In most niches of LEGO there are a handful of builders who have really pushed building. Any list is, of course, going to be quite personal but hopefully can give a good idea of what can be achieved. On The Brothers Brick we tend to focus only on new models but this can neglect some older builders whose influence is still felt. To redress this we hope to intermittently present ‘X of the Best’ posts to showcase the ‘leaders’ in any given niche.
LEGO aircraft design presents some unique challenges. The models are typically based on real prototypes and usually have multi-directional curves which are extremely challenging to represent in LEGO. Here are four builders that I feel have really pushed LEGO aircraft building and that I always find myself going back to when I need inspiration.
Klaus Dobisch (gallery EDIT: now eastpole too): Klaus has been building incredible aircraft for many years now. His attention to detail and, in particular to keeping his designs smooth is particularly impressive.
Mike Psiaki (mpsiaki): With his ability to seamlessly use multiple techniques in a single model Mike offers a wealth of incredible designs, each of which offers many ideas for other builders.
HIEN (HIEN): While not as prolific as Klaus or Mike, Hien packs in a huge amount of accuracy in his tiny models.
Ralph Savelsberg (Mad Physicist): Ralph is, in my opinion, the king of profiles. His effort in getting every angle just right really shows and, particularly in his new models, his windscreens and cockpits are excellent examples of what can be done with a bit of sculpting.
Awesome. I was looking through all those galleries and thinking what a brilliant building toy Lego is. Oh and well done to all those builders your work is inspirational.
I really like the idea of highlighting “expert builders” in given fields! I hope to see more of this, and perhaps even a little more in the way of introductary/analytical stuff writing.
All four of these builders are definitely at the very top of their game. I built a lot of planes 15 or so years ago, and only recently got back into it, and it’s amazing how many new elements we have that help us with some of the curved shapes on airplanes. What you may notice though, is how some of the best builders in this field stick with lots of classic bricks and use them in pretty innovative ways. Ralph Savelsberg for instance often builds in good old-fashioned studs up style, he uses SNOT to get certain shapes he needs, not just for the sake of getting rid of studs. But he gets certain subtle shapes using studs up that you couldn’t get from the more “advanced” techniques that are very in vogue these days.
Building models of airplanes takes time and experience to pull off well. Among the many challenges are how to come up with a good cockpit, and how to build functioing retractable landing gear. It is often a time-consuming fiddly business and not for anyone in a rush.
Anyone who is interested in seeing more great models of real life military aircraft (or perhaps build some themselves) might want to follow the recently announced Flickr Military LEGO building competition, where one of the sub categories is “WWII era Airplanes.” If all four of these building Aces were to take up the challenge, along with the many talented modelers we have over at Military LEGO we would have quite the MOCing dogfight on our hands. And judging that could become very interesting. The deadline is the end of May…
http://www.flickr.com/groups/legomilitary/discuss/72157615066220802/
I definitely agree; I really like the idea of a series of these. However, I’ll have some strong words for you if you don’t feature my favorite builders come the space and mecha sections.
I hope this series of posts is fully standardized. It would be a darn shame if anyone were to find out that this totally subjective ranking process isn’t totally objective.
I’m looking forward to writing my own “X of the Best” posts — minifigs, mecha, vignettes…
Just like every other geeky list, these things are always going to be subjective.
It is probably better to think of them not as a supposedly definitive list of the best ever builders, and more as a way to highlight certain leading talents in a certain building theme.
^ Yes. If people can’t work out that it’s subjective I’m not going to bother explaining it to them. Besides which, the title is ‘X _of_ the best’ not ‘The X best’.