When we talk about boldly going where no one has gone before, most of us don’t mean in the litterbox. Unless you’re this adorable LEGO feline astronaut by miscellanabuilds, of course. Borrowing its wide blue eyes from LEGO’s official new 21349 Tuxedo Cat, the model is probably the cutest thing you’ll see all day. With those outstretched paws and curly little tail, you’re not sure whether to pet it or cheer it on as it orbits the giant ball of yarn we call Earth.
I’ve written a lot of articles about spaceships, castles, and the occasional train, but I’ve never personally done anything like this jaw-dropping piece of LEGO art. Michael Kanemoto says he built this “Dandylion” mask for his son in 250-300 hours of building, making it a truly leonine labor of love. Look at all those gold accent pieces, from the leaves in the mane to the antenna pieces for whiskers.
Take a look from a few more angles!
Creating a screen-accurate minifig-scale LEGO X-wing isn’t as easy as bulls-eyeing womp rats in your T-16 back home. Builder Joel Short takes his best shot at getting everything right—and it looks like that particular proton torpedo hits home. The long, tapered fuselage is notoriously tricky to capture (you could argue that many of LEGO’s official models have struggled to hit the mark) but Joel nails the angles.
Here’s a side view, where you can see the wealth of tiny pieces used to shape the fuselage. You can also make out a few more instances where attention to detail went above and beyond, like the intricacy of the landing gear or the shoulder armor on the laser cannons.
All wings report in! See more here…
“They’ve heard rumours of strange folk from the east and the west, new words and new gods and bright steel. They hope to be left in peace in their cold northern home but the watchfires have already been lit on the hills.” So begins builder Eero Okkonen‘s description of this amazing LEGO diorama, and those words are already way cooler than anything I managed to write about it. And speaking of cool, the build looks downright freezing. Good thing our lone warrior is properly dressed for the ordeal, with heavy mittens, a fur hat, and a thick beard made out of plant stalks. The star of the show, however, might be all that drifting snow, including probably the best use of a windscreen outside of a cockpit I’ve ever seen. Brrr!
As an American, I’ve always envied Europeans and the fact that they can’t seem to throw a rock without hitting a gigantic, majestic castle in their backyard. So I adore Jako of Nerogue‘s LEGO Dovern Castle, which has all the things I love about its real-life counterparts: soaring banners, jagged ramparts, and of course towering walls! And speaking of walls, let’s talk about my favorite part of this model: the rich, textured look of the stone. Plates, ingot bricks, SNOT (studs not on top) bricks, and the occasional exposed stud give the stone a weathered, uneven look. To that end, one of the most ingenious aspects of the build is the organic use of sun-faded gray bricks. I used to have a box of those, which I threw out because they didn’t match the rest of my gray elements. Here, however, Jako has blended the old bricks with the new to give the castle wall a look that says, “Behold! I’ve been here for many a year and shall endure for many a year hence.”
It’s always interesting to see non-LEGO objects incorporated into LEGO builds. When it’s done effectively, the results really sizzle. Take this Galaxy Squad-themed fusion reactor by Gaurav Thakur, which uses a working plasma ball as the centerpiece.
The inspired combination of LEGO and non-LEGO works so well I wouldn’t even have noticed the plasma ball at first. But when you switch it on, it definitely elicits a “whoa!” As a still image isn’t really enough to experience this creation in action, be sure to check out the video of the Lunar Tokamak in action. I know it’s just on my screen, but are my hairs standing on end?
It’s no secret that George Lucas looked to World War II-era dogfights for inspiration when envisioning the space battles of Star Wars, so a mashup of the two in LEGO form simply makes sense. Here, Jordan Fridal elegantly blends the celebrated North American P-51D Mustang with Star Wars‘s X- and E-wings, with pleasing results. The two ships (fittingly nicknamed “Rebel Scum” and “Laser Bait”) look ready to duel German fighter planes or Imperial TIEs, whichever they happen to run across—a testament to both Lucas’s original vision and the skill with which they were executed in brick form.
It’s like the old saying goes: “If the shoe fits, build it out of LEGO.” At least, we’re pretty sure that’s the saying. Either way, The Brothers Brick regular Takamichi Irie shows us what the Nike Air Penny 2 would look like in brick form. This isn’t his first foray into footwear, and it shows.
A lot of care went into making the shoe look like, well, a shoe—from the countless curved bricks for shaping to the dinosaur tails that form the tied laces. My favorite detail, however, might be the simplest: the iconic Nike swoosh. When it comes to the award for best use of LEGO bricks to create a famous logo, I’d say it’s a shoe-in.
What do LEGO pterodactyl wings, a minfigure butterfly wing, and half an asteroid field have in common? Each of them have been beautifully repurposed to create a LEGO “butterfly flower” by the aptly named nicepartsusage. The aforementioned elements come together to create a model that’s lovelier than the sum of its parts.
The model’s genesis came from a desire to commemorate “You Day”—an unofficial self-care counterpoint to Mother’s Day for those who might struggle to find something to celebrate the latter holiday. No matter what you’re celebrating, however, there’s something about this bright, striking model that’s almost guaranteed to bring a smile to your face.
“There was an old lady who lived in a shoe, who had so many children, she didn’t know what to do.” On the other hand, LEGO builder Julie vanderMuelen‘s version of the footwear-dwelling senior citizen clearly knows what she’s doing. The old shoe has been upgraded to a fancy new roller skate, with all those children strapped in and ready to go. The old lady herself has settled behind the wheel, which rests snugly above the delightful curve of the roller skate’s tongue. It’s not hard to imagine those exhaust pipes belching whimsical smoke as this tricked-out skate rolls out to beat Mother Goose and Little Bo Peep in a drag race.
“Halt! Who goes there?” A lonely warrior, his cloak billowing in the frosty air, approaches ZCerberus’s formidable tower known as Crow’s Nest. Along the way, our intrepid LEGO hero passes an assortment of slopes and angles used to evoke snowdrifts and half-buried evergreens. He gazes upon the light bluish great accents on dark bluish gray stone and steps beneath inverted sloped elements used to create dramatic battlements. My favorite part of all, though, has to be the brick-built coat of arms above the door, including upside-down feathered wings. We don’t know what this solitary traveler seeks within those sturdy stone walls, but we know what he’ll find: an impressive display of building techniques that bring this wintry scene to life.
You’d be forgiven if you couldn’t quite place where you’ve seen this distinctive vessel before. If you never played the Star Wars: The Old Republic massively multiplayer online roleplaying game or missed the official LEGO Star Wars version of the ship in 2013, you might not even recognize the hammerhead profile of a Defender-class light corvette. But it doesn’t take any familiarity with the source material to look at BobDeQuatre’s impressive model and hear a John Williams track or two in your head. The smooth hull, bold red-and-white color scheme, visible laser cannons, and subtle greebling at the equator are more than enough to evoke that quintessential Star Wars-ness that accompanies all the coolest spaceships.
