This model, a recreation of the Doof Wagon and Nux Car from Mad Max: Fury Road, is the fourth build I've completed for my second round in the ABS Builder Challenge, an online competition where LEGO® artists are tasked with implementing a "seed part"—in this case, a silver goblet—creatively into as many builds as possible.
In this particular model, that goblet principally becomes the speakers on either side of the Doof Warrior's stage, but it also makes a cameo as the engine block of the Nux Car. I loved making these cars; not only were they some of my first forays into building wheeled vehicles, they were also great exercises at replica-building in a smaller scale!
I had the idea to make the Doof Wagon as soon as I thought about the bottom of the goblet as a speaker-looking surface. Even though another contestant in the ABS challenge beat me to that usage (and, as luck would have it, another contestant posted his "desert car" build before I finished refining my images!), I felt that this build deserved to be shared in the context of the challenge nevertheless, as I'm extremely proud of my finished result.
I initially wanted to photograph these creations outside, in real dirt "on location" somewhere, but lighting difficulties and the coarseness of the ground I found—which, when seen beside the models, immediately ruined the scale illusion I wanted—forced me to come up with a more creative presentation. As such, I photographed this model in my photo tent, but covered the brown-paper "ground" with dirt I painstakingly sieved through a piece of cloth for the finest texture. I did my best to make my final photo look rugged, arid, and over-saturated to pay homage to Fury Road's recognizable palate and superb cinematography.
The Doof Wagon was one of my favorite of the zany vehicles from Fury Road, and I think it's also one of the most immediately recognizable. I loved the film, so getting to make this car delighted me. Luckily, there were plentiful hi-res images of the Wagon from several angles, so finding details wasn't hard— but implementing them at this scale sure was! The hardest parts of the Doof Wagon to design were the sloping air ducts making up the back; these are at such unorthodox angles on the original, so recreating them in linear bricks was quite tough. I also found that stably housing the goblet-speakers was a unique challenge.
I built the Nux Car primarily because I wanted to make the Doof Wagon look bigger! It's built in the same scale as its larger counterpart, and here on this smaller car, getting details just right was even harder. I had to omit the cross Max is strapped to as a "blood bag" at the start of the movie, opting instead to showcase more of the exploding lances signature to fight sequences in the film. My favorite detail here is probably the angled exhaust pipes!