u/MenapianAFOL

Q is back to give Picard another headache in a little scene from my Lego Star Trek Enterprise-D set. This version of Q is based on Star Trek: The Next Generation's pilot episode, where he appears as a judge to prosecute the crew for humanity's supposed crimes. It was fun researching the available Lego parts to make him - appropriately, the the red robe comes from a CMF judge minifigure!

I may need to design a more appropriate set to display Judge Q... Watch this space! In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the minifigure.

Q is back to give Picard a headache in another little scene from my Lego Enterprise-D set - instructions are available on Rebrickable. It was fun researching the available Lego parts to make this version of Q based on his outfit in Encounter at Farpoint. Appropriately, the red robe comes from a judge minifigure!

I may need to design a more appropriate set to display Judge Q... Watch this space! In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the minifigure.

I love the surreal imagination of medieval writing and illustration, and it doesn't get any wilder than Sir John Mandeville's fourteenth-century Book of Marvels and Travels, which is packed full of dog-headed men, phoenixes, headless people with faces on their chests, and lambs growing from trees. In this MOC, I've tried to recreate some of Mandeville's supposed wonders in the style of medieval illustrations. (You can see some of the images that inspired the build at the end of the gallery.)

The author of Mandeville's Travels claimed to be an English knight who had travelled to the Holy Land in the 1320s, and then on to China and the mythical kingdom of the African Christian king Prester John. In fact, most of the text was stitched together from other travel accounts and classical texts, and 'John Mandeville' himself may well have been an invention of the real anonymous author. Still, the book was a huge sensation and became of the most widely-read and circulated manuscripts of the Middle Ages - more copies of Mandeville have survived than of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and centuries later travellers in the Age of Exploration still relied on his work.

In this MOC, I've recreated:

• a wonky medieval lion (possibly drawn by someone who had never seen the real thing).
• a blemmye, one of a race of headless men with faces on their chest. Mandeville described them as "ugly folk without heads, who have eyes in each shoulder". This one seems pretty friendly, though.
• the King of the Cynocephali, the dog-headed people who lived on a remote island and worshipped an ox. Mandeville described this king as "a very faithful and righteous man" whose kingdom was safe and justly-ruled. Definitely a good boy.
• a phoenix, described by Mandeville as a colourful and long-lived bird with a comb like a peacock, which returned to a certain temple in Egypt every 500 years to be ritually burned on the altar before reviving after three days in the ashes.
• the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, a legendary plant which was said to grow living sheep as its fruit. (This may have been a misinterpretation based on hearing rumours about cotton plants.)
• ...and finally, a little vignette of 'Mandeville' himself bragging about his unlikely travels to a rather bewildered audience.

I hope you enjoy it!

My project recreates the Great Exhibition, the first ever world's fair which was held in London's Hyde Park in 1851. More than 100,000 items were displayed across ten miles of galleries, so figuring out what to recreate took some research and turned up some amazing stories. The elephant from the first image is wearing a lavish royal howdah from India - but the model itself is a stuffed African elephant because that was all the organisers could find at short notice. (They borrowed it from a museum in Essex.)

There are more pictures and details over on my LEGO Ideas page, including steam-engines, collapsible pianos, and the story of how Britain got its 'spend a penny' slang for going to the toilet. Please support and share the project, and I hope you enjoy it!

I got some great feedback sharing my Crystal Palace MOC last year, so thought it would be fun to share some comparison shots showing the inspirations for various builds in the project! The MOC recreates the Great Exhibition, the first ever world's fair which was held in London's Hyde Park in 1851.

Twenty-five countries sent more than 100,000 exhibits which were displayed along ten miles of galleries, so choosing which objects to recreate took a bit of research! Luckily there were lots of illustrated guides, catalogues, and newspaper etchings to draw inspiration from, and I selected some of the most striking and colourful exhibits to capture the atmosphere of the Palace. Here you can see side-by-side comparisons of the reference images I used for the following exhibits:

• a royal elephant howdah (saddle) from Bengal mounted on a stuffed elephant borrowed from a museum in Essex
• the Crystal Fountain, a four-ton pure crystal construction which stood 27 feet high in the middle of the Palace
• the Hornsby Portable Steam-Engine, used to power threshing and straw-making machines
• a giant astronomical telescope designed by Alexander Ross, standing eleven feet high on a cast-iron stand

There was such a huge variety of inventions, statues, and models crowded into the Palace that I could have happily built a model twice the size and never run out of inspiration. (My favourite is a 'collapsible piano' intended for use on yachts - mind-boggling...) I hope you enjoy these comparison shots - all comments and feedback are welcome!

Here's another scene from my Lego Star Trek Enterprise-D viewscreen MOC, as Captain Picard confronts a Borg 4 x 4 x 4 Modified Brick - sorry, a Borg CUBE - on an unstoppable course for Earth. Will the line be drawn here, or will humanity be taken apart and used for custom figs?

Instructions for the viewscreen, bridge, and all microscale ships and planets are available over on Rebrickable. I hope you enjoy it!

Here's another scene from my Lego Star Trek Enterprise-D viewscreen MOC, as Captain Picard confronts a Borg 4 x 4 x 4 Modified Brick - sorry, a Borg CUBE - on an unstoppable course for Earth. Will the line be drawn here, or will humanity be taken apart and used for custom figs?

Instructions for the viewscreen, bridge, and all microscale ships and planets are available over on Rebrickable. I hope you enjoy it!

Here's another scene from my Star Trek Enterprise-D viewscreen MOC, as Captain Picard confronts a Borg 4 x 4 x 4 Modified Brick - sorry, a Borg CUBE - on an unstoppable course for Earth. Will the line be drawn here, or will humanity be taken apart and used for custom figs?

Instructions for the viewscreen, bridge, and all microscale ships and planets are available over on Rebrickable. I hope you enjoy it!

Here's another scene from my Star Trek Enterprise-D viewscreen MOC, as Captain Picard confronts a Borg 4 x 4 x 4 Modified Brick - sorry, a Borg CUBE - on an unstoppable course for Earth. Will the line be drawn here, or will humanity be taken apart and used for custom figs? I hope you enjoy it!