About Luka

Luka is a Slovenian LEGO builder and a member of Kocke Klub. He is most well known for building dragons, but does not shy away from other themes when time is right. In the community he goes by Deus "Big D." Otiosus (D. stands for "Destiny") and has been around for quite a few years. He is one of those builders who went through their life without a dark age. Besides LEGO he is a biology student that wastes a lot of time in the local forest or in interesting urban areas. MOC Pages Flickr Bricksafe Youtube

Posts by Luka

The air dragon soaring above the stone and water

I love LEGO dragons, and the air dragon Bandea from this immersive (almost) fully LEGO scene by one of our contributors, Benjamin Stenlund, is one of my favourites from the past few months. The body is chunky and curvy like a “real” dragon is. What gives it the edge are not the Ninjago sword edges, but the awesome background it is presented on. The horizon is put on just the right point with the corresponding camera angle. What I love most are the realistic rocks, made of wedge slopes and polygonal panels fitted together to represent the cracks and angles of a real rock face.

Flying to Varlyrio

The builder has quite a few elemental-themed dragons in his portfolio: Moto the Fire Dragon, Maji the Water Dragon, Hewa the Air dragon and Daera and Kijani, the Earth Dragons – the last one being my personal favourite so far.

For the life of every plane, I will keep watch.

A good LEGO creation will be good despite the motive and theme it depicts. Some times though, a build comes up that is both built well and plays on your personal interests. The builder that does that to me most often is Eero Okkonen. If you have been following The Brothers Brick for a while you are probably familiar with Eero’s beautiful character builds of various themes, many of which come from the Magic the Gathering trading card game, just like this particular one.

Nissa Revane

The build represents an elf planeswalker (basically a glorified mage) important in Magic’s storyline. The character’s likeness is incredibly well captured in LEGO, especially the iconic green markings on her face. The clothing and posing is great as well, with a flowing green cape and a green flame in her hand. You can read more about the build on Eero’s blog, Cyclopic Bricks. The builder is so good at capturing iconic characters that one could call him an Iconic Master…

The cutest creature of the underground – Krtek

Readers from eastern Europe will instantly recognize this adorable critter from the Czech cartoon Krtek (which means “little mole” in Czech). Having read books and seen cartoons of Krtek’s adventures throughout my childhood, I never thought to see the character built out of LEGO. But when I saw this perfect recreation by Eero Okkonen, I went full “aww-mode”.

The Mole

The pose on the image is so iconic that one would hardly notice this is LEGO, were it not for a jagged edge here and there. Curved pieces capture the character’s shape very well, but my favourite parts are the red nose and the three long hairs on the mole’s head. As a master character builder, Eero has explored many different source materials and themes, but none quite as iconic as this one. Thanks for the nostalgia trip, Eero!

Can a volcano be a character?

There are certain LEGO building systems that are tailored to different themes and motives. Technic is most suitable for mechanization, System tends to be best for buildings, vehicles, landscapes and similar motives. Bionicle (character & creature building system, or Constraction, or whatever you may call it) was obviously intended to be used to build characters and creatures and not volcanoes! But LEGO fans love to use parts in unique ways and chubbybots‘ latest build is a prime example.

volcano2

The build mostly consists of armor shells, probably connected on their intended limb pieces (or possibly in a different way, but we can not really see the inner structure). There are a few trans-neon orange chains for thinner lava flows and some round plates and bricks as smoke. But that is it. Such simple techniques were used in a unique way with a good sense of shape and topped off with good photography, resulting in a very memorable creation.

The grass is the sun and the stone is the blue sky

Certain core LEGO themes like castle and space seem to have very specific directions of experimentation and technical progress. We generally associate castle builds with unique textures, but having a colour palette usually limited to various earth tones. Colour experimentation is not unheard of in the theme though, but remains the rare exception that reminds us of specific builders like Luke Watkins or jaapxaap, among others. This time, Anthony Wilson goes to the extreme with what almost looks like a negative image of what would otherwise be a cute but quite ordinary castle scene.

Western Woods

There are so many tones of blue, yellow and orange in this build that even if I try to count them all, I would probably still miss one or two. The transitions between the different colours in the grass are especially smooth and really add up to a realistic effect (as realistic as yellow grass can be). The 1×2 tile-based wall is not a new technique, but the two rows look great overgrown by all sorts of dark brown plants. The yellow ninja minifig and its animal companion add that vitally important bit of life that complete the scene.

Voyaging across great incomprehensible nothingness alone

Their similar goals of provoking thought in the beholder is why science fiction and abstract art often go hand in hand, and this applies to LEGO as well as other media. The freedom to create something new also makes it easier to send a new message. Ralf Langer has taken this freedom to create a mysterious scene of a discovery on an alien planet. What lies beyond the door? Is it a symbol of creation of new life or the inevitable change in an already existing one?

Into the Unknow

No matter the meaning, the creation is impressive in a completely technical view as well. To less experienced builders it may seem like a few simple surfaces broken up by random and inherently meaningless technical textures we like to call “greebling”, but there is much more to it. Ralf is a master of textures as he proves here with grids of minifig stud shooter triggers. The main point of this build is composition though. Ralf has joined seemingly simple parts into something that looks full, but not cluttered. My personal favourite part is the mysterious gate, with a unique texture made using LEGO treads.

A tear can either carry pain, or hope

We featured an emotionally packed creation by Malin Kylinger a few months ago, and the builder returns to the theme with another scene in a similar style.

A lonely tear of pain and hope

The build has a very authentic LEGO style, using some prominent elements, like official dragons and an eagle, in their intended way. The same impression is facilitated by the brick and slope design of the translucent outer shell of the tear, reminiscent of brick sculptures one can see in Legoland parks, LEGO stores and other promotions around the world. Many LEGO artists choose serious themes for their creations, but Malin’s very loyal approach to the brick as a child’s toy makes the contrast between the message and the medium even more pronounced. The builder says the creation is open to interpretation, and mine is “contrasts everywhere!”

Rather large for a small dwarf

We have featured many character builds by Eero Okkonen in his big burst of creativity a while ago, and now he is back, as active as ever. While Eero’s style varies slightly from build to build, this stout dwarf still stands out as an outlier.

Onnar Rambrow

The build uses a smart selection of colours to present a ceremonial armour,  dark gray as steel (or more probably some sort of truesilver) along with gold, and well-blocked brown as leather in the gloves and pants. Kanohi Masks of control from second generation of Bionicle are used as the shoulderplates, and binoculars with Viking horns and a bucket handle are used as a dragon-like ornament on the dwarf’s helmet. But the best detail has to be the beard, using a car grille to achieve a convincing texture.

A robust industrial spaceship for ironing space-time

Merging naval and space ship aesthetics has always been my soft spot, and Dwalin Forkbeard hit the nail on the head. I would make a point how a nickname taken from The Hobbit does not suit a space builder, but the ship is actually run by dwarves!

Iron

The ship has a wonderfully Brutalist aesthetic, with smoke stacks, tubes, grills and a large gray hull broken up by round windows and gunports. I particularly like the “colour” blocking on the middle bottom section, where a light gray and more textured section is exposed from underneath the armour. The builder also provides a handy image of the spacecraft viewed from multiple angles.

Iron

A place to find crystals, cupcakes and kidnapped little girls

LEGO Friends (and by extension, Elves) is a theme that had great success both with its target audience and beyond. Many builders love the themes for the exotic colours they brought to the palette, but some, like Isaac Snyder, take inspiration for builds from the Elves theme itself.

Goblin Village

This little village has just enough buildings to look busy, and all of them have their own aesthetic while still looking very much like they belong together. My favourite techniques are the roofs, especially the purple windscreen used as an arch on the leftmost cottage. The clean lime grass broken up by printed tiles along with crystals and strange plants give the scene an otherworldly and profoundly magical feeling, just right for the Elves theme.

Historical black hole picture and ALMA observatory antenna accurately built in LEGO

Unless you have been living under a black hole, you have probably seen the historical picture of the supermassive black hole in the center of the M87 galaxy. Chilean builder Luis Peña was inspired by the results of the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration to build this new icon of science and the ALMA observatory, located in his home country. Luis loves science, and we have previously featured another historical event in science built by him, the Apollo/Soyuz meeting.

ALMA Observatory Antenna & Black Hole

The mosaic on the left displays the famous black hole radiowave picture, where the resolution of a 16×16 mosaic actually gives an accuracy almost comparable to the original. Speaking of accurate to the original, the dish of the radio antenna (one of 66 antennas in the observatory) is strikingly clean and parabolic, for the perfect focusing of captured light into the detector. The dish is stabilized by a white rigid hose, making a robust and accurate recreation.

Could Classic Space and Blacktron ever get along?

Looking at this Tracked Laser Mining Vehicle by Jon & Catherine Stead, the first thing that springs to mind is classic Blacktron. A few details seem out of place in this assumption and the description reveals no villainous intentions.

Tracked Laser Mining Vehicle MOC - 3

The yellow spacemen suggest this is in fact very much a peaceful vehicle. I particularly like the laser array, supported by strings going between pillars of translucent red 1×1 round plates. The ground is quite interesting as well, using an established technique and carrying us to a faraway moon or planet with its colours.