If there’s one thing builder Eggy Pop should be known for, it would be his talent for bringing castles to life. Not long ago, we featured a ship amongst a rocky landing. All is revealed now as we zoom out to reveal the House of Greyjoys, Castle Pyke from Game of Thrones. The towers are each connected by bridges and sitting on stone stacks. I really love the detailing and construct of the stacks with the little sand green bricks thrown in randomly in a very cold and dark looking abode.
Little did we know that Barb from the cult following series from Netflix, Stranger Things was ever going to be a star of her own. While the Duffer brothers all thought they could get away with it – the internets would not let her die without a cause or fight. Our very own Iain Heath has beautifully captured her likeness in the iconic pool scene. It captures the essence of Barb’s melancholy and at the same time the terrifying danger that lurks in the dark. Catch Season 2 if you’ve not already done so, we’re not planning on any spoilers but justice has been served for Barb to immortalize her today, at least in Lego form.
Stepping out of her favourite theme of modular buildings, Vesna Todorović has struck gold with this Elves-themed diorama. Heavily inspired by the Elves Netflix series and a bit of the official sets too, the builder had the idea in her head for quite a while before amassing enough bright colours to realize it. She notes that the diorama was a great opportunity to use not only new colours, but new bricks too, including many floral elements, Angry Birds eggs and all sorts of Elves and Friends decorative elements.
The cliff in the back is recycled from an earlier diorama, with appropriate upgrades of course. The foliage is bright and colourful, as are the cute little cottages – exactly in the official theme’s style. There are interiors built for all the cottages, but sadly the buildings don’t come apart to be photographed.
This diorama was one of my favourite builds at the 19th Kockefest, the Slovenian LUG’s display, and many people I talked to there, from fans to casual visitors, agreed.
Japanese builder KEI ABE isn’t just an expert on the history of early space exploration, but also nails the construction of Russian Soyuz spacecraft in LEGO bricks. He started this amazing set back in March, and now a whole fleet of Soyuz ships is ready for countless space missions.
I’m a fan of the Studs-Not-On-Top (SNOT) techniques, especially for builds where you want the finished model to have few of the iconic LEGO studs visible. It’s a feat made even tougher on a smaller build, particularly if you need to keep the model looking true to its real-life counterpart. However, builder Jonathan Elliott seems to have a knack for pulling it off well. I still can’t decide on a favorite—the Mercedes AMG in white or the grey Porsche 911 Carrera, maybe? Actually, at this scale, I can own them both.
Click here to take a closer look
Recreating classic LEGO sets is a popular theme in fan creations—most notably so in the Classic Space theme, but other space themes see revivals also. This time the set to receive the treatment is Alec Hole‘s rework of the 6956 Rescue Star Cruiser from M-Tron (also known as Stellar Recon Voyager in the USA).
Alec has rebuilt the classic 90s set very faithfully, while keeping his own building style plainly visible. The general shapes and details are there, from the supported black wings to the mesh elements on the sides of the cockpit. My favourite parts are the thrusters, as well as the Nexo Knights shield tile pieces used as texture on the wings. And with M-Tron being short for Magnetron, of course there’s lots of magnets.
This space vessel by Rat Dude is half clean geometric lines, half slimy LEGO tentacles. Which makes complete sense, obviously, because according to the builder, this is a Terran freighter corrupted by an alien species, now used to harvest human souls.
Look closely and you’ll notice a ton of interesting details, such as the dual triangular exhausts, the bright green Technic panel support beams, and the proboscis-like rudder filled with dangling ribbed hosing (presumably, this bit facilitates the soul harvesting).
Any LEGO fan will recognize the old school and cartoony looking castle in this World of Warcraft-themed diorama by Mark Erickson, but those familiar with the game will see a very faithful recreation of a lore-wise, very important town in the recently announced expansion.
Mark has accurately built the fortified port town using over 55,600 pieces. The style of the game is captured well in the buildings’ construction, and the composition and shape is just like its in-game counterpart too, as this screenshot demonstrates.
While the game’s style belies the size of this creation, those are standard green 32×32 baseplates it’s sitting on, which makes photographing this monster quite a feat by itself. But in the end, no matter how amazing the creation is… The orc in me just wants to bomb it. Lok’tar ogar!
We are back visiting Paris in 1889 again with Castor Troy’s latest addition to his Steampunk-era rendition of the city. The Colonial Office has a striking black, white and gold color scheme with some beautiful architectural details. No expense has been spared in this particular office as a number of fancy gold elements can be found, such as the ornamental fences and, in particular, the Ninjago swords used in the roof to the far right. Castor has also created a great selection of minifigures to populate the uneven, grubby streets in front of the plush offices.
This is just one building in an incredible Paris 1889 collaboration, so you may enjoy another of Castor’s buildings that we highlighted a few weeks ago, The Lourve in 1889.
Sometimes it’s the smallest-scale LEGO building which best illustrates the most epic themes. In this cool little diorama, David Zambito depicts the early phases of humanity’s colonisation of Mars. Well, at least I assume it’s Mars because of the use of all those lovely dark orange pieces. The TIE-Fighter windscreens make perfect domes at this scale, and I like the stacked binoculars as refinery towers. The tiny rovers are cool, and the asymmetrical base adds a heap of character and visual interest. But it’s the use of minifig woollen hats as outlying domed buildings which caught my eye — nice touch.
This impressive 3-foot long container ship by Jussi Koskinen can transport over 700 2×4 brick-sized containers from across your living room to wherever you need them. The use of the curved slopes helps create the gently curved contour of the hull, which is reinforced with a sturdy Technic frame that allows one to pick up the ship from either end. Smooth sailing ahead!
The recent BrickCon 2017, which took place in Seattle just a month ago, gathered the best Back to Old School creations — some of the most awesome remakes and remixes of old LEGO themes and sets. Galaktek‘s color refinery is an adorable reflection upon old concepts when designs were simple and the color palette is limited by several basic colors. That’s why you’ll never find here pieces in dark purple of Maersk blue; it was a beautiful time of yellow castles and blue and grey spaceships!
