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

A monument to the old world

There is a strange beauty in decaying industrial architecture, with chipping paint, broken metal supports and collapsing concrete walls everywhere. Or maybe I am just nostalgic for apocalyptic LEGO creations that used to be all the rage when I discovered the online community. Whichever is the case, Exetrius has hit the nail on the head for me with this ruined communication tower.

Sand green is the perfect colour to make a creation like this, and combined with dark gray and limited splashes of colour it makes for a beautifully bleak colour scheme. This is further facilitated by great textures of disuse and weathering. The tower is 120 cenimeters tall (47 in.), a task made easy by using train tracks for its main segment. Everybody who uses train tracks in unique ways is awesome!

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Blue and lime with two front prongs

I have been participating in the annual NnoVVember project for the past few years and it has always been a blast. This year is no different, although I admit I could be more imaginative than milking the retro train tracks used in all of the portruding elements of the spaceship. I have gone a different direction than previous years, when I avoided the characteristic Vic Viper tail fin – this time I have embraced the theme and decided to make an especially prominent tail.

The build started out with the wings and tail, then continued on with a body to connect all the wings together. The body is based on the lime tail pieces with blue hull built over it, a Bionicle Kanohi mask as the “wind”screen and grey technical details on the bottom. In reality it is quite a simple build, save for the integration of curved elements. Most of all, with contests, displays and projects flying from all directions, it was nice to build a creation just for fun, without stress.

Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag action captured in LEGO

If you sense a strange abundance of high quality Assassin’s Creed creations being blogged by us lately, it is not a coincidence. This tropical scene is Jonas Kramm‘s contribution to a larger Assassin’s Creed collaboration for German Comic Con. There is a lot going on in the scene, with pirates going about their business in between cute little raised huts, a shipwreck and, my personal favourite part, well constructed trees. The different colours of water make for a great effect too.

It looks like the kind of tropical beach where any pirate would love to rest at in between plundering adventures. We have already highlighted two other builders who took part in the collaboration, Max’s American civil war scene and Ben’s French revolution diorama.

The eternal struggle rages on

The Warcraft series of games has gone through so much history that it almost lost the corny cartoony nature of the original, especially with the decade of World of Warcraft expansions under its belt. A simple matter of orcs versus humans has been turned around and inside-out so many times that some times, it is just refreshing to see someone like Kalais go to the roots and throw all depth of story out the window for the sake of pure fun. I do often complain how there are not enough LEGO Warcraft creations out there for such a rich universe, but lately this void has been filled adequately.

There is so much action going on in the scene and the iconic blue roofs of the castle look nice, but my favourite part is the portal on the right-hand side of the diorama with a red mist effect on the edges and ominous statues positioned right besides it.

Sometimes even an invisible creation can be good

Transparent clear is definitely not a rare LEGO colour, but the pieces that come in clear tend to be ones appropriate for windows and similar constructions. Apparently disagreeing with that, Grantmasters has built a stealth Predator figure using as many translucent parts as possible, and even the odd gray elements do not stand out somehow. While we wait for LEGO to release more diverse parts in translucent colours, this figure transpires to be one of the more impressive in its scale.

Photographing LEGO in a non-LEGO environment may be viewed as cheating by some, but I believe it adds a lot to the character in this specific example.

No creature can look upon his face and endure his terrible heat

Every LEGO creation is a work of art. Whether it’s good or bad is a whole other discussion, where opinions are driven by personal interpretation. However, there is often a pattern amongst creations built with artistic intent — simple colours, high contrasts, and plain minifigs, a style seemingly evolved from “black fantasy” themes, popular in the building community about a decade ago. Anthony Wilson is no stranger to this expressive style, but his recent creation — c̸̡̹̉͝ţ̴̳̻͎̱̹͙̇͂͛͜ǫ̸͈̹͙͍͚͌̾̿͒̐̽ţ̴̧͔͖͙̺̈3̸̧̧̛̯̥͛͊͒̄̾̕b̴͕̦̑̈́̎̚5̴͎̱̫̺̮̪̈́4̷̢̭̰̻̯̳̖͔̅̊̃̒͛͝3̶̥͈̳̻̫̘̎s̵̟̃̀̾̐̃͒͠d̷̬̂̑́̍̕̕g̸̨̰̳̩̫͆̍̂̇͜ͅ4̵̟͉͇͈̯̩̔͌̚ͅͅ — takes it to a whole new level. It could mean anything, but everyone is welcome to come up with their own interpretation.

The angelic figure at the center is certainly imposing. It contains thematic as well as visual contrasts with the gaping blood-red mouth and tentacles. The gray path lined with braziers, and the audience of faceless minifigs give the build a sense of movement and twisted life. The figures mimic the shape and colours of the wings, and the fires extend the reach of the tentacles, enveloping the black minifig — seemingly the subtle centrepiece of the creation.

The Great Wall of Forlorn Empire

The Great Wall of China requires no special introduction, and neither does Forlorn Empire. As the great wall can bee seen from space, so can mr. Forlorn’s building skills. While this segment of the Great Wall may not be the largest we have seen in LEGO, it is surely one of the best (and frankly, keeping up this level of detail and texture on an excessively large scale would turn out to be too much for pretty much any builder) in the terms of construction quality.

As I have mentioned, it boasts a high level of details and some nice angles, but what I like best is the roofed hut on the top of the tower – the roof technique is a stroke of genius. To top it all off, the builder has added a minifig on guard duty to fill the scene with life.

Assassin’s Creed Unity in LEGO: Interrupting an execution

Love it or hate it, the Assassin’s Creed videogame series has brought many historical themes into the collective consciousness of the younger generations. And while LEGO builders often don’t need another incentive to look for inspiration in history, with classic LEGO themes like castle and pirates at the core of our hobby, Assassin’s Creed falls perfectly into such time frames and therefore makes a perfect subject for our beloved bricks. One of the recent builders who picked up this inspiration is Wookiewarrior, with this amazing diorama representing a scene from Assassins Creed Unity. The scene is part of a collaborative project built for the German Comic Con a project that involves some of the best builders from Germany.

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High in the clouds, the forgotten temples await

I have no idea wether the tiny ship in this microscale scene by Andreas Lenander sails for these imposing cliffs out of religious, archaeological, or other reasons, but it sure looks like an adventure I would love to be a part of. The question is not only how the ship’s crew will reach the temples, but how exactly they were built! Realism and practicality aside, this scene is simply gorgeous, and very atmospheric too.

I love the minimalist temples made out of lightsabre handle pieces and the clouds surrounding the rocky island, as well as the well-placed fire at the top of a spike, which stands out in the best of ways. The water is done with a common technique of loose translucent pieces, of which the jewel pieces used by Andreas work the best, in my opinion – as far as the border goes, I am not sure wether I like it or not, but it does look unique and interesting, plus I will never say no to sand blue – and neither should you!

Sometimes you just need some time for yourself. In a castle.

And I know of no better castle for this purpose than this cute “little” fort built by Marco den Besten really has everything you could want. Built in a beautiful landscape, surrounded by a picturesque village and defensible to boot!

Every singe aspect of the diorama has something unique that deserves to be talked about. The castle’s textures are great, but even more so I love the architecture and layout of it, with tightly packed towers and walls that give an impression of a very sturdy construction. The houses are mostly simple, but the new quarter-circle tiles add a really nice texture. The best part of all, though, are the trees. I have never seen the dark green root piece used for pine trees and I have no idea what the actual technique behind it is, but it just seems so obvious now that I see it.

Autumn is the most beautiful season in the Allanar forest

With the Colossal Castle Contest XV starting two weeks ago, the greatest castle builders ready their bricks to compete in what is probably the largest themed annual LEGO competition. Lasting till the end of the year, it gets countless high quality submissions every time. John Snyder joins the competition with a diorama of an elven village, setting the bar high for any still considering to compete.

Unconventional colour use and stark contrasts are definitely the first parts to catch one’s eye, but there is more to see beyond that. I am sure many people will take a closer look at this creation, but some details I believe should be pointed out range from blue minifig legs used as waterfalls to the buildings’ textures and the somewhat simple but highly effective autumn trees. Indeed, taking your time and exploring every little corner of this diorama will surely be a nice experience.

The girl on the balcony

Everybody has a spot either at home or outside where they can take a minute for themselves and meditate. Balconies are often that place and so it seems to be with this young lady in Timofey Tkachev‘s latest scene. She has everything she could wish for, from flowers to fruit and even a cat for company.

Obviously the figure is great and a center point to the scene, but there is much more to the build than that. The white doors are beautiful, with a slightly visible bluish pattern right above it and the inside door behind it. The greenery looks very organic and is in my opinion the defining factor that makes the balcony realistic.