The great thing about the Beholder from Dungeons & Dragons is how much it can vary from artist to artist despite its basic description of an eyeball with teeth and tentacles. alanboar’s LEGO interpretation of the monster is suitably creepy with dripping blood doubling as a stand for the floating menace.
The use of the grass pieces as smaller tentacles (or some stray hair) adds a lot of character to the build, and there’s even an adventurer to fight against it in another shot.
Shortly before the release of Titanfall 2 in October 2016, talented builder Marius Herrmann uploaded his first Titan build of Ronin. After that he went on to recreate the rest of the mechs from the game, but stopped short of Scorch. But now Scorch has been completed, and it may be the best of the bunch.
Like the other Titans, Scorch was done in his base colour, which translated into mostly light tan. But the amount of added detail from black, dark tan and a few printed pieces make this far from boring. The overall shaping is just about perfect but it’s the small details that make this build so incredible. This continues around the back of the build and you can spend a long time staring at this and pointing out all the great parts usage. The only thing that’s really missing is the thermite launcher, but that’s more than forgiven here.
Large LEGO sculptures made out of mostly regular bricks are most commonly created by LEGO itself for promotional displays, but fan builders sometimes make their own too. Felix Jaensch has done just that with this great rendition of Yoda, which instantly reminds us of the old 7194 Yoda UCS set.
There’s a lot of good shaping here, especially because a large percent of the character is a robe, which you can see better in this shot of Yoda’s back.
Ever since LEGO created a larger brick build of a minfigure in 76051 Super Hero Airport Battle, I’ve been waiting for the community to do more with the idea. Chungpo Cheng has finally answered my wishes not once but twice with this pair of Star Wars droids. Yes, if you scrolled too fast or didn’t look closely enough, these aren’t just the two official “minifigures” from LEGO, they’re larger builds that expertly copy the proportions of their source material.
Geoffrey the Giraffe is an ungulate pushed too far. In 2016 he was turned into an official LEGO set that everyone called “creepy” and “dumb”. Now in 2018 his company is going out of business and all anyone seems to care about is what percentage discount they’ll get on the remaining stock. Well no longer. Andrew Lee has given Geoffrey what he needs to get his revenge… a mech with dual machine guns.
Drama aside, this joke build is actually great. I love the use of old printed pieces, especially the stars which match up with the ones on Geoffrey. The snowflake pieces on the guns for muzzle flash are nice touches, and the contrast between the colour of the mech and the Giraffe is clever. The best parts usage is obviously the new, angry eyes though.
When the Ultimate Collector’s Series (UCS) 75098 Assault on Hoth set came out, it was strongly disliked, which carries on even today. Seeking to miniaturise it and make the set a bit more likable, IamKritch has remade it in microscale. Minifig tool pieces are used a lot here, with screwdrivers, hammers and wrenches as various laser barrels. One hammer is even used as an aerial.
The minimalist Tauntaun in the back may just be the best part.
I know it’s old hat at this point, but I still get a kick out of seeing LEGO builds that you need to stare at for a few seconds before you realise that it’s actually LEGO, and not a sculpted figurine or Gunpla Gundam model. The latest creation to do that is this elegant mech by Jayfa that goes by the name “Shin Calibur – Arturios”. The build is incredibly smooth with a lot of clever shaping work going into hiding studs and layering elements.
The use of colour is also a standout here. The main blue is accented nicely with the white and orange. There’s also that thin red strip for the eyes, which is actually a rubber band, and just enough stickers to add some small detailing in. Finally, this mech is surprisingly spry with a lot of articulation. There’s the old click joints in most of the limbs and a smaller ball joint for the head, meaning you can position it just like its non-LEGO counterparts.
Before there was Bionicle, there were the Throwbots, or Slizers, as they were marketed in some parts of the world. While not as popular as their successors from Metru Nui, the theme introduced many elements that would later find use in Bionicle. Many people still remember them fondly, and now a few of those nostalgic fans have teamed up to give them a modern facelift.
We highlighted Turbo a few days ago, but now eight of the original sets have been taken on by as many builders (with four more slated to come soon), and each of them brings their own style to the table, as well as their ideas for what the original could have been. Some stray wildly from the source material, and others are more faithful.
The microscale style has reached one of my personal favourite LEGO Ideas sets, 21307 Caterham Seven 620R. Builder Victor has managed to cram the important features of that build into a handful of pieces, complete with a simple base that uses one of the printed pieces from the official set. The rear section is where most of the interesting stuff is happening: the use of two fender pieces to make the back fenders is smart, but the minifig headphones as the roll cage is even smarter, while the batarang as the windscreen detail makes me want to invert these colours to make a proper open top batmobile.
The original Pacific Rim was a huge inspiration for many LEGO builders. The Jaeger were an obvious choice for mech builders and we saw a tonne of recreation of them at various scales. With the second movie, Uprising, out soon, we’re starting to see the same thing happen again. Talented builder Kelvin Low, whose amazing custom LEGO Hulkbuster we featured earlier this week, is responsible for this Bracer Phoenix rendition. That’s the mech from the trailer with what looks like a morning star attached to one arm.
If you want to make you own, you’re in luck. This 22-minute video uploaded by the builder will show you exactly how Kelvin created this custom mech.
Finally, if tan’s just not your colour, Gipsy Avenger has also been made, complete with its own build video.
It’s usually a good idea to liven up the standard sci-fi grey builds with a few bright accent colours. Builder Chris Perron has taken that to another level with this mech build, which is half boring grey, and half of the brightest green LEGO makes. Aside from the colour difference, notice that the grey areas are relatively flat and uniform, while the green ones are more wild, using a tonne of little pieces to add in as much detail as possible. I see telephones, Bionicle masks and a lot of Hero Factory minifig legs built in here. There’s also an alien platen build for the mech to be posed on and a few soldiers to accompany it.
Despite being official pieces, rubber bands are usually hidden away both in official sets and fan creations. While it may be their frequently bright colours or the fact that some see them as “cheater pieces,” we just don’t see them at the forefront of most builds. Bucking that trend is Victor, who has created this clever little chair using a handful of rubber bands and solid red elements to make them blend in. The use of the ribbed hose pieces makes the bands even less noticeable, and all the Technic connectors are rotated just right for a clean shot, with their gaps facing away.
