Over the years, I’ve noticed this trend in the Star Wars MOCcing world. Builders are shifting away their attention from the classic vehicles and scene, most of them already done to perfection by a talented builder. More and more, we’re starting to see new and fresh scenes from the Expanded Universe. You might remember Disco86’s Mount Tantiss cloning chamber from almost a year ago. With his Royal Guard Academy, he demonstrates once more how capable he is in converting a minimum of source material into a believable and unbelievable scene. The Academy where the Emperor’s finest soldiers are trained appears in a few frames of the The Crimson Empire comic book series. Disco86 totally surpassed it with his monumental build, incorporating the known elements and enhancing them. That pitt is amazing, not in the least because of all of the small details giving it a sense of scale and lethal refinement. The barren landscape and the stark rocks, the brutal elements forced to be of use, they lift the spartan impression to a new level. The silent black and white trainees give it a ghostly appearance. And then there’s the shuttle, of which you’re not sure it looks more like a swan or a vulture. I think it’s incredible how the builder managed to create a scene that radiates such silence, such power and such menace, without using any stereotype. It’s completely new to me, not only in the Star Wars universe. You can feel the chills yourself if you’re going to inspect the premises of Legoland Germany in the period of 4-7 June. Or you can just go on a round through the topic.

Minions! You either love or hate them, and although they’ve managed to show up more or less anywhere, I wager you hadn’t expected seeing them here. You have car_mp to thank. He has been turning all sorts of characters into LEGO minions over the last couple of months. Recently, he has been decorating our favorite characters with a single, googly eye and a cylindrical body. Sounds absurd, but the result is rather pleasant. In the picture above, we’re still seeing the spirit of Yoda, and not some grotesque piece of merchandise. For a minion, he still has that mysterious demeanor and sense of wisdom over him. Impossible? Well, it is a day of surprises! And if this wonderful piece hasn’t turned you to the yellow side, have a look at other creations forging Star Wars, Minions and superb small scale building into cute miracles you have to like, like the Minion in carbonite below. So check out car_mp’s photostream for more, or mourn over the fact Disney hasn’t acquired the rights over the Minions yet, ruling out possible guest appearances in future movies. Oh well…

StarWarsKev must have quite a fascination for his UCS Imperial shuttle. Almost a year ago, he built an excellent piece of scenery for it. It was big, rich and detailed. Well, it was, because now he treats us on an amazing battle of Endor. There have been a couple of incredible creations depicting the epic battle, so you might think it has become hard to wow us. And yet, that’s exactly what his creation does. What makes his creation unique, is the presence of quite a few iconic locations, like the landing platform, the bunker, and the shield generator. Especially that last one hasn’t been rendered a lot in its full glory. And this version is immediately the definitive one, with the perfect intricate shape and tasty textures, and complete with bat shelter. The bunker is much smaller, but as notable, because of its incredible trapezoidal shape. Furthermore, it sits perfectly in three dimensions. In general, I love the slight height differences in the landscape, where most creations are very flat. Complemented by that ubiquitous vegetation, not perfectly straight trees and differently colored patches, the scene feels all the more natural, and the artificial elements feel more like a strain on the landscape. It tells the perfect story. So admire it in the Flickr album, and don’t forget to check out the WIP thread to discover all the little secrets to making more than your average mind-boggling diorama.

There are a handful of LEGO builders that have an almost magical ability to create MOCs, and you just know that when they release something new it’s bound to be worth a look.  Anio is one of those talented few, and in the last few years he‘s built a reputation for excellence amongst the SW community, which leads me neatly onto his latest creation.

I’ll admit that the Sith Infiltrator isn’t anywhere near my favourite ship, and won’t ever be in the same league as the Falcon, Star Destroyer, Nebulon B or Slave 1, but it does have a certain appeal and Anio has clearly tried his best to replicate it at a UCS-scale.  His MOC is very close the original shape, and Anio’s made the best of the limited details available to add interest to it.  In particular, the dark red slopes used for the front screen and exposed greebling along the hull look great, and help to set it apart from other versions that I’ve seen.  Head over to the Star Wars forum and take a closer look.

I was chatting to EB’s Sci-Fi Moderator Bob De Quatre a few months ago and he mentioned that he was working on a Star Wars project, and asked if I would be interested in helping him with it.  So after a lot of emails, several LDD files and couple of suggestions from me, Bob’s latest MOC is finished and I hope you’ll agree that it’s well worth the countless hours that he’s dedicated to it.

I’ve tinkered with LDD and, to be honest, it has driven me to distraction on more than one occasion so I’m constantly in awe of those who have mastered the complexities of it.  Perhaps I’m too old for such things!   Anyway, it’s been great to see the transition from LDD into real elements, and it looks even better than I’d imagined.

I know that Bob struggled with the cockpit, and tried several designs before finally settling on this.  The curves of it are very difficult to replicate with LEGO, and whilst Bob’s design isn’t perfect, I feel that it’s a significant improvement on the short-lived 10227.  The rest of the MOC is stunning, with every surface using ‘SNOT’ techniques to give it a beautiful smoothness, and it’s crammed with every imaginable detail.  Head over to the Star Wars forum and take a look the other photos of Bob’s very own B-Wing!

Have you ever heard of the Ateryn Dawn?  No, well apparently it could do the Kessel run very quickly, or so I’ve been told!  This is the first MOC that Eurobricks member, The Librarian, has made for a long time and it’s the personal starship of Jedi Shadown Rhaga Venn.  At 87cm long it’s a sizeable model, and he’s taken inspiration from the Blockade Runner and Republic Cruiser and blended these together to create a very elegant design.  When I first saw it, I was reminded of some of Bob De Quatre’s MOCs; meticulously constructed, distinctive and crammed with great details.  It’s one of those models which looks impressive from virtually every angle, but I particularly like the oversized engines which give a indication of its potential speed, plus the subtle aging of the hull which help to break up the expanse of greys.  Personally I think that the top cannons are a little too long, but otherwise I can’t fault it.  Head over to the Star Wars forum and take a look.

As most of you are probably aware I’m an OT fan, so when I saw the second teaser for The Force Awakens for the first time I was immediately taken by the crashed Star Destroyer that appears in one of the opening scenes.  It was quite odd to see the wrecked hull of it partially buried in a featureless expanse of a desert, but it looked just right and that leads me neatly onto this latest MOC by KevFett2011.

Measuring 75cm x 75cm, it’s taken him four months to build and in my opinion it’s KevFett2011’s best creation to date.  The Star Destroyer is impressive in itself; it’s obviously substantial and includes a mass of surface detailing and he’s used a clever mixture of dark-bluish grey and reddish-brown elements to replicate the damage caused by the harsh environmental conditions.  The surrounding sand dunes are superbly re-created and add a great final touch to it.  Head over to the Star Wars forum and take a better look at this stunning MOC.

It’s that time of the year again! On the German forum Imperium der Steine, the MOC Olympics have started once more with what looks like the most amazing edition yet. I know… it has been going on for a couple of weeks already. Sadly, things got in the way of blogging. Therefore, in the next couple of days you’ll see quite a few somewhat older builds as I try to work away the backlog. I’m pretty sure that won’t make you appreciate them less though;

The MOC Olympics revolves around a bracket system. In each round, two builders face each other with builds revolving around some unique theme. This can be anything from recreating a famous scene to building an Architecture-style Star Wars set. Legopard was challenged to incorporate Star Wars into a completely new theme. In response, he built something quite new: actual, ancient Star Wars Olympics. When watching Ben Hur lately, it already struck me how much the pod race resembled the iconic chariot racing scene. Here we see a similar scene. I love how perfectly the two concepts have been blended. The chariots themselves actually succeed in not looking like fancy technology, but rather like overly dressed wagons, adding to the ‘authentic’ feel. I love how Vader’s one is so tank-like, while Luke’s one is light and agile: perfect translations of the concepts. Furthermore, the building is simple but great, elegant and detailed where needed, with a subtle roof and nice steps. And the natural, interesting terrain and the lonely tree give it an amazing atmosphere. You can almost see past the deficiencies of the bricks and see the horses running not quite at light speed but almost, and the dust sweeping up high, and spears perfectly taking over the job of laserblasts. I just don’t want to think about what the proton torpedo’s would look like… But you’re free to let your imagination go wild: park your chariot here for inspiration.

Vauban also had to put his imagination to work when he received his theme: Steampunk. We saw many great Steampunk builds last year with FBTB’s MOC Madness, so it must have been quite a challenge to come up with something new and wonderful. But Vauban delivered. He cleverly recreated the opening scene from A New Hope. The Tantive IV is nice and cute in it’s own right, with exactly the right parts to give it texture and a Steampunk vibe. The Imperial Cloud Destroyer really is the pride of the Armada, with the strong design, proud smokestacks, powerful engines. And that smoothly curved hull is just so delicious… The greebles on the side are a nice touch as well, appropriate as they are here. To make it all even better, the builder set it all on a beautiful display, with yet another impressive desert landscape and some amazing micro modelling. And that’s not all… the sides are stuffed with all kinds of scenes from Episode IV, well, kind of. The creativity and nice building simply has no end! It’s a stunning piece. It would look perfectly in place in any Victorian room you might have in your house. But if you don’t have that luxury, don’t worry. You can gaze at the masterpiece right here.

It seems to be The LEGO Group’s favorite Star Wars vehicle, with it’s numerous incarnations. And still, apart from the UCS version, none of them truly captured the iconic look of the snowspeeder. LiLmeFromDaFuture‘s one you see above, succeeds where the official ones failed. It’s the result of three months reiterating to come to the perfect fighter. Working with LDD and together with the kind commentators here on the forum, it seems like he’s tried every single possibility to come to what could be described as the definite LEGO Snowspeeder. It’s quite amazing how a number of techniques have been used to create the perfect, clean shape. There’s the notable use of a combination of SNOTted slopes and studs-up plates for the perfect balance of smoothness and accuracy of shape. And you might not have noticed the fact that the cheese slopes delineating the air intakes and supporting the cannons have been offset half a plate to form a perfectly smooth whole. The new windscreen part also fits perfectly. The amount of detail is quite impressive: just look at those air intakes, the different sizes of cooling fins, the brakes in several places… It’s one of those models you can really see the dedication in. You’ll see no accidental gaps here, no compromises: it’s completely ready to take on the Empire all by itself! We can only hope LiLmeFromDaFuture will use his patience, openness and talent for more and bigger vehicles… the future looks promising indeed! Right now, check out the airspeeder in great detail here, or get more insight into how it grew over the past couple of months here.

Two weeks ago, the second round of IdS’s MOC Olympics reached its peak. One of the most exciting standoffs to witness, was that one between Eurobricks members Cecilie and markus1984. The mission they chose to accept, was to let a far Eastern wind blow through the Star Wars universe. What followed was a hurricane of creativity.

It’s widely known that Star Wars was inspired by among others the samurai movies by Akira Kurosawa. When you think about it, there are indeed various similarities between the two worlds. In her entry, Cecilie fantastically showed how well they blend together as well. She drew inspiration from Japanese mythology to populate her marvelously translated Geonosian Arena with genuine mythological creatures. The setting oddly stunning and serene for such a gruesome purpose. I think we’ve never featured a landscape with such natural, harmonious and peaceful landscape here. And that pagoda is perfectly in place. Still, the high walls remind you of the true purpose. They are severe, prisonlike, yet again, beautiful. Just look at those ingenious roofs! The scen wouldn’t be what it is though, without those awesome creatures. Each one perfectly corresponds to its Geonosian counterpart. Just look how the Nine Tailed fox look so agile, with that amazing set of tails swooping behind it. And I don’t want to see that Qilin storming towards me, no matter how beautiful. And that fast and menacing dragon… it would be worth a blog article on its own. But I’ll leave the discovery to you. Be sure to keep an eye out for familiar faces. The Far East is this way.

You might not have expected it, but there’s a wide range of possible Eastern creations. That’s demonstrated by how different markus1984‘s entry is. His source material was the martial arts video game Tekken. His entry is much darker but still captures the interesting contrast between peace, balance, harmony and brute power. The idyllic garden on top of the severe cliff looks like the perfect illustration of the idea. It’s mirrored by Luke-san’s peaceful demeanor in the face of a storming might. It might be connected to how the Force works, but this is a blog about LEGO, not philosophy. It’s just that markus1984 gives us such a powerful image, with the haunting, twisted trees, the perfect architecture overlooking the battle and the vast expanse of space water, and the court itself. He used some interesting techniques to set the stone of the court apart from the rocks, and to give the facade of the house an incredibly fine structure. His fancy techniques don’t feel forced however, they just are the perfect way to build what’s necessary. You can see the builder didn’t go overboard with details, but the ones that are present matter, and are utterly beautiful. The creation itself strikes the perfect balance it is trying to tell about. So two contrasting themes have been united flawlessly. To get in touch with your yin and yang, just click here (there’s no dodgy website behind that link, even though it might sound like it). With two such amazing creations, it hardly matters which one made it to the next round, as each of them is already a victory of building. But if your curious, it suffices to say you’ll certainly see more of Cecilie’s delicious creations here in the future. And markus1984’s jaw-dropping creations you’ll see as regularly as usual.

It won’t be long before the episode VII sets will be officially revealed by LEGO. It’s already a certainty the successor of the X-wing will be one of the seven. Excited to see how it will look in bricks? We can’t show you set pictures, but we can show you two amazing MOCs that are the first incredible entries in the search to the definitive next X-wing creation. Or have we already found it? Judge for yourself after the jump.

StarWarsKev‘s entry is not just another entry in the MOC Olympics held by Imperium der Steine. Among all the big diorama’s, he built this rather small and simple scene. It doesn’t loose focus on all the small details. You immediately know what you’re looking at, and you instantly sense it’s beautiful. The water looks clean, and that whirling effect is just breathtaking: it might be the best water effect I’ve ever seen in bricks. The X-wing itself also uses some interesting techniques. I just can’t imagine what the inside of the fuselage would look like. At first, you might think it looks a bit haphazard, but in fact it perfectly replicates the true shape accurately, and it suggests some subtler detailing, like the different panels on the original. That’s a detail that’s often overlooked in creations that try to replicate every single aspect, because it’s barely noticeable and is hard to do with bricks. Yet, while forsaking other details, StarWarsKev managed to capture it, and ended up with an incredibly accurate and utterly gorgeous model. He teaches us to look beyond the obvious in a model to the essential. So go to his Flickr to check out his creation in greater… essence.

“So, another X-wing creation… great!” But don’t leave just yet! Just take your time to take Wookieewarrior‘s creation in. A silly joke readily brings us to the engine intakes, of course. Instead of going for a conventional diameter and compromising the proportions, the builder used flex tubing and some lever magic to get it just right. In fact, there are quite a few places where he didn’t took the obvious route, but went the extra mile to give us something special. Look at those beautifully rounded wingtips, for example, or the rounded bottom of the fuselage, even in between the engines. Notice how the model isn’t symmetrical, with asymmetrical stains, different details on the wings and differently colored exhausts. Enjoy the nice curves behind the cockpit, and marvel at the cockpit itself. Wookieewarrior’s care for a clean shape helps to set the detailed elements apart, drawing your eyes gently to the business end of the fighter, but not too gently, as our fighter has already seen a bit of history. It makes it look fast, effective, authentic… and incredible swooshable. You can find bigger pictures on Wookieewarrior’s Flickr. Just print it out, cut it out (take care with those cannons!), and swoosh away! It’s either that or tossing your screen around. We don’t take responsibility for any damage that might occur.

Everyone who loves Jar Jar Binks, raise your hand please. Apart from Jar Jar himself above, I think a lot of you kept your hands neatly on your computer mouse or your touchscreen. But do you hate him so badly you wish you had a voodoo doll to end it all and project your pain? Well, then umamen‘s latest creation is right up your alley. If you’re more peace-loving and appreciate a good brick-built character, you’re good too. With a surprisingly small pile of bricks, umamen built an extremely accurate and expressive character. He nailed how long and thin his limbs are, and somehow I like those hips. They perfectly balance the model, and have been built in multiple dimensions to get away from the flatness that hurts quite a few character builds. The way the limbs connect is incredible as well, with a lot of unconventional sideways joints that allow for the perfect posing of the character. A lot of the character comes from the genius face as well. It amazes me how a number of simple pieces perfectly sketches the look of everyone’s favorite gungan. Umamen went through several versions to achieve this, so I think you’d be amazed at the work that went into building such a small model. That’s what makes it one of the best character builds in its size category. It might be the most beautiful figure no-one will ever want to have on his desk. Still, the likeliness is good enough for voodoo-purposes, with the posability allowing for some very uncomfortable situations. So dust of your book full of dark magic and delve into umamen’s pictures to start your practices.

But before you give in to the dark side, continue for a peek at umamen’s insane 8-inch episode VII trooper figure.

In case you’re wondering whether you’ve heard the name of the builder before, umamen is the one who built the astonishing stormtrooper figure a few months ago. You’d think it couldn’t get any better, but in fact he has done it once again and built a stunning First Order trooper from The Force Awakens. Once again, great details, impressive posing and a cool-factor that goes through the roof. Still, it isn’t a simple rehash with a different (and once again downright genius) head. When you take a closer look, you’ll be surprised by the number of differences making this model a familiar but different masterpiece. The arms feature some more detail now, and the shape of the legs has been refined. The back is great as well. It all makes for a figure that looks ready to take on a whole new generation of Rebels. These figures are truly inspiring, and I can only hope a series of amazing creations is in the making. A series of which I’d like to won every single entry…

As a MOCcer, there are certain vehicles or locations you have a special connection to. You spent ages studying and recreating them, and know every detail. And when someone else tackles the same subject matter, you immediately spot small differences, with thoughts like “Hmm, he forgot that detail…”, “Wow, that must have been difficult!” or “Why didn’t I think of that?”. I have such a relationship with the AT-ST. Nearly a year ago, I recreated it digitally and was pretty pleased with it. Seeing anothergol‘s rendition lessened my satisfaction. Because it isn’t just a very detailed and faithful recreation of the original. He also managed to cram an interior in it. And this is not a digital creation, but a physical thing, and it stands. That while the model is fully articulated. The builder managed to achieve that with clicky joints and some special high-friction ball-cup connectors. He seamlessly integrated them into the model, even presenting the parts so, that they contribute to the detail of the model. Yes, with every inch of the model is covered in sweet detail, you wonder how there’s even room for structural elements. So this model is not a compromise between detail and functionality, it perfectly caters for both of them. So we have nice panels, great leg detail, sweet cells in the back, a handsome roof, lovely feet, even decorated joints, all combined and held together to form the ideal AT-ST replica. You can already imagine the amount of work and engineering that went into it. In fact, you don’t need to imagine it, because anothergol provided us with an insightful WIP topic. Take your notebooks and start reading, or jump directly to the finished product, to discover all the parts you never thought of. Try not to loose your balance.

One of the most prestigious competitions in the AFOL world is the Iron Builder. In each round, two builders face off to create as many awesome creations as possible in a month’s time, all using a particular seed part. In this round, Pepa Quin and One More Brick fight not with guns or swords, but the metallic silver barbell piece. And it so happens they both built a Star Wars creation. One More Brick built an extraordinary micro representation of the Coruscant Senate District. What’s impressive, is that he dealt with the cityscape as if he were building vegetation. You have the most notable features, all of the different trees, all of the unique and diverse skyscrapers. There’s the main focal point, a lonely shed, the Senate building. There’s texturing, the undergrowth, the smaller buildings. And there’s the guidance, the path leading to the shed, the air lane leading to the Senate building. So in every detail and even in composition, One More Brick built a perfectly natural landscape, but only with buildings. That incredible idea makes the scene so appealing and agreeable to look at, and makes it so much more than a random collection of helmets, weapons and seed parts. Yes, that idea and the perfect execution of it makes it hard to see where the build ends and the background starts. You see why One More Brick got invited to participate, if he can come up with this in so little time. So when you’re done drooling over the pictures of this build, be sure to check out what other natural uses he found for the seed part.

What’s more natural than the ageing of all things? This is what Pepa Quin‘s Star Wars: A New Hip illustrates. He depicted our two heroes Han Solo and Leia Organa a little bit after their glory days. But still, it’s quite a glorious bit of character building. The heroes are perfectly recognizable, still have the character we know, and look exactly as we would imagine them so many years later. I love how our dynamic duo try to look as best as they can despite there weaknesses. Han with his blaster up high, but heavily leaning on his walking stick. Leia with that sneaky pose, clinging to her perfectly built walking rack. Or are they just deceiving you and are they ready to hit anything that looks remotely Imperial (their sight didn’t improve, you know) with their ‘equipment’. The surprisingly elaborate way in which their arms are articulated already suggests they’re still capable of quite a lot. With already 10 destroyed Death Stars behind them, I’m sure they can handle another one! It’s always nice when a creation encourages you to let your imagination go wild. All it took Pepa Quin to achieve this, were a couple of basic bricks, some specialized parts to create the perfect accessories and the seed part to complete the princess’ silver hairdo. So if you’re sight isn’t too good either, just click here for a bigger picture, and see what more builds Pepa Quin has ready to spark your imagination.

Our Expanded Universe Contest has finally come to a close. There were 4 entries in the diorama category, 5 entries in the spaceship category and 2 in the creature category. Maybe the quantity of the entries was a bit on the low side, but the quality was outstanding, making it incredibly hard to vote. In the end, Artizan did it again and won the diorama category with his lovely scene from the Dark Forces Trilogy, featuring impressive architecture, details galore and the perfect mood.

Naugem built the best spaceship. His I-7 Howlrunner is a beautiful, slick ship that combines what’s straight with what’s curved, creating something extremely fast and agile, yet with some power added by the nice greebles that are even prettier when looked at from up close.

Naugem also proved he’s a versatile builder by winning the creature category as well with his sweet Ysalamir, known for the ability to repel the Force. The model captures the sneaky look and gives us a nice texture to look at. These incredible builds all show there is still a wealth of amazing creations that have been left unbuilt. Time to change something about that! If you’d like some inspiration, it just so happens I know the perfect address to start: the overview of all the entries.

So we talked about the Expanded Universe recently. You might think the wonderful creation above belongs to it. Well, it does not. Actually, it’s more of an Expanded Expanded Universe creation. This Blood Hawk was built by the Librarian to fit in the same universe as his last creation. He expanded on the post-Legacy era, with no real Jedi Order but instead a wealth of loose, diverse sects. So having a Mandalorian Jedi is no problem. But you can understand he won’t be happy with your average Jedi Starfighter. He needs something aggressive, something beautiful but brutal, something swift and lethal, the Blood Hawk. The Librarian made it a typical Mandalorian ship, yet infusing it with new blood. I love the way he beefed up the fuselage compared to the original, making it appear stronger and still fast enough. In fact, the entire shape of the ship feels right, with every single area (including the underside) having some kind of slope or curve, except for the super-sleek wings. I particularly like the nose, with it’s pretty complex but flawless shape and little details like the blue part coming back up a bit. The details on the wings and the engines is pretty inspired: I never thought the character of a ship could go as deep as its details. Same goes for the pointy way the cockpit ends. All of these things make that this ship isn’t a mere recolored copy of the original, but rather one expanded with an entirely new, powerful character. I can already see it tearing through the galaxy, leaving awe and destruction in its wake, entirely at the top of the food chain. If it sped by too quickly for you, you can still see it parked in the topic, so that you can shiver from all angles.

You only have to take a quick look in the Technic subforum to realize a creation can be beautiful and functional at the same time. But sometimes, a model is that gorgeous, that you don’t even realize it hides some awesome functionality. You never saw moving parts coming because there are no gears, even no funny cracks to be seen: it just looked like an ordinary, terrific creation. Jason Alleman‘s latest creation is a prime example of such a creation: looking at the picture, you already see a stunning creation. The details are great, with an excellent gun, subtle ridges in the middle and some clever techniques to pimp up the middle legs. The complex shape has been recreated perfectly on a rather small scale, with virtually no gaps to be seen. That must be quite some construction inside! It’s lovely to look at, but wait… did it just move? It turns out the construction to keep up the panels isn’t too big. It’s small enough to have room for a complete walking mechanism. And it’s not just any mechanism: it’s robust, realistic and compact, as Jason managed to fit the motor, battery box and receiver all in there, making it completely autonomous. It’s versatile as well, because it’s possible to make take bends with just a little bit of pumping up the model. And all of that in such a magnificent frame. This model is genius in so many ways, making it one of the best AT-TE recreations of them all, not only in this particular scale, but in all scales. But that’s not a real surprise, is it, because it’s a creation by Jason. So even though it’s small, it still warrants a closer look. Get the most out of that movie above, or witness its full, paused pride on Flickr. And if you’re really impressed (as you should be), building instructions for the walking frame are available here.

Sometimes, it’s difficult to appreciate a creation that’s paying homage to source material you’re not familiar with. Well, I’ve only caught glimpses of anything Masters of the Universe, but I have no trouble drooling over M<O><O>DSWIM’s latest creation. About Skeletor and Panthor I only know what I just read on Wikipedia, but that’s enough: the characters we see here speak for themselves. Together, they just remind you you have unfinished business elsewhere. The position ready for battle, the cape flapping in the wind, those empty eye sockets staring straight at you… With all of that intimidation, you’d almost forget to have a closer look at the build. And that would be a pity. You’d miss the genius construction of the face. You wouldn’t see how cleverly the hands and feet are made. You’d gloss over the interesting use of rather ‘happy’ colors to create something dark. The great head of the A-T-C-A-T would slip right past you. How could you appreciate how it’s both mechanical and alive: the inert walker transformed into a flashing predator? And it’s hard to notice anyway, but you’d completely miss the subtle way in which the hinges have been worked into the model. It would be a total shame to miss all of these aspects in a formidable character build. So be a (He-)man, conquer your fear and face that crafter of evil in his (or M<O><O>DSWIM’s) lair.

It’s always nice when a spaceship MOC features an interior. The controls are then composed of a couple of tiny levers. Cute and all, but maybe you’re one of the people who are not satisfied with that. You like to see more of that lever pulling, switch tumbling, dial turning and slider running goodness. You just want more controls and less ship! Sadly, such creations don’t come around every other day. But today is a good day, because Pepa Quin has a masterpiece in the genre just for you. His Millennium Falcon dashboard is sleek, detailed, functional, and screaming to get played with. It’s great how he didn’t just slap some levers on a board, but added decorations that give meaning to it all. All of the lines and panels help to structure it, and lead the pilot and the viewer. Things like the coloring of the levers, the sometimes symmetrical but sometimes asymmetrical layout and the gentle slope of the controls provide ergonomics and therefore believability. Imagine a couple of loose wires, and you’d think this is just a module taken out of the dashboard for repairs. Not too bad for a subject that has such a small amount of reference material available. I’d gladly trade in my keyboard for that module, and preferably some more… It has the advantage of giving me control of the fastest internet connection of the galaxy, but I bet it would be way harder to navigate to Pepa Quin’s Flickr to see the instruction manual…

Man, it’s a great period for the Expanded Universe. Before episode VII comes out, it seems like builders still want to immortalize what will soon be definitely out of canon. Or maybe the new source material we’re getting is getting everyone excited and creative. Who knows? But the fact remains that recently, we’re getting a lot of high-quality renditions of ships that before didn’t exist in ABS. Our first gem is the completely fictional Desert Harrier by Lazarev N. Robust, compact and fully armed, it looks like the ship can do perfectly justice to its name, inexhaustibly going further, battling. I love how most of the detailing wasn’t done with greebles or textures, but rather with geometry. It begins with the overall shape, that already features some really tricky subtle angles. But instead of the usual layer of ‘normal details’ covering it, it is as if the shape keeps refining, with ridges, even more subtle angles, an extra inset here, some more facets there, and a good deal of asymmetry for good measure. The grills and studs only come later for a bit of extra seasoning. But the shape gets the focus, and that way the robust and no-nonsense look of the ship is accentuated. And I love it. You could take away the fancy color scheme and the greebles and still have the feeling you’re looking at a complete ship, rather than a boxy skeleton. But let’s not throw away the great extras. Let’s admire the complete beauty, outside and inside, and marvel Lazarev N.’s perfect unboxing skills. You can pore over every angle in the topic.

Maybe, strangely, you’re not into these fan-designed ships, and you prefer the real stuff. Well, there’s no denying the Wild Karrde appeared in a ton of EU material. Vauban used a staggering amount of brown bricks to recreate this flying Sandcrawler/upscaled Speederbike gorgeously. Once again, there’s a great shape to it, with crazy angles and subtleties where you don’t expect them. He sculpted this model’s shape in great detail. Those angles, the overlapping parts of the hull and even the color variation between the bricks make the big, flat surfaces not ugly to look at at all. And the fact not every area is stuffed with details gives you a sense of scale. Yes, Vauban shows that you don’t need an enormous amount of details or an incredibly fine texture even if you want to build a big ship, or a ship that has to look big. He combines this unique ability with the usual tricks like incorporating familiar elements. You immediatly recognize some windows, and see they are small. You have an idea of the size of landing pads, and here they are totally dwarfed by the ship. You know enignes are never small, but this ship looks way bigger. Big and beautiful. It’s jaw-dropping from any angle, and there are a lot of angles on this one. Be sure to check out all pictures on MOCpages to discover extra goodness in every corner. Prepare yourself for a wow-marathon. Because you might not know from what part of the universe all these ships are coming from, but you can be pretty sure they’ve arrived in your visual memory to stay.