About Rod

Rod likes building stuff, particularly steampunk and microscale. He's built for a number of the Dorling Kindersley LEGO books, including LEGO Play and the Awesome Ideas book. When he's not building, he writes, and has published a trilogy of old-fashioned adventure stories. To pay the bills he works in innovation and marketing for one of the world's biggest brewers, inventing new beers and ciders. This is clearly the best job in the world.

Posts by Rod

This massive LEGO Mos Eisley diorama has got it where it counts

The Millennium Falcon might be the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy, but she’s also the subject of many a LEGO creation. Here’s Daniel Ross‘ take on the famous Star Wars freighter, depicting the moment we first set eyes on her, squeezed into Docking Bay 94 in Mos Eisley spaceport on the planet of Tatooine. At first glance, you might think the ship is the massive official version — 75192 UCS Millennium Falcon — but no, this impressive piece of building is a custom model, all Daniel’s own design.

Click here to see more pictures of this impressive diorama

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Enormous Imperial hangar is the perfect place to fine-tune your AT-AT

Back in 2017, tastenmann77 took inspiration from The Empire Strikes Back and built an impressive Imperial AT-AT Walker. However, now he’s taken things to a whole new level and put together a huge maintenance hangar diorama to surround it. This LEGO creation is enormous – the walker itself is 45cm tall and 50cm long, which should give some impression of just how big the hangar is.

Sometimes larger LEGO creations rely on their sheer scale to impress, but this one is also filled with a frankly astonishing amount of detail. We’ve got Darth Vader arriving to carry out an inspection welcomed by a formation of Stormtroopers, there are Imperial officers overlooking the maintenance efforts from a gantry, there’s welding going on inside the AT-AT’s hold, and the floor is marked with realistic-looking warning stripes and is covered in interesting cargo and equipment. There’s even a mouse droid tootling around! Continue reading →

New York’s Hearst Tower skyscraper recreated in 20,000 LEGO bricks

Manhattan’s Hearst Tower is one of the city’s most distinctive skyscrapers and DeepShen has built an impressive LEGO version of this interesting block. The faceted corners of the tower’s 182m height give it a striking visual signature, enhanced by the interesting contrast between the modern skyscraper and the 1928 cast stone facade which surrounds its base. This, the original Hearst building, was intended to be the ground floors of a skyscraper, but that construction project was put on hold by the Great Depression. In 2006 its purpose was finally realised — a protected landmark, the facade was retained as a street-level front for the stunning new building which emerged from its heart.

DeepShen says the model used roughly 20,000 LEGO pieces and is built to 1:156 scale. By my calculations that makes this creation around 110cm high — so it’s as impressive in scale as it is in shaping.

Norwegian Swiss-style chalet, built in Danish bricks

“Sveitserhus” is the Norwegian name for the Swiss Chalet style of architecture popular across Northern Europe during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Nowadays in Norway, surviving houses of this style are usually painted in white, and that’s the colour scheme Birgitt Jonsgard has chosen for her beautiful LEGO version. This stark all-white model might initially look simple, but the level of texture in the house’s “woodwork” is particularly impressive — with the style’s signature detailing and fretwork given due attention.

Birgitte has lavished as much care on the little details as on the house’s structure itself. Don’t miss the flowers in the garden, and the interior curtains and blinds, and the various furnishings visible through the windows…

Mecha model all set to pierce the heavens

Standing 23cm tall, this mighty mecha figure from Marco De Bon is modeled on the Gunmen mechs from anime series Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. The figure is well put-together with a smattering of detail bringing some texture to the smart colour blocking. A little custom stickering work brings the mech’s shoulder pauldrons to life, but the large scale face hidden within the torso design is the standout feature.

The model is surprisingly poseable for such a large creation. Here it is, armed with a killer drill attachment…

It’s not who I am underneath, but what I build that defines me

In this, the Caped Crusader’s 80th birthday year, what better way to celebrate the influence and impact of Bob Kane’s creation than with Timofey Tkachev‘s large-scale LEGO sculpture? The Batman has rarely looked better in the brick — the model’s shaping is spot-on, perfectly capturing those to-die-for Bat-Abs, and making a nice job of the comic world’s Second-Most-Iconic-Chin (Judge Dredd is clearly No. 1, in case you were wondering). The sculpting of the bat sigil on the chest is worth a good look, and I dread to think about the tricky connections which were required underneath all that armour to get the angles right.

Don’t just walk – boogie to your favorite tunes with this LEGO Walkman

We’ve seen excellent Walkman-themed LEGO models in the past, but this one by H.Y. Leung is an absolute cracker. The cassettes are beautifully put together, and the parts choice and shaping on the headphones are particularly good. The buttons on the tape player’s side are relatively simple, but accurate to the original piece of hardware. And, whilst the cable doesn’t appear to be “purist” LEGO building, its messy tangle adds immensely to the build.

Where does he get those wonderful toys? The LEGO Store, obviously

One of the highlights of Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman movie was the design of the Batmobile. Its sleek lines, dramatic fins, and ludicrous rocket power was a perfect match for the film’s “Jet-Age Art Deco vs Gothic Noir” design vision for Gotham City. This LEGO version by Centuri is a suitably dark and sinister brick-built tribute — proof that even non-LEGO Batman only builds in black and (sometimes) very dark grey. The curves over the front wheels are perfect, and the fins on the engine vents look sharp enough to cut. And it took me a minute to place the part, but the use of witches cauldrons for the angled round intakes is surprisingly effective.

An extra-mobile home

Ah, the joys of the great outdoors! Nothing like getting out on the road at the weekend with your caravan in-tow. Or, you could take a leaf out of Markus Rollbühler‘s book and take your caravan off-road and into previously inaccessible territory with this insane van-bearing walker setup! This bonkers LEGO creation is wonderful — packed full of nice little building touches. Check out the whips as pneumatic cables, the smart little camping chair, and the shaping on the caravan itself. And there’s a great balance of colour going on in the composition too, with the dark green legs providing a lovely contrast to the pale blue caravan.

Duck duck robot

What do you do if your robot walker develops a waddle? Make it a feature rather than a bug, of course! At least, that’s what I like to think happened in the backstory for Moko‘s latest LEGO creation. This Mecha-Duck is a delight, nicely-built with some cool mechanical details, but also invested with a brilliant sense of fun and character. I’m pleased to see that, like its inspiration, the walker is also amphibious — there’s a little red propeller sitting at the rear, allowing for effective transportation on water too.

Set sail amongst the clouds

It’s a Sky Pirate’s worst nightmare when The Valvalevidan hoves into view. AdNorrel‘s massive steampunk flying vessel is a wonderful LEGO creation — beautifully detailed, and packed with functional-looking elements. The overall shape carries a faint whiff of Jabba’s Sail Barge from Return Of The Jedi, but that’s no bad thing. I love the touches of gold and the striped sails, and those lanterns on the raised rear deck are excellent.

The airship is 80 studs in length, making for a formidable construction project which took 9 months to put together. However, all that space is put to great use with some fabulous details. Here’s a close-up view of the impressive motors which keep the ship moving when the wind drops… Continue reading →

Ferrari 250 GT has earned its stripes

The Ferrari 250 GT Berlinetta SWB was one of the most successful GT racing cars of the early 60s, and even without considering its trophy-winning prowess, was undoubtedly one of the coolest looking. Noah L‘s LEGO version is as classy as its inspiration. The model’s shaping is excellent, nicely capturing the car’s stylish curves. And that central tricolour stripe is just lovely.

In an impressive display of building skill, Noah has crammed in a detailed interior, an engine, and opening doors, bonnet, and boot — no mean feat in such a tight footprint.

About Rod

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