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

All a disorganized space base needs is one of these

There is much to love in this scene by BobDeQuatre. Of course, the cute space boxes are nice and the tiled floor catches the eye, but we all know the star of the show is the Space Mariner Powerlifter monowheel suit. While it uses interesting building techniques and resembles Peter Reid’s Ideas Exo-suit, the real reason I find it so attractive is the effort the builder had to go through to have it stand. This difficult equilibrium makes it look like there is a real working gyroscope in the mech, rendering the build very realistic (for a sci-fi mech).

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Who needs a time machine when you can have the 80’s come to you?

With the rise of high-powered pocket computers (also known as smartphones), listening to music has become very clinical and almost too easy. It is just not quite as rewarding to listen to your favourite song if you don’t need to put in the effort of carrying a large, clumsy box around everywhere. This retro 80’s radio by Chris McVeight captures that long-gone era well, with multiple realistic functions like a flip-up handle and exchangable cassettes with a working ejecting mechanism. There are some non-functional elements here that make for great details too; most notably the seamless speakers and the great tuning display.

While non-LEGO elements are generally a detrement to a LEGO photo, 1:1 scale creations are an exception to that rule. Chris’ addition of 80’s-looking background and table decoration really makes you take a second look to be sure this is in fact a LEGO creation.

The Black Death comes to pillage and plunder

A while ago W. Navarre revealed this ship as a part of a nautical diorama that was a modern re-interpretation of an original LEGO Pirates set. However, he decided that the diorama did not do the ship justice, and has chosen to photograph it now on its own. There is a lot to love about The Black Death, most notably the sails made out of all sorts of multi-angled pieces in an eye-popping dark red, as well as some very interesting shaping along the hull. Years ago, brick-built hulls were very common for small and medium scaled ships, but lately it seems to be becoming the norm.

Here’s the ship in the diorama, full of high-seas action and drama.

Some times a road block is the preferred option

In her ongoing Iron Builder challenge, Cecilie Fritzvold has built a crumbling bridge. I always enjoy seeing decay built in LEGO, whether it’s fast like this one or a more tranquil style, which we often see in post-apocalyptic creations. What I also love is bridges, so Cecilie delivers on two of my soft spots at the same time.There are loads of details to be explored in this creation, like the great cracking effect or the subtle use of Nexo-Knights shield piece as the edge of the sidewalk.

If you want to see more great use of the Nexo Knights shield pentagonal tile (the “seed part” in their current challenge), be sure to check Cecilie‘s and Chris Maddison‘s Flickr pages.

The future of television is 3D ...but not in the way you think

It all started a few days ago when I saw a TV remote by Primož Mlakar‘s in my Flickr feed, with the description saying “I couldn’t imagine a TV without one :)”. I thought nothing more of it, only to be surprised later by teaser shots revealing the television set that needed the remote.

The TV’s general shaping is spot on, and nostalgic for anyone growing up with these old-school TVs. The antenna, the little channel display screen, and Sony logo are just perfect. The forced perspective Back to the Future II scene demands closer inspection. Primož tells us in the description that the layout was the starting point and was intended as a minifig scale diorama, but as he encountered some problems with scale, he decided to make a forced perspective build. Turning it into a television set was just the next logical step.

Pineapple farming in Japan

This scene by W. Navarre, while simple, hides a deeper complexity in the construction of the hut and rockwork under it, but most notably the build has great atmosphere and a unique theme. On such a small scale, using many colours can be very risky, which is why I am happy the builder only used as many as he needed to.

There is more to the build than only that seen on Navarre’s Flickr page, as he shares a few more vignettes on MOCpages, including a temple and a juice pressing structure. While it is not accompanied by a story as most of Navarre’s creations are, it leaves more to the imagination. It was built as part of The Tourney 2017 competition on MOCpages.

Tremble in fear, defenders of Kamigawa!

While I understand that Magic: the Gathering as a game is not for everyone, it has to be said that its art is universal. Throughout the years I have seen a few builders drawing inspiration from the game, directly or indirectly and always to great results. This time Pascal, who built a LEGO Gisela, the Broken Blade a while ago, brings us Myojin of Night’s Reach, an important lore character from a not-so-loved expansion set from ten years ago. The model is made with enough detail to be immediately recognizable and sufficiently creepy too. The builder has a style that captures the most essencial elements of a card art but keeping it at a cartoony simplicity.

Now, I would like to ask my friends how it feels to play against this card, but since I put it in my deck, I do not have any friends.

Lunar rat rod rover ready for science and racing

One of the most active builders in the current Febrovery building month, Billyburg presents us with another Classic Space inspired rover — and this one is also a hotrod! What appears to be a bare internal combustion engine (how that works on the moon, I do not know) is excellently made — just enough detail to be interesting, yet simple enough to look clean and streamlined. The best part might be the white stripes in the tyres, but equally don’t miss the syringe piece as the antenna on the radar arrays.

Get it off your chest

This wordplay-inspired creation by Simply bricking it is both unsettling and funny. While skeletons are spooky and scary in their own right, this one is actually quite cute and cartoony with its round skull and large pelvis made of shells. On the other hand, the colourful pile of blood and internal organs is far from cute.

I love how simple yet imaginative the whole concept of this model is. The use of seemingly random pieces is inspired. My favourite part would have to be the unidentified yellow organ made out of the ice cream pieces, which may be the large intestine or a very deformed pancreas.

Great art cannot exist without great suffering

This creation of a flayed crucified person by Leonid An is inspired by the eerie works of the Polish surrealist artist, Zdzisław Beksiński. The symbolism is strong in this image, but still leaves everything up to interpretation. Who is this? Does it matter who it is? What happened?

The lines and curves of rotting flesh and sinew are captured very well with the use of minifig whip pieces, horns and more. There is a nice balance of simplicity and complexity in the build, too.

Breaking your way through the polar ice of Canada

For Canada’s 150th birthday, Adam Dodge built a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker diorama, and it’s surprisingly satisfying to look at. There’s a nice contrast between the clean surfaces of the ice and sea and the intense, broken up ice and the very industrial-looking ship. The icebreaker just pops out with its bright, high-visibility colour scheme. The whole diorama has a sense of motion about it, with the thick ice stacked up in the front and the broken-up ice at the back, which is achieved by carefully arranged translucent window panes and cheese slopes.

It’s as easy as A-B-C... LEGO font built from quarter tiles

In the decades-old history of LEGO fan creations, there have been many techniques to create brickbuilt letters, but never has it been as simple as now, with the new quarter circle and “fingernail” tiles. lisqr has used these new pieces to create the alphabet, both in lower and upper case. I have given the builder feedback on some of the letters that I feel could be improved, but the font looks pretty classy even as it is. With the growing supply of quarter circle tiles, I can imagine this technique appearing more and more in the future.

The builder also provides an LDD file of his alphabet. I can’t wait to see what other builders write with this!