About Benjamin Stenlund

Benjamin started building he was three, when his father gave him a small Futuron set (6810), and has not stopped since then. Castle and space are nearest and dearest to his heart, but other themes occasionally get built, too; there are quite a few super heroes and Star Wars sets in his collection, at least. He builds as Henjin_Quilones on Flickr, and under the same name is the leader of one of the guilds on Eurobrick's Guilds of Historica role building game. When he is not building, he is busy being a stay-at-home dad to three kids and trophy househusband to one wife.

Posts by Benjamin Stenlund

Wait a minute, Mr. Postman

What do you get when four of the most talented castle builders out there collaborate on a series of LEGO builds? It’s a bit like alchemy, because the result is solid gold. Well, Grant Davis, Simon Hundsbichler, Marcel V., and Markus Rollbühler teamed up to show the life of a postman, carrying the mail across every bridge in the realm to make sure each and every citizen receives their letters on time. Each build is different in every detail, except the postman himself, but they are all scaled and shot to mimic the others, with the result that the builds complement each other perfectly. I’d love to have these framed on my wall, side by side, because these are not just LEGO builds, but art.

A Day In The Life Of A Postman

Click to see each of the builds up close

On the back of a dewy mountain

I love single-use LEGO elements, those pieces that are so specialized that they can only be used to make the one thing they were designed to build. Take, for example the head of a dewback from Star Wars. It’s very useful for building, well, a dewback, but not much else in the hands of an average builder. But in the hands of a master, like Simon Hundsbichler, that same piece becomes a mossy hill in a microscale creation. Add in one of the hip assemblies from the same creature, a video camera as a tower, a Bionicle leg as a coniferous tree, a werewolf head as a cliff, and about thirty other pieces, and you have a miniature masterpiece.

Lonely Lighthouse

Just try not to sneeze on the pixie dust

I simply adore microscale castles, and microscale LEGO creations in general, too. There’s something about it, where even the slightest wrong choice in elements can ruin the whole composition, but the perfect usage of that one clever piece can make a masterpiece. Enter Markus Rollbühler, one of the world’s best LEGO master builders (seriously, check out his TBB rap sheet). His microscale fairytale castle and village are chock full of amazing and clever parts usages (and color, too; do I spy some sand red in there?).

Of Farms and Fairytales

While he’s used the party hats for tower roofs before, pairing them with cupcake liners is new. And there’s a mug in the tallest tower, Elves keys for the keep, wand sprues supporting book covers for the village houses, a katana holder for windmill blades, a roller skate as a cart being pulled by what looks like a non-production brown lever arm, a cupcake top as a haystack, and the list goes on. And don’t forget the unicorn horns balancing as trees. Even blinking near this thing must have the tiny denizens crying “Timber!”

At least it wasn’t just whitewashed

A limited color palette can be tricky to work with in a creation. I’ve done LEGO builds where I only used one color, and it was challenging. Cab ~ here has limited the palette in this cathedral to just three: light bluish grey, transparent red, and transparent yellow. The back-lit stained glass is beautiful, each window unique and telling part of the Easter story, according to the builder, if in an abstracted way. The vaulted ceiling, held together by interior flex tube, looks great, too. It does look a little bland with only grey, however, or maybe just incomplete; so perhaps now that the masons have finished their part, the rest of the artisans can get to work adding paintings, gilded ornaments, and tapestries to outfit the cathedral for its intended purpose, glorifying God.

Tri-color Cathedral

Like church architecture? Check out some more churches and cathedrals in the TBB archives.

It’s a me, Mario! And all my friends, too!

Now that LEGO has released a line of Super Mario sets, I’m sure we’re not far from a massive uptick in the number of Mario-related custom builds. Anticipating them is Koen Zwanenburg, who has designed a series of cuddly characters from the games. I’m a bad child of the ’80s and don’t know all of them, but I can recognize Mario and Luigi, as well as Peach, Bowser, and Yoshi. Aficionados can no doubt name them all at just a glance since Koen has done an excellent job of capturing the essence of each with just a few parts. I love the jumper plates for mustaches on the brothers, but my favorite detail is the plates with teeth as Bowser’s toes. But they’re all great. Or should I say super?

Cuddly Toys: The Mario Collection

This is not the first set of cute and cuddly creations by Koen; check out some adorable animals and delightful Christmas characters!

Frolic in the fields, dance among the dandelions

There is perhaps no builder more skilled at crafting interesting and unique figures out of LEGO than Eero Okkonen. One glance at the TBB archives will demonstrate that. But the most recent creation to grace our screens is my favorite of the lot, due to her graceful pose, captured mid-frolic, and elegant shaping. The use of the spider net from a Hobbit set with some boat sliders makes a perfect top, with the soft edges of the fabric causing the Magadril of Dandelions to look more alive and less LEGO-ish than most of Eero’s builds. And since her eyes are up there, it’s worth highlighting how perfect minifigure hands are for eyes. If I were single and a brick-built LEGO creation myself, I’d gladly tiptoe through some tulips, or dandelions, with her. If only she didn’t have that midriff tattoo since my mother would never approve of her…

Magadril of Dandelions

Epic LEGO Forbidden City uses over 80,000 bricks and took over 700 hours to design & build!

Yes, you read the title correctly. Rocco Buttliere has used around 84,000 LEGO bricks, to be more precise. In addition to 300+ hours of building to recreate the Forbidden City in Beijing, China, Rocco also spent 400+ hours designing it first. If that doesn’t blow your mind, it should. That is one giant build of one of the world’s most spectacular architectural sites. Like his earlier LEGO diorama of Ancient Rome, Rocco built this one for a commission for a museum, and boy, does it belong there. The overview picture hardly does it justice, as it all blends together into a blur of flame orange, dark red, and grey, but zoom in and there are as many marvels as in the real deal. Fancy a tour? It’s not forbidden to look at this one, even for a commoner like me.

Forbidden City - 紫禁城 - Beijing

Check out the details of this incredible build

He’s definitely compensating for something

What’s the point of a limousine? It has none, except to make the person riding in it seem important, whether that be a bride and groom on the way to the reception or a diplomat going to a complex negotiation. It’s the same with motorcades and bodyguards; their real purpose is to lend clout to the image of the one with them. So, what if the limo has armor and hidden weapons? It’s the same, just with more bang. And if a Humvee can become a luxury vehicle, why not a HEMTT? That was my (Benjamin Stenlund) thought, at least, for my latest LEGO creation. Add in a sporty car and a motorcycle, as well as a triumphal arch and statue, and you have the scene set for inflating someone’s ego.

The Limousine

Tasked with building an armored limo, I was inspired by the heavy military truck with 8 wheels. I added some gull-wing doors, because nothing says luxury like gull wing doors. And some retractable steps to descend from the passenger compartment, too, ready to step right onto the red carpet. The angles at the front of the cab were the hardest part of the build to get right, and honestly, that’s why I went with gull wings, since it did not require hinges on the front and the doors had to open. There are lots of complicated angles on the sides, too, but they weren’t as difficult to figure out as the front. The only problem is that despite it being armored, it is too fragile for my kids to play with.

The Limousine

One meme to rule them all

It’s got to be one of the most popular memes on the internet. There’s Eddard Stark at the Council of Agent Smith in Rivendell, uttering the unforgettable “One does not simply MOC into Mordor.” Or at least that’s what a LEGO version of double-oh-six would say, right? (A MOC is, of course, an original LEGO build, “My Own Creation”; and wonderfully, it rhymes with walk.) Swap out the Mordor bit and you have a universally applicable meme for difficult things. Fancy your hand at meme-ing this build by Big Stannis? The builder has captured the exact moment of the utterance, so perhaps we need to make this version go viral in the LEGO world. All the little details are there, from the cuffs to collar, and don’t miss that hair with ears poking out. Rounded ears, of course, since he’s not blond Will Turner. And right after you finish publishing your meme, Rudy will run out of wherever he’s hiding, eager to be included on the team for at least one game of ring toss.

Boromir in the Council of Elrond

The other other Michelangelo

One of my biggest gripes with a certain variety of religious art is the portrayal of angels. I know you’ve seen it, too. Angels are cute: either chubby naked kids or else delicate and fairy-ish. How could a super-human cosmic entity be cute? Aren’t there any sculptures or paintings of muscle-bound ones that could be played by Chris Hemsworth in a movie? Sure, I know, angels don’t have bodies, and thus no muscles, but still. When one of them is called Michael the Archangel, a warrior of God who fights Satan and casts that fallen angel into Hell, one would expect more than a mild mannered, almost dainty face and spindly limbs in any portrayal, at very least. Enter Tino Poutiainen.

Archangel Michael

His LEGO version of the archangel might be made of small plastic elements, but there’s some serious power in that torso. And the arms avoid being spindly, too, due to those tires. And that hair! Everyone knows you fight better with serious flow (and play hockey better, too). Coolest of all, though, is that circle of wings that also holds up the halo. Such an elegant touch! The arrows in the shield make good use of the feather element, though who launched them is a mystery; everyone else seems to be cowering away from this mighty protector.

Love LEGO angels? Then check out some more at this link to see ones we’ve featured before!

Car broken down in the middle of nowhere? Call Lonely Joe for a tow.

Some LEGO builders find a niche in the community and spend most of their time building there, churning out beautiful creations that all fit a similar genre. For some that’s castle, for others that’s space, for others it’s Bionicle, and for others it’s some licensed theme or other. For TBB 2019 Builder of the Year Andrea Lattanzio, that niche would be shacks and automobiles. Few builders out there can equal the clean lines and perfect textures of his buildings; just look at the uneven tiles for the siding, and the perfection of sideways masonry bricks for the adjacent shed. The build is nearly studless, which helps those clean lines, and the photography is pristine, which helps too.

Joe's cottage

But don’t let that expert photography fool you; this is not a simple build. You don’t get a studless look by accident, not without plenty of SNOT (studs not on top) techniques. Plus there are myriad clever parts usages. For example, there’s a hockey stick and a harpoon holding lamps; there are pirate hooks on the truck’s bumper; and those sideview mirrors are mighty cleaver, I mean, clever. And speaking of the truck, Andrea’s vehicle designs are as clean and elegant as his shacks; no studs, crisp color blocking, and perfect shaping and scaling.

Visiting this temple will be sure to bring some heartache

Some movies really tug on your heartstrings, getting you deep in the feels. For nerds out there like me, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom might tug on some heartstrings, too–or at least Mola Ram does. Ha. When I look at this LEGO model built by Henry Tilney, I certainly get the feels. What’s not to like? There is a great representation of some mining carts going down a roller coaster (clearly placed in the film for that amusement park tie-in), and there is Indiana himself, the eminent archaeologist/grave robber Henry Jones, Jr., perched beside a pit of lava. Hopefully he doesn’t end up burning up! Topping it all off is a camel, which doesn’t feature in The Temple of Doom that I recall, but certainly can be found in the final installment of the Indiana Jones trilogy, The Last Crusade.