About Faiza Khan

Faiza is a life long fan of LEGO who has since 2018 become a more serious collector and aspiring MOC maker. His other hobbies include: pop culture consumption, traveling when possible, gaming, and good conversation.

Posts by Faiza Khan

Domes for days in Agrabah

Architecture is great subject matter for micro-scale LEGO models, Jannis Mavrostomos demonstrates this with his brick-built eastern styled mini city reminiscent of Agrabah from the Aladdin films.

Mavrostomos’s tiny city utilizes many commonly found elements, including tiles, 1×2 grilles, 1×1 studs, 1×1 cones, and other small pieces mostly in a tan and reddish-brown color scheme with some green and pearl gold elements. Mavrostomos also cleverly uses some more specialized elements such as the cauldron pieces as well as the ice cream cone with swirl element to render domes and part of a minaret tower. There is even a tan pair of short minfigure legs which serve as a building. Overall, this build is certainly a nice assemblage of small pieces forming a much bigger picture.

A light for the dark waters

The weather is warming up here in the Northern Hemisphere and so are the waters. Beach and boating season is truly upon us as well as maritime scenes which wouldn’t be complete without a lighthouse. Andreas Lenander’s LEGO model surely embodies this summertime energy.

The lighthouse

Lenander builds his lighthouse on top of a rocky island composed of dark grey and olive green slopes, bricks, tiles, and plates of varying types and sizes. There are two smaller islands similarly composed, all three islands rest on top of a vast sea of light blue trans-clear 1×2 tiles. There are a couple of trees on the main island fashioned out of orange 1×1 flower pieces and yellow leaves which pop against the darker colors comprising this work. While the build as a whole seems ominous, the brick-built light house offers a comforting light to those wandering the seas.

The famous cat stretch

Cats are majestic yet silly creatures, and generally, there are a few habits shared between big cats and their domestic counterparts. Among those habits is what I call the cat stretch, a pose that requires both front legs extended while the cat’s backend is elevated. LEGO builder nobu_tary expertly recreates this feline posture with some small LEGO elements in his kitty mini-build.

Cat

Very commonplace elements are utilized in this build; for instance, the front legs are minimally but accurately fashioned out of 1×1 cylinders with white cheese slopes serving as the paws, the cat’s head cleverly makes use of a few white 2×2 corner plates along with some tan 1×1 plates, cheese slopes, and semi-circle pieces. The rest of our furry friend’s body comprises of other slope pieces and tiles in tan as well as a tan cat tail piece. Surely this is a build that could be inspiring to both animal fans, and LEGO builders, pictured below is another brick-built feline build by nobu_tary.

Cat

Stop, hammerhead shark time?

Certainly, if anyone saw a real hammerhead shark, they would stop whatever they were doing out of fear, but imagine seeing this guy? Dylan Mievis’s hammerhead shark figural LEGO build is surely fear and nightmare-inducing.

Hammerhead

Mievis mainly utilizes LEGO Technic elements from the Bionicle, Hero Factory, and Star Wars buildable figure lines to shape this muscular anthropomorphic hammerhead shark. Ball and joint elements allow for articulation, while various armor pieces including the shoulder plate serving as the shark’s midriff create a heavily shielded aesthetic. Some small elements more commonly found, such as claw pieces and the printed voodoo ball elements used for the eyes, are also featured in this build. Shark week isn’t for a while, but this model gives us enough of a scare to hold us over.

The month is March and Easter is among us

I haven’t actually played the popular game Among Us, but the little people in colorful spacesuits featured in the game sure are iconic. While those guys may not be the inspiration behind this lovely Astro-bunny LEGO build by Joffre Zheng, it certainly looks like a cute mashup to my little eye.

Astro Rabbit

This silly rabbit’s carrot-colored spacesuit is crafted out of orange bricks, slopes, tiles, cones, and cylinder pieces in various sizes. A trans-clear hinged half dome serves as the visor of the helmet, which protects the furry little critter from the space elements. Small light grey pieces such as cheese slopes, round-bottomed 2x2s, tiles, and bricks make up the face, whose eyes are rendered with the signature 1×1 round tiles featured in BrickHeadz sets. This bunny sure is ready for Easter and beyond!

A rustic cottage just in time for spring

We’ve had a couple of warm days here in New York already, which means the time for long drives on scenic country routes is here. Eero Okkonen’s LEGO cottage model is just the type of home one would encounter on such excursions.

Villa Korpkuusi

What I love most about this brick-built dwelling is its imagined silo incorporated into the home’s build; you can find such a design in the real world. Okkonen utilizes many 1×2 plates in the formation of the dome topping his silo, while the house as a whole utilizes various bricks and differing slope pieces in varying configurations. The stone foundation of the home is rendered with ingots, slopes, bricks, and round-bottomed 2x2s in light grey, which complement the popping green evergreen trees Okkonen primarily fashions out of flower stem elements. Overall this is a timely model for the shifting of seasons.

Doggocurrency, a great investment indeed

Stocks and cryptocurrency are hot topics these days. I know almost nothing about both but have been somewhat keeping up with the discussions of such in the news. Recently an alternative to bitcoin has been released – the “dogecoin,” which is a type of cryptocurrency featuring the hilariously cute face of the Shiba Inu dog from the “Doge” meme. Builder Julius von Brunk, presents a rich LEGO homage to this fun and new form of crypto.

DogeCoin

This brick-built good boy is raking in some of the best coinage LEGO has to offer, including the original LEGO coin element and some pearl gold 1×1 and 2×2 tiles. Mr. Doge himself is fashioned out of many different kinds of slopes, bricks, and tiles in tan and white colors, with his adorable black nose rendered by a black technic ball joint. I’d say this model was well worth von Brunk’s time and efforts.

Nature is at your fingertips with LEGO bricks

Nature has been manipulated by human hands for centuries. While certainly nature always finds a way, seemingly so do we humans. Simon Liu’s LEGO bonsai model which was entered into Brickset’s bonsai contest, inspires the philosophical mind to produce musings on the relationship between humankind and nature.

Consequences.

Simon’s model is visually striking and compositionally different from most bonsais I have seen so far. Instead of the tree growing out of the typical rectangular pot, this plant is growing out of the palm of a grey hand fashioned out of a number of small elements including 2×2 tiles, diamond shields, and ingots. The bonsai itself is shaped by a number of wiry black elements most notably the whip and twig pieces. The flowers featured on this build are rendered by baby minifigure heads – an unusual but effective choice. This handy bonsai rests on a sea of 1×2 trans-clear blue bricks, which was a nice touch. For whatever reason this model reminds me of the film WALL-E, with the robot’s little hand carrying the plant – the key to our planet.

Oh you know, the Megazords are at it again in the city

The Power Rangers were a staple of any 90s childhood, but I believe the television show is a cross generational piece of children’s culture with many different version of the series popping up over the years. One recurring aspect of the show was battles in the city between Megazords and monsters of some type, because you know such an event is just part of city life. Will Galbraith’s LEGO model brings back these familiar scenes.

Untitled

The city featured in Galbraith’s build is Tokyo, which is shaped out of many small elements including 1×1 plates, 1×1 slope 45s, cheese slopes, and technic gears. Galbraith’s Megazords similarly utilize a menagerie of small pieces also including slopes, tiles, ingots and round 2×2 bricks among many other elements. Overall this build certainly encapsulates the nostalgia of a very beloved show.

Fly boy is well suited for the job

A brown leather jacket, white scarf, and aviator hat topped with goggles are still components of the garb that my mind heavily associates with pilots, although the look is definitely outdated compared to today’s pilots and their jumpsuits. Nevertheless Vir-a-cocha on Flickr brings back the vintage pilot ensemble in his figural build of a classic aviator.

Aviator

This brick-built figure utilizes decent-sized bricks and more angular slope pieces in addition to some smaller elements, tiles, and plate pieces. A few light grey wing pieces render the classic fur or Sherpa lining that most jackets of these types featured. The iconic white scarf is shaped by way of a white plate on a white wing piece with a couple of slopes on the sides of the pilot’s head. The aviator’s goggles make use of a couple of trans-clear black 1×1 cheese slopes, which work very well to recreate such eyewear. Overall the build certainly embodies the classic image that most may picture when imagining an adventurous pilot.

The bird is the word, but also a nerd.

Of course the bird is the word, but the bird is also the nerd as evidenced by wise old owls and the fact that little birds have a tendency to provide information to people. The cerebral nature of the species is also captured in Isaac Snyder’s brick-built avian critters sporting some stylish specs.

Nerdly Birds

The pair of fowls here appear to be around the size of an average brickheadz model and they are crafted out of bricks and tiling as well as slopes which allow for curvy avian features. Both builds utilize two 1×1 cheese slopes to fashion beaks and 1×2 plates to minimally render their feet. The penguin and the owl also feature the squinting eye 1×1 round tiles, but each bird has their own distinctive eyewear – the penguin with its round frame and the owl with a square one. While simple and compact, these builds are still certainly a hoot!

A classic canister vacuum brought to us by the brick

Personally, I haven’t seen a vacuum of this type since I was a child–it probably wasn’t my family’s first vacuum, but certainly the first one I remember. After seeing this LEGO vacuum built by Joffre Zheng, I had to do a google search to see for myself if such a model still exists; lo and behold they are still manufactured today even with all the Roombas and Dysons on the market.

Vacuum Cleaner

Joffre’s build is pleasantly simple and conveys the original object quite well. The canister portion makes use of some bricks, tiles, and slopes in white and light blue colors while the wheels are cleverly fashioned out of dark grey 2×2 dishes. The vacuum tubing is rendered by a flexible hose with tabbed back ends. The rod and nozzle components consist of some cylinder tubes, technic parts, as well as more bricks and slopes. It’s always nice to see regular household objects portrayed by LEGO, especially machines or other gadgets.