Builder Jan Woźnica has a strong reputation in the world of LEGO space builds. Case in point, you may remember LEGO Ideas 21340 Tales of the Space Age, a set soon to retire from the slate of available sets on the LEGO site. While this isn’t as minimalist as those great pieces of art, this take on a Martian space elevator is stellar, featuring some forced perspective that’s out of this world!
A certain recently confirmed political official had us Googling brainworms a bit more than usual lately. Perhaps this has been the case with Djokson who has presented his own brainworm. We have a slew of the 2×2 round bricks with 45 degree elbows in both white and trans-dark pink. You’d have to stockpile at least a couple of the DreamZzz Never Witch’s Nightmare Creatures sets to obtain those tasty trans-pink ones. Maybe this is just the brainworms talking here but I am clueless as to what that brain piece is from. While it shares some family resemblance, it is most certainly NOT this piece. Let us know in the comments what that neat brain part might be because I am truly braindead on the matter.
These clever LEGO build techniques are brought to you by a ton of minifig heads. Cab ~ utilizes the aforementioned minifig heads as the yellow buoys denoting the lanes in the pool and also the floaties on that one swimmer’s (or floater’s) arms. Repetitive use of 1×2 trans-blue tiles comprizes the pool water nicely. They’re not bricked directly onto the pool floor but rather suspended above it to give the illusion of depth. As for the swim or float question, for me, it’s floaties all the way. I’ll also take some washboard abs to help offset the embarrassment of using floaties.
It’s been 18 years since gamers first explored the fallen “utopia” of Rapture and we still can’t forget the Big Daddies who haunt its undersea halls. In game, those lumbering living diving suits are the stuff of nightmares, but built at minifig scale by BrickAA, they’re not nearly as scary. Shall we call them “L’il Papas” instead? BrickAA has quite a knack for pint-sized mechs and makes many instructions for their builds freely available, including the instructions for this adorable Big Daddy. What are you waiting for? In the words of Andrew Ryan, “a fan chooses to build.”
Should you prefer your Big Daddies a little… bigger, why not revisit this classic build from Eero Okkonen?
Sometimes a “sketch” of a bigger LEGO project can turn into stunning work in its own right. That’s certainly the case with Roanoke Handybuck‘s towering pirate village, where using stilts in place of terrain creates negative space that heightens the fantastical architecture of arches and overhangs, accentuating the surreal beauty. Maybe the results can inspire you to find a hidden masterpiece in your own unfinsihed LEGO projects.
When it comes to building LEGO mechs, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone with as much experience and expertise as Moko. The Japanese builder has been posting and sharing robotic creations with us for 20 years, going back to 2005 and this sad little Gundam! Moko’s latest big project, this incredible combining Mechazord, was one of our most popular articles of 2024. Today Moko is sharing techniques for building mech heads like these.
![LEGO Mech Heads Vol 2 [How to Build]](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54261995754_40705b0ddb_b.jpg)
Follow along as Moko guides you through the advanced techniques used to build heads like these from simple parts you probably already have in your collection.
For more mech head tutorials, check out Moko’s previous video with four different styles.
With LEGO, you can turn something as industrial and gray as chains into something organic like a tree. Fedde Barendrecht shows us how, and I believe it involved clicking chain parts together end-to-end, connecting each unclicked end to the barrel-made tree trunk, then twisting the chain into a roughly a tree-shaped mass. Top it off with a wiley raven and you have the makings for an epic neighborhood showdown. Raven:1, Lino:0.
For accomplished sci-fi LEGO builder Jarek Książczyk, minifigures were always an afterthought, but a double dose of D&D in the form of Balder’s Gate 3 and the excellent Collectible Minifigures led Jarek on a building spree that puts character first. From a 4×4 stud building surface, Jarek’s bases amplify each figure’s character and class with a hero prop, a bit of terrain or a splash of color (or maybe some viscera, if they’re really into Bhaal). Whether the characters remain on a shelf or play out adventures on the tabletop, simple stands like Jarek’s can raise your minifig game.
We spend a lot of time here at TBB talking about finished LEGO works, but rarely do we get into the work-in-progress techniques that go into those pieces. For instance, builder Monty Matte shows us how to properly portal our palisades with this LEGO archway technique over on his Instagram. A frequent feature of many of Monty’s builds, this image gives us just a peek into how the architectural detail comes together.
We’ve marveled in the past at the strong LEGO work of Sakiya Watanabe. But this close up of a WIP they’re working on allows us some better insight into the parts that can create a biological texture like feathers. A cacophany of bars, clips, and claws, it all comes together to form quite the eagle head.
Despite being named for a pretty basic letter of the alphabet, the A-wing is a notoriously tricky design to reproduce in LEGO bricks. The notch in the front, the smooth angles of the fuselage, and the tilted stabilizer fins don’t lend themselves easily to existing elements. But Inthert and Trevor.2004 set out to build an A-wing anyway. They managed the curves along the front with a flexible spike element, while the cockpit is made from Throwbot and Technic figure visors. The result is aesthetically pleasing enough that you’d think twice before, say, crashing it into the bridge of a Super Star Destroyer.
Season 1 LEGO Masters US winner Tyler Clites is nothing if not persistent. A few years ago, he uploaded a LEGO model of everyone’s favourite havoc-wreaking extraterrestrial, Stitch, to the crowd-sourcing Ideas platform. We covered the first iteration way back in 2016, and it was subsequently re-worked twice before hitting the magical 10,000 supporters mark. Neither model was approved, but Tyler is not content to let this little blue alien be a footnote in LEGO Ideas history! He’s now released instructions over on his website for you to download and build your own. And the best part? They’re free! All you need to do is source the bricks.
And why not get creative with it? Tyler has shown that Stitch can be rebuilt in a variety of forms, so have a go at customising one of your own! My personal favourite is this Elvis Stitch-ley. Look at that immaculate quiff.
