With sets like 70620 Ninjago City and 70657 Ninjago City Docks, The LEGO Ninjago Movie brought a cyber-punk aesthetic to official LEGO sets, which in cool factor is only eclipsed by the post-apocalyptic aesthetic of the new LEGO sets from The LEGO Movie 2. While LEGO fans have certainly been building cyberpunk creations for many years, even more builders have embraced this aesthetic, inspiring numerous custom LEGO models, including our own Ninjago City collaborative display at BrickCon, featuring over 60 custom city blocks. Sebastian Bachórzewski is an incredibly talented builder who builds in everything from medieval to post-apoc style. His latest large-scale model is “Layers City,” featuring a slice cut from a teeming metropolis full of colorful characters.
Like Ninjago City, the top of the city features sleek, modern buildings bristling with technology.
The main street layer is a jumbled mess of shops and people, with air conditioning units hanging precariously out of nearly every window.
The people are the focus at the street level, with scenes of minifigs in crazy outfits with wild hair bustling about.
Signage is a huge part of the Asian cyberpunk aesthetic (as seen in movies like Blade Runner, which inevitably inspired the production design for later movies like The LEGO Ninjago Movie). Sebastian incorporates stickers from Ninjago sets to advertise the various goods and services available to denizens of Layers City.
Finally, the lowest level of the city features an abandoned rail line, graffiti, time-worn architecture, and characters you might not want to meet in a dark alleyway.
Ragged cloth, chipped stone, barrel fires, and exposed pipes emphasize the squalid conditions in which people at the bottom of the city live in compared to the high-tech tower at the top.