Fresh from its appearance at the Christchurch Brick Show in New Zealand earlier this month, this LEGO-made island-bound tower by Nathan Hake is simply astounding! Created over the better part of seven months, this mammoth medieval masterpiece sprawls out over a pair of islands and includes several noteworthy features like a shipwreck, black dragon, stone bridge, abandoned docks, magical portal, and a detailed tower interior. Details like the underside of its overhang and the tendrils of smoke rising out of its chimney stand out brilliantly on the tower. While more experienced builders will marvel at Nathan’s stud reversal on the rocks of the big island halfway up the side. Building at this scale, such techniques can become unwieldy, but it’s handled here quite adeptly.

While you’ll have to check out Nathan’s Flickr page to see all the details and angles (and some pictures from the public show), I do want to add on a few of my favorite up-close shots from the build. The witch’s portal fits in perfectly with the rest of the creation. Utilizing transparent pieces in red, orange, and yellow, the structure almost has a geode quality to it. I really like the use of hinge plates to give its rocky frame a more rounded look.

I also really like the pillars on the tower’s main entrance. It’s an interesting combination of bricks, borrowing from the System and Technic palettes. It feels right at home amid the cobbled nature from the rest of the tower: intentional, but also somewhat sporadic! This angle also provides some idea of how all the vegetation is constructed. Vines comprised of leaf parts attached to a series of earth-tone bars and clips allow for the vines that cover these two islands.