Category Archives: Building Techniques

Not sure what SNOT is? Want to learn innovative new ways to create awesome LEGO models of your own? Peruse our posts about LEGO building techniques to pick up tricks & tips from the best.

Delivery of a cute LEGO cat called Jiji [Instructions]

Kiki’s Delivery Service is a 1989 Japanese animated fantasy film produced, written, and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. The film’s protagonist Kiki is a trainee witch who has a black cat called Jiji as her best friend, and CK HO has built a fantastically cute LEGO version of Jiji the cat. Like most cats, Jiji has a lot of personality, but the English-dubbed version of the film showed Jiji with a cynical and sarcastic attitude as opposed to cautious and conscientious in the original Japanese.

We loved Jiji so much here at TBB that we asked CK to make some instructions and he very kindly obliged to allow us all to have a best friend called Jiji.

Click here to build your own Jiji!

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How to build a vintage Tatra 148 LEGO fire truck [Instructions]

Sometimes the simplest of LEGO creations can be the most lovely. Talented Technic builder František Hajdekr, whose working LEGO chainsaw we featured earlier this year, recently posted an adorable vintage fire truck based on a Czech Tatra 148 from the 70’s. What I love about this is that the builder has incorporated actual vintage LEGO tires from the 70’s into his modern creation.

František quickly followed that up with step-by-step instructions, which you can watch in this video (with complete parts breakdown as well: part 1 & part 2).

If you like 6×6 Tatra fire trucks, check out my LEGO Wildland Ultra XT (with instructions).

Build your own LEGO Oliver Twist the pug dog [Instructions]

Even though The Brothers Brick’s official mascot is some type of strepsirrhine primate, our unofficial mascots have always been my pugs, first the late, great Mr. Pugsly and now Oliver Twist. TBB’s own Elspeth De Montes created a LEGO version of little Ollie for our recent calendar contest, and she has just posted simple instructions for you to build your own LEGO pug.

Dale Horvath’s RV from The Walking Dead in LEGO [Instructions]

While Dale may not get to enjoy his retirement driving around the country with his wife in an RV, we can all enjoy this great LEGO rendition of his iconic vehicle from the first two seasons of The Walking Dead, built by hachiroku24. The builder has included numerous key details, including all the gear Dale needs on his roof to keep watch over the survivors’ camp. I particularly like the rolled up awning.

If you want to build your own LEGO version of Dale’s RV, the builder has provided step-by-step instructions in the following video.

Behind on sending Christmas cards? Use this LEGO Mindstorms plotter to make them for you!

There are only a few days left until Christmas, so anything that saves you time is a good thing. Thankfully, 14-year-old Sanjay Seshan and his 12-year-old brother Arvind built the Holiday Card Plott3r to help in all your Christmas card needs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGDPLqzy6EA

Built and powered by LEGO Mindstorms, the plotter can churn out cards decorated with trees, snowflakes and even Santa’s signature. The creation prints the designs using a dot-matrix and even includes a second contraption that slides out an envelope ready for your beautiful, new card.

Better yet, the project files are all online to be used or improved. That is really in the Christmas spirit! Now we just need a machine that licks and applies stamps and drops the cards off at the post office.

LEGO Flowers built using bananas, Bart Simpson’s head and a croak of green frogs

At first look, these flowers by Theo Guilia look rather nice. They are made from LEGO but nothing too strange or odd about their appearance from afar. The reality is that they are both made up of parts that would not be a first choice for creating a flower in the hands of most builders. The sunflower petals are bananas, the central portion of the sunflower is an afro hairpiece and the leaves are a mix of elf hats and green frogs. It sounds more like a recipe for witch’s brew than the parts to build a LEGO sunflower!

The second flower is a pretty blue cornflower. It uses Bart Simpson’s head as the central portion of the flower with the old-style plastic capes as petals. Those elf hats make another appearance as leaves to complete the flower. How strangely effective.

LEGO certainly brings out the creativity in people. I’ll never look at an elf hat the same way again…

Classic Space Command Module Crawling Thingie

Bongobert has created a retro looking classic space styled crawling command module rover whatsit. It’s caterpillar treads look like they could tear up whatever planet, moon or asteroid it was stationed on. This creature-like rover sits high allowing the pilots better visibility and better reception for the TV News-van’s worth of antennas and dishes on the roof. The DenWad has a crane apparatus capable of removing the command module, presumably allowing the vehicle itself to trek out in search of space things while the command module commands. Packed with tools to enable the astronauts to repair their monster in the field, this whatchamacallit looks like it could handle anything space could throw at it.

Modern part usage, subtle greebling and other newer techniques give it a futuristic feel while the exposed studs give the classic space feel that makes me (us?) nostalgic for the early 80s.

Check out what this marvelous little classic space machine creature is capable of.

Anyone up for Butterbeer?

If you need a break from fighting Dementors, you can always retreat to the cozy respite of Hagrid’s hut. Wookieewarrior crafts this iconic building from Harry Potter using tiles and plates to simulate the detailed texture of a cobblestone wall. The landscape is quite sophisticated as well, featuring four shades of green and parts we don’t see often such as tan levers used for grass.

Contemplation

Mr. Unknown has created an incredibly well-constructed face in this study of contemplation. I especially like the shaping around the eyes, the forehead and the tousled hair. The hand leaves a bit to be desired but it doesn’t detract from the overall build. Nicely done!

A handy way to build the Eiffel Tower

The official LEGO Eiffel Tower 10181 set is one of the largest sets released, with 3428 parts. For those with less room for such a monster set or fewer pennies to afford such a sizeable price-tag, have a look at LegoJale‘s latest creation, which users a single part depicting the Eiffel Tower: A minifig hand. This microscale build manages to capture the essence of the Eiffel Tower, the skyline in the background, and the fountains in the foreground (as per the image that the build is based upon) with just a handful of parts.

The set-up for this shot shows how distancing parts of the build can give a very good foreground and background feel to the final shot without requiring any scaling. I always enjoy seeing set-up shots and this one is great because there is no fancy equipment — just LEGO, a book, and a camera.

When LEGO meets Lite Brite

This pixilated classic space logo by Jonathan Gale is one of the most impressive LEGO creations I have seen in a long time. If you look closely, you’ll see that his build is made up of thousands of LEGO lightsaber blades (5520 of them to be exact). There is an LED light behind the blades, giving the translucent pieces a glowing effect.

Jonathan said he was inspired to try this building technique after a LUG meeting where he realized that 25 LEGO lightsaber blades fit perfectly into a 2×2 stud square. This build took over 10 hours to complete and, according to the builder, came with a constant and serious risk of collapse. I can’t even imagine the amount of patience it took Jonathan to complete this beast.

ASW-G-08 Gundam Barbatos Lupus

LEGO mecha builder Caleb L. has celebrated the new season of Mobile Suit Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans by posting this lanky Gundam with a big sword and curvy horns.

The mecha is fully poseable, prepared to whack all comers with the aforementioned big giant sword.

I’m always fascinated by the underlying frames that LEGO mecha builders design as the skeletons for their big stompy robots. Caleb’s frame uses lots of clip connections with pneumatic T’s, and a ton of studs-out bricks (“Travis” bricks, headlight bricks, and so on) to affix the mecha’s skin.