Picture it, Tuscany 1982. The sky is blue, the cypress trees are green and the sunflowers are in full bloom. Sandro Damiano has built a peaceful LEGO scene that is the perfect antidote to some of the post-apocalyptic creations we feature here on TBB. While technically this is not a complex build, the composition and colourful scene has been well crafted in a picture postcard style. I love the meandering stone path and the shapely cypress trees, while the balance of bright colours is ideal for this cheerful scene.
Interesting. I’ve seen a number of people hoping in vain that the LEGO cypress tree will go back into production. It won’t. They pointedly ran the mold into the ground and then scrapped it and retired the element because they were just too prone to breaking due to their height. But that’s was over 15 years ago, and this is the first time I’ve seen someone post _brick-built_ cypress trees…and they look so crazy simple that it’s hard to wrap my mind around the fact that it took this long to happen.
I think the Cypress tress were my favourite part of this moc, they are a good alternative. I prefer brick-build trees in general to be honest.
So I did take a quick peek on Brickshelf, and sprinkled amongst many pics of the cypress tree element, actual cypress trees, and Cypress Gardens (the eventual site of LEGOLAND Florida) were a handful of brick-built cypress trees. However, they looked nothing like the element. They were huge, and built using the 5×6 and 3×4 leaf pieces. At least one looked relatively hollow.
A guy in our LUG started doing something similar for deciduous trees, using about 30 of the larger leaf element to produce a tree about 15 bricks tall. They work well for downtown sidewalks and medium growth trees in private yards, but the cypress tree element looks suitable for a shrubbery in a flower garden right next to a house. These look less like a MOC of a cypress tree and more like a MOC of the cypress tree element, but with a little variation in size. And it doesn’t look like they use any rare elements, so they should be endlessly repeatable.