October is Ma.K-tober

Spreading word here of Tromas' Lego Maschinen Krieger building challenge. The parameters of last year's starfighter contest have opened up to include just about anything appropriate for Kow Yokoyama's imagined universe.

This is a fantastic start, I love the presentation:
Tromas' announcement on TBB
.
"Ma.K bricks", the Lego Maschinen Krieger flickr group.

Real World Starfighter Contest

The "Real World" Starfighter contest provides an interesting opportunity for sci-fi builders to dabble with aesthetics far removed from the gunned up darts that proliferate the genre. P. Fieschi's is a great example, his concept presents a product of an arms race gone too far. Spherical parts are used to a great effect, as with all of Pierre's models the "Hercules" maintains a high level-of-detail.



"The nuke was a self propelled Monster of destruction, about 4 or 5 times the size of the Apollo module itself. In the end, officials had no idea what to do with this horrifying piece of engineering that went far beyond mutually assured destruction. For the sake of mankind, the project was discontinued, and the 'Emperor' nuke was fired at the sun."

The contest runs until the end of next month, get building!

MechaHub plugging

GitS inspired think tanks are the theme for the March/April build-off at the MechaHub flickr group. The ongoing build-off is transport mecha, it has not gotten the response it deserves so consider this a plug.

Rodney Bistline's early go at it:



Here's a Vic Viper themed starfighter from last Nov(v)ember. He did a great job with an early-cold war alternate future look.

So the Rock and Roll contest over at Lego Steampunk has indeed turned out some pretty cool creations.


Erth&Fiya's Batmobile entry for the wheels of Justice contest over at FBTB was featured here recently. He continues the Batman trend with his, uh, Cyberpunk Bat-train. Certainly not the mainstream idea of steampunk, but it is refreshing to see someone bending the boundaries a bit. It looks good on the old blue tracks.



I adore the checker pattern on Psakaru76's "rail castle". Kind of a simple build, but as a rolling block of armor it doesn't need to be complex. The special 4 x 6 plates are utilized well. The catcher on the front is a bit illogical, but in form I find it similar to a knight's visor, adding to the medieval flair.

Maschinen Krieger Contest / alt. title MA.K IN ACTION

A bit late, but fashionably so. Winners of the Ma.K starfighter contest were announced last week. The contest drew a greater participant response than expected, and it was great to see so many different takes on Yokoyama's theme from a number of builders. It was also comforting to see the starfighter mold to be broken with such enthusiasm, because you know, seeing the same repeated arrow/bullet shaped craft loses its perk after a while. Here's some notable entries:



Mountain King seems recently joined Flickr in order to enter the contest. His Mercenary Dragonfly is my favorite among those that placed in the top three.



Ted Andes' Hammerhead was my favorite entry. Good shaping all around, and the sticker is ace.



I commend Mark Stafford for his use of the big technic panels. Wow I don't even know where they're from. Also, I found some people's interpretations of Ma.K to simply be a myriad of cylinders and rounds things attached at odd angles. Though this has a place (as exemplified below) Stafford refreshingly fulfilled the Ma.K Mercenary faction's aesthetics with his model.



Cole's entry has a most interesting shape, and I'm in love with the beige. It stands out from a lot of other models that made use of neutral colors.



Tyler Clites won Tim Gould's "heart tile" printed piece award for his Zebra rounds. His also features two shades of orange, one in the craft and one in the stand, both of which I can only guess as to what they might be. Dark orange? Nougat? Brown?

Also, FeMechanic.



Perhaps I'm kinky but I've always wondered if someone would come along and totally diss the brick, cutting them up and painting them while still coming out with a product that didn't look crappy. Enter John Judy. Unfortunately his entry was disqualified because it was painted.



"Steelbreeze9's" entry is really bad ass.

Outside of official entries, a number of Ma.K creations surfaced of the non-starfighter variety. Organizer T.R. Brownridge build a number of hardsuits that I have featured in previous posts. Tim "Spook" Zarki made this multiped:

/unrelated

Choose your weapon cheese



Well done, John.

"This was the last photo of the gathered family. Their bond was irrevocably harmed during the protracted battle over Pa Mech's estate, and Maggie Mech was shunned because of her inter-thematic relationship with some Bionicle thing."

By The Ice Breaker. Look, teal!



More of Tromas-Krieger. Ma.K. "Nutrocker" and "Neuspotter".



Source Maschinen Krieger:





Lego Ma.K. Krieger contest

Today, I blog Town.

Also known as City.



An experimental rescue VTOL by Pierre Fieschi, who also is responsible for some cool microspace action. And seeing as we've blogged VTOLs here before, it fits. The model itself is pretty darn spiffy, built at a smaller scale than we're accustomed to seeing, about half mini-fig scale. Check out some of clever part applications, if Pierre had fanboys they'd be goin all "OMG NPUUUU" and the like.

There's also another challenge in the Starfighters group. You don't win anything but you get the good feeling of participation. If my own personal ABS wasn't packed away I'd bust something out.

It makes things go really, really fast.

By MOCpages username "Space Pirate" for a contest cooked up by Shannon Young. Also features some unbelievable crazy-good original ships:



Look at them curves.

SUWYG Wrap-Up

The Show Us What You Got contest at the Starfighters group on flickr ended a couple of days ago, and it was awesome. Here, in order of entry, are my favourite fighters:

WAIT! Before you go, I should tell you that all the pictures are links.

Dr. X was first out of the gates with a solid offering. Check out the nifty canopy.








Victor also used some tricky parts for his canopy, and gave the whole M-Tron ship a crazy shape.








Kevin's ship is rife with greebles, but is at the same time brightly organic.








Hase0 produce another signature ship with great parts use and all sorts of protrusions.








Rtyper built one of the most anime-influenced fighters and it shows. He also wasn't afraid to do a bit of customization.








Jason has done a great job mixing light and dark bley, and also made some good use of boat studs. Remember, parts repetition=win!








Simone's Rapier has a classy engine design and layout, as well as some hefty armament.








Fredo has shown that he's an expert at mixing colours with greys at mini scale.








Tekka Croe took first place with this wild thing- can you figure out why? (hint: it has to do with being awesome)








Rodney, one of the Dukes of Swoosh, entered this little beauty. I think the gun on the underside shoots nostalgia.








spacie's ship is actually a drone, and exhibits some traits typical of microships- sharp shaping, colour stripes, etc.








Stefan's Spaceneedle, although potentially violating a Seattle copyright law is nevertheless very cool, with its pointedness and darkbluiness.








Chrispockst shows some very Florean influnces here, and also made excellent use of puple.












Ben Jarvis edged his way into fourth place over a lot of other entries. The shell shape is actually outlining the particle accelerator that is the ship's gun. Science can be cool, you see.








steelbreeze built a classic ship with a great nose and cool engine intakes.








Micah says on his blog, "I was really trying to do something original with the shape, break away from the traditional arrow-head shape"... The word, my boy, is phallus.








Tim is showing a lot of Gould influence in this backwards ship.










Adrian's fighter looks like a garbage can that exploded, mixed with a wolf and an F-15, burst out of the museum ceiling.








xie2 built one of, if not the most epic entries. I only wish he had refined it a little further.








Tyler has balls.








Jerrec showed us what he got in a very big way- second place.








Another prizewinner, Cole took third place with his wonderfully bizarre Soylent Scream. I mean, what?








Nathan's was one of the less conventionally-shaped entries, and he used dark green, so he's cool.












Mark built this in three hours. >:(








Niels' ship may only look good at a glance, but take a look through his gallery, and you'll see how awesome it is.








Uspez Morbo has got a fantastic colourscheme here.








getfur built a very clean looking ship, with a nice split-tail design.








Justin crafted a beast out of the fires of Hell, I'm sure.










I've already used the words "classic" and "clean", but nash's fighter here is the classicest and cleanest of the bunch. It wins the SUWYG-Lite award.








Dean's Manitcore was so awesome, the judges simply couldn't handle it. They couldn't take all the win, and had to put it out of consideration.








Matt came in at the last minute with what would've been an awesome M-Tron set.








Jacob's Taki-Tsu-Hiko was so lame, the judges simply couldn't handle it. They couldn't take all the fail, and had to put it out of consideration.










... Yes, kids, you can sacrifice hours of sleep for your blog!