Posts by Jake Forbes (TBB Managing Editor)

Astronomy tower shoots for the stars

Centuries before Copernicus and Galileo would shake up our understanding of the cosmos in Europe, Islamic scholars like Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi were making breakthroughs about the movement of the earth, planets, and stars. Tylar_Lego pays tribute to the Golden Era of Islamic astronomy with this remarkable tower in LEGO.

The fictional tower impresses not only with the ornate architecture at massive scale, but with incredible landscaping and depictions of life at minifig scale.

Zoom in for a closer look at this telescopic tower!

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Half-timbered LEGO cottage goes full goth

Half-timbered Tudor architecture is a favorite subject for LEGO castle builders. Peter Botcher has become adept at the style while making his mark by adding a pitch black sense of humor and goth gloom to his works (he even made his own tombstone out of LEGO). For his latest cottage, Peter impresses with use of color, especially the mossy brickwork and the splash of magenta vines against the black roof. He finds creative variations for the timber on the facade, including tail pieces and corner tiles. The model is titled “Nobody’s Home,” but the smoke coming from that spooky chimney, adorned with unholy accoutrements, suggests otherwise. Enter at your own risk!

Woomy World’s torch of triumph

The Bio-Cup is an annual LEGO fan competition for creators who incorporate Bionicle and constraction parts, often focusing on organic shapes and evocative characters, with an emphasis on artistic interpretation of a theme. After a three month marathon of MOCs, the 2024 Bio-Cup winner has been crowned: Nathan Don (aka Woomy World)! The theme for the final round was, fittingly, “Final Boss.” Woomy’s answer is an epic jrpg-flavored manifestation of creative burnout, a villain many creatives are all too familiar with. The bottom half of the model, representing the “Soul of Emptiness,” features a wonderfully sculpted face in grey reminiscent of a stony Moai. Above, “Sheer Frustration” bursts from the head as an avatar of agony in all black. A behind-the-scenes peek, reveals more of how the dynamic statue was formed (including a vintage boat weight being used for balance).

We previously featured Woomy World’s enchanting owl from round 3 of this year’s competition, and the other builds that contributed to the win are equally impressive.

Take a victory lap through Woomy’s winning world!

Medieval bathhouse is a clean build indeed

LEGO models from Eli Willsea feature clean lines and smooth surfaces where studs have been all but scrubbed away, which makes a medieval hammam (public bathhouse) the ideal subject for his immaculate building style. I love the variety of arches stacked and nested the give the build an airiness, complemented by the bits of greenery around the scene. Of course this wouldn’t be a ForlornEmpire build without some mind-blowing parts usage. DUPLO brooms are a truly unexpected part that fit so naturally into the scene. Droid arms and binoculars link so neatly into the arches, it’s hard to believe LEGO didn’t design them for just that purpose. The greatest trick in the scene has to be the water effect, made from upside down transparent baseplates, creating the perfect bubbly surface.

Fairy and toad are friends

Prolific builder Eero Okkonen is the Geppetto of the LEGO community, crafting detailed characters with such personality that they seem ready to come alive. His latest model of a blue fairy isn’t inspired by Pinocchio, however, but by a fairy tale from Eero’s native Finland, Pessi and Illusia. Eero employs his usual panache for NPU (nice parts usage), with the highlight perhaps the Queen’s Dragon heads used as Illusia’s skirt. As lovely as the fairy is, it’s Pessi the adorable toad who steals the show here, with those perfect saucer eyes and sporting a wonderful wicker basket of interwoven flex tubes. The scene is rounded out by delectable cloudberries on stems that incorporate foam leaves, appropriately enough, from the Belville Flower Fairy Party.

Sisters of the sword forge LEGO blades

For the Geneva sisters Anna, Sarah, and Geneva (aka Three Little Mice, Tayaya, and Geneva D), creating with LEGO is a family affair. The three talented builders collaborated on a series of life-size swords to showcase at this year’s Brickworld, each forging a personal blade with its own personality.

Geneva’s broadsword, dubbed Kalypso, is the largest of the three, requiring two hands to hold. Using brown and metallic silver (and a touch of Spinjitzu!) on the hilt for a studded leather look, this is clearly the blade of a warrior. She pairs the sword with the smaller and more play-friendly dagger, Acheron, which boasts a serrated blade and a menacing Hero Factory spiked ball on the hilt.

Read on to see unsheath the other blades!

Classic Legoland Castle is back in yellow

Even if most LEGO builders are too young to have played with Legoland Castle when it was released in 1978, the vintage set with its iconic yellow brick walls holds legendary status among fans. Many have paid tribute to the set with homages and re-imaginings over the years and now Olle Moquist is the latest builder to catch the yellow castle nostalgia bug. Olle strikes an appealing balance between tradition and innovation while using no black, white, or grey elements in the building itself. The parapets atop large arches are straight from the original, while the central keep is reinterpreted with modern techniques and a more historically accurate design. The cross-shaped windows framed by minifig legs, nanofigure statuary, and purple banner fringed by capes are especially nice touches. For extra vintage flair, Olle digitally composites the castle into a backdrop reminiscent of LEGO adverts of the era.

Raise a toast to the Golden Hall of the Rohirrim in LEGO

Of all the locations brought to life in The Lord of the Rings, Meduseld, the Golden Hall of the Horse Lords, is one of the most beloved. Isaiah Kepner recreates the building’s interior as Theoden toasts the victorious dead after the Battle of Helm’s Deep. The centerpiece here is the golden knotwork made from cleverly mixed tubes, window lattices, and other golden elements, framed by printed rune tiles. Isaiah meticulously matches the architectural details seen only in glimpses in the extended cut of Return of the King, including a perfect use of the stickered banners from Helm’s Deep and Isengard. Horses are integrated into the build with their heads used for wooden figureheads atop the columns, but I like to think that the Rohirrim actually have balconies where their horses can observe the festivities from above.

Pixelated whale is a symphony of light and LEGO

LEGO artist Takuya Fukugawauku is a master of 3D models in the pixel art style. What makes his builds truly special is how he uses color to simulate video game lighting, which combined with studio lighting of the bricks, make his models positively glow. Like ray tracing you can touch. Until now, most of FukuTaku’s work has focused on video game tributes, like his Dragonlord, which wowed us with its searing heat. For his latest masterpiece, FukuTaku turns to the natural world with a pixel whale that honors the colors of the sea with a cool and tranquil glow.

Dive in to see the White Whale from every angle!

The movie Hellraiser is always a model of pain and pleasure

In each Iron Builder competition, two world-class LEGO builders go head-to-head creating models that highlight the assigned “seed part.” The summer 2024 match-up between Maxx Davidson and Jonah Shultz, featuring the baseball bat in metallic silver, has skewed decidedly wholesome, with cute animals, milkshakes, and cozy crafting themes. For his ninth entry, Maxx captures the twisted truth that fuels this venerable contest: pain and pleasure. The agony of being chained to making models at incredible speed without getting repetitive, and the ecstasy of finding the perfect use for that devilish seed part. Pinhead, Clive Barker’s horror icon, proves the perfect canvass for no less than 40 of those metallic bats. The sculpting of Pinhead’s pale-white face is top-notch. Now that Maxx has solved the Cenobite puzzle, he must be feeling pretty good right about now.

Dungeons deep and caverns old

When I first saw Eli Willsea‘s epic LEGO diorama “Into Dungeon Depths,” it took my breath away. The epic vertical scale, the mix of colors and form, and the aura of foreboding make this one of the most striking works from one of our favorite builders. The cross section of the burrowing wyrm skeleton is the star attraction; the way its snaking body weaves around stones and intersects with the geometric stairs must have been an incredible building challenge, but the results are magical. Eli does impressive work with the lighting as well, both through the color gradation of bricks as the stairs descend, and through an ominous red glow coming from the dungeon floor. What will the three minifig adventurers find at the end of their descent, I wonder…?

“Into Dungeon Depths” is Eli’s entry into the Stairway Stories category of the Summer Joust contest. See why we loved his previous entry too.

Bionicle Mask Makers reforged in darkness

While not all LEGO fans have embraced Bionicle, there’s no denying that for a generation of builders, Bionicle was a gateway to both a world of construction and deep lore. For a recent collaboration between top Bionicle builders in the community, participants re-imagined characters from Bionicle Generation 2 utilizing the latest constraction techniques. We were especially struck by the pair of Ekimu and Makuta, The Mask Makers, as designed by Toni A.

Toni cites Dark Souls and H.R. Giger as influences, which might seem an aesthetic jump for Bionicle, but perfectly fits the lore of these bio-machine gods. Ekimu, wearing the Mask of Creation, is the culmination of 3 years of iteration from Toni and the effort shows with some of the most impressive dark fantasy sculpting I’ve ever seen in a character. Makuta, wearing the Mask of Control (inverted), came together quicker and perfectly compliments his brother with a devilish Victorian aesthetic.