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.
LEGO builder extraordinaire Anu Pehrson joins us to give an inside perspective on how she built this enormous 200,000-piece minifigure-scale diorama of the Wall from Game of Thrones. If you’re not familiar with Anu, she likes to build big. If you happen to be in Denmark soon, check out her huge model of the Greyjoy Stronghold, which has been showcased in the LEGO House for the past year. She previously gave us a behind-the-scenes look at her 20,000-piece rice plantation diorama from The LEGO Ninjago Movie, but now she’s gone ten times bigger. So read on as Anu walks us through the entire process of building the Wall from early concepts to finished model.
As builders, most of us are inspired by things we encounter in our everyday lives, travels, and other interests such as books, music, etc. I immensely enjoyed reading Game of Thrones and was inspired with several ideas for building. The Wall was an obvious choice but a very daunting task and would require me to get several tens of thousands of white parts. I started the process of collecting parts specifically for this project in 2012. Nine years later, I finally started building in 2021, and it has taken me over two years to finish it. The model is 5 x 5 feet and approximately 4.5 feet tall, and in the end, I used close to 200,000 pieces.
My thought process here was that the Wall would be the central grounding factor, with several structures added to both the south side of the Wall and the area beyond the wall to the north as described in the books/show.
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Over the course of the last six months, we’ve featured literally hundreds of excellent LEGO creations. While all of them are already the best we’ve found, there are a handful that stand out above the rest. Usually these creations feature the coolest techniques and exceptional NPU (Nice Parts Usage), and have us talking about them more than the average build behind the scenes. We’ve seen everything, but occasionally we’re extra impressed by something new and unique. Although we do feature our overall favorite builds (using several criteria) in the running for the TBB Creation of the Year in December, we’ve decided it would be fun to honor some ace parts usage right here, right now. Join us as we count down the best of the first half of 2023!
The music scene is filled with countless artists, so deep cuts that overlap LEGO and eclectic artists can be rare. Builder Eero Okkonen recently completed this model of singer-songwriter Richard Dawson to update his past display of the band Circle. It’s no surprise Eero says he had an easy time going about this build, as the black uniform allowed for a great piece selection to maintain uniformity. The main issues he faced were building Richard’s face and hair, which come across delightfully in the final product. Dawson often works his voice from the top to bottom of his range in songs, so it’s wonderful that the models mouth seems to be caught mid-lyric. Other details such as the microphone, guitar, and speaker all add to the immersion of the scene. The only thing I can’t get passed are the skeleton arms as fingers because they just make me think Richard has more little hands at the fingertips. I’m disturbed but curious as to how it would help his guitar playing.
As a personal fan of Richard Dawson myself, this was a delightfully unexpected model to see. Plenty of builders have been covering famous musical artists over the last year, mostly mainstream or rock. This model has me curious about Circle, and pleased at how the process of discovering new music can be just as odd as your taste in tunes.
Making its way through the canopy, this enormous piece of LEGO equipment keeps a steady grip on the weaving branches of the rainforest canopy. Builder Charlie Jones brings us his second ambling piece of construction equipment with a CAT-themed color scheme. Perhaps suited for traversing the jungles of Pandora from James Cameron’s Avatar, the Sloth Walker’s crew clambers about its hanging body, making their way up its legs to the thick branches to survey the unique biomes and the territory below. The builder spent almost 200 hours working on this beast, along with the branches above, and it surely paid off with an impressive final product. First off, the branches of the tree are ingenious, if not a bit laborious. Time consuming as they may be, their repetition and semi-woven pattern provide a convincing effect on the overall build.
The Walker, if you can really even call it that when its making its way upside down like this, is its own masterpiece though. At just under a meter long, every centimeter of this build is detailed and intentional. Using droid bodies and arms on the claws gives a delightful industrial texture, while the pneumatic-like structures in the front arms compliment a convincing design. Of course, I can’t go without mentioning that awesome domed canopy for the pilot, providing a full view around them. Using the frames of Harry Potter’s glasses from the Hogwarts Icons set as the framing for the cockpit was an ingenious move, honestly.
I commend those workers on the outside of the craft. Making my way over the exposed engines, hanging on as the arms and legs move above me, I’d hope to at least be tethered somewhere safe. I wouldn’t want to fall and get caught by the tether only to get crushed by some mechanical components. I leave this part of exploration to this brave crew, I guess, and just move on to commending Mr. Jones for a magnificent build. Keep up the good work, mate!