Posts by Norm Harper

“I will not give up my favorite decoration.”

There’s been a sharp increase in the amount of mosaic builds we’ve seen since LEGO debuted their Art series last year. But The Middle Brick has taken the art of LEGO mosaic to a new dimension with The Bounty Hunter, a closeup shot of famed Star Wars fiend Boba Fett.

This piece packs a significant amount of detail, and a subtle 3D effect, into its frame thanks to a unique layered approach. The first layer renders the background in standard tiles, while the second and third layers build up the main subject. The final result may not be as detailed as a man frozen in carbonite, but it’s close.

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Three versions of Bag End made from three different LEGO sets.

As a child, one of my favorite things about holding a new LEGO set in hand was turning the box over and looking at all the alternate builds that the set could be reconfigured into. These weren’t official models. There weren’t included instructions for them, like you see in the Creator 3-in-1 sets of today. The pictures were just springboards for your imagination. While the LEGO Group might not market the versatility of their sets in the same way anymore, that doesn’t mean modern sets are any less customizable. And if you need proof of that, legoapprentice has got you covered. He’s built three different versions of Bilbo Baggin’s home, Bag End, made from only the pieces available in three different LEGO sets.

The first version of Bag End is probably closest to the one you’re familiar with. Made from the 21325 Medieval Blacksmith set, this build draws heavily on the medieval roots of Tolkien’s fantasy world. Bilbo looks right at home next to a pair of knights and a blacksmith. And the large chimney up top is no doubt evidence of a kitchen that’s serving up tons of delicious Hobbit meals. Perhaps a pie made from the apples grown on the tree up top.

Click here to see the other alternate versions of Bag End

What’s black and white and rad all over?

Sometimes a single piece can cause the imagination to snowball. LEGO designer Robert Heim wanted to build something with the trans-purple canopy that debuted in the Pop-Up Party Bus from The Lego Movie 2. But all he knew for sure was he wanted to make a space rover with it. That led him to design a semi-truck configuration. And the trailer had to haul something, right? Which meant he had to build a rocket…and thus, the “ORCA” rover was complete.

Flatbed trailers can understandably sometimes be a little visually uninteresting, but Robert’s combated this by including some great detail on the undercarriage, including ray guns acting as suspension on each wheel. But let’s not overlook the cargo. The angled thrusters nestled between hot air balloon shells make the rocket a stand-out build all on its own. The fact that it can be hauled into launch position by such a cool-looking rover is icing on the cake.

These brick-built blades are looking sharp.

At first glance, you might think Aiden Rexroad has traded in LEGO bricks for a swordsmith forge. But don’t despair. It turns out these swords aren’t metal after all, but rather some amazingly realized life-sized recreations.

First up, Aiden’s katana was built to celebrate 10 years of Ninjago, which makes sense because the curvature on this blade feels like a bit of Garmadon’s sorcery at work. And the way the handle is detailed with the diamond shapes that replicate the traditional wrapping is outstanding.

Aiden’s long sword is equally impressive. While the blade is a little more straightforwardly built than the katana’s, there’s still a lot of technique at play here. The inverted sloped wedges, for instance, do an impressive job of creating a realistic shaping to the crossguard.

These caves are several miles down, but only six studs deep.

Mystery and adventure await all those who are brave enough to ride the secret elevator to the underground boat dock in The Deep Down, by Eli Willsea. Limited to what he could fit in a carry-on suitcase for a cross-country convention trip, Eli managed to pack a mountain of detail into a microscale space. This build gets some amazing results from some deceptively simple techniques, like the boat dock made from half-pressed together plates and the roof of the house held on only by gravity.

But it isn’t only simplicity that makes this build shine. The scene includes a working elevator and lights that illuminate the underground chambers for an extra eerie atmosphere. Take a look at the video below to see all the features of the build in action and get inspired to do some exploring of your own.

Tyler Clites’ SHIPtember entry is a shining star

LEGO Master Builder Tyler Clites has delivered a truly out of this world contribution to SHIPtember with the Zosma Starcruiser. The impressive shaping alone would make this a stand-out. The individual triangular sections, which make ample use of negative space, are gorgeous. And the way those sections sit askew on the larger frame evokes the sharp, elegant angles of a piece of jewelry. But, beyond the shape of the craft, Tyler’s gone the extra mile and used color to incredible effect. The way the thin lining on the ship moves from red to orange to yellow creates a gradient that almost tricks your eye.

It’s hard not to see these colors pulsing across the ship as it traverses through the night sky. Do the colors send a message? Is it an energy transfer that powers the ship along? Are we seeing some alien warp drive in action? Let your imagination run wild as you admire Tyler’s work here, or any of the other amazing ships from our SHIPtember coverage.

“Choose the form of the destructor…”

Brent Waller is no stranger to LEGO Ghostbusters builds. After all, it was his LEGO Ideas Ecto-1 project that brought the license to LEGO in the first place. When Brent saw the Harry Potter and Hermione Maxifig set, his mind began to ponder what other licenses could benefit from the Maxifig-style of building. And, of course, he couldn’t help it. It just popped in there. Something he loved from his childhood. Something that could never ever possibly destroy us. Mr. Stay Puft. And, unlike the Harry and Hermione Maxifigs, this build is to scale with the rest of the license. That’s because Brent has upscaled the LEGO Dimensions Stay Puft minifigure to a size more suitable for a climactic third act showdown on the roof of a skyscraper, which makes me want to build one of my own. In hindsight, we can all be grateful that Ray picked Mr. Stay Puft as the form for Gozer, or Brent might have been stuck building a giant LEGO J. Edgar Hoover.

This 21,000-piece LEGO spaceship is almost too big for its own good.

They don’t just call it SHIPtember because it’s a time to build spaceships. It’s about a Seriously Huge Investment of Parts. And this spacefaring fuel tanker clocks in at more than 21,000 of ‘em. Even for a digital build, that’s a huge investment. In fact, the build is so big that builder ReD M’s computer almost couldn’t handle it. Attempts to render the image resulted in some programs crashing. Thankfully it all worked out, and we can admire all the work that went into this behemoth. I love how the orange and blue work as accent colors against the largely gray spacecraft. And there’s so much detail. There’s barely a surface on this ship that isn’t decorated with a bar or a clip or a paint roller. No wonder the computer struggled to bring it to life.

“It’s a magical world, Hobbes, ol’ buddy...”

In an era when cable TV and video games were just starting to compete for our attention, the comic strip Calvin & Hobbes inspired a generation of kids to have a renewed appreciation for the wonder of the outdoors and the versatility of cardboard boxes. But the cartoonist, Bill Watterson, was always adamant that his strip never be merchandised in the way comics like Peanuts and Garfield had been. So, outside of a few book collections, readers were left with few options when it came to celebrating their fandom. Thankfully, LEGO is a product that encourages you to build anything your imagination can conceive of. And Simon Liu has taken advantage of that fact to grace us with brick-built versions of Calvin and his feline companion.

This build recreates one of the more famous images of the pair, a shot of them balancing on a log which first appeared in The Calvin and Hobbes Lazy Sunday Book. It’s everything I’d want to see in a hypothetical licensed LEGO set. Not only are the characters perfectly realized, but the attention paid to the wilderness base they stand on has all the hallmarks of Watterson’s art. The soft palette of colors evokes the watercolors that were often used on supplemental book images. And details like the log’s crooked tiling and the small dip in the creek give the environment the same realistic feel that landscapes in the strip were known for. While Watterson may not ever want to see this as a set for sale, I’ve no doubt that seeing the effort that Simon put into honoring his creations would make him smile.

Toucan play that game.

A childhood spent watching sugary cereal commercials has conditioned me to believe that toucan beaks are some sort of highly advanced, fruit-detecting radar system. If that’s not true, don’t tell me. I’d rather not know. Regardless, Lee Nuo’s take on the keel-billed variety of toucan has got enough bright colors to give me some serious Saturday morning flashbacks. And they’re all pretty spot-on accurate to the real thing; from the lime green bill to the medium blue legs and toes (which make clever use of some minifigure hands). It all pops brilliantly against the body, made mostly from black Technic panels.

A starfish among the stars

LEGO builder Cagerrin wasn’t planning on participating in SHIPtember, but a late-night bolt of inspiration couldn’t be ignored. And so the Aposemate Sidputante of the Nth Coterie was born.

After a year spent mostly designing seafaring vessels, it’s no wonder that Cagerrin’s inspiration for this interstellar digital build is rooted in the ocean. While there’s no doubt that this behemoth is a product of a technologically advanced intelligence, there are plenty of details that give it an almost organic quality. I particularly like the way the alternating pattern of bars and magic wands create realistic spines on the sides of each arm.

Architecture worth traveling light years for.

The Antechamber. An otherworldly room on the edge of space and time. In this LEGO build by Disty, two intergalactic travelers have come face-to-face for the first time. Will they be friends or foes? Will they enlighten each other about the secrets of the cosmos? Or are they just going to spend as much time admiring those pillars as I have?

It’s probably that last one.

The builder has found an exceptional use for a part that most people might discard as too specialized and has turned no less than 32 Bionicle arms into the framework of a wondrous piece of architecture. The result is a build that’s equal parts “sci-fi epic” and “art museum atrium.” It’s taken five years to get the design exactly right, and the final results are definitely worth it. The colors of the room pair perfectly with the printing on the globe positioned in the center of the room, and the dark purple on the Metroid Prime-inspired alien gives the whole scene a perfect pop.