Tag Archives: Miniland

“Miniland” is the name of the area at LEGOLAND theme parks where master model builders have created landmarks and cityscapes. Built at a scale about twice as large as the size of models built for minifigs, the building style is also popular with LEGO fans who aren’t professional model builders themselves.

I ❤ HEART URANUS

After enjoying Evan B’s recent miniland scale Firefly lifter, I’m overjoyed to see yet another iconic spacecraft get the same treatment! This time it’s Eagle 5 from Mel brooks’ classic Star Wars spoof Spaceballs, courtesy of Chris Rozek.

And in a matter of days you’ll be able to see this creation – and a million others – at Brickworld Chicago. Let’s just hope Chris can hang onto this build longer than the giant one he traded away in Simon’s Red Brick Game!

 

Do Mini-Figs Dream Of Plastic Sheep?

The current collaboration between the planet’s most profitable and awesome toy company and the America’s longest everything television show seems like a match made in heaven. I hope you all got to watch Sunday’s crossover episode Brick Like Me, and are now poring over it frame-by-frame to catch all 52 in-jokes and bad puns.

Judging by the activity on Flickr, it looks many of you are now having a ton of fun with your Simpsons LEGO collectible minifigures too. If you haven’t got yours yet …what’s wrong with you?!

I guess David Pickett (fallentomato) couldn’t wait for either spin-off, since he recently decided to build the First Family of Animation out of raw bricks…

Make sure to check out the full set on Flickr, including brick-built Homer holding his minifig counterpart. But that’s not all …DOH! David also put together this handy instructional video showing you how to build them yourself. So put those figs aside for a second and give it a go!

LEGO Miniland House of Cards

“Democracy is so overrated.” – Frank Underwood.

Brian Rinker (Âtin) treats us to a fantastic recreation of the House of Cards poster:
House of Cards

Great show. Great Moc. Enough said.
*tap* *tap*

Manga scale Star Wars figures

The iconic cast of Star Wars characters has been immortalized in LEGO in may different styles over the years and Rod Gillies (2 Much Caffeine) has a fresh take on the Star Wars universe if they were Anime Manga characters:

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

Each figure is fantastically detailed and worthy of a blog post … even the base is fantastically done.

Eh, What’s up, Doc?

Matt De Lanoy (Pepa Quin) turns to a classic subject I’ve rarely seen in LEGO form before: Looney Toons. The figures are spot on. Now all we need is for Matt to build Elmer Fudd to hunt the wabbit and duck.

The Hunting Season

Star Trekking, miniland style

I am currently enjoying reruns of Star Trek The Next Generation on Belgian TV. When I saw the first episode a few weeks ago, many years after I first saw it, I was a bit surprised at how dated the series looks nowadays and how young most of the actors were. Of course, many Trekkies consider Captain Picard, Cdr. Riker and their crew to be young upstarts. The real Starship Enterprise is captained by Kirk, with Spock serving as his first officer and Uhura, ‘Bones’ McCoy, Chechov, ‘Scotty’ and Sulu making up the rest of the cast.

LEGO Star Trek Crew

Ryan Ziegelbauer (rionz) has recreated all of them in miniland form. Despite the limitations inherent to building miniland figures, to me they are all instantly recognisable. The only thing missing is a cardboard set that wobbles slightly!

Arthur, the point man.

MOCpages people’s champion matt rountRee just finished his take on the famous zero-G hallway fight scene from 2010’s Inception and it is every bit as eye catching as the film. The expression on Arthur’s face is perfect and the pose of the bad guy makes for an inspired tribute to the trippy scene. If you follow the link you’ll find some interesting commentary about the build and some pulled-back photos that show how extensive the set-up is.

Description

Just for comparison’s sake I’ve included Alex Eylar’s (Profound Whatever) take on the very same scene, in minifig scale, from 2010.

Inception

“Maegor the Cruel was murdered in that chair.”

Ever wonder what the Master Model Builders at LEGOLAND Carlsbad like to do on their California State-mandated, twice daily, ten minute breaks? Well according to my source, (a mole positioned deep within the Carlsbad California model-shop known as “The Encroacher”) many of the Master Builders use the free time to build. Who can blame them? With one of the world’s greatest parts-palette to work with, the temptation to put it to imaginative use must be overwhelming.

In my monthly meeting with “The Encroacher” he pointed me towards a posting from fellow shop worker Joel Baker. The model in question is a Miniland-scale interpretation of everyone’s favorite chair o’ doom, the Iron Throne from George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones. The model itself was actually constructed by a third Master Model Builder, Megan Correnti…yes this story is like a sweet onion, constant reader; layers upon layers.

Game of Thrones Poster

Stay tuned for more tales from…”The Encroacher”…

(edit) I just saw that the model was also featured on BrickNerd. Tommy Williamson does a great job on the blog, and it wasn’t my intent to poach his post.

Three, two, one, GO!

This Lego rendition of the classic Super Smash Brothers by Daniel Church brings me back to my middle school days when I played this game. The stage of Peach’s Castle is instantly recognizable and features miniland-scale Nintendo characters by Nick Jensen and Casey McCoy.

Super Smash Bros. Peach's Castle

LEGO cars on the move

Ralph Savelsberg (Mad_physicist) has built a lot of very nice cars through the years, both minifig sized, and at around 1:22. Today he presents a model of a Mercedes Actros car transporter to show a bunch of them off. I reckon this would look very nice on my display shelf.

Mercedes Actros car transporter (4)

Brave Merida

Mariann Asanuma (Model Gal) creates a wonderful miniland figure of the heroine Merida from Pixar Animation Studios’ Brave

Brave Mereda

The repetitive parts use to create Merida’s iconic hair is rather ingenious. Not to mention, the bow design as well.

Brave Mereda

Double-decker London Routemaster bus

Ralph (Mad Physicist) is assembling a fleet of British vehicles for displays he contributes to as part of the Brickish Association in the UK. His latest is a Miniland-scale Routemaster, better known as the double-decker London bus. Ralph captures the iconic curves wonderfully.

Routemaster (1)

I never got the opportunity to take a ride on one while I was in London a few years ago, but oddly, there’s one that a local garden center uses as a greenhouse up the road here in Seattle…