Showing posts with label Technique. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Technique. Show all posts

30 January 2020

2019 Parts Fest #2: Mansur Soeleman's kitchen, church and temple

Posted by Admin
Today sees the return of Mansur “Waffles” Soeleman (Flickr & Instagram) to our Parts Festival, who previously blew us away with his LEGO® Star Wars creations. We have a really varied range of creations from him, using the seed parts we provided.

Life Sized Stove

Exploring the jumper plate-like characteristics of the 'Frozone board' (32627) led me to discover its real life counterpart one morning when I spilled freshly brewed espresso on a stove-top: perfect knobs, unlike the ones I had to clean the coffee from.



29 January 2020

2019 Parts Fest #2: Thorin Finch's Republic Assault

Posted by Admin
When we sent new LEGO® parts to Alice Finch she got her sons involved in the Parts Festival fun! We saw many of their resulting builds last year but today we showcase an epic Star Wars diorama built entirely by Thorin (aged 16) as well as a gunship.  

Republic assault on an outer rim Separatist science facility


28 January 2020

2019 Parts Fest #2: Pierre-E Fieschi's Imperial Star Destroyer and Chibi Tanks

Posted by Elspeth De Montes
The LEGO® parts festival we ran in late 2019 was so big and so successful, we didn't have time to finish publishing all the amazing creations our chosen builders came up with! So at last, over the next few days, we will publish the remaining models featuring our selected elements introduced in 2019. Warming us back up is French concept artist and architect Pierre-E Fieschi who showcases more of his inspiring ideas, following on from his Liebherr tunnelling machine and his sci-fi containers and launch pad.

Imperial Star Destroyer


This small Imperial Star Destroyer was a lot of fun to build. The large hook/grappler kind of resembles the trapezoid of the ISD bridge. It is found in the 'Batman bag' (Mini Accessory, No. 10 – 6266155| 40598).

14 January 2020

Inthert's alternate build of LEGO® Overwatch 75976 Wrecking Ball

Posted by Admin
Our little fiesta of LEGO® Overwatch 75976 Wrecking Ball finishes today with original alternate models designed by British builder Inhert, using only the pieces found in this set. The set is priced £17.99 / US$19.99 / 19.99€ although perhaps you may now be seeing it on sale. If you missed our Wrecking Ball review by Inthert and Jonas Kramm, check it out here.

Alternate builds are tricky enough with the majority of sets but with 75976 Overwatch Wreaking Ball containing only 227 parts, I was a little doubtful I could make anything half-decent without dipping into my existing collection. As a safeguard against that temptation, I decided to take this challenge on holiday! Four days in a log cabin with LEGO bricks seemed like the perfect setting, with plenty of time to come up with ideas - my thought being I could come up with one alternate build per day.

Day 1: Bipedal Mech



13 January 2020

Jonas Kramm's alternate build of LEGO® Overwatch 75976 Wrecking Ball

Posted by Admin
Last time, LEGO® Overwatch 75976 Wrecking Ball was reviewed by both Jonas Kramm and Inthert but we had a further task for these two champion builders: create an alternate model using only the 227 pieces in the set! Here is Jonas' creation, and come back tomorrow for Inthert's. The set is priced £17.99 / US$19.99 / 19.99€ although perhaps you may now be seeing it on sale.

For my alternative creation with the pieces from the Wrecking Ball I started with the most prominent pieces: the dishes. I wanted to find a good and creative use for these. First thought was to build a motorcycle, but I couldn't find complimentary pieces to build the wheels. However the thought of building something to ride was still in my mind and so the idea of a hoverbike was born.

31 December 2019

LEGO® Speed Champions 2020: The new pieces

Posted by Admin
Tomorrow is January 1 and that means new LEGO® sets, which in turn means new LEGO parts! We asked Duncan Lindbo to locate all the new moulds and printed parts in the 2020 range of Speed Champions, and additionally tasked him with exploring the capabilities of those exciting new moulds.

A few weeks ago, LEGO revealed the first wave of 2020 Speed Champions sets which are available from January 1 2020.
  • 76895 Ferrari F8 Tributo
  • 76896 Nissan GT-R NISMO
  • 76897 Audi Sport Quattro S1
  • 76898 Formula E Panasonic Jaguar Racing GEN2 Car & Jaguar I-PACE eTROPHY
  • 76899 Lamborghini Urus ST-C & Huracán Super Trofeo EVO
But we’re not here to talk about the sets themselves, we’re here for the parts!

New moulds in LEGO Speed Champions 2020

15 December 2019

2019 parts Fest #2: Okkonen's Kekkonen and Tempietto

Posted by Elspeth De Montes
Finnish builder Eero Okkonen returns to our Parts Festival today for a fourth outing using new LEGO® parts. You can see his earlier builds here and follow his builds on his blog.

Portrait of the President


The person in the portrait is Urho Kaleva Kekkonen (1900-1986), the eighth president of Finland. His reign lasted from 1956 to 1982, over 25 years, which is unusual in democratic country that limits its president’s career to two six-year terms.

14 December 2019

2019 Parts Fest #2: Peter Ilmrud's gunship, flying city and bathhouse

Posted by Elspeth De Montes
Our final new Parts Festival participant is Peter Ilmrud, a Swedish AFOL who is a building engineer in real life but builds wondrous fantasy, castle and steampunk builds in his LEGO® life. His most well-known creations are perhaps his beautiful scenes contained within glass domes.

This build is an alien gunship often referred to as "Bullet Bill" by the survivors in the year 2119, 50 years after The Invasion.




13 December 2019

2019 Parts Fest #2: Mansur Soeleman's Star Wars

Posted by Admin
Today, another new participant for this Parts Festival presents his first builds. Mansur “Waffles” Soeleman (Flickr & Instagram) is a former art & design student who, having just come out of his Grey Age (that's a semi-Dark Age), has been building with LEGO® elements seriously for just a year now, but mostly digitally.

For a newbie it is always an exhilarating surprise to be recognised for your work, and to be invited to challenges that only elevate your skills. Such was my reaction to find out that I had been recommended for this year’s second Parts Festival by several world-renowned Classic Space builders.

Clone Turbo Tank and AT-TE


12 December 2019

2019 Parts Fest #2: The Finch's candy and craft

Posted by Admin
We have new arrivals to our LEGO® Parts festival today: Alice Finch of BippityBricks.com (famed for her massive Hogwarts and Rivendell models) has a range of creations. She even got the family involved; her sons Thorin (16) and Hadrian (11) have chipped in too!

Candy dispenser

This tasty creation uses the grappler and the weapon pack discs from Mini Accessory, No. 10  (40598|6266155), and the circular saws from Mini Accessory, No. 11 (50018|6266977).

11 December 2019

2019 Parts Fest #2: Tim Goddard's Star Trek & Star Wars

Posted by Admin
Back to the Parts Festival today – yes, we have lots more LEGO® inspiration for you yet, even some new faces! – but it is Tim Goddard's turn again today, following his recent collection of bots and a hover racer, and other tablescraps

USS Enterprise

We start with the spacey franchise Star Trek. Possibly my hardest model ever to photograph.


09 December 2019

LEGO® Creator Expert review: 10270 Bookshop - The techniques

Posted by Admin
The new LEGO® Modular was announced last week and Jonas Kramm was ready with the first part of his review, looking just at the new elements. Today, he builds the model! 

After my roundup of what’s in the new Modular Building set element-wise, let’s take a look at the actual build and the different techniques used here. First we will discover the bookshop, and afterwards, the Teal apartment next to it.


06 December 2019

2019 Parts Fest #2: Oscar's Anti-Gravity Repair Bay 5

Posted by Elspeth De Montes
Oscar Cederwall returns for a third time to our Parts Festival following his previous articles: an exploration of geometric joys and clips and crustacean.  This time Oscar has been using those greeble-tastic Batman LEGO® elements in a sci-fi scene. Get your spanners ready, we are about to land on Oscar's futuristic Anti-Gravity Repair Bay 5.

05 December 2019

2019 Parts Fest #2: Andreas Lenander's oversized camera

Posted by Admin
Oops! I left one creation out of yesterday's post of vintage electronics by Andreas Lenander. 

Oversized camera

About two years ago I built an old camera which I was fortunate enough to be able to display in the LEGO® House Masterpiece Gallery. I really wanted to try something similar again and came to the conclusion that using two of the rims (Motorcycle Rim Ø 75 Solid "Fat boy" in Medium Stone Grey/ Light Bluish Gray – 6268590|46334) would give me the appropriate size for the objective.




04 December 2019

2019 Parts Fest #2: Andreas Lenander's vintage electronics

Posted by Admin
Following his fantasy builds with the Fat Boy rims and his varied builds using 3x3 domes, we have some more down-to-earth LEGO® creations from Andreas Lenander today as we continue our second Parts Festival for 2019, which uses all these seed parts.

Headphones

Continuing my new found affinity for the big Fat Boy rims (Motorcycle Rim Ø 75 Solid in Medium Stone Grey – 6268590|46334), I decided to tackle a real-life object.


I realized the size of the rims were ideal for large headphones and adding another type of rim on the outside gave it a pretty “real” look, so that was the starting point for this build. The new 1x2 plates with rounded corners and holes were a great fit when creating the band of the headphones, of course with some 3mm flex tubes inside.

30 November 2019

2019 Parts Fest #2 : Eero's Fig-barf

Posted by Elspeth De Montes
Minifigures are not something you see an awful lot of on New Elementary but for his next Parts Festival submission, Finnish builder Eero Okkonen used the seed parts to create some awesome outfits and accessories!


I used to make lot of custom minifigures, usually in so-called 'barfs' of four to six figs but I last made one in August 2016, over three years ago.  Some of seed parts seemed useful at minifig scale, so I began fiddling. At first these figs were going to be on the bridge scene which developed into the creation called Frost Serpent Arises but they didn’t work in that context. In a way, this is a special gift to anyone who has asked me to make another barf or wondered why I ever stopped.

29 November 2019

2019 Parts Fest #2: Kev's Robots

Posted by Elspeth De Montes
UK-based builder Kevin Levell is back and, as with many other Parts Festival creations, these ideas are spawned from those amazing LEGO® Batman accessory packs. Many of you readers have expressed frustration that these are unavailable from Bricks & Pieces, because they are 'locked' to the Batman license. It seems there might be good news on the way about this – part 50018 is now listed on B&P, although out of stock – so we will keep you updated.


I very often like to build in a freeform, directionless, even Zen-like way. Part of the delight of a Parts Festival for me is the opportunity to experiment with new parts in that exact way. I very rarely have a clear idea of what I want to do, I normally just tinker, putting things together in abstract ways, in regimented or geometric ways, until something 'speaks' to me. Often, multiples of the same part are a particularly effective way to do this, and this is a further delight of a Parts Festival.

28 November 2019

2019 Parts Fest #2: Tim Goddard's Bots and Hover Racer

Posted by Admin
Tim Goddard returns to our Parts Festival today using the new LEGO® parts we sent him to create interesting and inspiring models.

Underwater Geometry


The marine life family bag (Accessories, Marine Life, No. 1 in Vibrant Coral – 49595 | 6262127) is tricky, it basically is what it says on the tin. What else could it be? Of course I have already seen some good uses within this very Parts Festival.

PFC, 24 (plus some seaweed/coral and a couple of extra fish)

I used the pieces in a random underwater geometric shape, again making use of the 120º 3.18mm bar. Having a hollow stud on both sides in the middle of this piece is amazingly useful. The centre is a stud thick; if you put a tile on both sides the height is exactly 1 brick.

25 November 2019

2019 Parts Fest #2: Sagh's bugs

Posted by Elspeth De Montes
Returning to our Parts Festival today is Paulo 'Sagh' Carreira from Portugal with more fun and inspiring creations using some of the newest LEGO® parts.

When I arrived home from Skaerbaek Fan Weekend with the seed parts, I decided that I would not look up these parts on the internet. I didn’t want to see their original uses, to avoid being influenced. While the use of some parts is quite clear, like Will’s hair or Bo Peep’s staff, others presented themselves as mysteries. The Mini Accessory, No. 11 in Silver Metallic (6266977|50018) was one of those mysteries. What a great set of parts!

Giant Elk Beetle

The Giant Elk Beetle walks the woods in search for food with a slow but steady pace to save energy for the mating season. That’s when the males became very active, fighting each other by making use of their big antlers.


The mix of joints with different angles and connections in this pack of parts were the perfect means to replicate different creature’s articulations. I took inspiration from different species of large beetles with horns, and after some fiddling with the parts a robust dark red beetle was born.

22 November 2019

Old Elementary: The 1x2 plate with handle

Posted by Admin
Let's take a momentary break from our amazing Parts Festival to enjoy another look back into LEGO® element history. Skye Barnick suggested we discuss a tiny change to a familiar piece that occurred in 1983 and stepping up to the task we have Inthert, a UK-based builder who participated in our earlier Parts Festival this year.

Coming alongside the introduction of the beloved minifigure in 1978, the 1x2 plate with handlebars (Mini Handle - Design ID 3839) was among the first LEGO® elements to feature 3.18mm diameter bars, essentially meaning it was perfect for being held by tiny minifigure hands… or was it?