Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone! =) ... Here's wishing you happy holidays and a wonderful year ahead! ^^ ... Here's a "blocky" Christmas greeting I created ... Hehehee ...

nanoblock motion Choro-Q Optimus Prime Unboxing

Here is a quick unboxing video for the new nanoblock motion Choro-Q Transformers Optimus Prime from Takara Tomy. 

It is basically a bluetooth enabled remote control truck which you can control using your iPhone or Android smartphones using an app. It comes with all the bricks needed to build both the robot and vehicle at the same time. It takes 10 seconds to charge and plays for about 60 seconds. 

I got it from here. 

Instagram : Best Moments of 2014

Here are the most liked photos on my Instagram for 2014 =) ... Do follow me on Instagram if you haven't already done so ^^

A video posted by Christopher Tan (@christan) on Dec 12, 2014 at 7:04pm PST

nanoblock Singapore Airlines Plane

This is my design for a Singapore Airlines plane =) ... It was originally based on the Airbus A380, but there were details that I could not replicate at this size unless I printed it on stickers ... so it's more like A380 inspired, rather than a A380 replica =) ...

Just Passed 18,000 Fans On Facebook

I just wanted to say a big Thank You to all of you for your support =) ... A year ago today, my Facebook page only had 3,320 likes, so that's 14,680+ new fans in the past 12 months ^^ ... Hopefully, next year today, the number will grow to over 50,000? =P ... Hehehe ... 

Apart from Facebook, you can also follow me on Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

nanoblock Build Instructions: Paddington Bear

Here are the build instructions below. Do check out my Snapguide for all my other build instructions.

Check out How to Build Nanoblock Paddington Bear by Christopher Tan on Snapguide.

nanoblock Paddington Bear

Here's my nanoblock Paddington Bear =) ... Have you watched the movie?

Quick Tour of My Design Studio

Here's a quick tour of my office where I design all my nanoblock creations =)

nanoblock Penguins of Madagascar

Have you watched the movie "Penguins of Madagascar"? ... Try and guess who this is =D ...

My nanoblock Bulldog Build Instructions

Here are the instructions for my tiny nanoblock bulldog. It uses many of the new nanoblock bricks.

How It's Done : nanoblock Escher's "Ascending and Descending"

Many of you have seen my nanoblock version of Escher's "Ascending and Descending" and asked me how it was done. How is it possible to build a seemingly impossible stairs? Well, the video below will show you how this was achieved.

After watching the above video, you are probably thinking it looks easy, right? Well, it is not as straight forward as it appears.

In order to achieve this optical illusion, everything had to be just right. I had to build several test prototypes to get the dimensions and positions of the stairs just right for the angle I want the building photographed. I also tested different stair layouts to find the one that minimizes the gap distance between the two ends of the stairs. 

You can see some of my prototypes here

Foundations and part of the ground floor completed

About to start building the stairs. The prototype
stairs fitted in to make sure everything looks right.

The photos below shows the hidden portion of the building. I could have just left the hidden portion empty, but I decided to fill it up anyway and built a secret staircase. I think this makes it more "complete" as a building, although it will not make any difference to the optical illusion.

A hidden staircase at the back

Also, for the actual photo, I used a long focal length to shoot the photo in order to compress the perspective, thereby ensuring the size of the objects at the back matches the size of the objects in front, completing the optical illusion.

How the photo was shot

Well, I hope you guys found this interesting. It was really fun building this and I am thinking of attempting another of Escher's masterpiece in the near future.

nanoblock Chicken from Crossy Road Game

The Chicken from the game "Crossy Road" =) ... Who likes this game? Hehe ... For those who didn't know, it's like a clone of the old game "Frogger" ... 

nanoblock Princess Ida from Monument Valley

If you are a fan of the popular game Monument Valley, this is for you =) ... Here is the nanoblock version of Princes Ida ^^

nanoblock Escher's Ascending and Descending

nanoblock version of "Ascending and Descending", a lithograph print by M.C. Escher in 1960. My nanoblock version uses an estimated 2000+ bricks and weights 853g. It took me 2 days to create this.

How is it that the stairs seems to be going up endlessly? Well, it's an optical illusion ... No, I did not edit the photo in Photoshop or anything like that ... Hehehe ... 

Please vote here for nanoblock Award 2014.-2015.

Next to an iPhone for scale