Flying boats make a forest stop-off

Check out this fantastical scene from Brother Steven. We’ve got medieval-style treehouses, a brawl in a bustling marketplace, and a tethering tree for magical flying boats! Excellent work all round.

Gentleman of Fortune

This model pulls of a difficult trick — creating a scene with fantasy elements which still manages to feel realistic. It’s well worth clicking through to the original image and zooming in to see all the lovely detail on display in the marketplace around the base of the trees.

Beautiful Taiwanese temple is a masterful model

Big LEGO spaceships tend to capture a lot of online attention, but this is the sort of model which people should spend ages drooling over. This Taiwanese temple from delayice is simply stunning.

vintage temple

The roof grabs the eye with its lovely pointed corner ridges and the smattering of studs for texture. But don’t miss the lovely landscaping around the temple itself — an attractive mix of round tiles for stones and green plates for grass. And then zoom in on the original photo to see how the builder has cleverly mixed shades of brown to create a realistic feeling of aged and worn woodwork. This is a fabulous model.

A place downtown to meet your Friends

I love seeing Friends colors and sets incorporated into awesome builds, and Allan Corbeil has done a magnificent job with that. He’s given us a lovely Cafe Corner modular building, based on 41035 Heartlake Juice Bar.

Black and White photo of my Lego Modular Building MOC

While I love the black and white old-timey pictures, I have to share the stand-alone shot, too. The Juice Bar looks just lovely built into the ground floor of this brick building. The detail for the top floor is quite lovely and very reminiscent of the details that LEGO puts into other modular sets, particularly 10243 Parisian Restaurant and 10251 Brick Bank.

Lego Building #8

Swedish fighters are different

Before going bust, the Swedish car manufacturer Saab built cars that were stereotypically driven by architects and college professors. The cars were always a bit quirky and different, which is probably one of the reasons why the company went bust. Saab didn’t start by building cars, however. Its eponymous parent company started by building aircraft for the Swedish military and it is still going strong. The Saab J 35 “Draken” (Dragon), built by Stefan Johansson, first flew in 1955 and was one of Europe’s first supersonic fighter aircraft.

Stefan’s model clearly shows the very distinctive cranked delta wing of this Cold War classic. The Swedish military typically required their aircraft to be suitable for operations from poorly prepared surfaces, in terrible weather and to be maintained by conscripts with relatively little specialised training. The resulting aircraft always looked rather different from their contemporaries. This also applies to the Draken’s replacement in Swedish service: the Saab JA-37 “Viggen” (Thunderbolt). If anything, Stefan’s model of this jet is even more impressive.

It has a large double delta wing, canard foreplanes and an unusual undercarriage with double main wheels in tandem, designed to facilitate operating from unpaved runways. Another quirky feature is that, in order for the jet to fit inside small underground hangars, its vertical tailfin can be folded down. Judging from the row of hinges this can also be done on the model. The complicated curvy shapes of fuselage are recreated very effectively using various slopes, and while I am normally not a fan of studless builds, the choice to build the model’s wings using bricks on their side works really well. Saabs are unusual fighters and an unusual choice of subject for LEGO models, but these are just more reasons to like them.

An Elder Scrolls wonder

I consider some computer games to be pieces of art, and Elder Scrolls has always been one of those. You may find many great details in the stories, dialogues, characters, geography and locations, and Tava’s Beak is among those inspiring landmarks in The Elder Scrolls Online. Thorsten Bonsch is apparently very impressed with this ancient statue from an unknown civilization and decided to recreate it with LEGO parts. The result is magnificent! Almost every curve of the big rock is perfectly represented. Here’s a screenshot from the original game to compare with the LEGO version.

Tava's Beak

Sticker it to ya

This dangerous looking spaceship is filled with clever techniques and interesting parts. The extensive use of Technic gear racks is especially menacing, but the real standout here is the innovative sticker usage. They weren’t custom printed. Rather, Adrian chopped up a bunch of the yellow stickers from set 75053 The Ghost (from Star Wars Rebels) and placed them on the model in an interesting pattern. The stickers were already printed to be scruffy-looking, but the builder wanted them to be even scruffier. So he abraded the stickers by rubbing the model back and forth on a wooden table. The stickers aren’t shiny and smooth any more, but the result is definitely worth it.

Gliesian Impi?33m fighter

Love through music featuring Mickey and Minnie

Feelings can often be difficult to share, but thankfully, music can do it for us. The perfect song can tell someone everything you want to say but don’t know how. It can take us back instantly to points in our life, reminding us of those we love. James Zhan has built this wonderful gramophone, with beautiful gilded details. Atop the record is Minnie, with Mickey playing the record.

To me, it tells me the song reminds him of her, and there’s something very sweet in that message.

Talk Of Love Through Music

The record spins, too!


LEGO Dimensions Trailer introduces new characters including E.T., Sonic the Hedgehog [News]

Yesterday’s news about LEGO Dimensions was exciting, with the set images for Ghostbusters, A-Team, Mission Impossible, Harry Potter, and Adventure Time. This morning brings us the official trailer for the next wave of characters, and there are some fantastic ones!

 

In the trailer, we’re introduced to a number of new faces, including:

Newt Scamander from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Newt Scamander

Gizmo from Gremlins
Gizmo

E.T. the Extraterrestrial
E.T.

The Goonies
The Goonies

Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic the Hedgehog

We still have a number of new things to look forward too, including Beetlejuice, Knight Rider, and the Powerpuff Girls!

Who else did you spot in the trailer? Let us know in the comments!

And remember, you can still get many of the original wave of Dimensions packs for nearly 50 percent off.

You can read the official press release below.

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, TT Games and The LEGO® Group today announced the expansion of LEGO® DIMENSIONS™, the LEGO® toy and videogame hybrid, with more blockbuster franchises and even bigger gameplay possibilities. New expansion packs broaden the complete selection to 30 of the world’s most popular entertainment brands allowing players to customise their experience by mixing and matching favourite characters and universes with full compatibility. Game features adding to the fun are all-new, four-player competitive Battle Arenas, a first for LEGO® videogames, as well as Story Packs, which provide deep, story-driven gameplay around the biggest theatrical releases and include a fresh LEGO® brick building experience.

LEGO® Dimensions™ packs based on 16 new entertainment properties will begin launching on September 30, 2016 with the Ghostbusters Story Pack, Adventure Timeand Mission: Impossible Level Packs, Harry Potter and Adventure Time Team Packs, and The A-Team Fun Pack. Additional expansion packs based on other highly anticipated films Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and The LEGO® Batman Movie and wildly popular properties The Goonies, Sonic The Hedgehog, Teen Titans Go!, LEGO® City Undercover, Knight Rider, The Powerpuff Girls, Gremlins, Beetlejuice and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial will be released in product waves stretching into summer of next year. All expansion packs provide players with continued compatibility to use everything from waves 1-9 interchangeably, anywhere throughout the game. And no new starter pack is required, as all new packs will simply enhance the LEGO® Dimensions™ Starter Pack game and work with the existing LEGO® Toy Pad.“We’ve built upon the existing LEGO® DIMENSIONS™ Starter Pack to expand the gameplay possibilities with entirely new LEGO® experiences that can’t be found anywhere else,” said Tom Stone, Managing Director, TT Games. “We can now provide players with even more customization and mash-up opportunities, and all are compatible with the existing game and packs. Battle Arenas also introduce a fun new way for friends and family to join the action together and battle as favorite characters, which is an exciting innovation for LEGO® videogames.”

“LEGO® DIMENSION™S is a significant part of our LEGO® videogames portfolio, and we are excited to offer fans many more iconic entertainment franchises combined with new, enhanced ways to play,” said David Haddad, President, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. “TT Games continues to innovate and expand the game experience, which gives players breakthrough digital and physical gameplay with an amazing amount of world-class entertainment properties connected together.”

“We are excited to continue our partnership with TT Games and WBIE and bring even more characters to life through LEGO® DIMENSIONS™,” said Niels Jørgensen, Vice President, Digital Games for the LEGO® Group. “The videogame has allowed our fans to extend their LEGO® play experience in a whole new way and the new expansion packs will create even more play possibilities through exciting properties.”

All-new Battle Arenas will offer first-to-LEGO® videogames competitive split-screen local gameplay for up to four players. LEGO® minifigures included in the wave 6 through 9 expansion packs will come with special, golden Toy Tags which unlock a Battle Arena within the Free Play Adventure World of the corresponding entertainment brand. Each Battle Arena has four different gameplay modes and comes with its own traps, special powers and interactive environments that make every battle arena unique.

The Ghostbusters Story Pack, based on the upcoming film, will provide a complete movie-based gameplay experience with six puzzle-packed levels and new LEGO® Gateway bricks that allow players to build Zhu’s Chinese Restaurant atop the LEGO® Toy Pad. It will also come with a buildable Abby Yates LEGO® minifigure with Proton Blaster and 3-in-1 buildable Ecto-1 which can be rebuilt into the Ectozer and The PerfEcto. The pack unlocks “Rip,” a new Toy Pad mode allowing players to tear open an alternate universe. In this mirror world, players have the ability to solve puzzles and affect objects and other items in the primary universe. And like all gold-tag minifigures purchased, Abby Yates provides access to a new themed Adventure World with its own unique Battle Arena. The Ghostbusters Story Pack is just the first of this new exciting pack type, with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, based on the highly anticipated theatrical release, still to come later this year. The LEGO®DIMENSIONS™ packs will be the exclusive construction toy offering this holiday for the exciting expansion of J.K Rowling’s Wizarding World.

Story Packs also expand the Starter Pack story with deeper gameplay. In the game’s storyline, the evil Lord Vortech has hidden portions of his powers around the LEGO® Multiverse. As players progress through Story Pack levels, they can unearth and tap into Keystone Runes to use Lord Vortech’s powers against him through all-new Toy Pad modes.

Developed by TT Games and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, LEGO® DIMENSIONS™ is now available for PlayStation®4 and PlayStation®3 computer entertainment systems, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and the Wii U™ system.

A scene of Hotline Miami, recreated in LEGO

Hotline Miami LEGO are two things which shouldn’t mix. One is an ultra-violent top down murder fest of a game, and the other is a made-for-kids interlocking bricks system. Luckily, Nannan Zhang does both properties justice with this little scene from the games.

Hotline Miami

Aside from the great colours used to imitate the game and the textured brick pieces being used as carpet details, what I really love is the fact that (as far as I can tell) only LEGO pieces were used. The Chima headpiece acting as a Tony Mask works particularly well. It all comes together so well and makes me want to play the games again.

Giant LEGO recreation of Force Awakens hangar holds four TIE fighters

Near the beginning of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Poe and Finn hijack a TIE fighter and make their escape. The scene plays out in the hanger of the First Order’s star destroyer, the Finalizer. This hangar has been painstakingly recreated in LEGO by LegoSpencer in this project that took six weeks to create. The final build features four official LEGO TIE fighter sets as well as a few dozen stormtroopers and an untold amount of detailing. For a closer look, you can also check out the builder’s thorough breakdown video.