Vick Vipers: Beating a Dead Dog

The crusade against Vic Vipers continues with this, the official twee affect "Novvember" wrap-up. You read that right, dear readers; the twee affect vendetta against Vic Vipers is so intense, so consequential, so not-just-in-Nnenn's-head, that the only thing it is comparable to is a century-spanning global conflict that left untold thousands if not millions dead.

In a month full of pew-pew starfighters, a few stand out as actually decent.

In proof of the "Monkeys at Typewriters" conjecture, Peter Morris finally made a Vic Viper that is interesting. Inspired by some sort of racing car, his Victoria Viper combines fancy racing colors with a departure from his normal form to make something that would fit perfectly in a reboot of old scroller video games.

Nostalgia is rarely attractive, but in a field where color schemes often veer into the simply hideous, going with the tried-and-true has its advantages. Builder "Wizz Bang" takes Peter Reid's Neo-CS and runs with it, making a ship that could easily stand on its own outside of the VV fad.

In the legitimately inventive (or maybe video-game inspired?) category, Toby Hein presents the Sylphid Strega. Did 3 ships crash into each other? Or is it a gesamtkunstwerk, deftly playing off our conceptions of form, symmetry, and unity to make something altogether new?

If "Novvember" was a contest, Rob "Dasnewten" would be the prize sniper. Taking his trademark style and technique and applying it to the VV template, his G4 Harpy is certainly not his best work, but arguably the best Viper seen yet.

We take that back. Jaster wins.

I liked Green Day better before they sold out

Thanks god this month is nearly over.

Steampunk is...

...The Black Eyed Peas, apparently.


The music video that inspired this MOC is about as pleasant to watch as trepanning yourself.

Floodgate wheels are horizontal.

A curious little theme has been on a slow burn for more than a year now. Don't let the name fool you, "SubApoc" has little to do with the zombies, guns, and brown normally associated with Apoc. Until now, that is.
That's right, Tim "Spook" Zarki, creator and prolific builder of SubApoc, has breached the surface with the first above-ground creation. Readers would be forgiven for not realizing that this is a first. Part of what makes SubApoc so curious is that the models are more likely to be tiny-footed mechs than say, submarines:

Two notable exceptions, by Tim Gould and Tim Z:

But how will SubApoc fare now that it is amongst the ruins of civilization, no longer Bioshock-ed beneath the sea? Will Spook's little lovechild survive much longer now that the floodgates have closed? (A reverse analogy, as opening floodgates would submerge things, not surface them.)

BAWKSY

While vainly searching for hot deals for this up coming holiday season at Lego Shop at Home, your author shockingly stumbled upon a shocking discovery. While the Cargo Train Deluxe set, 7858, may seem like an ordinary train set, upon further inspection it seems the Lego designers have blatantly ripped off a fan's design for the boxcar included in it. The boxcar to which your author refers is in fact several boxcars, all sharing similar characteristics, but built by one person: Reinhard "Ben" Beneke, known simply as "Ben" on your favorite and ever reliable site Brickshelf.

Here, readers, is an image of the boxcar included in set 7858 and following it are several images of the boxcars on whose design it was based (note the similarly sloped roofs, doors, and number of wheels):









It is really unfortunate when Lego designers resort to blatantly stealing fan's designs, without giving them any compensation, let alone credit.

I'm like a firecracker, I make it hot.

Don't let the overdone typography fool you, this isn't the work of VA Steamworks. Nay, the dear Nathan Proudlove has constructed a working, walking, outlandish traveling circus.

The technic bits are a bit dull and ugly (compare to the inspiration) but the unconventional color scheme wins hearts over. Who would have thought that teal would ever be useful?

Self-fulfilling prophecy

Nielslegotrainfan has built the NS-2606, which was apparently nick-named "Beel". If you are one to consider Lego creations "art" (the author does not), this is a classic example of "art" imitating "real life". As Nielslegotrainfan says in his description, his MOC this Locomotive was built with "the wrong choices", was "never a success", and "then served". Even though Nielslegotrainfan did not upload a picture of the prototype in the gallery and the author is far too lazy to look it up himself, just by the description he seems to have accurately portrayed this unfortunately unsuccessful locomotive.

The nice thing about being old is you've got nothing much to lose.

Hey guys some Japanese builder, on Brickshelf, did a pretty accurate rendition of Howl's Moving Castle, from the uh movie, Howl's Moving Castle.

The colors could be tweaked: more dk gray and blay, maybe some sand blues and greens would help. Brown is certainly serviceable here, despite being classifiable as "steampunk". It's not that we're against the color itself here at Twee Affect, it's more the subject matter that tends to be built with it.

The techniques aren't up to aggressively snotted/Bricklinked American standards either, but most Japanese builders seem to have a small collection of parts, so I think it can be excused some gaps, exposed studs, and color inconsistencies.

I mean, just capturing those shapes recognizably is a feat. A+, extra credit, victory at sea.

It's not the question you asked me, it's not the answer I gave

Our Matt just posted an excellent train car carrying scrap metal, each part of which is attached. But that's not the point of this post.

When he showed me his wip pic, I told him "the bits need to look irregular, at angles" and he was all "no it is stylized" (which is his current favorite insult) and then I told him that's not the point of building, and he was all "fuck you!!!!!" and refused to take my advice, until everyone else gave him the same advice.

The result is pretty fantastic. Sometimes people need a little push to do their best work, instead of endless uncritical praise in the form of "this is grate!"

Metabolist My Brains Out!

Ahhhh! Someone made the Nakagin Capsule Tower in LEGO! Guess who was researching this building less than an hour ago! Cosmic Coincidence!!

This is the first (shared online) creation by a builder going by the name "SPACE, TIME, & REALITY." Crazy, huh?

The Nakagin Capsule Tower was one of the few built projects by a group of Japanese architects in the 1960s called the Metabolists. The Metabolists shared interests with Archigram, perhaps most famous for Plug-In City and Walking City. Of note to our dear readers, this passage from the book Exit Utopia: Architectural Provocations 1956-76:

A typical British boy of Archigram’s generation, growing up in the 1940s, was apt to play with Meccano, and we might credit to the rivet-and-connector set the same influence upon the formative Archigram architect as was been described to the Froebel blocks at the disposal of Frank Lloyd Wright in kindergarten. Plug-In City deployed a very Meccano-like iconography. Nobel laureate chemist Professor Sir Harry Kroto—of the same generation as Archigram’s members and sharing their passion for graphic design and Buckminster Fuller Geodetics—has drawn a correlation between the decline in British engineering and the decline in Meccano, arguing that LEGO, which supplanted Meccano as a toy, produces less didactic structures.

However, Archigram did use actual LEGO pieces in a model of Plug-in City (photos of which frustratingly can't be found)

Speaking of architecture made of LEGO, readers may remember the recent James May LEGO House. Of course, the house is not made entirely out of pieces, a revelation that shocked and dismayed the hobbyist community: "I knew it was going to be a farce" - the ignorant Don Solo. How dare they adhere to basic health and safety regulations? How dare they be unsuccessful in completely rewriting the building code to allow this temporary novelty?

And when pictures were released, boy did knickers get twisted: "Someone kill this thing please." "It’s horrendous, what an awful color scheme !! A missed opportunity in terms of artistry." "This certainly falls in the bottom tier of brickshelf creations." "What a waste a bricks!" Because surely, if a well funded TV show struggled to get enough bricks for a ball, this James May guy would be able to get the millions of bricks required to make a color-coordinated, historically-styled HOUSE! Right? Right?? sigh.