Neo-Octan Spaceship

Whilst I was trundling my way through the vast depths of the Flickr Lego group, one creation caught my attention. This is Aaron 's Neo-Octan spaceship, along with a robot, two minifigs and a hover-utility platform with various bits, bobs and noodles. I've always loved Octan: a brilliant logo of a (Danish) oil company which always keeps popping up in Lego sets here and there, including the upcoming City Corner Doc Sinister managed to grap a copy of. It's these little subtle inclusions of Danish culture which makes me smile. The creation is brilliant too (heh, nearly forgot about that)

Brickspace 4.0

To all Brickspace viewers,

Hej! Welcome to the start of a whole new era of Brickspace, called Brickspace 4.0. 4.0 is the fourth version of what you now know as Brickspace. Before that, it was called 'Best Lego... Ever' and 'Best of Brickshelf', but it is in its reincarnation into Brickspace that this blog started to get really popular. Our hits are rising every week, and we are getting lots of great feedback from you viewers (to give us feedback, click on 'feedback' to the right), so Luke and I thought Brickspace needed to be modernised, so your opinions on the site are heard.

What you see today is only the start of a whole new Brickspace, with what we hope will be a fully dynamic, animated layout. It will include an easier way for you to browse the site, but I won't spoil it for you, you'll just have to wait!

Anyways, here's what's new as of today:

1. Graphics

Though people have told me the graphics of Brickspace are great, I was never satisfied with them, and so I've updated them whilst still keeping with our unique colour scheme and our distinctive graphic logo. The two updated graphics are the banner you see at the top of each page and the horizontal divider bar at the bottom.

2. Star Ratings

You may have noticed that our staff rate each creation out of five. Now, as we have got rid of some faults in Brickspace's HTML, you can rate posts too. At the bottom of each post is a simple dynamic widget for rating our posts yourselves, and seeing what others thought of the post. So get involved!

3. Search box and widths

Our old Blogger layout was a little too thin, so Luke and I have kindly re-HTML'ed the layout to allow for a wider post section and thus wider content-space on Brickspace. We hope this helps you to see all of some pictures which were, beforehand, cut off on the right by the sidebar.

Another addition to our layout is a search bar, which many of you have been asking for as the top one in the black Blogger bar was strangely invisible. Now, above the welcome text, you can find a search box fo' searching our posts, fools.

That was a Mr. T impersonation, might I add, as I do not actually think you are fools.

Enjoy, and farvel!

~John

He's coming...

The Grim Reaper looks extremely menacing in LEGO form, courtesy of Larry Lars. Was it the Salmon Mousse?

Anyone for a Big Mac?

Beef Burger with Fries, originally uploaded by BloodRedDragon.

Now you can eat and get fat on your favorite McDonald's foods like never before. It has become especially easy for all FOL's because now your meals come in LEGO as BloodRedDragon on Flickr demonstrates.

~Zack

Ghouls of all shapes

Ghouls, originally uploaded by rongYIREN.

Flickr user rongYIREN builds beautiful and elegant creation and this comic trio makes white look so good.

~Zack

Busted!

There seems to be a bit of a trend of building Police spaceships recently - or maybe it's only since I created two of my own last weekend that I've noticed them appearing ever since - they might have been there all the time! Either way, this Police Interceptor by Crimson Wolf is the business, featuring some really cool engines.

Dr. S.

Brickspace Dictionary: n x n x n

n x n x n (n.)
When measuring Lego bricks, we usually use the n x n x n system. This is much like normal measurements in which we provide the width x length x height of the brick, though sometimes the height is not required.

Most Lego bricks and plates can be classed as either 1xn or 2xn. In these examples, n could be any number. So 1xn means any brick that has one of its measurements (apart from height) as 1. This could be a 1x2 brick, a 1x4 brick or even a 1x16 brick! Similarly, 2xn bricks can have any length, but have to have a width of 2 (we usually put the shortest measurement as the width, but in the case of square (eg. 2x2) bricks, it doesn't matter).

This measuring system has a flaw, however: the units of width and length (sometimes shown by □ (a square)) are not the same as the unit of height (sometimes shown by ◇ (a diamond)). However, they can be interchanged using the 5:6 ratio, which is that every 5 brick height units equals 6 horizontal stud units.

You may often see a brick has a height of 2/3 (eg. 2 x 2 x 2/3). This is the only height measurement <1, because for every one height unit, three plates can take its place. Thus, 2/3 means that the brick is two plates high: say, for example, a cheese wedge. As I said, this is the only fraction measurement: 1/3 would just be a plate, and 3/3 is a whole, a 1.

The width and length measurements can also be fractions, though only 1/2s. If you use a jumper plate (a 1 x 2 plate with a single stud in the middle of it), you can offset the length or width by 1/2.

Vid's Hovercraft

Vid' from Flickr is always amazing us, and that is certainly the case with his latest creation, a steampunk hovercraft. Full to the brim with greeblies and with some good Bionicle part integration, this is clearly a great representation of the Steampunk style and world. I particularly like the aeroplane engines on the bottom.

More City set reviews and images.

As John mentioned earlier, I've been engaging in some heavy duty LEGO buying and I snapped up another four City sets from a Toys R Us not too far from me.

As tempted as I was to get a fifth, I do have to be wary that Mrs S doesn't divorce me, so I refrained from going that far and set 7642 - Garage - was left on the shelf. Nevertheless, here are some sample images and links to the full set of pictures and reviews of the sets I did buy.

To start with, we have set 8402, the Sports Car.

Full set of images in my Flickrstream or review over at my Tabletown Forums.

Next up, set 7638 - Tow Truck.

Full set of images in my Flickrstream or review over at my Tabletown Forums.

Time for set 7686 - Helicopter Transporter.

Full set of images in my Flickrstream or review over at my Tabletown Forums.

And last, but definitely not least, set 7639 - Camper.

Full set of images in my Flickrstream or review over at my Tabletown Forums.

The highlights for me have to be the Minifig in the camper set - complete with front and rear torso printing and lovely new hair. The camper van itself is lovely of course, as is the helicopter from the transport set. There is however one small negative issue - in the two sets containing lots of orange, it seems that LEGO continue to suffer quality control issues in keeping the colours the same, and the following image neatly summarises the problem.

Nonetheless, this is a fantastic release of sets and I recommend each and every one of them!

Thanks for indulging me in this longer than usual Brickspace entry - hope I'm not in trouble for taking up so much space!

Dr. S.

New Lego set pictures for Summer '09

Firstly, I'd like to thank Doctor Sinister for posting pictures of his new pre-release TRU set here on Brickspace, and I hope he'll do the same for the next batch he got from 'TRU' (aka his illegal Lego dealer), including the amazing Elsa hair in the Danish hippie camper-van.

But, enough of that. I've got some great new pics of the soon-to-be-released Star Wars and Indy sets...

The graveyard scene of KotCS, including a great looking bike and what seems to be minifig-sized tubing! Hoorah! Tubing can be purist again! This set also includes minifigs in one of many new fleshie skin colours.

There's some bright colours and minifigs galore in this small set from RotLA.

Including many black telescope pieces, this set from The Last Crusade is one of the least liked sets of the whole bunch, due to the fact neither aeroplane has doors and it's also very expensive (30$ or so)

There's nothing better than a good fez or two, and there's two in this Venice set from The Last Crusade, along with some grim-faced minifigs and that Elsa hair (this time on Elsa).

There's a new Clone Wars skiff set with some ugly-looking minifigs (that garish Obi-Wan included).

And there's an exciting Mon Calamari 1 base set, marking the 10th anniversary of Lego Star Wars. It includes a host of great minifigs from Lando Calrissian to Mon Mothma to an A-Wing pilot and even to Admiral Ackbar and his Ackbar-like friend. All together now, "It's a trap!"

And finally there's the 'Midi-scale' Milennium Falcon, which is really what they should have done in the first place instead of all these huge (in cost as well as size) sets and UCSs.

So, that's it, enjoy!

~John

Firstborn by Tekka Croe

Firstborn, originally uploaded by Tekka Croe.

Fantastic builder Tekka Croe on Flickr strikes again with this fantastic space MOC taking techniques from both his own creation FireFli and from builder Peter Morris. And on a side note I dig this new Flickr "Blog This" format I plan to use.

~Zack

Reclaiming Space!

The Reclamation is the latest ship from Uspez Morbo and it's pretty radical. I love the use of the revolvers along the main fuselage, and the angled wings are cool. The whole thing is like a gothic cathedral, in space.

Dr. S.

Set 7641 - City Corner - Found!

I dropped into my local TRU this evening (Basingstoke, UK) and what did I spy on the shelf? A single copy of set 7641 - a set I didn’t think was meant to be out until June at the earliest.

Needless to say, I bought it and it's already built. You can see the complete set of pix in my Flickrstream or (blatant plug) over in my own Tabletown forums. In the meantime, here are some pictures for all you loyal Brickspace readers. Enjoy!

Dr. S.

Brickspace Dictionary: Joe Vig

Joe Vig (n.) (Joe Vig)
Joe Vig is a minifigure thought up by Mike Crowley, Nelson and Patrick Yrizarry. He is a common figure used in Vignettes who is always in danger.

Crowley and the Yrizarrys' first idea was to have 'Joe Food', a minifigure which they would photograph in different restaurants and post the pictures on LUGNET. They then changed the name to Joe Vig ('Vig' being short for 'vignette').

Joe Vig has brown hair, a red shirt, red trousers, and the first Ron Weasley face. Other hats and accessories must be white to keep with the Joe Vig theme.

The first Joe Vig contest was held in June 2005 as Joe's popularity soared in the early years of the 21st century. A full list of Vignettes with Joe Vig in them can be found on the LUGNET page here .

Information for this article was taken from the official LUGNET article .

Brickspace Dictionary: URPs

URP (abbrev.) (Ug·ly Rock Piece)
The URP family consists of two large hollow rocky pieces that are used commonly in landscaping and creating mountains. The URPs are also found in many Castle MOCs.

'URP' usually stands for Ugly Rock Piece, though it can also stand for Ugly Rock Part. They are 'ugly' because of their square, blocky and un-rock-like look. There are two types of URP:

LURP, standing for Little Ugly Rock Piece. These are roughly triangular in shape.









BURP, standing for Big Ugly Rock Piece. These are quite wide and square in their shape.

There is also the SLURP, which stands for Sandy Big Ugly Rock Piece. Used recently in a Pirates set as an island, the SLURP (named by Michael Huffman) has no studs and many circular holes to hold bricks with circular technic axels, which in turn can be connected to plates, bricks and other assorted bricks.

BURPs and LURPs are generally meant to be built upon with more bricks in the same colour:

Prototype Attack Mech

Sometimes there's nothing better than a good Mecha, especially one like Happy Weasel 's Prototype Attack Mech which has zoomed to fame and glory with over 1,400 views and more notes even than when Dano posted that picture of Chell in anime, which is hard to beat. With its crosses, brilliant colour scheme, soft lighting and helmet design that reminds you of something you must have seen before, this Mecha is truly the definition of FTW. Brilliant stuff.

~John

The Fifth Terrace of Purgatory: Greed

Flickr user Profound Whatever always astounds with amazing photography and beautiful sets. This latest of his is no exception. Part of a series I can not wait to see what comes next.


~Zack