If there’s one thing I love more than a beautiful LEGO model, it’s a collection of beautiful LEGO models. Inspired by the Harry Potter vignettes we featured earlier in the year, John Klapheke wanted to build a series of something he was fairly knowledgeable about. The mission John set for himself was to create six vignettes for each of the Indiana Jones movies, each set on a 12×12-stud base.
At first, he was pretty adamant about keeping the entire scene confined to those dimensions. Later, with the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull creations, he relented and let some detail spill over (and sometimes through) the sides of the base. John says “aiming for consistency” was the unique challenge of a project of two dozen separate, yet interconnected creations.
So without further ado, here is a selection of some of the incredible scenes John has created.
“You wait here.”
“They’re digging in the wrong place.”
“Chilled Monkey Brain.”
“To get out, you must take the left tunnel.”
“The floor’s on fire.”
“He chose poorly.”
“No defiant last words Dr. Jones?
“Dasvidania Dr. Jones.”
If you love these as much as we do, check out the whole series.
Looking really cool!!! LEGO Style!!!
There is a subtle distinction, but it’s worth noting that I can identify at least nine (fully half) of the Raiders/Temple/Crusade vignettes that overhang their respective bases. From a construction standpoint, vignettes traditionally have a finite base. The builder who really launched the vignette craze stuck to a 6×6 format that even his emulators found too restrictive, which led to 8×8 becoming the community standard. There’s a fine line between what you can build and what you can display. The reason vignettes really kicked off with 6×6 is the builder lived in Japan and didn’t have a lot of room to display stuff. Having lots of stuff hang over the edges would force him to spread them out a lot more and basically ignore the whole point of sticking to such a small base. However, as can be seen in some of these (especially the Temple vignettes that feature the mine carts and the zeppelin from Crusade), sometimes you just can’t make certain shapes stay within the lines. Train track and trees are particularly difficult, and both are present in this batch.
Spilling over the base at the bottom is a lot less common, but as long as you’re not entering a vignette contest where doing so might earn you a DQ, it can draw attention to key details, or allow you to include something that just won’t fit otherwise. I’d consider the Crystal Skull warehouse chase to be an example of the former (just try figuring out how to chop the ends off that truck), so the CS cemetery is really the only one I see where the base is truly violated. In this instance, it actually works. You’ve got action playing out on two levels that neatly bisect the case. Meanwhile, the bit that’s spilled out is motionless, and with the black tiles piled up combined with the uneven surface right next to them makes it appear that the base itself has been torn up to unearth the skeleton. Lastly, it’s really the only reminder that all of this action is taking place in an actual cemetery because there are no visible headstones or other skeletons within the base. Because of what spills out of the base and how it’s included, it actually adds to the scene, where another skull-masked assailant would look awkward in the same placement.