Here’s a quick LEGO Star Wars vignette that features neat build techniques and super original droid designs. Tim Goddard tells us that the low-ranking Jostoc has been tasked with climbing into the underbelly of some ship somewhere to catalog the wild and weird droids that have been occupying that space unsupervised and unhinged for some time now. Sounds like the start of a good sci-fi/horror adventure!
Nine years ago this week, Undertale was released, going from a scrappy Kickstarter-funded passion project to one of the most beloved indie games of all time. The RPG “where no one has to get hurt” challenged what it means to be a game hero and won hearts with its humor, soundtrack, and memorable characters. Builder and LEGO photographer GlimpseGlow brings four key characters to life in brick form, capturing their pixel charm in miniature. First up is Asriel Dreemurr. And look! He brought flowers. How lovely.
It may take a long time to say anything worth saying in Old Entish, but you can describe this LEGO Ent by brickbuiltjosh in just one word: impressive. Treebeard (aka Fangorn) of The Lord of the Rings carries Merry and Pippin on his shoulders, probably a few stanzas deep into a really long song about leaves or something. His bark-like skin is captured in a wonderfully organic way, full of whips, curved elements, and dinosaur tails. His hands are handlebars, allowing for his fingers to spread. Each piece is arranged into an asymmetric whole that just works. Treebeard’s pose conveys a ponderous sense of weight and motion. According to the designer, large ball joints form the knees, hips, and shoulders, while his elbows are brick-built double hinges.
The LEGO creations of Qian Yj aren’t just remarkable achievements in building with bricks. They transport the admirer to another place or time, whether at minifig or 1:1 scale. For his latest build, Qian creates a lifesize LEGO birdcage and its smol birb occupant. The mix of colors soars, especially the pairing of gold and bright blue. A simple 2×1 grille plate is fresh and exciting when used in abundance in an unfamiliar context. For the birdcage’s gold bars, Qian uses piano wires from the LEGO Ideas Grand Piano. As beautiful as the model is, I’m glad to see the small red songbird enjoying life outside the cage. Good birb.
I’ll always hold a flame for the Ice Planet 2002 LEGO theme, with its rovers, satellites, and neon chainsaws, but aside from one raised baseplate in Ice Station Odyssey, we never got to see any actual ice for tunnelators to tunnel through. Uncharted Fabrications presents a modernized take on an Ice Planet base with no shortage of frozen terrain. I love how the asymmetrical ice spills over a rectangular patch of sea. The base entrance is well-integrated into the ice with some nice SNOT building techniques for the door and platform. Splashes of grey and yellow supplement the theme’s classic combo of white, blue, black, and trans-neon orange. Of course, this being Ice Planet 2024, the builder includes a pair of the new collectible minifigures and their penguin pals, who seem right at home on the ice.
Thanks to the newly-released Dungeons and Dragons Collectible Minifigures, filling out your LEGO scenes with fantasy races and epic loot is easier than ever. Kamil Karpiński picked up a couple of Aarakocrans (aka birdfolk, aka “Jarnathan”) and using just 13 tiny elements built new legs to amplify their avian qualities. As wings and quivers clash, Kamil gives his ranger a hip solution.
Kamil’s fantasy-focused creations show how even minifigures can become the foundation for clever building techniques. (His take on Sauron rules them all!)
What do Demeter, the Greek goddess of agriculture, and a brave Wookiee warrior have in common? More than you think. Take this visually arresting build by JustAnotherTFOL, which gets the award for the best use of Chewbacca legs since . . . well, Chewbacca’s legs. The parts from the buildable Chewbacca figure make a great tree trunk.
But the great parts usage doesn’t end there. The golden curl piece gets to shine as both the vine that grows around the column and her curly hair. It all flows together organically, which is a good look for a goddess like Demeter.
According to Japanese animist traditions, Kodoama are tree spirits, part of a rich and very real world of spirits that exist in the objects and phenomena all around us. Outside of Japan, they’re best recognized as the bobble-headed forest spirits seen by the hundreds in Princess Mononoke, the brutal and beautiful animated masterpiece from Hayao Miyazaki. Builder Martin Klein pays tribute to Miyazaki’s take on Kodama with a “life-sized” LEGO model. Martin perfectly captures the pale spirit’s eerily asymmetrical face with just a trio of 1×1, 2×2, and 3×3 round tiles in black. I wonder if the head rattles when shaken? The Kodoma is paired with a leafy branch that buzzes with insect life.
While Martin also photographed this lovely model in a studio setting, I think the Kodoma looks best in its natural forest habitat.
Fresh off her debut in the video game Star Wars Outlaws, Kay Vess and her commando droid associate ND-5 go LEGO courtesy of fan builder Fabian B. Building small poses big challenges, yet Fabian smuggles in a galaxy of adventure with just a few dozen parts. The “figbash” characters are spot on, but Kay’s speeder bike shines with clever techniques, especially those tiny handlebars made from box wrenches, hammers, and skeleton arms.
With its sleek anti-gravity racers, pounding EDM soundtrack, and unmatched sense of speed, the Wipeout series remains one of the UK’s most beloved video game exports. Sebastian Arts brings the adrenaline rush to LEGO with his eminently cool Feisar FX250-300 racing ship. Everything about the presentation is ace, from the stellar color blocking to the custom stickers to the smaller- scale racers on the stand to the slick graphic design that frames the models.
There’s two things I love in this world: great LEGO builds, and word-play. Philippe Moisan‘s latest build has both in spades! You might think it looks like an insect’s apartment – but in fact, this is a computer. Don’t believe me? Well for starters, there’s a literal computer – i.e. an object to compute or calculate – in form of an abacus. There’s a bunch of hard discs on the walls; a deck of (expansion) cards on the shelves; a mother (surf) board; some (integrated) chips; and of course the fan. But front and centre of it all is a problem. This PC’s got a bug! But as long as they still let you access The Brothers Brick, I think we can let them stay…
If you ever wondered what goes on inside your speakers, have I got a LEGO build for you! This retro speaker cut-away by Martin K. spills the secrets of making minifigure music. In this scene, a singer and drummer are in the studio recording their new hit single as a producer and his adorable assistant manage the mixing console. Martin has done a fantastic job with that drum kit. They’re difficult to design authentically at this scale, but Martin makes it look easy! The drummer’s colors mean they side with the Space Police over the dastardly Blacktron, while the singer has ties to the Futuron faction. All I know for sure is they’ll have the out of this world sound of a space oddity!
