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

Hut on the rocks

In an iconic early scene from the first Harry Potter book, poor uncle Vernon finally cracked when a veritable flood of letters came pouring down the chimney. He had the entire family leave the house to try and prevent contact from Hogwarts. However, upon staying in a gloomy hotel, he was shocked to see letters turn up there even. Eventually, he took his whole family to a hut on a small rock on the sea. This creation by gaylespiller, although not entirely “movie-accurate,” really manages to capture the scene perfectly in LEGO. The hut itself is made out of a brown framework built from bricks with a stud on one side. The gaps in this framework are filled in with brick tiles and plates of all sorts, creating an old, crooked, and weathered look.

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Radagast the Brown

Radagast the Brown has to be one of my favorite characters from the Hobbit trilogy. He is a bit not all there, loves nature and animals. Most of all, he has his heart above his head. Radagast also is the main subject in ekjohnson1‘s latest creation. Although he can’t take credit for the figure itself, LEGO did a splendid job on this one; the lovely little cottage he lives in is entirely ekjohnsons’ own creation. The cottage was once just a little house in the woods, but then Radagast dropped a little acorn right in the middle of some dirt on his home floor. A small tree sprouted. Radagast, not having the heart to tear it up, just let it grow because he doesn’t destroy things. Eventually, the little sprout turned into a big tree, splitting the house apart. The lighting is just spot on. But what really sets the scene is the brilliant part usage. The thatched roof is made out of quite a lot of bladed claws. And there are trunk tails used as tree roots and branches everywhere.

Honey, I shrunk the LEGO fan!

This must be LEGOception. These LEGO pieces are made of LEGO pieces. LEGO is not the only one producing LEGO pieces on a much bigger scale. Chungpo Cheng is no stranger to this concept himself. He has made quite a few creations based on a single LEGO piece. In this image the key, fish and chicken get the upscale treatment. In his photo stream you can find more of his upscale creations.

Arachnophobia triggered

Eli Willsea must not be afraid of spiders, because there is a really big one made of LEGO in one of his latest creations. The creation itself, as well as the spider, features a lot of yellow 9V Track Switches, and a few deserve a special mention. I am particulary fond of their use for the spiral stairs as well as the clock pendulum. But the 9v Track Switch isn’t the only cleverly used brick in this creation. The bagpiper’s hat gets used as a pillow in the chair, and the bookcase consists of a lot of bookbinding. It also appears that a judge or two is missing his gavel. Can you spot them?

Vegetables and Track Switches galore

Forty, that is the amount of LEGO 9V Track Switches used by Jonas Kramm in this creation. I am not going to point all of them out to you, but some of them deserve a special mention. You can look for the rest yourself. He used two in the tuk-tuk, which by itself is a charming build. He used one as the scale pointer. My favorite use has to be the sign of the elderly couple where they are used as minimalist faces.

Besides all the excellent applications of the seed part, this LEGO creation has a lot more to offer. There are a lot of hair pieces used as cabbages. At least one cactus girl lost her limbs to represent cucumber or zucchini. And quite some ball joints to represent turnips. Last but not least is the garlic made from ice cream scoops drying inside the little house. I love it when a builder adds little details like these to places in their creation that are hardly visible.

What do you require?

LEGO builder Pedro Sequeira takes us back to one of the most memorable moments in Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows. Harry’s last return to Hogwarts starts off in one of the most unusual locations on Hogwarts grounds, the Room of Requirement.

It’s the place Lord Voldemort used to hide one of his Horcruxes while applying for the job of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. The place where Draco Malfoy spent the majority of his sixth year, fixing the Vanishing Cabinet, in order to smuggle death eaters into the castle to help him assassinate Dumbledore. The place Professor Trelawney attempted to hide her sherry bottles. And last but not least, the place where Dumbledore’s Army could safely meet. At least that’s what they thought.

So of course, a LEGO build of it should capture as much of this history as it can. And indeed, this build is filled with fantastic details. Everything you need is there, from the portrait swinging open to reveal our heroes, to the makeshift beds and hammocks everywhere, to Nigel’s potterwatch radio setup and even the columns with the glass and wood display cases.

Not all is well in this city well

Brick Depository welcomes us all to this medieval LEGO city featuring a lovely city gate, a tudor style gate house and a city square with a well at it’s center. There’s only one problem. It appears the well is almost dried out and it appears something evil is lurking in the dark cavern.

There are so many nice things to highlight about this creation. Lets start from the top and work our way down the well to the cavern beneath it. I am a big fan of this tudor gate house using the technic chain links to represent the bare visible wood. Using a flexible brick in stead of a tiles gives the wall a more organic feel and makes it less bricky. The best thing about this creation has to be the fence in the city gate. It looks so intricate and detailed from afar and it took me a little while to figure out how it was made. It’s actually quite simple and quite clever. It’s made from plates with clips attached to evey second stud. This plate with clips then faces anotner plate with clips attached in the different direction. The clips on both plates interlock and voila! Last but not least, I am really fond of the smooth transition from paving to ground to cavern walls. Want to see what is hiding in the dark? Check out his flickr page for more pictures.

Troll in the castle

Ethan Johnson is not only a really gifted LEGO builder, he is also an expert when it comes to adding light to his creations. His troll in the castle creation shows how adding light to LEGO creations brings them to life! And I am not talking about setting up a nice lightbox to take pictures of your LEGO creation. I am talking about adding actual functional lights to the creation itself.

Not only the lighting is excellent, but the creation itself is also very nice. Just look at those brick-built toilet booths and the little niffler playing hide and seek. LEGO Harry Potter has been around for quite some time now. Some characters and creatures got redesigned along the way. Some characters and creatures, however, did not. Sometimes a redesign is long due; sometimes an old figure still works perfectly fine, sometimes an old figure just needs to be spruced up a little bit with some new accessories and needs to be positioned just right so you do not see that there is a small plastic bridge between its legs.

Shazam’s Mister Mind

Tim Lydy surprises us with his LEGO Mister Mind build. Not being familiar with the source material, I thought at first it was just a cute little caterpillar. But I was sadly misinformed, this is none other than DC’s most evil and devious villain Mister Mind, an alien worm and the nemesis to Shazam. I was drawn to this creation because I really enjoy it when something really small gets turned into an upscaled LEGO model. (Keep in mind, I still thought this was just a mere caterpillar.) The body is made of a bunch of projectile disks on what I presume is a piece of flex tubing. The head is made of the insect cap headgear and the butt is a sport helmet with vent holes. The eyes are quite cleverly made of two minidoll necklaces. Did you spot the paperclip on the floor?

Look at this stuff. Isn’t it neat? Wouldn’t you think my collection’s complete?

If you don’t recognise it, the title is a small excerpt of Part of Your World from Disney’s The Little Mermaid. (It’s also something I’ve never heard an adult fan of LEGO say when describing their collection.) Builder Konoyaro used the Disney movie as an inspiration for this creation and it looks stunning! The best part about this has to absolutely be the vibrant colours. Konoyaro used a lot of parts introduced in the Friends and Elves sets for the coral reef. Look how cute Sebastian and Flounder are on this scale. Small but still very recognisable. The award for best part used goes to the knit caps used as a shell bikini top. And I am really curious to how posable this figure is. It looks like it has joints in all the right places.

Rescue from the Merpeople

Rescue from the Merpeople was released in 2005, that’s right, 15 years ago! It was a small build but it contained 5 unique figures. It was the first set, and still one of the only sets, containing sleepy faced minifigurs. On top of that LEGO gave us their first mermaid minifigure. Whether or not you think the mermaid is pretty is a matter of taste. In 15 years a lot has changed in the world of LEGO and Caleb Schilling shows us a peek of what the set might look like if LEGO would ever decide to redesign it. I am really fond of the demure use of colour in this creation. The only vibrant colour comes from the vegetation and some of the characters’ outfits. The base is especially well made, showing little to no studs. The skirts on Hermoine and Cho further add to the flowing underwater feel of this creation.

King Louie, the biggest ape of all

This orangutang made by Lestrange Absurde is giving me very strong The Jungle Book vibes. King Louie was added to Rudyard Kiplings original story. King Louie has been portrayed as an orangutang in the 1967 version, and a gigantopithecus in the 2016 remake. This creation by Lestrange Absurde looks soo sweet and gentle. There is a rediculous amount of brilliant modified plate use. Just look at the fur, bottom lip, nose, fingers & toes and last but not least that cute as a button belly button.