Neo Classic Space

This beautiful diorama by Shannon Young fills me with the joys of Classic Space. Just looking at it makes me feel youthful and healthy again. 

You can appreciate the entire diorama in its full glory at MOCpages.

Nice one Shannon!

Pasukaru76 has brought the hopes of kids throughout the galaxy into the Neo Classic Space age, with this rather fun diorama. We particularly like the Christmas card themed background.

Happy Christmas from everyone at the Neo Classic Space academy!

Microscale is proving very popular among classic space builders, and it's not hard to see why. It forces minimalism and clean design, while creating opportunities for creativity. Parts that are largely insignificant at a larger scale have the opportunity to become the main feature of a model.

Take 2x4's Neo Classic Space X-Wing. On the surface it is incredibly simple, yet it packs an uncanny amount of detail into its clean lines. We love the giant wing-mounted guns and the droid behind the cockpit.

I hope we'll see more Neo Classic Space from this talented builder soon.

Many of us have dabbled in virtual building. It can be very useful for prototyping as well as creating instructions for completed models, or just building large models without having to buy all the bricks first. LEGO's official Lego Digital Designer is an excellent tool, but does suffer from being limited to current and recent parts, so most virtual builders eventually turn to the LDraw family of programs which includes MLCad and LeoCad, LDView for visualisation and LPub for producing instructions. It can even be integrated with PovRay for rendering photo-realistic images. And best of all it's all free.

If you've used these programs for Classic Space building, you will almost certainly have used parts designed by Willy Tschager without even realising it. Willy has designed a number of very useful Classic Space space parts, including many bearing the classic space logo. Here's a quick virtual build I did of the moonbase from the 928 Galaxy Explorer, featuring several of Willie's parts, most notably his 5000 polygon crater plate, the most complex LDraw part ever produced:

Willy has produced some great models using the parts, and provided instructions for them. Although they might not be considered Neo Classic Space, they are still a worthy tribute to the Classic Space sets.

So whether you're picking up LDraw tools for the first time or a seasoned user, please spare a thought for designers like Willie who provide the parts us spacers cherish.

Willie's article on authoring LDraw parts appears in the current issue of BrickJournal.

On the galactic front lines, where Federation resources are stretched to breaking point, it has become vital to keep casualties to a minimum. Armoured hardsuits are now widely used in many uncertain situations from routine patrols to combat operations.

Some of the most popular examples come from BBBCS, who have built a reputation for combining maximum troop protection with powerful weaponary at a price point that even the all-powerful Federation accountancy department can't object to. Their latest model, the Iron Monkey, is easy to pilot, fast and fuel efficient to deliver even greater savings.

This is just the latest in a long line of models that included the ever popular Defender. Despite its age, it is still popular with Federation troops. Although it is now being phased out, there are still many in active service.

A year ago today Neo Classic Space was born - not the name, and certainly not the building style, both of which had been around for several years - but the website.

It was originally envisioned as a place for a small group of builders to hang out. They had been building Neo Classic Space models and wanted a place to keep track of their LL Registration Numbers. There was talk of adding in models by other builders, but that was as far as it was expected to go.

However, before long they had some pretty cool stuff on the site and they thought it would be nice to share it with the rest of the world. Someone suggested holding an event to launch it, but what sort of event?

Then someone asked when exactly did LEGO first release the original Classic Space sets? Expert archivists were consulted. The first catalogues showing Classic Space were from 1979. Back then the catalogues and new sets always came out at Easter, usually sometime in March (you may see references saying 1978, but the main release was certainly 1979).

Celebrating 30 years of Classic Space seemed like the perfect occasion to launch the site. But how? What better way than by building tribute models? How about one for every year Classic Space has been around? How about one for every day in March?

Teen fan L.D.M. has built a very versatile ship for the Classic Space Federation, the LL-264.

We have to admire the building skills that have gone into this. The wing is a lovely shape, based on the original Classic Space logo. However, the cleverest bit has to be the way the body of the ship separates from the wings allowinging tyres to inflate.

Perfect to ensure the spacemen are ready for any situation.

We've already featured a number of excellent microscale models. Now our own Pete Reid has got the bug, and has been producing some utterly amazing work at a tiny scale.

Pete has always been a genius at cramming an incredible amount of parts into a small space, and has clearly been applying some of his robot-building techniques.

Best of all is LL-237, a bit of a micro-scale monster - we love the sinister looking neck vertibrae, making the ship look almost organic.

Here at Neo Classic Space central, we've always always enjoyed colour variations of classic sets, so we're delighted to see this version of one of our all time favourite sets, the 928 Galaxy Explorer in Starfleet Voyager colours.

Created by Jason Davies, it it is called Polaris II: Arctic Explorer, and has all the features of the original.

We know Jason is working on some really great Neo Classic Space models too, ane we're really looking forward to seeing them. Keep up the great work.

Thomas Öchsner has been showing off some rather fantastic models from his May Classic Space Project.

He has constructed a beautiful hanger, and MK-33, a splendid robot to look after the needs of the spacemen. And we love their new capes.

The LL-904 Long Distance Research Ship doesn't disappoint. Check out the greebles on the engines. And we love the use of the 6x8 slopes on the wings (check out the construction shots). This ship has really beautiful lines, and the profile from behind is especially nice: