What better place to snuggle up inside, safely out of the wind and snow, than noggy85‘s cosy LEGO cottage? This is a lovely piece of microscale building, with “baby bow” curves and 1×1 slopes used effectively to create snow-laden trees. And don’t miss the use of a white croissant as smoke coming from the cottage’s chimney…
We’ve seen some good winter-themed microscale LEGO creations this season. I’d like to see even more before Spring.
Here is the King of the Brick Beasts, courtesy of Tom Poulsom, designer of the LEGO Ideas Birds set and author of Birds From Bricks. This magnificent lion is a masterpiece of studs-out building — just look at the shaping of the mane and little touches like the teeth-plates used for ears. The highlight for me though is that mouth… 1×1 sloped bricks have been cleverly inverted to create a noble-looking chin, which wouldn’t look out of place on Mufasa from The Lion King.
After his interesting take on a methane-powered moon rover, Jon Blackford turns his attention to a more traditional interpretation of the future of space travel. This twin-seater spacecraft is a wonderful riff on LEGO’s Classic Space theme, with all the key elements of the checklist in place. Blue and gray color scheme? Check. Trans-yellow canopy? Check. Green and red navigation lights? Check. Black and yellow stripes? Check.
But what separates this creation from so many other Classic Space models is the wonderful level of depth and texture Jon has got into those wing panels. This is LEGO Space building at its finest. Couple the quality of the model with some excellent photography and you’ve got a memorable creation, despite the familiarity of its styling. Don’t miss this image of the spaceship coming into land, revealing more of the detailing…
Hot on the heels of his smart little LEGO TIE Fighter, Tim Goddard is at it again with a nice microscale rendition of Anakin’s Jedi Interceptor. The model captures the shape and styling of the Eta-2 fighter brilliantly, but the undoubted highlight is the teeny tiny R2D2 — all set to take care of any nano-sized Buzz Droids.
Take to the skies in style with Ted Andes‘ latest LEGO creation. This single-seater aircraft has a dieselpunk feel, with an impressive level of detail for such a small creation — much of it down to the intelligent repurposing of Bionicle armor pieces. The brick-built clouds around the plane give the whole image a wonderful cartoonish sky effect, but the highlight of the model for me is that slight downward angle on the nose turbine — a lovely touch.
If sci-fi robots are your thing, then Pete Reid is your man. He builds LEGO robots that are so detailed and full of greebles they wouldn’t look out of place in a Boston Dynamics demonstration video. I love his latest creation — the Digital Ombudsman. It’s got a wonderful poise and balance, making great use of lots of different connections and parts you wouldn’t expect. A quick glance reveals pirate hooks, spanners, ingots, ray guns, and handlebars all making their appearance to create the complex mechanical look. On top of all the detail, the robot’s green eye is fantastic.
This was built as part of a feature looking at potential uses for the new bar-and-towball piece over at New Elementary. Check it out here.
My Adidas — or more correctly Jimmy Fortel‘s Adidas — the classic Superstar 3-stripe trainer, built in LEGO. The overall shaping here is excellent, with a nice mixture of curved, sloped, and tiled bricks to capture a shape that doesn’t immediately lend itself to brick construction. The best bit? The way Jimmy has used angled sections to create the iconic white stripes. Excellent work.
Jimmy’s on something of an 80s kick at the moment — don’t miss his wonderful LEGO 80s boombox which we covered recently.
Taking a little inspiration from Overwatch’s Widowmaker, Djokson brings us a classy futuristic sniper. A diverse mix of LEGO parts comes together to create a model with style, sass, and more than a hint of danger. The goggles with the yellow lenses are obviously cool, but I like the realistic sniper stance too — hips pushed forward to compensate for the heft of the rifle…
Whilst personally I’ve always been a fan of regular System bricks rather than Bionicle/Hero Factory “constraction” parts, I can’t deny the way good builders use these joints and connections to create models with excellent posing potential. Check out the attitude in this shot…
At a single stroke, Joerri Ridder demolishes the idea that LEGO makes so many specialised parts nowadays that it’s killing imagination. The use of a minifig flute for the tower in this minimalist winter scene is inspired, and the stripped-back scenery and restrained color scheme add a layer of bleak depth and mystery. This is simply beautiful microscale.
Every day Brothers Brick brings you the best LEGO models from around the world. Just like our global readership, there are LEGO builders across the world creating fabulous things with plastic bricks. However, every year there are a handful of builders who take things to new levels, prove themselves masters of various building styles, and wow us with their LEGO skills.
This year, Brothers Brick is delighted to call out Grantmasters as our LEGO Builder of the Year 2016.
Grant’s LEGO creations range from the minuscule to the mid-size, varied across themes and styles — from characters to architecture, with interesting parts choices and excellent building techniques throughout. His models featured no less than 13 times on the pages of Brothers Brick in 2016, and as Andrew (TBB’s founder and editor-in-chief) pointed out, the creations of Grant’s we didn’t feature could just as easily have been blogged. He’s had a sterling output of work in the past twelve months, and here are some of the highlights.
Grant has used fantastic microscale technique to take us from domestic backyard scenes…
To the surface of the Moon…
Click to see more of Grant’s incredible models
Getting to a shortlist of the best LEGO creations of 2016 was hard enough, but narrowing it down to a single best model was a nightmare. However, after much deliberation, the Brothers Brick is delighted to highlight Paul Hetherington‘s Batman scene as our LEGO Creation of the Year for 2016…
This stunning model features a beautiful Art Deco-style building, fantastic action, fun motorised elements, an incredible background city skyline, and to top it all, a fabulous brick-built Batman logo. Check out Paul’s video showcasing his creation…
See more of this incredible creation after the jump
11inthewoods has used an interesting combination of newer minifig parts and accessories to create an excellent LEGO version of the Dead Men of Dunharrow from Tolkien’s Lord Of The Rings. Zombie heads, Ninjago spirit “legs”, Nexo Knights armour, an Avengers Ultron jaw-piece, and a crown nicked from The Witch King of Angmar himself — it all comes together brilliantly to create an eerie army of oathbreaker ghosts.
I’d like to see these guys in a full build now, please — guarding the entrance to the pass at Dunharrow, or maybe gathering around the Stone of Erech?