About Iain

Iain Heath is an avid builder specializing in the "Bricks of Character" style, which he helped define. He has been using LEGO to parody popular culture since 2007, when he created the now infamous Stephen Hawking model. He is a SeaLUG member and regular theme coordinator at BrickCon. For five years he also ran a blog called The Living Brick, that showcased the best character-based LEGO creations from around the world. You can find his irreverent body of work on Flickr.

Posts by Iain

When the map is unrolled, the dagger is revealed (圖窮匕現)

The above expression may not be familiar to English speakers, but you might think of it as the Chinese equivalent to “letting the cat out of the bag.” And like many common sayings, this one has a historical origin: In 228 BC, as a last ditch attempt to avoid invasion by its enemies, the nation of Yan sent a man named Jing Ke to assassinate the King of Qin. Using a map of Yan’s most fertile areas as bait, Jing Ke was able to get close to the King, and as he unfurled it, he pulled out a dagger that had been hidden inside.

Hong Kong builder Vincent Cheung (fvin&yan) has created this fabulous portrayal of the attempted assassination, in a style very similar to his Beauty and the Beast sculpture. I love the freeze-frame action of the characters, and of course the three-dimensional detailing on the map! Vincent was clearly influenced by folk art depicting the event, as you can see from this example:

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Over the Moon

Polish builder Michał Kaźmierczak is no stranger to massive LEGO dioramas, and we are no stranger to him either – you can read about his lava-bound space base and Indiana Jones temple adventure right here. So what could be more suitable to a large-scale LEGO treatment from Michał than the epic landscape of the moon Pandora from the 2009 movie Avatar?

I particularly like Michał’s use of the waterfalls to solve the problem of the Pandora’s airborne mountains (which can float due to high concentrations of superconducting Unobtainium ore interacting with the moon’s magnetic fields something something something science reasons). And for scale, the diorama even includes a microscale version of the Dragon assault ship:

An aggressive movement

It’s been fun to see folks getting a lot of use out of the new eyeball pieces from the very popular Mixels sets. But legendary Japanese builder Moko has just taken us into a whole new realm with this build, which is literally a piece of crap!

Hopefully this isn’t Moko’s commentary on the Mixels theme, as I think it would make a swell additional to the forthcoming Brown Fang Gang range of Mixels sets. Maybe the next image will put things in context…

…or maybe not. Why is the poo angry? Why does it have a tongue? Is this what can happen if I don’t get enough fiber in my diet? Unfortunately Moko’s usually very detailed blog does not yield any clues, just a bunch of potty humor. I thoroughly approve!

There is no Xscape!

At the risk of becoming a one trick pony, I present to you my latest LEGO interpretation of a trending entertainment, er… thing. This time it’s Michael Jackson’s uncanny posthumous holographic performance at the 2014 Billboard music awards.

At this point I think its fair to assume that every MJ fan is now lying in the fetal position hugging their Thriller album…

Artistic classics are literally out of this world

It’s been almost two years since we first covered the work of Polish artists Przemek and Marcin Surma, who publish drawings every week inspired by classic LEGO sets. Since then, they’ve created a whole new bunch, based on iconic sets from classic space themes of the 70s, 80s and 90s. Classic space fans should have no trouble recognizing some of their favorites from among this collection (but the original set numbers are included in each drawing, if you need help remembering).

What you see here is just a small sample – check their website for loads more.

Thanks to Nathan Dusciuc for the tip!

Industrial design

Microscale building is most commonly associated with the giant collaborative ‘Micropolis’ city displays at events like Brickworld, where the focus is on gleaming modern architecture. So it’s refreshing to see Flickr member HOEFOL going seriously old school with microscale models of structures from the industrial revolution.

Which of course means factories, mills and a lot of smoke stacks:

But if you weren’t fortunate enough to live in the big city with all those rats and consumption, you might have lived in a farmhouse like one of these (with just the rats):

Not exactly contemporaneous with the others, but here’s a bonus scene entitled “Stranded”. Yup, not even HOEFOL’s cute little canal barge is gonna be able to get you out of this situation!

So much clever part usage in these scenes. I was particularly impressed by the inclusion of window sills, the recessing of the doorways, and use of flowers for the surf effect in that last creation.

Symphony of Construction II

When you hear music coming from any screen, it’s usually there to accompany the images you’re seeing. But take away those images, and it’s almost impossible for your imagination not to do the opposite, conjuring up images of its own to accompany the music. And what if you could capture those images in some form, say as a LEGO creation?

Well, that’s exactly the idea behind Paul Vermeesch‘s collaborative project Symphony of Construction. We covered the first round of that project last year. And now a second round has just been completed, that we’d like to share with you here!

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They mostly come out at night, mostly...

H. R. Giger has passed away unexpectedly, at age 74. For the few that do not recognize the name, Giger was a surrealist artist and sculptor who applied his unique “machine/human hybrid” style of work to the design of the iconic monsters from the Alien movie franchise.

Regular readers will know that many LEGO builders have recreated creatures, scenes and vehicles from the Alien movies over the years. So it seems fitting for us to celebrate Giger’s life with some Alien-themed LEGO builds. The two shown here, by the Arvo brothers, are no doubt familiar to many of you.

But instead of reviewing a lot of older builds, I’d like to show you some completely new ones! Flickr member Missing Brick has carefully recreated memorable scenes from the 2nd movie in the franchise using customized minifigs, huge sets, creative lighting, and vehicle designs adapted from the work of fellow builders.

Click below the fold to see them all. WARNING: What follows is several pages of glorious LEGO Aliens movie scene-porn! Revel in it at your own peril, and remember to nuke the site from orbit afterwards. It’s the only way to be sure.

“Hey Bishop, do the thing with the knife!”

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Mothership, Mothership, MOTHERSHIP!

June hopefully marks the arrival of 70816 Benny’s Spaceship, Spaceship, SPACESHIP!, which I guess marks LEGO’s first ‘official’ foray into the murky sub-culture of Neo Classic Space. To help you NCS fanatics get through these nail-bailing next few weeks, feast your eyes and saliva glands on this gloriously self-indulgent behemoth of an NCS ship by Michael Gale.

Built some years ago, shortly after Michael emerged his LEGO dark age, this monster is no mere sculpture – it has play features! Check ’em out…

As awesome as I’m sure it’s gonna be, I have a feeling Benny’s creation may need renaming Shuttlecraft, Shuttlecraft, SHUTTLECRAFT! in the light of Michael’s handiwork. I just wish I had a time machine so I could go back and show a picture of this to 12-year-old me and watch 12-year-old me’s HEAD EXPLODE.

Enemies and water not included!

We’ve seen some great smack-talk between competitors in past Iron Builder contests, but the ‘Haulics have really taken it up a notch – no, no, I’d say they’ve probably notched it up a scootch – against the Mayo‘s with this hilarious video featuring a brick built NERF SOAKER…

I thought they couldn’t top their earlier video of a working LEGO chainsaw but I guess I was wrong. This contest has already produced an insane number of one-upping builds, and I can’t wait to see how it plays out!

#MindBlown

You never forget your first

Chris McVeigh (powerpig) has made something of a specialty in must-have, palm-sized LEGO models of retro technology. His body of work includes some iconic videogame consoles, cameras, phones, televisions and even kitchen appliances (but thankfully no fax machines yet).

In my opinion though, his latest creation – the very first Apple home computer – tops even his amazingly popular Apple Mac. But then I’m biased, because this was the first computer I ever owned! He’s nailed it, right down to the dual floppies, side vents and internal card layout. And the addition of custom printed bricks by customBricks for the screen really brings the whole thing to life.

But fear not, fellow old-timers, you don’t have to just gaze longingly at these wonderful images. Get your nostalgia on, and head over to Chris’s website where you can download instructions for many of his creations, or even order them as kits. And you won’t even have to send a check in the mail…

Isn’t modern technology wonderful?!

“Hey hey, kids! We’re going to the greatest place on earth: Tijuana! Uuuggghhhh...”

Well Simpsons LEGO is clearly red hot right now. Hmmm, I can’t think why! And Jimmy Fortel (6kyubi6) doesn’t miss a beat with this studs hidden model of everyone’s favorite wreck of an entertainer, Krusty the Clown.

Jimmy also noticed an obvious – and rather uncharacteristic – error in Andrew Lee‘s sculpture that we featured earlier today, and has dutifully corrected it. Thank you, Jimmy!