About Luka

Luka is a Slovenian LEGO builder and a member of Kocke Klub. He is most well known for building dragons, but does not shy away from other themes when time is right. In the community he goes by Deus "Big D." Otiosus (D. stands for "Destiny") and has been around for quite a few years. He is one of those builders who went through their life without a dark age. Besides LEGO he is a biology student that wastes a lot of time in the local forest or in interesting urban areas. MOC Pages Flickr Bricksafe Youtube

Posts by Luka

Enforcing the law in a single-seat escort starfighter

Details are one thing, but Jeremy Williams takes it to astronomical levels with the Krait Single-Seat Escort. There are so many intense details all around that it’s hard for me to even recognize the pieces or techniques used. It is not just about the intensity, colours help too. We’re so used to seeing gray textures on mecha and spaceships that even black, let alone blue versions of it come out as a total surprise.

I shouldn’t just emphasize the textures and details though, even if they are the build’s highlight. The colour blocking is excellent and the shape of the spacecraft is believably blocky with no redundancy. A genius addition is the microscale space station in the background, which is a solid build in its own right. The post-production on the picture is very attractive too, making it look almost like box art for an official LEGO set.

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Cross the bridge and find yourself

Many people use LEGO building as a form of meditation, but not quite as many use LEGO to literally build meditation. Andreas Lenander definitely uses it at least for the latter — that we can be sure of. The build is very atmospheric, but secretly, it is also quite technical in its construction.

The Journey represents an old traveler crossing a bridge amongst blooming trees. The surrounding landscape is not bad, but the bridge is really the impressive part. The railing uses Elves fence pieces with a well-known curve technique. The bridge itself is just stacked plates carefully curved to follow the railing’s curvature – a construction that seems very unstable, but Andreas says that it actually holds together quite well. The trees should be noted too, densely packed with flowers, nicely designed trunks, and lanterns hanging off the branches.

Which raven do you choose?

Most of us are familiar with princesses kissing frogs in fairytales to save their beloved from a curse, but this build by Revan New introduced me to a different, unique story, in which the girl is tasked by a sorcerer to guess her lover amongst four of the sorcerer’s apprentices, turned into ravens.

The creation is not a perfectly “realistic” recreation of the fairytale scene, as Revan adds expressive, artistic accents to the build. The snow on the edges of the beautifully constructed walls seems to have little logical relation to the scene itself, instead capturing the atmosphere and emotional aspects of the story. A few splashes of brown help to break up the build colour-wise without making it inapropriately cheerful, and the window is especially well integrated into the wall. The figures are well built too, with great details like the sorcerer’s boots and belt buckle, but most importantly, they are very expressive.

A beautiful hunk of bulk hanging out in outer space

This bulky spaceship by Nick Trotta, called Ataraxis has caught me completely off guard. I am used to seeing unique LEGO spaceships with a handful of unique ideas and shapes associated with them, but this one is in a completely different class. Of course Nick is one of the best space builders out there, but even so his latest work is incredible. No wonder, as the builder has spent the past four months worth of weekends on it.

There are countless angles and lines all around the spaceship that just a list of them would be too long to be read in a reasonable time. Nick seems to be able to capture any shape and detail that would cross his mind, to a degree that it looks as if he was designing LEGO bricks specifically for this creation. This effect might also originate from the disproportionate amount of newer elements, of which most builders only have a handful and can not use in ways Nick did. My all-around favourite part is the most subtle detail in the build though; on a few spots, you can see jagged edges of grill 1×2 bricks showing, which just seems to make sense.

For an even greater appreciation of the build, you can see the pictures that inspired it.

Cubes, ribbons and a tree

I sure would live in a house like this one built with LEGO by Tom Remy, but I would not pay for it – it looks needlessly expensive and fancy, without much practical benefits. You know, like most modern architecture. Joking aside, there is a lot of imagination in this build and even though it is mostly simple geometric shapes, the longer you look at this house the more there is to see.

The central theme of this architectural candy is a white ribbon going around the house, performing the task of the floor, the roof and walls all in one piece (but obviously not the same segment). The ribbon dives into the pool that partially envelops the house and the house too encircles a tree in the middle of the yard – which the builder admits looks cool, but would probably be the cause of a lot of problems in real life. Thus recurring theme of different parts encircling each other, as well as bright basic colours and overall smooth design give the build an extraordinary level of consistency.

An armour of metal protecting a body of metal

I think it is hard to find a person that would not enjoy some good mecha every now and again, especially in the LEGO fan community, where mecha are one of the cornerstone themes. Cnsm‘s mech is not the first nor the last we will see, but it definitely brings unique ideas to the table.

The build has both a robust, armoured look, and a strange sense of elegance. Colour blocking around the waist shows some mechanical parts under the armour, really giving it a realistic feel. The armour itself is the main part though, achieving a smooth streamlined design using a mixture of System, Technic, Bionicle and construction parts. The only type of bricks missing seems to be DUPLO!

Disposable walls of Distrikt 18

With the recently concluded LEGO speeder bike contest, there have been hundreds of speeder bikes submitted, and I too have decided to join in at the last minute with a police chase diorama. The build started with the police speeder and its huge windscreen, which gave me the idea of a wall-smashing speeder in a future where buildings are so cheap to rebuild, a police officer may consider just breaking through a few walls to catch a criminal.

I have put a large majority of the effort on the speeder bikes themselves, with the somewhat simple diorama acting as a catalyst to join them together in a cohesive scene. The walls are literally broken up by the hole that the police speeder has punched in them, as well as a hole being repaired by a 3D-printing robot.

Since this diorama was built for a contest and it was limited by a deadline, I put emphasis on the speeder bikes themselves, but the concept of a crushed wall and a wall being printed are something I really want to revisit. While I do have a technique for both in mind, there are a lot of other things I want to build before I return to Distrikt 18.

A study in landscaping

More often than not, landscaping techniques in LEGO creations serve a secondary purpose, like helping a building or a story feel complete. While this little landscape by Emil Lidé does contain more than just plants and rocks, that hierarchy of motives is inverted here. Instead of the landscape augmenting the “story,” the decrepit wall and building’s remains add some purpose to the dense and diverse foliage.

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Elven underworld, so far from the stars

The Lord of the Rings is constantly present as a theme in LEGO fan creations, although less so in the past year or two. As an extension, other stories of Tolkien’s universe find their way into bricks, notably and in this example by Carter Witz, the Silmarillion. The build represents the gates of Menegroth, the thousand caverns, which is one of the most beautiful motives in the Silmarillion in my opinion.

As the obvious centerpiece of the diorama the stone door is beautifully crafted with carefully and effectively placed sand blue pieces to break up the gray, as well as some neat part uses, from the shields and a ribbed hose above the gates to the moustaches used as door rings. I should point out the landscaping, which has a good mixture of greens for a realistic grass effect and a neat tree with simple yet effective roots extending beyond the base.

Police chase in District 18

With the LEGO speeder bike contest not only well underway but even close to conclusion, we see some of the highest quality entries being submitted. It seems to be a trend that builders put disproportional amounts of effort into their speeders’ scenes. Andreas Lenander is far ahead on this front with his District 18 – San Tokyo scene.

There are heaps of details throughout this multi-layered diorama and each level contains its own pocket of a larger unwritten story. I love all the classic cyberpunk elements, from hoses, dirty water, neon lights and more to the thematic mixing of historical Japanese, contemporary and far-future science fiction. While the speeder bikes are obviously the main part of the build as far as the contest goes, my favourite parts are all the light-up features throughout the scene.

The peaceful side of orcs’ life

The German online roleplaying game Nine Kingdoms (Neun Reiche) consistently provides high quality castle-themed creations of all sorts, from standard to quite unique. This build by Patrick B. is somewhere in between, containing basic village life elements, but in the shape of an orc settlement, which is not your everyday castle creation.

Somehow, Patrick has managed to make lime green look like grass, which is nearly impossible. Combined with light green, it gives a very unique look to the diorama. There are a lot of clever uses of parts like large figure and minifigure hair pieces as stones and gears as flowers. The hut has some exotic elements as well, most notably some scala parts and a DUPLO bearskin. It looks perfect and I think I would not need orcs strolling around it to know they lived there.

Tora! Tora! Tora!

A Second World War themed LEGO airplane fleet is a rare sight to behold. This image by Allen Lim looks amazing, even though the Japanese Zero fighters are multiplied digitally. Obviously my favourite part is the effort put into editing, but that should not overshadow the excellent work on the aircraft carrier and the aircraft itself. There are some shapes around the cockpit and on the wings that are very impressive once you take a closer look and think about how they are done.

I think the best way to view this aircraft is in combat in a dogfight with a Spitfire.

Allen has been building military aircraft throughout February so expect to see more from him in the near future.