Let me introduce you to Thomas S. Tank, or maybe Sherman T. Tanker (Apologies to MASH). Either way, Caleb Flutur has produced a mash-up I never knew I needed! Caleb has crossed Thomas the Tank Engine with the US Sherman Tank from WWII. Excellent shaping and color blocking really sell the combination. When I first saw it, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t run across a tank/Thomas and Friends paring before! I could go on about the philosophical musings about this mash-up and the world of Thomas the Tank Engine in general, but Caleb had a lot to say that I’m pretty sure you will find much more interesting!

Michael: Hey Caleb, we featured your Pick-A-Brick cup blender in our LEGO Dark Arts: Incorporating LEGO Packaging Into Your MOCs, Part 2 round-up earlier this year but, this is the first spotlight we've done on you. Would you mind sharing a little bit about yourself?

Caleb: My blender, yes! It's still a build I’m very proud of and have displayed in my kitchen as I don’t have a real blender. I’m Caleb Flutur, known online as Apelcatrox or simply Apel, and am a 28-year-old AFOL from Saskatchewan, Canada. I’m part of SLUG, the Saskatchewan LEGO Users Group. I am a self-professed castle builder who gets distracted by everything non-castle but hopes to build more medieval-inspired builds in the future. I enjoy video games, especially retro 8 and 16-bit games with my favourite console being the Sega Genesis; a console I built in 1:1 scale many years ago. I love orange, history, and best sum up my creative hobbies as a love for the design process and planning out various creations.

Michael: Thanks, that Genesis build is great! You really nailed both the Thomas the Tank Engine and Sherman look in this. You were inspired by a Reddit post for the game War Thunder—was this a causal find or evidence of another hobby providing cross-inspiration?

Caleb: Thank you very much. This was a pure accidental stumble-upon! I have a habit of spending many hours just searching up art and photos for inspiration and while searching up near-future tank art, I happened across a different image of Thomas the Tank. I hadn’t ever seen the idea before or thought much about the meme potential of various Thomas the Puns. I started looking up various other artwork of Thomas the Tank and found the Sherman mashup with Thomas’ face on the turret and his nose as the gun barrel.

Michael: What made you know you had to build it?

Caleb: I knew I wanted to build Thomas right away as I’ve always wanted to build a LEGO tank. I love the history of tanks, and I especially like researching and learning about the evolution of tanks during the Second World War. But I have a hard time finding any passion in building something others have done, done well, and done many a time before. So, building an accurate World War tank has never been on my “to build” list despite my love of them. Finding a way to finally build an accurate Sherman tank while still building something unique, quickly rose to the top of my build list.

I tend to bite off more than I can chew and come up with projects that exceed my free time and financial constraints at this point in my life, so having a smaller project that I could work on also made me want to build it. Also, I sensed that it would be a popular build. I try to build only for my sake, not for the praise of others, but there was a driving force that made me want to see how the public would react to it at shows, and how people would react to a distortion of a friendly childhood figure.

Michael: That is awesome! It’s hard seeing what is out there and feeling unmotivated to tackle a subject that excites you because it has been done so often. I’m glad that you found a unique take on a Sherman to finally build one. I’d like to tell you the “bite-off more than I can chew” syndrome gets better, but most AFOLs I know have that tendency! I think you’ll get a lot of good reactions. Thomas the Tank is defiantly the friendliest-looking tank I’ve ever seen! Was there anything particularly challenging on this build that you'd like to share?

Caleb: One of the biggest challenges was trying to make an accurate Sherman tank—figuring out which of the many, many variants of the Sherman tank that were made over the course of the war and finding one that I could use the blueprints to have a good and consistent reference to work off of. I looked up many other LEGO Sherman builds to see what others have done, what scales have been used, and what parts were used for the details such as the treads and wheels. As I did want to make something unique, I didn’t want to simply do a colour swap of a pre-existing design and just add eyes. I wanted to make my own version of the Sherman from the ground up and ended up learning a lot more about this iconic American tank, the minute details and differences, and the general challenges of replicating something with so many angles and curves out of LEGO bricks.

Michael: The Sherman had a staggering amount of variations, and that’s before you consider all the field mods that happened. With your attempts to present a unique Sherman and all the info you learned in your research, was there anything that was challenging due to the scale? Thomas looks about 20 studs long and 10 wide—was the scale driven by available wheel/color limitations or some other factor?

Caleb: I enjoy this question a lot. Scale and scope are often the first things I figure out after coming up with an idea of something to build—I find it critical in governing how the build progresses. There are a lot of variables that determine what scale you build in, and I find this all the more true when you try and replicate something. My scope for this project was to simply build Thomas the Tank, with no initial thought of making it a diorama or needing it to scale with other things, such as minifigs. The driving part (pun intended) of determining the scale was the tread assembly, especially the drive sprocket and wheels.

As I wanted the wheels and sprocket to be blue, I first looked up what gears and wheels were available in blue. I was initially going to use part 4624 in blue for the bogey wheels surrounded by tire 59895, part 55981 in blue for the idler, and part 3648 in blue for the drive sprocket. But I wasn’t happy with the size of the sprocket in relation to the wheels then stumbled across part 69779 and saw that it was the perfect size for what I wanted. Learning it only came in dark azure and seeing how that colour also works well for Thomas, I switched my primary colour from blue to dark azure.

Many other details ended up falling into place, such as the 1x1 printed tile for the eyes, the candle stick for the main gun barrel, and being able to brick build the browning machine gun. For those curious, my Thomas ended up being around 1:35 scale, whereas a minifig is approximately 1:45 scale. So, while a minifig doesn’t look entirely out of scale, my perfectionist brain doesn’t like to pair the two together.

Michael: I’m glad you enjoyed the question and gave an equally enjoyable answer! Seriously though thanks for the detailed look into the factors that drove the scale you chose. I love that this build is a combination of some very detailed research but also some lucky circumstances. The switch to the dark azure is definitely a closer color match to the show than blue is. A couple of fun questions now: You say on Flickr this has started a collab at your LUG—can you share what other mash-ups may be in the works? Or other train/tank combos you'd like to see?

Caleb: After talking with one friend and others in my LUG after seeing Thomas in person, it was decided that it would be a lot of fun to build the “& Friends” part of the series title. Having all the friendly engines based off of Allied tanks in World War 2, and making the Diesels as the Axis tanks. Finding tanks that match each of the engines, so the larger ones are heavier tanks, and small engines are lighter tanks, is one of the things I want to figure out so we can have a list of what tanks/engines are appropriate and the general size they should be. that way people have an easier time making some of the decisions that caused me problems with building Thomas. I also love the idea of having the other vehicles and train cars be built as well: Harold as a Catalina seaplane for air support, Terence as a little French Renault tank, Annie and Clarabel as troop transport trucks, and the list goes on.

Michael: Nice! I’m excited for when those get built—be sure to let us know! I think the Troublesome Trucks would have to be Jeeps. It might be hard to make the green engines not look like just a tank build, but I’m excited to see what you and SLUG come up with. Since you were clearly a fan of Thomas the Tank Engine, who is the best narrator: Ringo, Carlin, or the new animated ones?

Caleb: I grew up watching the series in the late 90s and early 2000s—the good, filmed miniatures series. While I haven’t seen the series since I was young, Thomas the Tank Engine still is widely recognized by everyone, young and old, and holds a special place in my heart with a love of trains, practical flim/TV effects, and an appreciation of really good theme songs! I can’t remember the narrator that I would have heard growing up, but one other distinct Thomas memory I have is going through the product catalogues of the wooden toys and dreaming of creating a massive layout.

Michael: My children watched a lot of Thomas—I’m definitely partial to the older miniature episodes as well. My wife and I would giggle at Carlin as the narrator, but that was mostly because we’re familiar with some of his more famous comedy bits that are not for the Thomas the Tank Engine age group! Next question, what is your favorite LEGO piece?

Caleb: My favourite LEGO piece in terms of aesthetics is the diver’s helm from the CMF Series 8 diver mini-fig. I used this part to make a mini steampunk octopus that sits on my desk.

Michael: Excellent! There is some really great parts usage on that octopus. I don’t think I realize the sausage fit into the end of the espresso plate! I’ll definitely have to remember that. Anything else you'd like to share?

Caleb: I would like to mention that I used BrickLink Stud.io to design my Thomas and have been using the program more and more to help design my LEGO creations—especially since my bricks are currently in storage and I have limited access to them. This was particularly helpful in determining what parts were available in dark azure, and being able to try various techniques and part combinations. Certain things such as the exact track length was something I needed to figure out in the flesh, but building it digitally and ordering the parts I needed made this project something feasible. The number of newer parts, let alone the parts in the correct colour, I actually had before ordering, would have greatly altered the final result.

Thanks again for the feature and for asking some lovely questions. I’m glad you enjoyed my creation, and I apologize for the wordiness of my answers!

Michael: Thanks Caleb! No worries about the wordiness—this is BrickNerd and we love a Nerdy, long-winded dive into the creative process!

What other war machines would you like to see in the Thomas the Tank Engine theme? Let us know in the comments!

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