Posts by Norm Harper

This town needs an enlargement.

Joel Schumacher’s neon-colored sequels get a lot of flack for being overly stylized, but revisit 1989’s Batman and you might be struck by just how Tim Burton-y it really is. Shannon Sproule has perfectly captured the essence of Gotham’s production design in these microscale buildings. While later filmmakers like Nolan and Reeves opted for a more grounded and realistic Gotham, Burton created a city that was every bit as weird and wonderous as Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, just in darker colors. Harsh angles, elegant curves, giant pipes, vents, and numerous statues are all the rage in this town. And they’re kept safe by a very, very tiny Michael Keaton.

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An elevated excavator.

Charlie Jones has given construction equipment a futuristic upgrade with this digital build of a quadrupedal excavator. While the main arm looks to be largely stationary, there’s no doubt we’d still have tons of fun making this mech stomp around the sandbox. In the hierarchy of toy vehicles, tank treads beat wheels, but robot legs beat tank treads any day of the week.

A 1:1 build worth a closer look.

This pair of brilliant binoculars by Tom de Kesel takes standard tires and treads and gives them new life. The treads obviously form the neck strap, but it turns out that rubber tires turned inside out produce perfect lens casings. One remaining tire does duty as the focus wheel to add the finishing touch to this perfectly rendered prop replica.

This pistol will make you beg for mercy.

I’ve never played Overwatch 2, but I’m willing to bet that no weapon in the game is branded with the LEGO logo. That doesn’t stop this build by Simon Liu from being any less impressive. The numerous angles and the rounded shaping are executed to a precision that would make any future gunsmith envious. My favorite detail is putting the oft-unseen reverse side of the masonry brick to use in a sci-fi build.

A whale of a craft

As another SHIPtember comes to a close, there’s a ton of massive builds to marvel at. But Pascal reminds us that a spaceship doesn’t have to be massive to be impressive. This Narwhal Scout ship packs a ton of things to admire into a small space. Complex angles, just the right amount of greebling, and a sleek, stud-less hull can do the job when a significantly huge investment in parts isn’t on the table.

Riding the rails into the future.

We recently took a look at Blake Foster’s cyberpunk locomotive engine, but why stop there? Blake has posted some of the cars for this futuristic freight train, and each is just as worthy of our praise.

This flatbed car, and the massive cargo-container that it’s hauling, make terrific work of tiles to create a comfy space for hobos of the future to ride. And those angled ingots give a wonderful industrial detail.

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We can’t take our eyes off this watchtower

Lech Kulina has achieved some real sorcery with this medieval watchtower. Its near-perfect cylindrical shape is an illusion, achieved by creating a 16-sided polygon that approximates a curve to the naked eye.

Lech was nice enough to give everyone a look at how it was done with some helpful cross-section pics. Although, to me, it still looks like magic.

A flying purple people eater

HBO’s House of Dragons has nothing on Dan Ko. Dan has crafted an adorable dragon rider as part of the yearly Creations for Charity fundraiser. Both the rider and the dragon have short limbs that extend from big cylindrical pieces for the torsos, almost like a couple of fantasy corgis. We’d be delighted to catch a glimpse of this duo flying overhead.

The machines are coming to take our hobbies now

Ryan Olsen went meta for SHIPtember by building a ship that builds ships. The 128-stud long Hiigaran Support Cruiser is a beauty to behold, thanks in large part to its recessed bay, designed to act as a build and repair area for smaller ships.

Ryan executed a number of crafty angles to bring the Support Cruiser to life. The individual panels tend to be flat, without a lot of complicated greebling, but the sheer amount of brick-built striping and other details still create plenty of visual interest. One of my favorite details is the minifigure tools rising up as antenna from the ship’s hull – a clever reminder of the larger craft’s ultimate purpose.

The perfect coworker when you’re on the job.

Devid VII brings his mastery of mechs to the job site with this impressive construction robot. This black and yellow fellow is exactly who you want by your side when dealing with heavy duty labor. He can lift a thousand times more than you can, he doesn’t need a lunch break, and he can pipe classic rock into your Bluetooth enabled headphones to keep your spirits up while on the clock. What could be better?

Check out the hit new kids’ show “Golden Compass Babies”

Okay, so maybe it’s not a real show. But Dan Ko has got us wishing it was. After a viewing of His Dark Materials, Dan was inspired to build a tiny panserbjorn. An armored polar bear has never looked more huggable.

Cruising the coast of Minifigville

A cruise ship passes by a quaint hillside town in this LEGO microscale creation by Minifignick. This build makes adorable use of several new parts from the Series 23 Collectible Minifigure line. The houses and the ship itself are obvious, but we even spot some reindeer antlers getting put to creative use.