Fresh from its appearance at the Christchurch Brick Show in New Zealand earlier this month, this LEGO-made island-bound tower by Nathan Hake is simply astounding! Created over the better part of seven months, this mammoth medieval masterpiece sprawls out over a pair of islands and includes several noteworthy features like a shipwreck, black dragon, stone bridge, abandoned docks, magical portal, and a detailed tower interior. Details like the underside of its overhang and the tendrils of smoke rising out of its chimney stand out brilliantly on the tower. While more experienced builders will marvel at Nathan’s stud reversal on the rocks of the big island halfway up the side. Building at this scale, such techniques can become unwieldy, but it’s handled here quite adeptly. While you’ll have to check out Nathan’s Flickr page to see all the details and angles (and some pictures from the public show), I do want to...

Usually I don’t build space-themed models, but my latest two models are exceptions. Then again, they aren’t exactly your everyday space builds, representing real-world spaceplanes developed for the US military. The first is the X-20 Dyna-Soar (for “dynamic soarer”). This was an ambitious program to build a reusable manned spaceplane. It started within weeks of the Soviet Union’s first Sputnik launch. It never came to fruition, though. A few years later, with the first prototype already under construction, escalating costs and an unclear mission resulted in its cancellation. The second is the much more recent and successful X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle. This is an unmanned reusable spaceplane currently in service with the US Space Force. So far, two vehicles have flown six missions. The latest was the longest, with almost 909 days spent in orbit. Its official role is to demonstrate reusable space technologies. However, there has been speculation that it...

Character master Oliver Becker has crafted this charming scene of a shepherd and his flock (of, er, one sheep). Now this might sound odd, but I’m actually glad there’s only one sheep here. Not because I’m ovinophobic, but because if I started counting sheep, I’d surely fall asleep and miss the rest of this great build! The sheep is very good, chewing away on the grass, with its spindly legs. (Well it’s chewing with its mouth, but you know what I mean.) And any build that uses X-pod covers is a good one in my book. But the shepherd is where the whimsy really comes into this scene. He’s a great caricature, using inverted arch pieces twice – in his boots and for his face. He’s quite rotund though. Maybe that’s where the rest of his flock went… The post Don’t fall asleep looking at this build – you’ll feel rather...

Ever wondered how LEGO’s nano-figs are made? Caleb Schilling has given us a sneak peek at their production line mid-manufacture. Bet you thought it was all ABS and injection-moulding, eh? Think again! Now I’m no expert, but I believe that inside this machine, there are tiny little gremlins (smaller even than nano-figs) armed with tridents, who carve these pieces out of coloured plastic. These tools of theirs are wonderfully versatile. You can see two of them sticking out the side, which when pulled presumably give the gremlins a poke, so they know which shift to be on. Some older ones also seem to have been re-purposed for the conveyor belt. How resourceful! It’s a wonder such production methods aren’t used elsewhere, really. (Hm? What do you mean, I’ve failed the trial period for TBB’s production expert…?) The post How it’s made: nano-fig special appeared first on The Brothers Brick. Original linkOriginal...

The New York Corner by Bricky_Brick is the latest project to achieve 10,000 supporters on LEGO Ideas. The 2,980 piece build features a modular building designed in a style that you would see in New York. The project joins “Big Boy” Locomotive, Retro Arcade, Spartan Helmet of Leonidas, Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider, The Muppet Show, Red Bull Racing F1 Team RB18 1:12, Scooby Doo Mystery Machine, Western River Steamboat, Dreamwork’s Shrek Swamp, Asterix & Obelix, Venice, Stilt House, Red Bull RB18, Trojan Horse, Red Dwarf: Sleeping Quarters, TaleSpin Seaduck Meeting Seagull, Stud Lane Book Nook, Greenhouse, Yu-Gi-Oh! Card Box: Dark Magician vs Blue-Eyes White Dragon, Phineas and Ferb Doofenshmirtz Evil Inc., Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Taylor Swift “Lover House”, The Motograph, Taylor Swift’s Lover House, Disney’s Phineas and Ferb: Perry the Platypus/Agent P, Flying Scotsman – LNER Class A3 4472 4-6-2 Pacific Steam Locomotive, Jumanji Game Board, Kerbal Space Program – Modular...