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

Taking a tiny shot at castle

We see many grand castles and medieval scenes built out of LEGO all over the internet, but sometimes it is the little gems that make you go “wow!” Today’s “wow” is alego alego‘s microscale castle series, which focus on interesting parts usages.

We’ll start with the sea castle, as well as some of his other microscale castle creations The latest build is particularly neat, using stud shooters as towers connected by tiny staircases. My favourite part is that the shooters have the triggers inserted, so technically, one could shoot the tops off the towers!

Click to check out the rest of the awesomely tiny castles!

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Who stokes the fire in the long-forgotten castle?

Halloween has come and gone, but it should not be the only day of the year when we get to see dark and moody themes. Tymothy Shortell would agree, having built castle ruins that look perfect for the season yet apropriate throughout the year.

All the colours, or lack thereof, make for a great atmosphere, mostly facilitated by the dark gray of the castle wall. While the castle is my favourite part, the landscape is very important too. The whole scene is a round shape, with natural flowing transitions between rocks and grass. The editing and photography are what takes the build to a higher level though, especially a dim orange light shining through a window.

This huge LEGO diorama brings Hobbiton to life

The iconic landscape of Hobbiton is a stark contrast to the majority of other locations presented in the stories of J. R. R. Tolkien, and its unique style is quite the popular theme for LEGO builders to tackle. Coming off the tail of a large Middle Earth-themed collaboration, Jake Hansen has joined forces with Cole Blood in what I hope is not the “Last Alliance”.

The large scale of the diorama–16 32×32 baseplates, or about 11 square feet–really brings the best out of the rolling hills made of stacked plates. Continue reading →

If only all evil spirits were this cute

It is that time of year when many people around the world embrace the spooky and scary, but more often than not combine it with an element of cute. car_mp has captured this unlikely combination perfectly with these two little ghosts.

The expressive faces (more precisely, holes in the cloth) are done with just a handful of pieces, but somehow this just adds to their charm. The shaping is the star of the show here; the builder uses 1×2 wedge slopes to achieve quite a nice round effect, a technique I expect to become more frequent in the coming years.

Don’t go upstairs after midnight!

In the online LEGO fan community, Mattila Heikki is well known for his realistic miniland-scale interior designs. While his recent creation is technically still an interior design, it is markedly different from his usual style. Mattila has built in classic styles before, but we’ve never seen a creepy haunted house before.

Mattila’s latest scene is all about perspective, achieved by the stairway and its railing–what would often be a small part of a scene, but is frame to take up nearly half the picture here. The lights on the wall give a sense of the hallway continuing on to the left and right for an unsettlingly long time and the colours set a moody and mysterious tone. If you’re staying here and have to use the toilet at night, it might be a better idea to wait until morning.

Huge LEGO Daedalus from Stargate: who needs spaceships when another world is right through the gate?

With the immense popularity of the Stargate franchise in its golden age, one would imagine it penetrating deeper into the popular culture and consequently the LEGO fan community. However, it is very rare we see a creation like Rat Dude‘s Stargate SG 1 F304 Daedalus. The spaceship is a product of the later seasons of the Stargate: SG1, when the show matured into a classic sci-fi series instead of the earlier “soldiers versus aliens” approach.

There is a wonderfully military aesthetic to the Daedalus’ design, which Rat Dude has captured perfectly. All sorts of angles still come together in a boxy utilitarian design, captured in LEGO with slopes and wedge plates. Even the numerous studs do not look out of place, adding a texture where most builders would try to hide them. My favourite part is the stripe down the middle-back segment, made out of inverted 1×1 bricks, creating a unique texture.

One jellyfish that is not quite as squishy

There is no doubt that Moko is one of the best and most prolific LEGO mecha builders out there and this week he brings us a unique tentacle monster, which is also a robot! And it transforms!

Both forms of the mech manage to look perfect and menacing. Transforming creations often have to make compromises in one or both of their forms, but this one seems like the bricks were just made for it. The rich purple and translucent purple really make for an evil look and the splashes of blue on some tentacles help break it up a little and add a nice contrast. The dome is obviously the centerpiece of the build, but I also really like the grill tiles used on the inside of the tentacles as visible on the humanoid form, as they help to add a flowing look.

A bright bathroom with a dark story

At first, second and maybe even the third time one looks at this realistic bathroom scene by Johan Alexanderson, it appears to be a simple interior scene, possibly a little messy with a broken piece of the mirror above the sink. The title “Despair” on the builder’s Flickr photo page might shift your focus a little, though. Was the mirror broken in a moment of emotional torment? Who is the figure seen in the mirror? Did they break the mirror? Johan had initially written a backstory for the build but has decided to remove it and keep the image open to interpretation, without being distracted by the LEGO artist’s own idea.

While this build is an artistic composition, it is also a great LEGO creation and I always love to look deep into techniques and part usage. The differently coloured wheels at the sink are particularly inspired, as are the uses of the small ball joints as towel hangers. The tiled walls are masterfully done, down to the damaged tiles and the incorporation of a heater. But the best and most realistic details are definetely the toothpaste oozing from its tube and the whole mess in the corner.

A cold cellar in a hot desert

Either I was more exposed to post-apocalyptic LEGO creations or they were actually more common back when I joined the LEGO community nearly a decade ago, but this theme always brings back memories of immersive scenes filled with danger and adventure. Zombies, bunkers, bullet holes and toxic waste — what else does one need? The seemingly simple theme actually hides limitless potential — if the whole world went down, there are a lot of locations to build, and James Libby chose to show us a desert.

The main feature of the scene is the cutout showing an underground survival bunker including some utilitarian furniture, and of course weapons. The top has some nice details too, the best and the most subtle one being the little wall around the trap door, which has just the slightest tilt to it. What I like the most though is the tan border. The texture adds depth, while the stylish cutout and the skeleton “buried” in the sand create an atmosphere reminiscent of a comic panel.

Mechanical master of the arena

Gladiators had to face all manners of dangers in the arena, but as Mitsuru Nikaido shows, sometimes the gladiator is scarier than any beast that could be pitted against it, and the builder has made quite a few, many of which featured on the Brothers Brick.

Nothing says “dangerous” like black and yellow stripes, showing which parts of the mech should be avoided–which here is basically all of them. The builder uses lots of new elements to achieve very flowing shapes of the armour, as well as intensely detailed mechanical parts. The best part use is probably the sword, made out of a helicopter rotor blade.

Imperial AT-ACT walker patrols the tropical paradise of Scarif

A warm, sunny and pleasant tropical paradise was an odd choice to place the plans for the sinister Empire’s Death Star in Rogue One: a Star Wars Story, but this very choice is what made the final act of the film so unique and memorable. While most of the action was focused on small operations and personal stories of the Rebellion, the Empire’s side was all about large plans and large machines, much like this LEGO UCS-scale AT-ACT by yoshix.

As can be seen by the palm tree and the bunker besides the AT-ACT, the walker is made in minifig scale. This scale is quite rewarding for Star Wars vehicles, either due to many specialized parts designed for them in the nearly two decades of the official LEGO Star Wars line or because some designs from the films simply happen to be blocky. Yoshix’s design mixes studless and studded surfaces to create fine textures and details. My favourite parts are the little splashes of white on the orange section, which give the AT-ACT a great detail of character.

Obey the monolith, slave people of Earth!

From the hands of our otherworldly overlord Rat Dude comes a glorious machine to see our every movement and feel our every emotion, so that we can serve our master with utmost efficiency. Love the Monolith. Trust the monolith. Thought of rebellion is punished by immediate execution.

The builder says that the Monolith’s four mechanical legs each think independently and work together to overcome any terrain and its organic tentacles can feel slaves’ emotions. The sharp angle of the main body reminds its followers of the Monolith’s sharp wit and its white colour of the purity of its purpose–justice. Not only does the glorious Rat Dude bring us a sight of the Monolith, but he even graces us with every aspect of its magnificent construction.