I’d never seen Canada’s Library of Parliament before encountering Erwin te Kortschot‘s beautiful LEGO version, and I was amazed by its stunning Victorian High Gothic architecture shaped as a round library. A better structure to hold an nation’s library could hardly be imagined, as the cumulative knowledge of a people ought to be enshrined in a building which inspires awe. Erwin’s brick-built version is just as lovely as the original, despite the difficult circular design.
We’ve always known that the LEGO minifigure is awesome, but who’d have guessed it was divinely created? Thanks to Ki Young Lee, who has reinterpreted into LEGO form Michelangelo’s painting The Creation of Adam, which graces the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, we can at last see how the minifigure came into existance.
I love seafood, and crab in particular. Here in the Pacific Northwest, one of the best ways to have it is to get fresh dungeness crab and crack it yourself, so this typhoon shelter crab dish by LEGO 7, made with a fresh whole crab, feels right at home and makes me very hungry. The builder even includes some tools of the trade, useful for scavenging every last bit of tasty meat from the shell.
Great Ball Contraptions are a mainstay of LEGO conventions, consisting of short sections of machinery which transport LEGO soccer balls from one side to another. Each builder’s machine can be connected to the next, to transport a dizzying number of balls around a display. Many builders focus on the all-important task of getting the fundamental mechanics working smoothly, but we’re seeing more and more builders take some time for the aesthetics as well. One such example is this enthralling contraption by chumuhou (楚沐猴), which has a fantastic steam-age industrial vibe. Check out the video to see it in action, too!
The dark primeval swamps of a fantasy world are always a place to be on your guard. They may be silent, too silent perhaps, but the heavy air laden with motes belies the danger of Tirrell Brown‘s bog. This great little vignette has some amazing fen flora made of classic LEGO bushes turned upside down and capped with 4×4 domes. The glowing Galaxy Squad alien eggs add to the mystery and otherworldliness of this everglade.
Grant Davis has built this spectacular little microscale castle. Like most LEGO microscale creations, it’s awash in terrific creativity, with lots of unusual pieces used in new ways, and the finished product belies its complexity. Fortunately for all of us curious viewers, Grant made a short video that shows some of the techniques he employed as he walks us through the disassembly of the model.
Gabe Umland brings us this nifty vibrant LEGO floating rock, topped with a warehouse for steampunkery. Never underestimate a mundane subject for your models — nearly anything can look magical when built with skill, even an industrial warehouse in the middle of the sky. Don’t miss Gabe’s great technique for paneled siding using stacked and twisted 1×1 bricks, and be sure to scrutinize the hodgepodge of goods for sale; scenes such as this are a way to find uses for that pile of unusual pieces you have.
Neil Blomkamp’s movie Chappie may have had some misteps, but the fantastic effects work in bringing the titular android to life was beyond reproach. Chappie, a disaffected robot in a future South Africa, is one of the more endearing robots to find its ways to cinema screens in recent years, and LEGO builder Pilation Pilation has made this awesome rendition of the wannabe gangster robot, fully poseable to throw some street moves, and he’s even built a great motorcycle for Chappie, which has hints of Bat-bike in it.
We’ve featured a lot of Gundam mecha over the years, but this is the first time we’ve seen a mech from the anime Big O. A humongous, lumbering titan, Big O wields vengeance upon his enemies, and it’s no surprise that builder Moko, whose builds frequently grace this site, has excellently captured the mech’s hulking frame in brick form with this amazing minifig-scale version. Big O even features his O Thunder guns hidden in his arms.
The Sith Fury-Class Interceptor first appeared in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, an incredible game with brilliant story lines and fun play. Set before the fall of the Sith, the Sith menace in the Old Republic was stronger than ever. Sith armies ravaged the galaxy and a Sith battle fleet spread terror, and among the most iconic ships from that era was the Sith Interceptor, clearly the aesthetic progenitor of the Empire’s TIE fighters. Builder markus19840420 brings us this amazing UCS version, loaded with detail, and really highlights how cool a ship this is.
Don’t overlook the impressive size of Markus’ model; that cockpit is a UCS TIE Fighter windscreen, which makes this model close to three feet in length.
On Sunday we brought you a first look at the new Death Star set, and now LEGO has sent us the full details for 75159 Death Star, the newest in the Star Wars Ultimate Collector Series. The set is filled with iconic scenes from Star Wars that took place on the giant battle station, such as escaping the trash compactor and Luke’s duel with Darth Vader. The set will retail for $499.99 USD when it is available Sept. 30, and includes 4,016 pieces and 23 minifigures. Take a look below to read the full press release and to check out all the photos.
Mihai Marius Mihu is one of my favorite builders, best known for his beautifully creepy surrealist nightmares, and I’m still not convinced he’s not Guillermo del Toro’s LEGO builder alter ego. However, this latest creation seems to channel a bit of H.R Giger. The alien visage is enshrouded in flowing bands of some unfathomable otherworldly technology, and the the lines transition smoothly from detail to curved plane, stylistically much like Giger’s most famous creation, the Alien.
