 Disney World Cinderella Castle

via WDW News Today

Poland’s tallest building created in LEGO

The Palace of Culture and Science is the tallest building in Poland and dominates the skyline of the Polish capital, Warsaw. Łukasz Libuszewski has not only recreated the building in LEGO but has also managed to capture his creation in a beautifully atmospheric photograph.

pkin3

The building’s art deco style is achieved with clean lines, grille tiles for the tall windows and some lovely detailing using texture bricks. I particularly like the seemingly simple parts used by the builder to represent the decorative masonry atop the walls, the original architect purposefully copied this from Renaissance houses and palaces of Kraków and Zamośćthat – a tile with clip and technic gear rack.

PKiN

The full sets of photographs and views of the Palace of Culture and Science can be seen on Flickr.

LEGO Starbug with fully detailed interior is smegging smeg-tastic

Despite being named after the ship where it all began, much of the action in hit British sci-fi sitcom Red Dwarf actually takes place on the much smaller scout ship Starbug (in fact two entire seasons take place on board the cramped green spacecraft, while the show’s incompetent heroes try to figure out how they misplaced their original mothership). So it makes perfect sense that total smeghead Patrick Gregory would choose to recreate Starbug rather than Red Dwarf in LEGO, despite it’s more challenging spherical features.

But not only did Patrick model the ship’s exterior, he also built in a fully playable interior, spread over three decks, featuring many locations and props from the show! If you study the closeup pictures you’ll see the flight deck, medical bay, AR computer room, cargo bay and even a scutter or two.

Do not tap the glass

Considering the depths of the oceans, there are practically countless species of fish to inspire new LEGO creations, such as this particularly dangerous-looking Needlemouth by Serbian builder Djordje. No doubt this is one fishy fellow you wouldn’t want to antagonize!

Needlemouth by Djordje

In Soviet Russia, moon lands on you

Tyler Clites does it again. One of our favourite builders’ latest model is a fantastic scene of a Soviet moon lander. The spacecraft itself is pretty smart, with some lovely believable-looking greebles around the legs, and tiny details like the attitude thrusters up top. But the photo-editing is something else, with the addition of a subtle grain effect to create a real old-school space feel. All-round retro lunar goodness.

Russian LK Lunar Lander