I know, I need to get back to blogging regularly, and I have a huge backlog of MOCs to post. Before we go there, let's take a little trip down memory lane:
Past
Since I'm a castle guy at heart, one of my highlights of each year is the Mini Castle Contest. The movement category was won by Luis Baixinho's Argo and the castle category by Wobnam's Kazalaeam Castle. Check the contest for many great MOCs.
Not part of the Mini Castle contest, but I can't pass by Jojo's Wartburg Castle built as part of his annual Martin Luther MOC.
Other favorites from this year include Michael Japser's Cologne Cathedral and T-Brick's Taj Mahal.
Present
Arthur Gugick can always be counted on to make great small architectural creations, and this year was no exception. Some of his creations in 2008 included the Dome of the Rock (this graced the cover of an issue of BrickJournal) and the Salisbury Cathedral.
Spencer Rezkalla is another master at microscale architecture. He created a number of new works this year and brought many of his skyscrapers to Brickworld in June.
In addition to showing off his own micro skyscrapers alongside Arthur and Spencer at Brickworld, Adam Reed Tucker had an exciting year. He partnered with LEGO to release a LEGO Architecture line, with structures like the Sears Tower.
Arthur Gugick once noted that LEGO Master Builder Kazuyoshi Naoe was a major influeence on him. Naoe's great creations continued to be displayed throughout 2008 around Japan as part of a UNESCO World Heritage Exhibit.
Chiukeung has been slowly creating a library of micro versions of Hong Kong landmarks and official LEGO sets. His Mini Town contains several of these last.
Every year the ClickBrick LEGO stores in Japan hold a contest with a 16x16 footprint limit. The limited size can inspire microscale building, such as Mumu's Mont St. Michel.
Sean Kenney's masterful Empire State Building went on display inside the real Empire State Building this year.
It seems that every few months I'm blogging Shannon Young's Shannonia as it continues to grow.
Members of TwinLUG have collaborated on a micro city that has been growing throughout 2008. They've shown this at various events and in their Window on the Community, with new components added each time.
One of the most striking micro MOCs I saw this year was Fragty's Atonium, based on a structure in Brussels.
Future
Back at the start of 2008, the Classic-Space Fanboy Cover Contest had spacers building micro versions of other spacers' MOCs. This inspired many great entries, like Keith Goldman's Container Shuttle Craft inspired by a Dan Hamman design. The prizes ultimately went to Zachmoe's Porphyrion (based on Danny Rice) and Adrian Drake's Armageddon (based on Nannan), though my personal favorite was Chieflug's oMICROn weekend, inspired by the Keithlug original.
Rogue Bantha continues to create great micro Star Wars MOCs and was blogged regularly this last year, including his Mustaneer and his Sail Barge.
There are too many great microspace MOCs out there to list, so I'll just point you to the microspacetopia Flickr group and pick Martinbb's Sobol-class Fleet Carrier and Jerrec's L.C.B Freighter Gesha as representatives. Spook and Lukas developed some rules for microspace wargaming inspired many of the fleets we've seen. Here's a sample fleet by Soren, the Grand Harmony Defense Force.
Nnenn continues to create space MOCs at an amazing rate, including his November series of Vic Vipers, many of which were at microscale.
The moonbase group displays are a highlight of fan conventions. At BrickCon, Andrew Lee and Sly420 collaborated on a micro moonbase.
There were so many great micro MOCs this year. If I tried to list them all in this post I'd end up repeating my last year's worth of blogging. I've got a backlog of things to put up, and I'm looking forward to all of the new MOCs we'll see in 2009.
