Space Container, originally uploaded by AfroEngineer.

These Space Containers by Breakdown are a brilliant exercise in compact building technique.

AfroEngineer has also included a breakdown of how to build them:

Engel by Michael Jasper.

I covered some of Michael Jasper’s famous people vignettes over on Fascinating LEGO Model of the Day with a post about Michael’s Francis Drake back in May. Michael is a builder who often does very cool things with a small number of pieces. This vignette does no less.

The statue’s pedestal is a brilliant blend of some 8 Tooth Technic Gear Timing Wheels and lightsaber blades. The statue effect is a simple use of pieces that are all the same color. Usually I’ve seen statues done in grey, so it was a nice change to see this one in white. One key thing that always makes the statue is a blank face.

Also, the posts abnd rope around the statue sitting in the midst of grass surrounded by sidewalk — all on a 10×6 area, very effectively convey the idea of the statue.

WIP: Hut Wall Experiment, originally uploaded by mhuffman.

No one goes from a pile of bricks to hitting all the popular LEGO MOC blogs in just a few short minutes. The best creations require planning and practice.

Sketch it out

In this image we see examples of both planning and practice. Mhuffman has some sketches that are part of the planning stage. He is experimenting with creating a hut wall, so he has drawn out the basic idea first to help figure out what the end result will be before he’s bricked together a whole pile of LEGO in a miserable failure.

Practice the technique

After some advance planning, he has now started experimenting with the idea for his technique with the physical bricks.

Coming up with something new — even if it’s just a technique that is new to you — can be tricky. It helps to practice the idea before you implement it on your MOC. Better to figure out all the kinks and problems separately before having to take your 75,000 piece MOC apart halfway through!

Supermarket fight02, originally uploaded by teruel211.

This is a great little vignette with some really good techniques. Three main things stand out to me:

1) The Supermarket Refrigerators
I have no doubt it is what they are. Very authentic. The grills across the top as well as the different versions of grey. The rat on the top is a nice touch.

2) The butcher shop
The meat looks great and the window case works very well.

3) Shopping Carts
A simple, yet effective design.

The overall humor of the image is great. I only have one suggestion: this is not an angle that we usually look into a scene on at the supermarket. So I would like to have seen some straight-on shots, or some closer-ups. I understand why teruel211 shot the photo the way he did: trying to get all the details into one shot, and he’s done that effectively. I would have tolerated seeing it over several more photos, especially to see the details in the meat shop and in the refrigerator better.

Boxes, originally uploaded by Tito0o0o.

I recognize that I just blogged another one of TitoOoOo’s creations a few days ago, but the simplicity and effectiveness of his use of color and SNOT technique make for a great example here.

TitoOoOo has entitled this one “Boxes,” box it is evident that he is stretching the concept into abstract art with his defiance of gravity by not stacking boxes all on top of each other, but also to the sides of other boxes.

This particular example would be a good one to copy-build and then expand on to practice your SNOT techniques.