So that's what that feels like

Brickshelf user Tiler has created both these figure-scale and mini "Tumblers" as seen in the Dark Knight Trilogy. Click the pictures for the corresponding galleries, as well as instructions. Check them out!

Design commentary: Star Wars and world war armor

WWI Wehrmacht


Killzone for Sony Playstation 2

The act of recycling is not new, and putting on the Reich seems to be a popular antic among science fiction's badies. I believe such a blatant liberation of aesthetics to now be a cheap shot on the part of art teams to convey that these are the bad guys; the trick has lost some of its impact. Let's go back a ways, prior to the advent of Master Chief (or even Atari) and cross examine a small part of the art direction in Star Wars.

Can we agree that Starfox had cooler belt-buckles?

The original movies was an unexpected hit, and its sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, was slated for a 1980 release. This time around a generous budget would be put toward all kinds of cool things, like the Bespin sets and Frank Oz. Stop-motion animation was utilized in one battle sequence to animate towering battle walkers.

All Terrain Armored Transport vs. German 1918 A7V tank. Beyond the costumes, perhaps there are also parallels in vehicles design. The spacecraft battles in the first film were heavily influenced by WWII aerial combat footage; I'd like to believe the artists who designed the walkers that appeared in the invasion of Hoth had seen this particular armored vehicle. Notice the sloping roofs, the kind of raised cupola in the center, and how the driver and idler track wheels on the tank are placed where the hip joints are on the walker. Also, the tank's main armament was fixed on the front unlike the turreted vehicle we think of as tanks; the ATAT is similar in that its big pew-pews were mounted forward-facing under its command cabin. You would think that rogue squadron would have had an easier time flying around.


More on the A7V via Dieselpunks. Due to its poor ground clearance the A76 did not have the trench-clearing ability demonstrated by the legged AT AT walker. Still, there is something to be said in terms of the fright factor of armored boxes creeping their way along.

Pirates are fierce.

It's worth noting that each vehicle had its shortcomings.


Jagdpanther vs. All Terrain Attack Pod. I.e. wedges with guns:

The Jagdpanter fulfilled a tank destroyer role with the potent 88 gun mounted on the terrain-able Panzer VI Panther chassis. The walker here is from the third prequel. As it had very little screen time, the most "official" image I could find was of the Hasbro toy.

Here's a well-produced brickfilm that jives with this post:

-_-

Original concept walker by FateHeart.

Scale re-creation of the Pulse Rifle from Jame's Cameron's Aliens.



Both flickr users FateHeart and Giovanni Tuzzi are a bit unsung but both competent builders.

There is no renewal.

Nannan of the Bothers-Brick beat us, but wutevs.

A Goldman diorama based on the film, "Logan's Run", which everyone knows as that one movie that used Dolby A for the first time. As for this particular build, I kinda miss the "access to the water table is key" thing Keith had going on in some of his previous stuff. Not sure if I like the blue roofs (rooves?), either.

/i dont think those are roofs/

That was a joke.

Copious amounts of pre-fab foliage as well as the newly dubbed "Keith arches" are present, but what isn't is the amusing smack-talk that I found taboo and inapro-pro on his older posts, back when I was a MOCpages lurker circa 2006. Seems to be the case throughout most of his flickr photostream, in fact I don't think his MOCpage still exists.

/ you say that like youre complaining/

Keith shows you his legos on his flickr, but if you're feeling frisky or oldschool, you can view some of the same stuff by searching oprah on brickshelf.

/um whats brickshelf/
"Are those the stolen Pokemon Yellow game paks?"

"No sir I think that's

TILE PISS

Woah check this out!

Remember District 9? Yeah!

Art III, and then some.

In 2005 I received Battalion Wars for Christmas. It's a great game, combining Advance Wars style strategy with real-time 3rd person action. Something that attracted me moreover was the cartoonish art style. The following models were rendered by a man by the name of Gavin Rothery:





The game art was also an inspiration for a Lego model of mine.

Rothery also did concept design for the movie, Moon, which debuted last summer.


I'll have to snatch a copy when it comes out on DVD. There's a whole lot of goodies on his website, be sure to check it out.

Plastic highlights on the flickr streams include a simplistic but still funky skyscraper by Justin Vaughn and another microspace ship by Soren.

Hey.

Here's AFOL Stefan's entry in the 2009 MOColympics over at MOCpages.com, a pair of cycles from the 1982 movie Tron.

THE SNOT MUST FLOW

Stefan, you are the man.

Delightfully Spacey

That is the laconic collection of words I would use to describe this moon rover by Jordan Schwartz:



He based the rover off of this design, and motorized it, as well:

Blast From The Past

As of today, 10 years have past since LUGnet cited Ben Fleskes' Millennium falcon page as the "Cool LEGO Site of the Week" on August 1, 1999.



Since then, LUGnet has died and shriveled up, LEGO has released 10179 UCS Millennium Falcon, and I'm no longer in preschool.

Still, you have to admire all of the movie-accurate features:

Full interior.
Boarding ramp.
My favorite, the gunner ports seen in the the original movie.

Ben's page.

Aliens roundup

It all started when Geoff Herndon built this awesome Alien. then Kevin Fedde built a Power Loader to go with it. The two MOCs certainly look awesome together. The only problem with that is, of course, that the Alien isn't a queen. Wait, I spoke too soon.


Last but certainly not least, in an unrelated incident, "2x4" built a pretty slick Sulaco.

ALL CAPS = AWESOME

They are especially apt in this situation, as Tyler has made a fantastic PF-BTF-DeLorean (it's funny that I saved so much of your time by using those abbreviations, but am now making you read this stupid sidenote).

ZOMGZOMGZOMGZOMG

by Mahjqa

Andrew Lee is the One.

This is awesome. 'nuff said.

Why did he lose?

General Grievous was probably my favourite character from SW:ROTS, but he died so stupidly.

Can you look at obscurance's model of this badass guy and say he truly deserved to lose to a man with a quarter as many lightsabers?

Perhaps,

... if you had not been wasting your time asserting your superiority, you would have noticed this beautifull sculpted and articulated Shrek figures by AdmiralStupid!



Wait, what kind of blog is this?

Finding New Ideas

Check out the VLH3j Pathfinder Patrol Vehicle by Joe and Will of MOCpages:



The originality of the shapes and details used make this a refreshing model to look at.


In other news, Hellboy II came out today! Demons and clockwork assassins rejoice!

Aliens APC

The oft-made APC from the Alien films returns again in a large, playable version by brickshelf user Havoc.

Wall-E

I saw Wall-E yesterday. Excellent. Pixar cannot make a bad film... As usual, it was lovely animated action with some subtle (and not-so-subtle) undertones. Anyway, members of the lego community also seem to like the movie!

Prior to it's release, both Joe Meno and Angus MacLane built relatively large-scale Wall-Es (Via TBB, obviously), and now Mark Sandlin joins the fun with a smaller Wall-E!
Also, the prolific Jordan (Sir Nadroj) produced a wonderful realistically-scaled M-O today! [reference pic for those who haven't seen the movie]
EDIT: Jordan tells me the M-O is scaled to Joe Meno's Wall-E, making it about 1:3 scale. Smaller than I thought!

RMing's WALL-E

Brickshelfer RMing has created a great rendition of WALL-E using mostly parts from 7657. Not only does it look good, but the arms and head are geared together! Click the picture for the full gallery: