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

Get your drinks at the Genesis Casino

One of the best things about building with LEGO for a hobby is that you can ignore it. What I mean is, when you don’t have enough time at hand, you can just park your hobby for a little while. Unlike sports, where your condition deteriorates. Or gardening, where the weeds take over. Or horseback riding, which tends to not go so well after not paying attention to your horse for a couple of weeks. Whenever I am crammed at work I tend to not build with LEGO at all. I do however keep my minifigure parts close by because I do enjoy putting together funky LEGO minifigures. In their latest creation, Darth Bjørn proves that they are an expert when it comes to building funky Star Wars minifigures.

The gold flooring in this build also deserves a mention. I didn’t know LEGO produced different tones of gold bricks, but apparently, they do. (Yes, and not all of them were intentionally different. – Ed.) Darth Bjørn used the two tones to create the pattern on the floor, which I personally haven’t seen before. I am really curious about the construction underneath the tiles. And last but not least there is a really simple but elegant design for drinking glasses. A transparent round plate is combined with a colored trans round tile and then turned upside down to mimic the rim of a drinking glass.

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Bring something edible to the picnic or end up being the picnic

This poor little fly is about to end up being the picnic instead of just going to a picnic. Toddrick (B.D.) created a lovely build using a lot of black pieces to create the fly and the Venus flytrap. They also incorporated a lot of theme-specific bricks that all deserve a quick mention. So let’s go! It is very nice to see the Fabuland basket again. I like how detailed it is considering its age. Inside it is a Belville skirt and an apple. For the eyes of the fly Clickits icons have been used.

The Venus flytrap also contains a lot of weird parts. Let’s start with the leaves at the base, which are made out of Hero Factory cocoon petals, the flower petals are made out of Belville flower petals and the Venus flytrap head is made from the Ninjago Overlord dragon jaw and head. All and all the weird parts add the much-needed pops of color in this otherwise very black creation. This build definitely deserves a quick zoom so you can distinguish all the funky black parts used in the fly and the Venus flytrap.

Peace and tranquility and some forced perspective

When I stumbled upon this creation by W.Navarre I had to look twice to confirm it is made out of LEGO. I recognize the minifigure and the cow as LEGO parts but the total shot looks like it’s straight from National Geographic. W.Navarre created mountains as a backdrop. For the mountains, they used different shades of blue which creates the forced perspective in this picture. The dark blue mountains represent the nearest mountains. The further away the mountains are, the lighter the shade of blue of the mountains appear to be. Just like in real life. Using a mirror as a surface to place the build on creates a reflection of the mountains and mimics water perfectly. The total shot of this creation is so realistic it is absolutely stunning! My guess is there are a lot of parts not connected in this build and that gravity plays a huge part in keeping this together which is perfectly fine!

Vampire gets his crypt redecorated

In 2002, LEGO released the studios sets in which the heroes battled the classic monsters. Vampire’s Crypt was one of the 2002 sets featuring Dracula. Dracula has been doing more than fighting heroes and biting necks for the past few years. In 2012 the exterior of his castle got a serious upgrade with the Monster Fighter theme. The interior however stayed quite simple. In this creation by GunnBuilding it looks like Dracula hired the Fab Five to redecorate the inside of his castle. If you take a close look at the 2002 sets you’ll notice that it came with two cardboard backdrops. The brick built backdrops GunnBuilding created for the build match the original backdrop’s aesthetic perfectly. Elongating the candelabras with some gold parts is a very nice idea. The best thing about this little build however, has to be the torches mounted on the wall using 1×1 round plates with a hole in the stud and a minifigure screwdriver . The cross shaped pedestal for the coffin is a very nice touch.

Apprentice of the blacksmith

Whenever I go to a new building that is quite large and has a big open space, like a warehouse or a church, I always get the feeling that I am a tremendously small speck of a human being on a very big planet. It is almost humbling in a way. I’ve never had this feeling when looking at a LEGO creation up till now. The picture of the blacksmith created by Benjamin Stenlund evoked the exact same feeling for me. This building has to be between 35 to 40 bricks high. Which by itself is massive.

The building itself is constructed out of brick build bricks. This helps to prevent the Big Grey Wall Effect. It also adds to the feeling that this building is immense. Another thing that makes this creation stand out is the lighting. We have light coming from the oven and light coming through the gate and through the windows. The way the light enters the blacksmith makes it feel like it is a real setting and not just a well-lit LEGO creation. The attention to detail in this creation is superb. The sliding gate gets some nice wood carving. The arched vault windows are made out of cheese slopes, plates, and bricks. These arches also show how thick the walls are which attributes to the big building vibe. Ben describes that the building has to be this big in order for dragons to have their armor fittings. Which sounds like a very valid reason indeed.

Hobbit hole inside a floating rock

This floating rock has been a recurring theme when it comes to LEGO fan creations. They have been part of the community for as long as I can remember. I am actually quite astounded that LEGO never tried their hand at it. To me building rocks is scary. I love how some builders manage to build these big rocky mountains made out of big wedge pieces that appear to stay together magically. Roanoke Handybuck managed to build a rock like this.

I could just look at it for hours trying to figure out how it is constructed. The rock is not the only pretty thing about this build. This build appears to be lacking in studs. The only place I can actually see them are in the foliage of the paddle tree. Adding the pyramid tile to the Tudor wood beams looks like a lovely finish of wooden beams. Although there are a lot of pop colors in this build, to me the focal point of this creation is the bright light orange door. The use of the dragon head sword hilt as ornate door hinges is stunning.

Ancient garage door pillars

This creation by Eli Willsea may or may not be inspired by the LEGO 10276 Colosseum. They are similar when it comes to architecture, color scheme, the lovely foliage and last but not least, columns! The columns in Eli’s creation are made of garage doors. There are three orders of Greek architecture (Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian). To these the Romans the Tuscan and the Composite. Since these columns look quite simple my guess is they are either Doric or Tuscan. Next to the exquisite part usage on the columns, the color scheme of this creation is quite remarkable. Most of the colors are earthy tones except for the yellow tree foliage which really pops!

The old mill at sunset

The lighting in this LEGO creation by Benjamin Stenlund is simply stunning. It looks like the sun is slowly setting (or rising) illuminating only one side of the building. I actually had to look twice to make sure the building wasn’t made of tan and dark tan bricks (note I might be a bit color blind). The spoilers make not only great mill blades but also great roof shingles. The best used part in this creation has to be the plain old jumper plate. They are used to create the insets where the underlying bricks are visible. The effect is simply stunning. It looks like the plastering crumbled down on several spots of the building. Last but not least, can you spot Groot?

This amazing LEGO comic book cover shows both Spider-Man and Venom

When I was a kid I was a sucker for toys, t-shirts, candy or books with a lenticular printing. Lenticular printing is a technology in which lenticular lenses are used to produce printed images with an illusion of depth, or the ability to change or move as the image is viewed from different angles. Back in the 90’s it was everywhere! Okay Yaramanoglu used a whole lot of LEGO cheese slopes in their latest creation to achieve this effect.

From one side we can see everyone’s favorite neighborhood hero, Spider-Man. But shift it a bit and his nemesis Venom is pictured. This pairing of good vs evil makes a perfect subject to use the lenticular technique on. And best yet, the build is not made to look like a framed picture or a poster, but rather it’s built to look like an actual comic book, complete with binding, book cover, differently colored pages on the inside and a barcode on the cover.

The Blue Beetle Brigade

Grant Davis must know I am partial to a good brick-built insect. It is my dream to one day have framed Entomology display made entirely out of LEGO bricks. Now all I have to do is convince my partner that this is suitable decoration for a living room. These wonderful bugs by Grant might help me convince him. The body of the beetle is build using the vehicle spoiler for the antennas Grant used minifigure whips. There is an interesting mixture of brown parts used in the making of the branch. The flower on the branch must be some sort of parasitic plant species because it looks like it is not part of the branch itself. The eggs used for flowers petals is a very lovely touch and the presentation of this creation is simply sublime.

Boulevard des Lumières

I’ve been a fan of LEGO ever since I was a little boy. My sister however dabbled a bit in LEGO, had some fun with Barbie, and started collecting Playmobil. Playmobil always had my interest because they had so many different animals in their collection. Because it lacked, in my opinion, the creative building element I navigated more towards LEGO. There were however Playmobil themes that always have had my interest. I recollect going over to my niece’s house to play with her Victorian mansion. It was huge! The exterior was beautiful and on the inside, there was lots of space for the furniture. And boy there was a lot of furniture to decorate the lovely family home. Since I had already committed to LEGO I could only hope they would eventually also produce something of this kind. Although some of the modular buildings match the aesthetic, none of them match the grandeur of the Playmobil mansion. This creation by lepralego however did manage to capture the grandeur of the Victorian Playmobil building. However, it is not Victorian but Haussmann style. I do not have enough of an architectural background to know the difference. To me, they look very much alike. The building is so tall the 15 to 17 bricks tall trees look like twigs. This amazing building is fully furnished and ready for you to take a closer look inside.

Everyone has their own demons

I do not need to tell you guys that LEGO is a lovely medium to express your emotions. We quite often see creations being made to celebrate special times in a person’s life. Bart de Dobbelaer however shows us LEGO can also be used to express the harder times in life. In this creation, a single white figure is battling their inner demons. The demons look really quite bizarre and scary. The Hidden Side eyes gets used for the demons eyes. This isn’t a far stretch but it is very fitting and creepy looking. Not using white on the demons but going with yellowish-green further adds to the contrast between the demon and the white figure. At first, I thought the mutant T-Rex head or jaw was used for the jaw of the monster but upon further inspection, this is not the case. The jaw doesn’t open horizontally but vertically which for some reason freaks me the hell out. Thank god our hero is equipped with a big weapon to fight this three-headed monster.