About Bart Willen

Bart Willen (badboytje88) has been a fan of LEGO for as long as he can remember. When he hit puberty and slowly but surely started losing interest in the brick, LEGO released their first line of Harry Potter sets. Keeping Bart from slipping to a Dark Age. He is a fan of a quite broad range of themes, from Star Wars to Johny Thunder and from Elves to City. But somehow he always navigates back to the magical world of Harry Potter. He attends LEGO World in the Jaarbuurs in Utrecht on a yearly basis where he enjoys meeting other fans and seeing some of their creations 'in the brick'. You can check out his own creations here.

Posts by Bart Willen

LEGO reveals The Insect Collection as the next LEGO Ideas set [News]

Introducing 21342 LEGO Ideas The Insect Collection, originally conceived by LEGO fan José Maria, from Spain. The set itself consists of a blue morpho butterfly, a Hercules beetle and a female Chinese mantis. The insects are accompanied by a small honeybee and a seven-spotted ladybug. Each one of the main bugs comes with their own buildable habitat. To celebrate the launch, the LEGO group will be accompanying the set with a new nature-inspired ASMR playlist called Green Noise. The playlist is created in partnership with award winning and Emmy-nominated Foley artist Sanaa Kelley. It can be enjoyed online at LEGO.com/insects. Available September 7th (September 4th for Insiders), 21342 LEGO Ideas The Insect Collection will retail for US $79.99 | CAN $99.99 | UK £69.99.

Channel your inner-entomologist below!

This tower is held together by the power of hopes and dreams

Most of the time I can figure out how a LEGO creation has been put together. Sometimes it is just a big riddle. This lovely build by Kit Nugent is one of those builds that I just can’t wrap my head around. What makes this creation really fun is the number of weird pieces hidden in it to add texture to the build. If you look closely, and I truly recommend that you do, you can spot all sorts of unique bricks. There is a pump bottle, a couple of hairbrushes and a rubber duckling hidden in the build to add texture to the landscaping. Last but definitely not least is the use of the Minecreaft pickaxe and the wand box blend in perfectly with the Tudor style of the home.

A Dear Visitor

This tree stump is very much still in the game

Sometimes a LEGO build doesn’t need to be really big to be impressive. Small creations can be just as wonderful! gGh0st created a beautiful little tree stump that also functions as a home to a little woodland critter. When building really small almost every part of the build is visible and, therefore, noticeable. Seemingly single use parts are a lot harder to ‘hide’ in the build. Because it is so small they will stand out more. This didn’t scare gGh0st from using spiral stairs as a part of the tree stump. It does not only stand out because of the texture, but also because of its colour. And yet it blends in perfectly with this creation.

Tree Stump House

Rock Raiders Revamped

Sometimes a LEGO piece is so iconic that it reminds you of only one specific theme. I am talking about the Roll Cage part from Rock Raiders. As far as I know, it has only been used in the Rock Raiders theme. Seb71 recreated this iconic part on a much bigger scale for their 4980 revival. Because their rendition of the part looks so spot on, you might get confused about the sheer size of this creation. But let me tell you, it is big! All this creation needs is a couple more minifigures and it could hit the shelves. I’d dare to bet that this would sell like hotcakes.

4980 revival

All aboard the nostalgia submarine

People are suckers for nostalgia. This is a well-known fact that even the LEGO company has been tapping into lately. It is no wonder that this creation by Bob DeQuatre is hitting all the sweet spots. It is a rebuild of the 6175 Crystal Explorer Sub from the Aquanauts theme. This version is quite a bit larger than the original. The cockpit manages to fit 3 seats and a hatch to access the ocean. I am not sure, as it is not mentioned by Bob, but I can imagine quite well that the big trans purple windscreen from the Pop-up Party Bus was the starting point of this amazing build. To top it all off it even has working lights.

#6175 Crystal Explorer Sub

Guilds of Heroica City

Ever wondered what Ninjago City would look like if LEGO decided to use the same format on a medieval-themed build? Wonder no more and just take a look at Benjamin Stenlund latest creation. This amazingly detailed build celebrates the 10 years of existence of The Guilds of Historica. It features an Elven tea pavilion, a tavern, a tights shop, and a cartographer’s shop. On the street level, we find a candle maker, a bookstore, a jeweler, and a room for rent. On the second level, there is a moneylender, an apartment, and a shield shop. Benjamin didn’t stop when he filled up a 32×32 base plate so he had to expand the city to add a Chapel, a bakery, and a barbershop. I know for sure I would love to get lost in this amazing Medieval city. Can you spot all the little shops/businesses included in this massive build?

Cedrica City Block: Elven Gardens and Aslanic Chapel

Back to Svalg Keep

With spring around the corner, Louis of Nutwood presents to us the amazing Svalg Keep, a very wintery LEGO build that features a Castle covered in a blanket of snow. Even though the entire castle wall is built with light blueish-grey brick, Louis managed to avoid the dreaded “big grey wall effect.” The highly textured wall creates gaps and casts shadows which makes the walls look intricate and interesting. This is one of those creations that I would love to see on the inside. Is it just impressive on the outside or is it possible to build something that looks this good on the outside and still has enough room on the inside to build a functioning interior?

Back to Svalg Keep

Strange bird struck by a strong desire

Creating a brick-built character can be quite a challenge. Not for Oliver Becker though. He created a bird-like animal out of LEGO bricks that looks like it is straight from a Pixar movie. One of the things that strikes me the most is how this big headed beast manages to stand on those thin long legs without tipping over. Especially when you take into consideration the age of the finger hinge parts used to create the legs. They tend to lose friction or one of their teeth over the years. All of these challenges don’t bother Oliver as he managed to make one stellar creation.

Object of desire

The age old chicken or the egg discussion. Why choose?

Chickens might be my favourite animals ever. They have so much personality. You can see that quite clearly in Rickard Stensby’s latest chicken related creation. Using round 2×2 and/or 3×3 plates for the feathers is rather ingenious. I’ve been staring at this creation for a couple of days and I just can’t figure out how he managed to construct this creation. So far my guess is that there are a lot of minifigure robot/skeleton arms used to attach some of the plates to an inner structure. I also guess that some plates are just held on by friction of other actual connected plates. But I might be mistaken. Maybe you can help and take a wild guess in the comments. If you’ll excuse me now I have to convince my partner that we need some free range chickens for our garden.

The hen and the egg

Grab your space buddy and prepare for the rest of the alphabet

Space LEGO creations aren’t my area of expertise at all, but Tommy Frost’s latest creations for the Febrovery rover challenge have been catching my eye. I am not a pro when it comes to building vehicles or space crafts, so it is hard for me to properly compliment Frost’s amazing builds, but I do know that they have a really vintage feeling to them that perfectly matches the figures who drive them.

B is for Buddy

What truly caught my eye is the cute little brick-built creatures surrounding and driving all the great vehicles. The ones in the vehicle above use minifigure armour for the faces of the aliens. The backs of the armour have studs to which the printed eye tiles are connected. They are placed upside down on the neck of the torso of the minifigure. But the best thing about this creation is that it is called “B is for buddy” which means Frost is doing an alphabet within this theme for Febrovery, and I can’t wait for the rest. Check out all the ones finished so far in Frost’s album.

The splendor of Jinxia Cave

Sometimes bigger is better and sometimes scale can look quite deceiving. This LEGO creation by Liu Di Kai looks quite big but my guess is that in person it is massive. Whenever a build gets really big, parts used to add details tend to be less noticeable. If you look closely you can actually spot the Baby Yoda head used on top of the lowest temple roof as an ornament. Sure, the part is quite tiny, but it is hardly noticeable due to the sheer size of this creation. The ninjago dragon amulet is quite a big part, but even that looks teeny tiny. This is one of those creations that definitely deserves a quick zoom-in so you can discover all the hidden details.

Jinxia Cave-03

We are Legion, we are many

Whenever I think of creepy alien LEGO creations, I always think of Bart de Dobbelaer. His creations are always out of this world, on a much bigger scale than I personally am used to working on. Bart has the ability to perfectly use seemingly single-purpose parts in a way they were not intended to. The latest creation is called Legion and there we can spot the Belville horse saddle in black in the pillar-like creatures. This makes me wonder why Bart actually managed to get his hands on 16 black Belville saddles.

Legion

In the middle of the creation, there is the ‘mother’ of all the black critters. For her eyes, Bart used a combination of coffin bases and rolled-up Dots bracelets. Using mainly black bricks can be tricky, as those creations usually are really hard to photograph, but if you look closely, the little critters aren’t all the same. There are a couple of designs scattered around the base, making it look like each of the creatures has its own specific talent or ability.