Posts by Jake Forbes

Microscale Miyazaki (Or how to be inspired by Studio Ghibli without letting generative AI do all the work)

Lately, every social feed has been clogged with AI slop pillaging the surface-level aesthetics of Studio Ghibli films. Here’s a palate cleanser from Joe Lam – a microscale LEGO Catbus and Totoro. Celebrating Totoro, it’s instantly recognizable from just 9 or 10 elements, and the Catbus is packed with personality. The eyes are especially inspired, using Batman logos for the wild pupils.

Joe designed the Catbus back in 2023, but what better time to celebrate the joy that comes from human creativity? And maybe have a look at other Totoro builds that have inspired us over the years.

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“Star Tours, this is serious LEGO site. What are you doing here?”

Disney’s cinematic renaissance might have kicked off in 1989 with The Little Mermaid, but the Disney parks were entering a new era two years earlier with the debut of Star Tours. The immersive ride combined motion simulation with state-of-the-art special effect filmmaking to transport riders into the Star Wars universe, joining a trench run to take out the Death Star. Okay Yaramanoglu recreates the StarSpeeder 3000 in LEGO with a model with the greebles and pinstripes that will take you right back to 1987.

Use the fast pass and jump right to more pics of Okay’s e-ticket build of the Star Tours speeder

Dark Side? Light Side? Take a walk on the Wild Side of Star Wars [Minifig Monday]

Star Wars canon is packed with bizarre aliens and over-the-top villains, but sometimes the franchise plays it a little too safe. For today’s Minifig Monday we’re highlighting original Star Wars characters that take risks, push boundaries, or even get a bit silly. Which in a universe with characters like Elan Sleazebagano and Therm Scissorpunch is saying something!

Our first set of characters comes from Tylar, whose Islamic astronomy tower wowed us last year. Tylar re-imagines the Geonosians from Attack of the Clones as masters of pre-historic Earth, armed with bronze age weaponry and even taming dinosaur mounts. Killmonger‘s mask from Black Panther fits perfectly with the aesthetic of this remixed faction. Minifigs aside, Tylar poses his characters on some truly epic brick-built sand dunes.

Sticking to the prequel era, here we see Padme and General Grievous in fine fantasy form courtesy of Expansion Bricks. I’m getting strong Ray Harryhausen vibes here with the living skeleton and Padme’s swashbuckling accessories. Grievous’ large golden sword is an impressive little sub-build on its own.

Read on for more weird and wonderful sustom Star Wars minifigs

We’re gonna need a bigger truck

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, the movie that ushered in the era of the summer blockbuster and villainized sharks forever. While the back half of the film focuses on the heroes at sea on the Orca, for most of the film, Chief Brody is driving around the seaside village of Amity in his Chevy Blazer. Builder Robson pays tribute to the film’s other iconic vehicle in a fun diorama of Brody and Hooper confronting Mayor Vaughn about the wisdom of re-opening the beach. Robson’s custom billboard is modeled on the one in the LEGO-made short film “Jaws in a Jiffy” made in support of the LEGO Ideas Jaws set. Robson deftly captures the square-body look of the Blazer featuring the removable back canopy of that era, with custom decals to match the on-screen props.

No stranger to tackling Spielberg blockbusters, Robson also made these excellent Jurassic Park vehicles.

Celebrate the release of A Minecraft Movie by embracing Creative Mode with imaginative LEGO creations [Feature]

Today sees the release of A Minecraft Movie, the unlikely yet inevitable next step for the world’s best-selling video game. Will it make waves like The LEGO Movie did back in 2014? Critically, reviews suggest no, but we’ll see after this weekend what generations raised with these digital building blocks think. Outside of the cinema, perhaps the strangest Minecraft partnership has been with LEGO. In most regards, Minecraft succeeds at blending play and building in a digital space better than any LEGO game has to date, and early in the product’s life, LEGO was in talks to partner with Mojang for a “Brickcraft” take on the experience.

Even though a partnership or buyout on digital worlds never came to fruition, LEGO has been enjoying over a decade of success with toy kits based on the Minecraft IP and aesthetic, like the recent tribute LEGO Minecraft 21265 Workbench. The theme is a best-seller with younger builders but there are many adult fans who enjoy expanding on the theme with original creations or incorporating the unique elements into their sets. Let’s take a look at some of our favorite Minecraft builds!

Builder Syrdarian has found magic in the isometric angles of Minecraft’s voxel world. Titled “No Mistakes, Just Happy Accidents,” this scene looks as tranquil as a Bob Ross painting until you look closely at the glowing light source. Oops! Someone got too close to the lava. I love the verticality of this build and the cutaway terrain that makes it feel like a part of a much bigger world.

Grab a pick and dig deeper for more Minecraft inspired builds

This Week in LEGO Bricks: Building with character! [Feature]

As March rolls into April, several LEGO events come to an end and reputable sites like this one roll out dubious news. With so many amazing builds and stories in the AFOL world, we’re grateful that ABrickDreamer is here to round up the highlights in one place. This Week in Bricks captures highlights from events like Marchitecture and the Rogue Olympics, as well as April Fools, but it was character builds that took the spotlight. From a mind-numbingly good Nien Nunb to the latest Eero Okkonen diva, builders created some striking and memorable characters this week.

Hold on to your bricks – Dicken Liu’s amazing LEGO Alien spares no expense

Last week Dicken Liu made waves with an unlikely alternative build and instructions to turn the Creator 3-in-1 Cute Bunny into an Alien face hugger. Not one to rest on his laurels, Dicken is back with the most impressive and insane alt-build we’ve ever seen – a large-scale Alien Xenomorph and another spin on the face hugger, this time drawing exclusively on the parts from Dinosaur Fossils: Tyrannosaurus Rex (which reviews editor Bre called one of her favorite builds of all time). Was Dicken so preoccupied with whether or not he could create these alt builds that he didn’t think to stop if he should? Who am I kidding, of course he should have! It’s amazing. Force of nature Dicken Liu always finds a way.

Dicken is a prolific builder who over a few short years competed in LEGO Masters China, was invited to display his works at the LEGO House Masterpiece Gallery in Billund, and was crowned Builder of the Year in 2023 on this very site. His builds include everything from characters to architecture to silly gags. Lately, he’s been exploring alternate ways to display and remix sets, and with the Xenomorph rebuild, Dicken’s talents truly shine.

While Xenomorphs are most commonly seen in the films with a black carapace, tan works surprisingly well for the creature, matching the on-screen colors of the face hugger. Dicken manages to use the limited curved bricks from the T-Rex set to sculpt a dead-on Xenomorphy head, aand the the many bony elements give it the extra Giger touch. Conveniently, there are enough of the slender ribs left to make a face hugger with clasping legs and curving tail that make it much more menacing than the bunny version.

Dicken generously provided free instructions for his face hugger alt build, which lets anyone make their own LEGO face hugger for under $20. If Dicken shares instructions for this latest masterpiece, we will update so that you can re-engineer your own T-Rex into an even deadlier apex predator.

Put your bricks down, flip it and reverse it

UNO isn’t just the card game that teaches kids to count to one in Spanish. It also spawned a TikTok trend with the iconic Reverse card, a totemic item so powerful that it can flip any situation back on the other person. Dominique Boeynaems recreates the most iconic card since the Black Lotus tapped for 3 with UNO’s game changer built from LEGO bricks. It may look like a simple design, but Dominique shows some impressive SNOT building skill to line up the arrows just so without gaps, using brackets as half-plate spacers. It’s such a remarkable likeness that seeing the build atop a pile of actual UNO cards, you’d be forgiven for missing that it’s LEGO at all!

Dominique’s UNO Reverse card was made for the “Backwards” challenge in the Rogue Olympics competition, which also inspired Woomy World’s taco cat.

Marchikoma 2025 – celebrating the latest and greatest LEGO “think tank” mechs [Feature]

March is becoming a packed month in the LEGO building community – Marchitecture, Imperial March, and our old favorite Marchikoma when builders make “think tanks” inspired by the mecha of the classic anime Ghost in the Shell. A think tank is a sentient mech characterized by 4 (or sometimes more) legs with feet or rollers, a pair of manipulator arms, and sensor “eyes,” that skitters about like a high-tech militarized spider or crab. Each year builders find ways to add a fresh spin to the iconic design. Let’s bring on the Marchikoma mecha of 2025!

We start with this Blue Planet Attacker by LEGO set designer Wes Talbott. Inspiration came from Wes playing with the latest smooth nougat parts in his collection, which paired with red-orange evoked the classic Life on Mars LEGO theme. Bright yellowish green and dark azure highlights make for a distinct color scheme. But it’s those manipulator arms and big eyes that ooze personality. Wes paired the mech with a patch of incredible space terrain where the military mech makes peaceful first contact.

Fellow LEGO designer Chris Perron also skates in with this beautiful Ice Planet mech, the Snow Scuttler. Chris took inspiration from the CMF Ice Planet fig for the design specifics, like the curves and sensor eye. Aside from the iconic trans neon orange elements from the classic theme, Chris incorporates X-Pod lid and Fabuland windows to create maximum curves with minimal seams.

Skitter on down for more think tank goodness

The River Puzzle solved in LEGO

The puzzle goes like this: you have a wolf, a goat, and a cabbage and you have to transport all three across a river by boat. As a LEGO minifig serf, you can only carry one passenger in your boat at a time. If you leave the goat and the cabbage unattended, the goat will eat the cabbage. Same deal with the wolf and the goat. What is the fewest number of trips you need to take in order to get all three across the river without anyone being eaten?

Variations of this brain teaser go back over a thousand years, but it took modern-day genius Ciamosław Ciamek to solve the puzzle in LEGO form.

See the solution in beautiful brick-built form after the break!

These magical minifigs have us under their spell [Minifig Monday]

On Minifig Mondays, we take a break from brick-intensive builds to appreciate the creativity found in the minifig scene. We prioritize characters made with official LEGO elements where the combination of accessories and expressions creates a personality that entrances the viewer. On that note, this week’s theme is magic using minifigs, and this set of characters has us spellbound!

Captain Dark Shark creates a wandering feline sorceress that surely has nine lifetimes of adventures to share. Even though the head draws from the Wizarding World (a polyjuice-ified Hermione), this fig gives big anime or cozy game vibes.

ASortaOkayBuilder also brings a Potterverse cat to the table for this apprentice illusionist. The poor wizard strains under the load of too much study material!

Abracadabra amor oo na na, the magical minfigs continue after the jump!

Istanbul’s Blue Mosque looks magnificent in LEGO microscale

Completed in 1617, the Sultan Ahmet Mosque, commonly known as the Blue Mosque, is one of Istanbul’s most iconic structures and a UNESCO World Heritage site. Scott Wilhelm gives this masterpiece of Ottoman architecture the LEGO microscale treatment in a sprawling build that includes Sultan Ahmet’s mausoleum, gardens, and a madrasa. For the mosque’s six minarets, Scott uses white Technic axle extenders broken up by bevel gears and bushes topped with a drill bit. The many small domes are represented with knit caps. If you’re wondering why the mosque rooftops are grey when it’s called the Blue Mosque, the nickname comes from the decorative tiles inside.

Continue for additional photos of Scott’s magnificent miniature mosque

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