Builder W. Navarre takes us to a Middle Eastern-inspired fantasy world with this lovely vignette of a royal apartment. What’s striking as much as the excellent agglomeration of official LEGO stickers is the use of worn, dirty bricks to lend an ancient, chiseled look to the walls. Most builders eschew such bricks except as hidden filler, but scenes like this remind us that there’s a use for nearly anything if you’re clever enough.
Are you ready for The LEGO Movie 2? We know builder yu chris is, because he’s already built an amazing spaceship for Emmet, and has captured the spirit of the master builder perfectly. Seriously, if someone had told me this model were actually the main spaceship in the movie, I’d believe it. It’s made of five smaller ships from their own themes which come together to form the letter E.
The smaller ships are, clockwise from the left, Metalbeard’s Seacow 2.0, Emmet’s Construction Ship, Unikitty & Lucy’s Aircraft, Benny’s Spaceship, and Batman’s Batwing. Each ship is invested with its pilot’s aesthetic, but can pull together like Voltron and form a super ship to fight the powers of Duplo. Side note: check out that awesome backdrop.
Long before they became fashionable manors for showy wealth, a castle was a stronghold that needed to withstand sieges and bombardment. So it helps that this 21,000-piece LEGO castle by Corvus Auriac MOCs is located on an island and bespeckled with the hallmarks of defensive works. There’s a gatehouse over the entry that’s just perfect for pouring hot oil on unwanted guests, and tall towers with archery loopholes for snipers. And even though the castle is flecked with bricks of varying textures and colors, it comes together visually to give a unified appearance. The dark brick corners and black roofs lend an ominous air, and the smoke rising from the chimney makes me uneasy to learn who the inhabitants are of this seemingly deserted fortress.
If it’s the early 20th century and you’ve got more tycoon money than you can spend, why not spend some of it on an insanely luxurious car? Vehicle master Firas Abu-Jaber brings us an amazing LEGO rendition of the 1936 Mercedes-Benz 500K w29 Special Roadster, and it’s fit for a king. As Firas points out, the original car sold for over $100k in 1936 bucks (about $1.8 million today). Today, the remaining examples sell for tens of millions.
Click to see more of the Mercedes-Benz 500k
Southern California’s premier LEGO convention, Bricks LA, will be open to the public this weekend, January 5-6. Beginning Saturday, builders from around the country will gather at the Pasadena Convention Center to showcase more than 13,000 square feet of amazing creations. Vendors will be selling vintage LEGO sets, LEGO-themed jewelry, custom gifts, and more. Tickets are only $5, with kids under 5 free, and are available online.
The show hours are 9-5 on Saturday, and 9-4 on Sunday.
Although online registration has closed, adult builders who wish to display their models and attend panels, participate in LEGO-themed games, and more can still purchase tickets at the door.
The Brothers Brick is proud to be a sponsor of Bricks LA.
Sometimes, the leviathan is small. In this magnificent tiny vignette by Grantmasters, a lone ship rides a ferocious ocean. It’s a safe bet that it’s the Pequod, since it’s hunting a white whale. As usual, Grant’s build is rife with excellent parts usages, from the little known Belville figure feet making most of the whale’s body, to the beard for a tail, or the axe blades for water.
The Douglas DC-3 is among the most iconic aircraft in the world, with a distinctive shape that’s instantly recognizable. Unfortunately for LEGO builders, that shape is also rather difficult to produce with LEGO bricks. However, that hasn’t dissuaded Vaionaut, who turned his skillful hands to this classic and produced a masterpiece. He started with an earlier design by Obuh Samateus and significantly overhauled it for accuracy and stability. Apart from the excellent shaping of the compound curves in the aircraft’s fuselage, the small touches, such as the brick-built German flag on the tail and the chrome non-custom chrome cowling on the engines, really make this model sing. The small service truck is easy to miss, but it’s a fantastic accompaniment also.
Masterful builder Jarek has turned his hand away from building incredible Star Wars models to something a little closer to home in our world, but still nearly as fast. This snazzy Formula 1 Ferrari has remarkably accurate lines, something that’s exceedingly difficult to accomplish in LEGO at this scale. In fact, LEGO’s official designers in Billund have tried their hands at this very car, which appeared in 75889 Ferrari Ultimate Garage. He’s captured the spindly nature of these heavily glorified go-karts, and even sitting still this thing looks fast.
Especially impressive, though, is that Jarek hasn’t overlooked the small details, like the exposed chassis and suspension at the car’s rear.
Today we’re getting our first official, high-quality look at LEGO’s newest line of Collectible Minifigures, featuring characters from The LEGO Movie 2, thanks to LEGO’s Chinese and Taiwanese first-quarter catalogs. This series, 71023 The LEGO Movie 2 Collectible Minifigures will feature 20 characters from the new film, some of which are cross-licensed with The Wizard of Oz. The Wicked Witch of the West and her Flying Monkeys made an appearance in The LEGO Batman Movie with sets such as The Ultimate Batmobile, and it looks like the rest of the gang is showing up in The LEGO Movie 2. Most other sets for The LEGO Movie 2 are already available. The film comes out Febuary 8.
Simultaneously, German retailer B&B published their listing for the new series, providing us with a few extra details, such as the case image.
For Christophe Pujaletplaa, a LEGO city is a living thing that grows and evolves like a real city. Having begun in 2010 when he rediscovered his childhood love for the plastic bricks, Christophe continues to expand and update his tiny LEGO metropolis, which he’s dubbed Microville. Only, it’s not so small anymore, rounding out at nearly 50 large LEGO baseplates, or more than 7 meters squared.
Even when Christophe started in 2010, he had lofty goals, already planning for a much larger microscale LEGO city than most of us have ever attempted. When he began, he used whatever bricks he had in his collection, and augmented them with cups of red bricks from his local LEGO store.
Click to continue reading about Microville
To aid LEGO’s ambitious goal of breaking into the enormous Chinese market of potential customers, LEGO is kicking off 2019 with a series of three exclusive sets celebrating the Chinese New Year. All three are only available in the Asia Pacific region. Today we’re looking at the first of these sets, 80101 Chinese New Year’s Eve Dinner. It contains 616 pieces and retails for CNY 699 (about $100 USD) in China, with similar prices in other Asian markets.
While I was never a fan of the later games in the series, I grew up playing the original side-scrolling Duke Nukem and its sequel. The maniacal, cigar-wielding hero full of over-the-top bravado come shining through in this LEGO take by Green Axles, and the addition of the background artwork settles it perfectly into the Duke’s world. The combo of brick-built face and constraction-figure muscled chest blend flawlessly. The Duke Murshy poster name is an inside joke, but make no mistake that this is, in fact, the Duke you know and love.
