Cuusoo Curiosity Rover

Lego have revealed the final design for the forthcoming fifth Cuusoo set, 21104 NASA Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover, which is set for release in January. Here's the set and box art:

Here's Lego's description from their announcement blog post:

This LEGO version of the highly advanced mobile laboratory features lots of great details, such as 6-wheel rocker-bogie suspension, articulated robotic arm and multiple camera sets, plus a display plate complete with LEGO brick Martian rocks – perfect for testing out the rover’s go-anywhere suspension! Similar to other LEGO CUUSOO sets, the building instruction booklet also includes background information about the fan builder, the history of Mars exploration, and the real Curiosity Rover.

The final model is remarkably similar to the original Cuusoo concept model. Here's what was submitted to Cuusoo, and the real thing, for comparison:

Lego's announcement also includes comments from Stephen Pakbaz, a NASA engineer who worked on Curiosity, and submitted the set idea to Cussoo, there are also pictures of him building his own copy of the set.

Architecture round up

A few bits and pieces relating to the Architecture line to enjoy. The next set in the series is due out next month, and to celebrate the mini-version of the United Nations Headquarters, a huge version of the set has been built, with the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon adding the final part. Lego posted the following image of the giant version on Facebook, along with a few other photos showing dignitaries enjoy the building:

And here are some images of the real 21018 United Nations Headquarters set. Despite not having the most exciting architecture to base the set on, I think this has translated into Lego beautifully; there are some really clever building techniques here, which I think makes this one of the best Architecture sets so far.

The most recent Architecture set was also quite an interesting one, continue after the jump for a look at that, as well as the latest excellent Architecture project from Cuusoo.

Sherlock under Cuusoo review

Another Cuusoo project has got to the review stage, this time based on the brilliant BBC series Sherlock. The Sherlock project has zoomed to the ten-thousand mark in less than a month thanks to enthusiastic support from fans of the show.

As initially conceived the set would recreate Sherlock Holmes' consulting room in 221B Baker Street, complete with some impressively designed furniture (the small table I especially admire):

An expanded version of this idea has also been proposed, offered a bigger section of Sherlock's flat, and display case assemblage:

The designer has also posted minifigure designs for the series' major characters, though anticipates the smaller format set would come with Holmes, Watson, and maybe one other character.

While I admired this proposal from the first day it was posted, I never took the opportunity to support it, as I don't feel it has a very good chance of getting past the review; I just can't see Lego oking a series which is very much targeted at an adult audience. But I'd love to be proven wrong, so look forward to the outcome of this review!

Macross becomes the first proposal in the Cuusoo winter review

The autumn review period only just closed on Cuusoo, so the latest project to pass the ten-thousand milestone becomes the first idea to get into the winter review. That proposal is the Macross VF-1 Valkyrie, a transforming mecha sort-of-thing based on an (apparently) classic Japanese animation. The project has been around for ages, gradually building support, but unlike other recent successful projects not relying on big spikes of social media support. The proposed set would be a transforming robot, that goes from humanoid form to partial aeroplane, along with two different sets of armour to give it different looks.

Having no familiarity with Macross I don't have any knowledge to consider the suitability of this project in terms of brand fit, but a mech design certainly wouldn't be alien to Lego. The winter review doesn't close until January, and we can expect to wait another year or so before we hear the outcome of this project and the others that join it.

Jurassic Park projects on Cuusoo go extinct

It was only a matter of time before this day came: The Lego Cuusoo team have announced they will be closing any Jurassic Park projects on the site, as another toy company has the rights to produce Jurassic Park construction toys - Specifically Hasbro's Kre-O range (which already snapped up another of my dream Lego themes, Star Trek, this year), which signed up to do Jurassic Park sets earlier this year, ready to release along side Jurassic Park 4 in the next few years.
 
As probably my favourite film, I've been a keen supporter of Jurassic Park projects on Cuusoo. Among them, one of my most recently supported projects, and one I've been following since the early days of Cuusoo are based on Jurassic Park, both featuring lovely brick-built T-Rexes:

Fortunately not all is lost, the brick-built dinosaur from the newer Jurassic Park project has also been put up separately, as a dinosaur UCS-style set. Without the trappings of Jurassic Park it wouldn't have to worry about any licensing issues if it is successful, and could set a very exciting precedent: If it sold well enough it could kick off a whole new range of detailed brick build dinosaur sets!

While we wait for that, we don't do too badly from Lego with dinosaurs anyway. They did indeed once produce Jurassic Park sets (just two slightly clunky Studios ones based on Jurassic Park 3), and regularly release dinosaur themes, the most recent, Dino, just last year. The Creator line also quite regularly has dinosaur based sets, which while not quite as anatomically accurate or sculptural as the above build, are still pretty pleasing!

We're off to see the wizard

The latest proposal to get to Cuusoo review is once again mining cinema history, this time heading back a few more decades than previous popular ideas, with an idea for a series of Wizard of Oz vignettes.

The set as proposed would include Dorothy and Toto, along with her companions the Cowardly Lion, Tin Man, and the Scarecrow, as well as the Wicked Witch of the West.

The really neat bit is the three separate sections of yellow brick road and be reconfigured to display the journey in a couple of different ways.

This proposal gained support with impressive speed, and as far as brand fit and saleability goes it's got to be a winner. The only tricky bit is that some of the characters propose new molds, and there aren't many obvious ways round that.

Time will tell, the proposal passed the review stage just in time to get into the autumn line-up, alongside the female minifigure set, CERN's ATLAS experiment, Faster Than Light mini spaceships, Poptropica's Dr. Hare’s Lair, and two proposals for the Ghostbusters' car. With several other review periods still awaiting outcomes it will be some time until we hear how any of these projects do.

Ghostbusters gets to Cuusoo review, again...

Well here's a curious occurrence, just a couple of weeks after a Ghostbusters project got through to the review stage on Lego Cuusoo, a second project, with pretty much exactly the same set design, has also got up to ten-thousands supporters, and so will also be in the next Cuusoo review. Like the preview successful project, this new reviewee proposes a set based on the Ghostbusters' car, Ecto-1:

I'm very curious to see how Lego deals with this. They clearly have strong support, with effectively twice the backing required to get to review. I rather hope they treat it as one submission, and split the credit.

King Kong gets his first 100 supporters

Huzzah! My King Kong Lego Cuusoo project has passed the first one-hundred supporters milestone. Just nine-thousand-nine-hundred to go!

To celebrate I thought I'd reward Kong with one of his favourite snacks, a delicious Skull Islander - I'm endeavouring to emulate the cut-to-giant-head Kong shots from the 1933 version here:

If you're curious, I thought it might be an interesting scale comparison to see Kong alongside the Delorean set. His torso is about the same size as the car, so it would be a larger set with all his limbs too:

If you haven't already, please make your way to Cuusoo and support the project, so hopefully Kong can join the the Delorean as a real Lego set!

Next into the Cuusoo review: A pink rabbit with a robot...

The latest project to pass the ten-thousand mark and enter the Cuusoo review queue is Poptropica: Dr. Hare's Lair. Another proposal backed by an enthusiastic gaming fanbase, the set idea is for a lab-type setting featuring a giant rabbit robot, and the pink bunny-suit wearing character Dr Hare. I've never heard of Poptropica before, but it evidently has enough of a following to get the project backed, and indeed already has a variety of merchandise available, which would seem to give a bit more credibility to the saleability of a set. The proposed set design seems quite reasonable in scale, and seeing it purely as a potential set looks like quite a nice design; featuring location elements and a big robot, plus a unique and quirky minifigure:

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this, is how it got the support. Not just taping into the fanbase, the creators of the game and the set (one in the same), were very activity encouraging, and incentivising fans of the game, by offering in-game bonuses as the project passed various supporter milestones. Check out their blog to see all the effort they put into promoting the proposal. Having reached the end, they've now released a little celebratory video, featuring an animated version of the set:

King Kong, my first Cuusoo project

My first proper MOC in far too long, and also my first submission to Cuusoo: King Kong, eighth wonder of the world!

King Kong is one of my all time favourite films, both the original 1933 version, for it's pioneering visual effects and incredible atmosphere, and the 2005 remake, for bringing Skull Island alive so vividly, and giving us a much more touching relationship between Kong and Ann Darrow. I've yet to see the 1976 version, although I get the impression I'm not missing much there... The original is, incredibly, eighty years old this year!

To celebrate Kong's birthday, and to challenge myself to build something other than a spaceship for once, I decided to build Kong, and have also submitted him to Cuusoo, in the hope he might one day become a real official Lego set as well! As one of the icons of cinema he certainly deserves that privilege!

I've based my Kong mainly on the more realistic gorilla anatomy of the 2005 version, but I hope he feels right standing in for either incarnation. He has articulated hands and limbs, and a poseable head, so it's possible for him to stand on all fours, just about stable up on his hind-legs, and he can also carry Ann.

I've cobbled Ann together from existing minifigure prints, so a bit awkwardly she has white socks on with her white dress. If the set got made I'm sure she'd have a better outfit designed. I think the Hollywood starlet hair is perfect for her though.

Most of the parts in my design are readily available, although I did use the bulb-pin type pieces for his fingers tips, to give them a nice organic roundness. These are currently only available in transparent colours or metallic silver, so for the purposes of finishing my model I actually coloured a few in with a marker pen! The first time I've modified a Lego piece in that way - I feel like I've committed a crime, but he looked silly with bright coloured see-through finger tips! Should the Cuusoo project get the required support, and Lego chose to carry that element of the design over to the final set, then that part would become available in black, or maybe dark grey (to match the other fleshier highlights), for the first time.

When I was initially thinking about making him I had in mind that I would couple him up with the T-Rex (or V-Rex in the remake), to recreate the encounter between the two in the film. As I was building him I realised thought that Kong on his own would be quite a large set by Cuusoo standards so far (his torso alone is the size of the Delorean), so for the Cuusoo proposal I've just done Kong on his own. I'll probably still have a crack at making a T-Rex for fun too though, and maybe a biplane as well, for another fun combination.

There are a few more pictures after the jump. If you like my build, or you're a fan of King Kong, or just like gorillas, please make your way to the Cuusoo proposal and add your support. He'll need ten-thousand supporters to be put to the Cuusoo review for consideration to become a real set. So please also share him around your preferred social media to help drum up some support! It's a long shot given the number of Cuusoo projects already in review, but I really like the idea of the eighth wonder of the world becoming the eighth Cuusoo set!

Ghostbusters gets to Cuusoo review

Another Cuusoo proposal, featuring the Ghostbusters, has passed the ten-thousand supporters mark, meaning it is now in the queue for review, with the possibility of it becoming an official set. The proposed set would be the Ghostbusters' car, Ecto-1, along with the Ghostbusters team, and the ghost Slimer (the latter of which makes inspired use of the existing Star Wars Huttlet molds)

It will be some time before we know the fate of this project, as there are several other Cuusoo review periods awaiting outcomes before this will be up for consideration. I expect it has a pretty good chance though, with a similar case to the just released Back to the Future set; a popular and iconic film, a distinctive design, and a realistic sized set for the mass market.

Review: 21103 Back to the Future - Delorean Time Machine

Out now is fourth set to successfully pass through the Lego Cuusoo system; gathering ten-thousand supporters, ticking all Lego's boxes, and being made into a real Lego set.

21103 Back to the Future Delorean Time Machine comes in a slightly sturdier box than your average set, with the front opening as a flap, allowing you to use the box as a tray. The instructions are also a bit chunkier than your average book for a set of this size, printed on thicker paper than usual. I guess Lego want to give a nice impression for any Lego-newbies picking this up for the Back to the Future novelty.

The first picture here has the box and everything in it, which includes a brick-separator, and whole bunch of extra parts; not just your usual spares of the smaller bits, but addition parts which allow you to rebuild the set in three different forms, which is probably the coolest, and one of the most unique, aspects of this set.

The first build, with the various extra parts to tweak it into other versions of the Delorean.

Continue after the jump for a look at the parts, minifigures, and features of this set:

FTL reaches Cuusoo review

Another Cuusoo project has passed the ten-thousand supporters mark, and thus is now in the queue for Lego's review, to determine whether it has what it takes to become a real Lego set. Once again a video-game community has amassed to get the required supporters, this time with a proposal based on the game Faster Than Light. The final suggestion for the Cuusoo project is a set of three mini-ship models, although the creators floated many other ship designs before settling on this selection.

I'd not heard of FTL before, as far as I can gather the game focuses on maintaining a ship's operations by looking after all your systems, rather than focusing on shooty space battles. At a glance that would at least seem to be child-friendly enough for Lego. I can't really say the proposed set excites me all that much though, the ship on the right looks kind of neat, but not so much that I'd want to get a set to have one. The scale at least seems quite reasonable, and probably quite fun too, having a bunch of little starships to swoosh about.

FTL will be in the autumn review, alongside the female minifigures project and the ATLAS detector, as well as any other projects that get the required supporters in time. Before we hear anything about those though, we still have the outcome of nine other projects to hear about waiting in the winter, spring, and summer review piles!

Cuusoo: World Map

Here's an excellent example of Cuusoo innovation: A brilliant proposal for a Lego world map, designed with the intention of it being hung on the wall. Lego have occasionally released mosaic-type sets, experimenting in using Lego as a two-dimensional or low relief medium, but this idea goes a little further, as it's not just a pretty picture of the world: Making it out of Lego gives it instant functionality, with the possibility of being able to add Lego plates or tiles as markers on the map (like pins on a normal map) to keep track of your travels, or fantasy expeditions. The proposal also suggests it could come with a set of tiles printed with national flags, which of course you could stick on in the appropriate places (could be quite a fun geography game in that).

At the proposed scale it would be a huge set, requiring multiple base-plates, especially if you made it large enough to include flags of the world, even on 1x2 tiles. But it would surely be worth it for the impact and fun you could have. After all you needn't stop with flags and markers, you could build micro-scale landmarks, or stick on your favourite national-dress minifigures. Great fun! It's still more than nine-and-a-half-thousand supports short of Cuusoo review though, so go and support it!

Cuusoo: Burj Al Arab

I really like the idea of the Architecture series, but so far I've found most of the sets don't excite me; either because they're buildings I don't like, Lego interpretations that I don't feel have worked that well, or they just come out looking a bit too simplified or plain dull. The latest Architecture proposal on Cuusoo has managed to avoid all those problems! Srezkall's rendition of the Burj Al Arab, the iconic hotel in Dubai, takes a subject that could be difficult to render in Lego, and captures it perfectly. It's refreshingly bright and colourful for an Architecture set too, with that lovely sea of transparent blue tiles for the base really setting it apart from other sets.

Isn't it exquisite? I hope you agree and give your support to the Cuusoo project, it's got a long way to get to ten thousand!