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

Beef up your building

Organic shapes are surely some of the hardest to capture in LEGO bricks — leaving many builders to concentrate their efforts on structures and vehicles rather than animal forms. However, Joe Perez seems to be up for the challenge — his latest model is a lifelike and intimidating bull on the charge. The shaping is excellent here, with slightly exaggerated proportions that effectively convey a genuine sense of heft and menace.

Joe has been slowly putting together an impressive series of creatures in this style. Don’t miss the excellent brick-built stallion we featured a few years ago, and this wonderful stag…

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Rugged rover ready for a dust-up

Now here’s a technique we haven’t seen before… using chalk on your bricks. Stephan Niehoff‘s armoured personnel carrier has a wonderful dusty and stained feel. The added weathering pulls all the grey together into a cohesive whole and ensures the brighter-coloured elements fit in by muting their tones. It looks great, but at first glance I thought the bricks had been drybrush-painted like a scale model kit. However, working with chalk means the bricks can be dusted down and re-used. I’m still not sure it counts as a “LEGO-purist” technique, but it certainly adds a level of realism and visual interest to the model.

There are some other nice details on display here beyond the use of chalk. Don’t miss the cut tubing around the hatches at the front, and those Technic “half-pipe” connectors poking up along the sides at the rear. I’m also a fan of the functional-looking hatches, and the rear lights — too many builders don’t consider the practicalities of regular driving when they build things like this. After all, even the most rugged-looking rover needs to obey the rules of the road on its way to the battlefield.

Magic micro Mario & Luigi

The best microscale building takes regular LEGO parts and looks at them in a totally new way, allowing their shapes and details to represent something very different when the scale is changed. P.B. provides the perfect example in this teeny-tiny rendition of everyone’s favourite fraternal plumbers. Turn minifigure neckerchiefs upside-down and what do you have? Blue dungarees of course! The hats and moustaches round off a pair of immediately recognisable characters. Fantastic stuff.

Going loco all the way to Micropolis

Sometimes it’s a single LEGO piece which sparks the inspiration for an entire model. That’s what seems to have happened here, with David Zambito deciding the Nexo Knights helmet visor might make a good cowcatcher for a locomotive. He wasn’t wrong – it looks excellent – as does the rest of this microscale creation. The details on the train are good, although I wish the loco itself was a different colour to offer better contrast with the grey rockwork around the tunnel. The mix of skeleton arms used for steam is an obvious highlight, but don’t miss that little tent and campfire – a lovely touch which breaks up the surrounding landscaping.

Winter Olympics venues built from LEGO bricks

The 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang in South Korea have already provided their fair share of drama (gale-force wind snowboarding anyone?) and now they’re providing some excellent microscale LEGO models. Jae Won Lee has put together tiny versions of the stadia and event venues. First up, the towering Alpensia ski jump arena…

The curves at the base of the hill might be a little steep for nailing the perfect Telemark landing, but the rest of the creation is spot-on — immediately recognisable from the TV coverage. Beyond the twin hills of Alpensia, the builder has also created an impressive reconstruction of the main arena in Pyeongchang itself. A pentagon isn’t the easiest shape to capture in bricks, but this little model does it well. Nice job on the outer-wall textures too…

There’s a range of models in the series, from the speed skating arena through to the ice hockey stadium. Whilst some of them are quite simple in their execution, they make a lovely set, as seen in the image below, which also provides a nice view of the main stadium interior seating…

Touch of lime makes for a refreshing mech

Well here’s a LEGO mech model which breaks the mould — it’s not grey for a start! Jayfa‘s creation is a creative mix of Technic parts, “Constraction” big-fig pieces, and regular LEGO, and it looks awesome. The hunched over shoulders and the “face” lend it an appealingly sinister aspect, and the lime green highlights provide impressive visual pop. A closer look reveals a wonderful depth of detail within the black greebling, giving the whole thing a Giger-esque, techno-organic styling — further enhanced by those demonic legs and cloven hooves. Nice flamethrower too!

Space squirrels take to the slopes

So this LEGO scene by Miro Dudas apparently depicts Space Squirrels competing in a bobsleigh event on the Neptunian moon of Triton. Nope, me neither. Genuinely no idea what’s going on here. But it’s still a fun little creation. Those Olympic rings are nicely done, and the surrounding scenery creates a good sense of a wider landscape. This isn’t the most complex model we’ve ever featured, but it made me smile. Swooshing down an ice track in a tin can at 70 kilometres an hour? Those squirrels must be nuts.

LEGO swan is clearly beautiful

This transparent swan sculpture by alanboar makes for a beautiful LEGO creation. Don’t underestimate the challenge the construction must have posed, despite the lack of complicated techniques on display — the relative scarcity of bricks and plates in trans-clear will have made it much more complicated than you might imagine. The sideways-built blue base adds a welcome contrast and allows the uplit sculpture to really shine.

Good old-fashioned policing

“Lummy! It’s the rozzers! We’ve been rumbled.” Or at least that’s the 60s-era British vernacular that springs to mind when you take a look at Calin‘s retro police car. This is a fabulous little model, perfectly-styled for the British Copper collectable minifig — the front grille, those rear-view mirrors, that blue light perched on the top: all spot-on. I can just imagine this vehicle screeching around the corner in a seedy part of London’s Soho, its old-school siren wailing.

Loki’s eternal punishment – trapped in a LEGO hell

It makes a nice change to see a Norse god depicted in LEGO and for it not to be a version taken from the Marvel pantheon. However, Loki himself might not agree, as Pacurar Andrei‘s latest vignette shows the trickster god trapped in his eternal punishment — chained in the entrails of his own sons, with his faithful wife Sigyn shielding him from dripping snake venom. The legends had it that when Sigyn was forced to take periods of rest from holding the bowl, the venom would strike Loki’s face, causing him to shake and struggle, causing earthquakes. Nice. As for the model, the rockwork on display is very smartly-done (and reddish brown makes a pleasant change from the usual grey), and the colour gradient on the lava is lovely. All-in-all it’s a sweet little scene depicting an anything-but-sweet story.

From a bright and breezy future

Sometimes the visions of the future put forth by LEGO builders can be a little grim — bleak technologically-dystopian vistas, often rendered in shades of dark grey. Here’s an altogether brighter view of the future from Tammo S. — one where we’ll be zipping around the skies in pastel-coloured hovercars. The shaping on this thing is great — all retro curves and smoothness. But it’s the colour scheme which really makes it pop — the white and light blue is distinctive and striking, and the isolated golden highlights add a touch of class.

Militarisation of miniature Mars

The first steps on the surface of Mars will be those of explorers and scientists. But how long until there are soldiers stomping around on the red planet? That’s the question put by David Zambito with his latest microscale LEGO scene. David has tackled the colonisation of Mars in the brick previously, but this neat model sees the addition of a pair of appropriately sleek-and-sinister-looking fighter craft (fashioned from minifigure ice skates no less). The little fighters might grab the initial attention, but don’t miss the excellent landscaping within the compact footprint, and the use of a minifigure helmet as a cool biodome structure.

About Rod

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