Posts by David Alexander Smith

The best carpenters make the fewest chips

The way the sunlight streams through the wooden slats of Simon NH’s carpenter’s workshop shows not only exemplary building skill, but also quite the talent with the camera. This idyllic scene of a bygone age of craftsmanship matches nifty piece uses, such as the minifigure hair wasp’s nest in the rafters, and the subtly positioned gear rack saw blade, against an eye for pictorial representation. Using the lines of the beams and rafters to exaggerate the perspective in the photograph, Simon pulls the viewer’s eye into this little world, able to linger over every detail of the carpenter’s life; and be rest assured those minifigure hands on the floor are wood chips and not the result of a grisly accident.

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This LEGO AT-ACT from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story strides through the palm trees

Builder Ben Cossy intended to make a small scene set on the planet Scarif from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, but ended up with an imperial sized project, creating this stunning AT-ACT Walker. The bulkier sister to the standard AT-AT, this walker has a heavier animalistic design, consistent with its construction site deployment. Ben taps right into this aesthetic, imbuing his model with a weighty sense of gravitas, doubling the hinged knee joint on its longer legs, as well as triple plating the armoured body. Yet, it’s that first decision to situate the composition on the planet surface, where the AT-ACT can tower over the tiny palm trees, that truly captures its ominous sense of scale.

Living the dystopian dream

Ah, to get away from it all — just pack up your trailer and head out of town. Well, according to LegoFin in 2046 you might just end up living in one of these dystopian suburbs. A collage of jumbled junk, all of course expertly built, from the resourceful layering of dishes to create the defunct electrical transformers, to the lovingly detailed generator out back.

The caravan’s design uses some cleverly arranged slopes, giving it its distinctive shape; a real home from home, it’s got everything you need… well, alright it has a bucket. Still, if you do get lonely, there’s always that suspicious-looking drone to keep you company.

Find safe harbour in Markus Rollbühler’s microscale port

This microscale city-port built by Markus Rollbühler packs detail into every stud of its tiny 12×12 base. Everywhere you look something grabs your attention: ships built from epaulettes, with sails formed from the new triangle tiles found in the Speed Champion sets; printed Minecraft plates make excellent wharf buildings; and, my personal favourite, party hat spires adorn the town’s numerous towers. Of course Markus doesn’t stop there — keep searching and you’ll find treasure hidden in the dock’s cellars.

A little LEGO manga smile from Cells at Work

I can think of few builders able to nail ‘cute’ quite like MikeVd; and his latest creation, Platelet from the Japanese manga series Cells at Work, is no exception. The series reimagines human cells as anthropomorphic characters, with platelets – the blood-clotting agents – depicted as helpful children. Using a modified plate to capture an innocent smile, Mike pushes the kawaii aesthetic with a carefully tilted head and flowing hair. The result: an adorable, sparkling-eyed, little LEGO girl!

A samurai’s secluded retreat

The flower-laden gardens and open paddy fields that surround Rollon Smith’s Snake Samouraï Temple create a beautifully secluded retreat for the noble Japanese warrior. What I find really appealing about this scene is the way the well-selected decorative details, such as the serpent reliefs and the various printed tiles, are balanced against an obviously tended natural landscape.

Zooming in you find the minifigure inhabitants of the temple caught in the acts of harvesting rice, pruning plants and raking gravel; and it’s this little nod to Zen aesthetic practice that ultimately makes for such a satisfying build.

Explore the ruined grandeur of this ancient Mayan temple

Overflowing with architectural features, Noel Peterson’s El Templo de Uxmal revels in the crumbling splendour of the ancient Mayan civilisation. As you explore the ruins, you have to marvel at just how many different building techniques have been used: from the rings of brackets used to shape the distinctive holed blocks, to the row of modified bar elements inset to replicate relief carvings. The arrow head portal, made by off-setting cheese wedges, adds a spectacular focal point to the build that I particularly like. Noel’s attention to detail carries on throughout the model, creating weathering effects, age and a real sense of history everywhere you look.

“He had decided to call her Hedwig, a name he had found in A History of Magic”

Builder spacehopper’s digital LEGO version of Hedwig finds Harry Potter’s snowy owl elegantly perched on what I hope is a copy of A History of Magic. Although relatively small in scale, the use of slopes in varied shades of grey and white effectively suggest feathers. This works well when contrasted with the more formal tiled technique used to create the magical tomes; I especially like the gold ingot elements added here to give textural detail to the book’s cover. Simple inset amber eyes, so often referred to by J.K. Rowling in her novels, complete the build, bringing Harry’s faithful companion to life.

Play on, my dead brothers

Character is everything when it comes to building LEGO figures, and Redverse’s Calavera Caballerso – literally “skull gentleman” – has this quality in spades. Stepping straight out of the Mexican Day of the Dead Festival, these two skeletal musicians show off an exaggerated graphic style not easy to capture in LEGO. Look closely and every detail reveals another clever building technique: from the fluted sleeves of their jackets, built from layered cones, to the technic element that doubles as a cravat. My favourite though has to be the black t-bar and white clip plate that forms both a mobile jaw and a toothy grin.

Getting to the heart of the matter

In this enigmatic piece, builder why.not? creates a heart from the negative space formed in a wall of black bricks. Acting like a window it draws our attention towards the red and white quadrants behind. Two opposing figures face off across the coloured fields, separated by rugged chains. As a builder myself, I find the use of the imperfect connections between elements to create glowing cracks particularly effective. As we’ve seen before, why.not? is careful not to give too much away, leaving the work untitled, but this shouldn’t stop us pondering the turmoil of the heart it passionately expresses.

Butterfly mimicry: the marriage of LEGO art and scientific ideas

Brothers Brick regular Alanboar explores the link between LEGO art and science in his latest Butterfly Mimicry creation; his exquisite case of mounted butterfly specimens being made in honour of pioneering naturalist Henry Walter Bates. The concept of Batesian mimicry argues that harmless species, such as these butterflies, evolve the markings of poisonous animals avoided by predators.

Tracing the subtle differences in pattern across these beautiful LEGO butterflies, each created from a limited set of elements, reminds me of our understanding of the malleability of genetic code and the way Bates’ work foreshadowed these discoveries.

Captain Kidd’s baby galleon

The latest in Kai NRG’s vignette series starring the LEGO baby minifigure puts its infant captain out to sea, skipper of his very own miniature galleon. Kai notes that despite its size, his cute ship was researched to match the accurate proportions of a real galleon; and it shows in not only its smart part choices, like the row of open stud plate cannons, but also in the consistently scaled relationship between elements. Retaining his quirky approach, Kai leaves Captain Kidd the only off-scale component of the creation, happily sailing his stylish ship across the seven seas.