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

Duplo-clad robot suit is a chunky mechanical cutie

Kelvin Low says he raided his son’s Duplo collection to find parts for his latest mech. I suggest he continues this sourcing strategy if it’s going to deliver results like this. Duplo truck door panels and a pair of rowboats provide this powered suit with distinctive armor-plating — creating both a sense of heft and a peculiar cuteness. It’s not often we see the different lines of the LEGO family combined with such effectiveness. Beyond the imaginative parts usage, there are also nicely-built functional-looking greebly bits in the legs, and I’m enjoying the glimpses of internal machinery through the curved gaps in the outer shell. Great stuff.

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Before Rocky shows up

You’d imagine a LEGO gym model would be stuffed full of minifigs in exercise poses. Not so this scene from Mrbones Bricks — the place is completely empty except for the lonely janitor. The gym’s interior is nicely built — don’t miss the hanging punchbag, the lockers, and the electrical conduit and fuseboxes on the wall. However, it’s the composition of the photo which turns this into a striking image. The expanse of empty floor awaiting the janitor’s attention creates a real sense of emptiness and quiet.

Nexo Knights recon outpost

LEGO’s Nexo Knights line has brought us some great new pieces and some cool recolored parts, but aside from a few isolated examples, the theme hasn’t sparked a wave of fan-built creations. This recon outpost model from Henry F. stood out as a result. This scene captures all the elements which excite me about Nexo — a perfect blend of medieval castle and hi-tech, the bright color scheme, and the robots. I like the asymmetry of the base, with the composition balanced out around the shield at the center, giving the image a focal point.

The texture in the castle wall is really well done, with attractive splashes of blue to break up all that light grey. It contrasts nicely with the brown and green of the terrain. Where the contrast isn’t working quite as well is with the figures — they’re a little lost in amongst that stonework. Maybe next time the minfigs should be some of the non-grey ones?

Charming medieval cottage

A few weeks back, Graham Gidman wowed us with his LEGO barrel-riding scene from The Hobbit. Now he brings us this wonderful little diorama. The stonework on the cottage walls is fabulous, and the curved roof with its spattering of studs makes for a lovely shape.

The smooth flow of the roof is reflected in the curve of the fence, and the whole thing sits on a nicely-built landscape base making effective use of multiple shades of green and earth tones. There’s some lovely touches of detail on show too — check out the little log pile under the cottage’s eaves. The only thing which doesn’t quite work for me is the continuation of the round stonework up into the chimneystack. However, that’s nit-picking — overall, this is a cracking piece of building.

Steampunk biplane takes to the air

This steampunk aircraft from Andreas Lenander has a smart white and gold aesthetic — a pleasant change from the genre’s usual hackneyed brown and grey color schemes. Beyond the colors, the smooth curves of the air intake on the nose work nicely, and those gold props look great. Couple a good model with an interesting low-angle POV and some decent photo-editing and you’ve got a steampunk LEGO flying machine which I wouldn’t mind taking out for a spin.

Modern architecture gets prettier and prettier (and smaller)

Paul Wellington‘s latest microscale building uses the still relatively new Mixel joint piece to create a fabulous pattern effect. Sometimes I think repeated elements like this can be overdone in microscale buildings — cool techniques but failing to capture the feel of real world architecture. That’s not the case here. I could totally see Paul’s building sitting downtown in any modern city.

Of course, Paul doesn’t need this building to show up in your city. He’s got a LEGO one all of his own that he’s been adding to over time. I’d heartily recommend a visit to his photostream for lots of pictures of his brick-built metropolis — current piece count sitting at around 19,000 parts!

Microscale space racer is a stickered beauty

Luc Byard uses all-official LEGO stickers to bring an impressive level of texture and depth to this microscale space racer. The choice of stickers, mostly featuring thin-line detailing, coupled with some decent macro photography turn this model into one of those creations which, on first inspection at least, appears much bigger than it really is.

This thing just looks mean. I love it. Luc describes this creation as what happens when you cross a Spitfire with a muscle-car, strap it to a massive engine and send it into space. Sounds pretty cool to me. Where can I buy one? I wanna race.

Hefty futuristic ride is ready to roll out

There’s an effective mix of Technic pieces and regular LEGO bricks, coupled with smart color-blocking in this interesting vehicle from chumuhou. That’s a battery box lurking behind the cab there, and from the looks of it, those front wheels are motorized. I’d love to see a video of this bad boy in action. The visible suspension springs and cogs on this rig lend it a chunky sense of functionality, and the icing on the cake is the rear ball wheel, fashioned from Death Star halves.

LEGO Zombie Pirate Ghost Batman!

In case you didn’t quite catch that the first time… LEGO ZOMBIE PIRATE GHOST BATMAN!

We don’t often cover minifig-only “builds”. However, this piece of inspired lunacy by Roman was too good to pass up. Besides, as Andrew (our illustrious founder and Editor-in-Chief) occasionally reminds us, The Brothers Brick originally started as a minifig blog.

Who’d have thought a Pirate Batman and a Ninjago Ghost figure would come together so perfectly. I demand a whole series of undead pirate versions of Batman characters. Vampire Cap’n Joker ahoy!

Chill out in this beautifully serene LEGO spa

Heikki Mattila has built a wonderfully calm LEGO spa. The details here are simply perfect — the bath itself, the drinks shelf, the candles, and the nice touch of the rolled towels and soap on the little table. That back wall tiling is very well done, exactly the sort of color scheme and layout you’d expect to find in such a classy and relaxing venue. Normally I’m not a fan of room models without some kind of minifig presence to bring them to life, but this scene doesn’t need it. In fact, the absence of minifigs only serves to enhance the sense of peace and quiet.

I love the Java Jive and it loves me

Everything is awesome in the morning, as Miro Dudas brings us a wonderful coffee vendor stall called the Cup o’ Java. The shaping of the drinks stand itself, and its brilliant steam effect, are the obvious stars of the show, but don’t miss the lovely paving around the stall and the curved planters. And there’s just enough minifig action going on to create a sense of hustle and bustle — I’m imagining all these guys are grabbing a caffeine boost on their way to work downtown.

Soaring towers are the pinnacle of LEGO castle-building

Fresh from wowing us with his banana-roofed treehouse, alego alego has been building a range of microscale castles. This one is my favorite — a wonderful fantasy castle with soaring spires, surrounded by a crystal clear moat and a pleasant greenwood. This fortress wouldn’t look out of place in Hyrule, or the Magic Kingdom for that matter. Very nice use of the new “weapon spear tip with fins” part from Nexo Knights for the tower roofs too…

I’d recommend checking out alego alego’s photostream for more microscale castle goodness, like this one fit for any prince or princess.

About Rod

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