Behind The Scenes

Here's a builder after my own heart. Not only is this large diorama Star Wars inspired, it's behind the scenes as well. Burglarhobbit brings us a little taste of what it takes to make a blockbuster movie, in this case The Force Awakens. There's tons of fun little details here, but my favorite has to be the cockpit on the motion base, awesome.

IDSMO - R5 - The Making-of

Hey You! Don't Watch That, Watch This!

Fun fact, I'm so old I remember when MTV was a new thing, a revolutionary thing. It was 1981 and we were around the corner at a friend's house, he turned it on, and blew our tiny minds. I remember trying to explain it to my parents with the words "it's kinda like watching the radio". I also remember one of the first videos I ever saw was Madness' One Step Beyond, I was an instant fan. That was a very long time ago, but this MOC by umamen brought all that flooding back. I think I'll be listening to some ska today.

LEGO: Madness "One Step Beyond"

The Schirrmeisterei

The Brick Time team continues to add beautiful structures to their fictional town of Dunholmincluding their latest creation, the Schirrmeisterei. I'll admit that I had no idea what a Schirrmeisterei was, I naturally assumed that it was some sort of horse stable, but thanks to the magic of the interwebs I was able to clear up that misconception quickly. Turns out a Schirrmeisterei is a military supply office of sorts. This supply office makes a great use of the one of my favorite LEGO color combinations, dark stone grey, reddish brown, dark brown on a sand yellow base.

Dunholm - Schirrmeisterei

Meeting BB-8

The Force Awakens sets are finally out (ours are on order from Billund, we had to wait just like everyone else) and I'm super excited to get to build a piece of the next chapter in the saga. But I'm also looking forward to seeing what creative builders do with the new parts and minifigs. Like this excellent little vignette of Rey meeting BB-8 by Legomichiiiiii.

Rey meets BB-8 in Jakku

The Droids I'm Looking For(ward To)

Yesterday was Force Friday, and while my current budget doesn't support a Star Wars shopping spree, it was certainly fun to see such a rush of Star Wars activity all around the interwebs, including Flickr. And while I understand that these droids by Umamen aren't the droids you're looking for, they're for sale if you want them, and you should move along.

LEGO: R2-D2 & C-3PO
LEGO: R2-D2 (3 inch)
LEGO: C-3PO Instructions

Klaatu Barada Nikto

Making movies is a lot of work, and I do mean a LOT of work, and I've done a fair share of them since 1988. Most have blurred into a mishmash of memories of waiting all day to be up, last second equipment malfunctions and tyrannical directors. But a few stand out as actually fun to work on, Army of Darkness was one of them. Bruce Campbell was a joy to be around, Sam Raimi was awesome and the crew of Alterian Studios was family. So to see this book of the dead by vitreolum might conjure images of the macabre for some, to me it's just fond memories of one of the better movie making experiences of my career.

Necronomicon

V-Galactic Racing

I'm a sucker for a good MOC backstory. It adds that extra touch of flair to really understand the world in which a build exists. Builder Markus Rollbühler has not only knocked it out of the park with two awesome space builds, but has generated a wonderful context - they're selectable racers from a video game! He's even gone the extra mile to craft his own select menu, which looks fantastic. I hope we get to "unlock" the rest of the racers soon.

V-Galactic Racing: Scarlet Hare 20X
V-Galactic Racing: Crimson Hornet 3000

Getting Around Springfield

For the past week builder 6kyubi6 has been uploading an entire fleet of vehicles from The Simpsons as part of his "Springfield Project". All manner of conveyance is here, and there seems to be no end in sight, but after 26 seasons on the air there's plenty of material to draw from. My personal favorite is the U-Break-It van. Click through for many more as well as a whole slew of cool buildings as well.

Marge's Car
Otto's School Bus
Kang & Kodos
Chef Wiggum's Police Car
U-Break-It Van Rental
Snake's Firebird

Feed Me!

I have serious mixed feelings on Little Shop of Horrors. On one hand I love Rick Moranis, Bill Murray and Steve Martin. And Audrey II is a crowning achievement in the possibilities of animatic creatures. But I have a hard time watching that movie. I think it's because my roommate tortured me with the soundtrack (that and Howard the Duck if you can believe it) for months, he loved it. But I certainly dig this MOC by Umm, Who?

LEGO® CMF Series 14: Scary Story!

SOCIUS

My first reaction to seeing this MOC and presentation by zi zy was a flood of nostalgia. My buddy and I used to love to go to a Japanese toy store in LA called Pony Toy. We would gawk for ages at all the cool stuff from across the Pacific. This is so well done it looks exactly like a classic Japanese model kit, the kind we would lust after but couldn't afford (jeez, I've always been poor).

00030

Johnny Five

I'll say one thing for Iron Builder, it makes my job easy, Today we're getting retro with some 80's robotic action. This is Johnny Five from the classic movie Short Circuit by Pepa Quin. I've always been a fan of this robot. Short Circuit came out when I was graduating high school and planning on going into the film industry...to do animatronics. It's hard to understate how inspiring this work was to me.

Number Five is Alive
Johnny Five

Test Flight Preparations

This is gorgeous, it's like a scene from a movie. I love everything about this awesome shot by agaethon29, the build, the lighting, the composition, everything. I am instantly drawn in and want to know more about what's going on. Take note space builders, this is how to shoot your models for a cinematic or narrative presentation, beautiful!

Test Flight Preparations

By the power of Grayskull!

Vitreolum is on an absolute roll - he's been blogged twice by BrickNerd in the past week, but that's not going to stop me from highlighting this amazing micro Grayskull. This combines my already overwhelming microscale obsession with a heart-string tugging blast from my childhood. Now to go find the correct parts so I can have my own!

Castle Grayskull


Humanoid Utility Robot

For some little understood reason, man is obsessed with creating humanoid robots like this one from David Steeves. I guess it's logical if you want them to live in our world, work in our factories and interact with our machines they should be like us (I'd like to see BB-8 try and run a lawn mower). And it's just common sense and courtesy that when they finally become sentient and realize what jerks we are (and consequently wipe us out) everything is already compatible with them.

Humaniod Utility Robot (1)

Holy Retrospective batman!

I love this! The batmobile has taken many live-action shapes, and it seems that filmmakers feel it's their duty to give us a new one with every new movie. But no matter which is your personal favorite (I'm sorta partial for the Burton one myself) you have to love them all at this mini scale by builder SPARKART. And all the figures to with them is a perfect finishing touch.

To the Batmobile!

Some Crackin' Good Archeology

Some things I brought back from the UK: I started drinking my tea with milk again, I discovered McVitties Rich Tea biscuits, I won't shut up about the toasted cheese sandwich at Borough Market and I watch Time Team. I recently found out that almost every episode is on YouTube and have been watching whenever I can. So when I saw this MOC by peggyjdb all I could hear was Phil's charming thick accent.

Excavation begins