Got your head in the clouds

I know I’ve mentioned this before but my love of Star Wars Lego comes directly from the nostalgia I feel for my Kenner Star Wars figures (Palitoy here in the UK at first), so I’m a sucker for anything related to that. Especially if it’s a good MOC, and I’ve found one that’s really caught my eye. Kasía over on Flickr has created this fantastic build of the Twin Pod Cloud Car.

The shape of this build is fantastic and the orange really pops. They’ve taken advantage of the wider range of Lego curved moulds and colours and brought something that really looks like it could have come from our favourite Danish toy company themselves.

The shape of the Twin Pod Cloud Car isn’t an easy thing to replicate, but Kasía has done really well to achieve the shaping of the pods. The central propulsion unit between the pods also has some simple but really nice detailing and the use of stickers here really works well as simple weathering.

With the rumours of an imminent Cloud City Bespin release, fuelled partly by the Lego Designer Video, excitement has been building for a much neglected part of arguably the best installment of the Star Wars franchise. What better way to get us all further in the mood than feasting our eyes on this little beauty? Now if only Lego could help us out by giving us some Cloud Car Pilots…

[SoNE Ep XVII] The Battle for Endor

Calling all troops! Report to your superior immediately. If you can’t, fight your way to the shield generator on the forest moon of Endor as quickly as possible. This is not a drill. This is the definitive battle to decide the fate of the galaxy!

With its seventeenth episode, Eurobricks’ Star Wars themed role playing/building game is drawing to a close with the iconic battle on Endor. But that doesn’t mean it’s too late to join in with all of the creative building and storytelling fun and become a part of our supporting community. As a matter of fact, there are more reasons now to join than ever before! To begin, the episode has an exciting mechanic involving moving around an unknown map full of surprises to keep everyone on their toes, give every player the opportunity to be crucial to the episode’s outcome and make for one exhilarating finale. You also don’t have to have a big collection of parts, as 16×16 stud builds are already enough if you know what you’re doing, and you’ll get feedback all around. To top it off, A generous sponsor has been so kind to offer the sets 75183 Darth Vader Transformation and 75178 Jakku Quadjumper (and if you think that’s a lame set, just look at our previous articles to see what else you can make with it!) to the two best players as an extra motivation. So what are you waiting for to leave your personal mark on Star Wars history? Check out the episode’s rules and don’t hesitate to formulate any questions you might have. Once you’ve done that, enlist in SoNE and you’re ready to go! And don’t worry: once this episode is over, the Eurobricks Star Wars role playing adventure will continue in an exciting new fashion!

Rebels Review: In the Name of the Rebellion

What did you think of the Plot?
BEAVeR: What a promising begin to the two parter! An intense action sequence showcasing the dire times for the Rebellion and then that epic confrontation between Saw Gerrera and Mon Mothma. Seldom has Rebels given us this kind of spectacle! I love how both the advantages and disadvantages of each side became visible to keep it nuanced and get your own gears going.

Pushing Boundaries – and Cargo

If you don’t know Rebrick, you should definitely check it out. Not just to get a chance to enter in fun contests with amazing prizes, but also to see the entries by other participants that are so great that you wouldn’t mind them keeping you from your prize. o0ger’s Nadir is one of those entries in the contest that revolved around making ships in the same family as the Millennium Falcon. I love that his concept doesn’t just give an explanation for the purpose of the prominent mandibles on the Falcon but makes it fit with its identity as a freighter too by inserting cargo in the space between them. Still, the concept isn’t what impresses me the most in this build. No, it’s the fact that o0ger pulls off the concept so convincingly and aesthetically pleasing. It doesn’t look like the cargo was just wedged in there, but snaps satisfyingly together with the rest of the ship. The extra wide mandibles give more support, with robust guiding surfaces at the inside, there is a tractor beam device securing the cargo, there’s a huge deflector shield dish to protect the cargo as well as the ship and you’ll have a better view of the goods from the Nadir‘s cockpit than from the Falcon‘s. To make all of those concepts feel like parts of the same ship, o0ger cleverly reuses certain elements of them throughout the rest of the body. The slope of the mandibles and the shape of the tractor beam unit return in the back half, the shield generator dish has a twin, the gorgeous grills near the tractor beam echo the texture of the cockpit parts and there are truncated cones both in the cockpit and near the guns. And then there’s the consistent level of detailing all over the ship. The mandibles look solid because of the robust details with low profiles (like that reverse cupboard door!. That aesthetic isn’t only followed in the rest of the ship, but also in the containers with a masterful use of a part I’ve never seen used before: a foldable track/box from the racers theme that looks wonderfully utilitarian because it is. Everything is appropriate and everything is consistent without being boring. Yes, o0ger truly excels at picking out a great palette to make his awesome concepts truly push the boundaries.

No Need to Scavenge For Parts

With all of the exciting The Last Jedi sets and of course the Falcon, nowadays it’s easy to forget about the sets that came out earlier this year. After all, it was a pretty forgettable wave. So how about we make it a bit more exciting? Thanks to the creative guys guys at BrickBros UK, we can, with their wonderful parade of alternate models to the sets. I especially like their transformation of possibly the best set of the wave into the “Jakku tank ambush”. It’s great how the First Order Hovertank uses the slightly unfinished look characteristic for alternate models to portray the destructive effect Jakku’s climate has had on the vehicle. Moreover, conceptually its design is just right for the First Order: big, grey and blocky shapes, and a towering cockpit that seems to cleverly reference that of the AAL speak of educated familiarity with the source material. They show that you never can have too few parts to come up with a solid concept for a construction. Their builds inspire to just grab a set and see what concepts you can come up with: it can be a great source of inspiration for full-fledged creations even though they probably won’t look as neat as this one. If you’re really lucky though, you find a combination of parts that even looks right at home in an official set, like the buildings in this creation. I never would have thought that that the same parts that make up a Quadjumper could come together to create convincing Jakku-ian architecture and technology. What’s even better is that they perfectly complement the tank to give a compelling play set where even the minifigs are appropriately themed. It makes you wonder if LEGO secretly makes their sets so you can make a great B-model out of them and that you just need to discover it. That’s how good the BrickBros UK are at thinking out of the box with what’s in the box, so definitely check out their treasure trove of videos. I’ll give you two minutes before your hands will start itching to transform your own sets!

Rebels Review: Heroes of Mandalore

What did you think of the Plot?
BEAVeR: I always look forward to two parters as they offer more time to spend on more nuanced character development or allow for a deeper treatment of a theme. However, this episode is a collection of a lot of action sequences that tend to be a bit cliche, could have been a lot shorter and are connected by a plot that hinges on convenience a tad too often to be truly compelling (Mandalorian reinforcements swooping in at just the right time, the Empire only using the Duchess once and then sending regular troops to do the dirty work, the weapon being so easily reconfigurable or the fact that the Empire doesn’t seem to have backup plans of it…).

Rebels Review: Zero Hour

What did you think of the Plot?
BEAVeR: A part of this season finale actually improved upon The Empire Strikes Back, wow! In episode V, the Rebellion starts out already in a bad situation, just trying to hide and survive, only for the Empire to make the situation even worse with their invasion. In this episode it’s even more tragic: the Rebels actually start out on their all time high, with everything coming together for a first strike on Lothal, a whole new fleet of ships included. Hope abounds everywhere and we see how it gives our heroes energy. But then, by a flick of Thrawn’s fingers, hell brakes loose for the Rebels, all hopes and plans are abandoned and all they can do is try to survive and escape.

Rebels Review: Twin Suns

What did you think of the Plot?
Oky: Well, this is it. This is the episode where we finally get to see the final confrontation between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Maul, a battle that fans have been waiting for for years ever since Maul was brought back in The Clone Wars, and one that this show has been building up to since the Season 2 finale. Maul finally tracks Kenobi down on Tatooine, the two stare each other down, Maul charges at his life-long adversary, and what happens? Kenobi kills him in a single blow. Years of hype and build-up are diminished in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment. Never have I seen such an anti-climactic ending to a story arc in this entire saga. Now, don’t get me wrong, I get what they were going for. This is how a sword fight between two old masters of the art would realistically go down and it’s a homage to the samurai films that inspired Star Wars. It was much closer to Kenobi’s slow and short duel with Vader in A New Hope than the over-the-top duels in the prequels which makes sense considering this takes place shortly before ANH, and as short as this duel was, there was some poetry in how Obi-Wan switched to Qui-Gon’s stance, causing Maul to attack him the same way he did when he killed Qui-Gon, which allowed Obi-Wan to preempt Maul’s attack and avenge his old master. However, this doesn’t excuse how anticlimactic and unsatisfying this fight was. The fact that the rest of the episode didn’t have much action either and was just Ezra wandering aimlessly through the desert didn’t help.

Ultimate Ultimate Collector’s Series Millennium Falcon Reveal!

No, you’re not dreaming: the new UCS Millennium Falcon actually looks that good! It defies all expectations by outperforming the previous incarnation from twelve years ago with a less dull color scheme, a great mix between studded and studless areas, smoother curves, more details (loving the use of the tank tread pieces!), better proportions, more play features, more minifigures… The rumors that it could represent both the original trilogy as the sequel trilogy version were happily confirmed: not only are there minifigs from both trilogies – two Hans, Leia, Chewie, Threepio, Finn, Rey, BB-8, two porgs and LEGO’s first ever Mynock – but the sensor array is indeed swapable and you can add a part I didn’t even know was exclusive to the newer incarnation. Some people were hoping for a full interior and others feared that any interior at all would be impossible to pull off, but LEGO comes with the happy surprise that some sections open to reveal the most important sections with the cockpit, the holochess table and the hyperdrive room: the perfect compromise. The cockpit windscreen, the sensor dish and other crucial parts are printed, with only a couple of stickers for less important details. The size was kept the same as the previous incarnation to make for a more or less accurately scaled model with a high level of detail. And have you seen how gorgeous that box art is? Sure, the price will be high (800 USD, 800 EUR (DE), 650 GBP), but it sure seems like you will get a legendary set in return that will be the crown jewel of your collection for years to come. The set will be available on October 1st or already in two weeks if you’re a member of the (free!) VIP program. I’ll wait a bit longer saving up my money, but I’m quite confident this flagship set will be available for many more years to come, the benchmark for all future UCS sets, the envy of ten year old you, the 75192. In the meantime, head over to the official press release and discussion on Eurobricks to find out all information, watch and rewatch the designer video and study each and every of the 7541 pieces that make up this biggest LEGO set ever that’s so massive the box doesn’t comes in a plastic bag but in a custom trolley… No, you’re not dreaming, but you will do so happily tonight and for many days to come!

More than Cool

There’s just something about seeing creations with your own eyes on a convention that you don’t quite get when you’re looking at your screen. You can walk around models, choose your own perspective and discover hidden details instead of looking at the same few pictures everybody else gets to see. And you get to take your time, gazing at the models for minutes on end instead of flicking to just another picture after some seconds without real investment. All of this is especially true for those big dioramas that you see so often at conventions but rarely online. Luckily, lostcarpark‘s Hoth diorama made the jump to our screens and still looks extremely cool.

His creation has something to love for everyone, making his Echo Base very fun to explore even online. Wonderfully detailed rooms that capture the atmosphere of the movie perfectly sit right next to rooms we’ve never seen before but that have some fun stuff going on, showcasing that even in such a dire situation, people need to go to the restroom or need to take a break. There is an exciting battle going on outside with pre-existing models that are cleverly arranged for forced perspective when looking from the Rebel standpoint. There are incredible custom builds for this diorama like the shield generator, the turrets and the service gantry over the X-wing which could be respectable MOCs all on their own. And there’s some brilliant landscaping going on with a wonderfully meandering trench and a snowy landscape with wedge plates in a more or less consistent direction to give some structure to the snow, which is nicely broken in some busy areas to showcase the variety in the terrain. All of those factors coming together makes for a multi faceted yet coherent creation that just invites you to look closer, linger and have fun: you connect with it. And not just now, because this creation is a work in progress, so much more joy is ahead of us. Thank you, lostcarpark, for bringing the joy of conventions to us without us even having to leave our hangar door!