Sometimes using a limited number of parts is an excellent forcing function to drive creativity, or in the case of this simple vignette by Justus M pilot creativity. This airplane is built from boxes and tables and uses everyday household objects like a desk lamp and a dart board. It looks like these young adventurers have everything they need to fly off into the sunset of imagination.
This LEGO build comes to us from builder Ghalad through the Digital Iron Builder competition this year. It features the use of the SPIKE Prime color sensor, wonderfully used for the eyes of the skeleton and on the headphones. Every detail of this build is great with so many parts usages from Technic to the more classic LEGO pieces. I don’t know about you, but I really like the use of Mixel joints for the framing of the collarbone. I’m not particularly familiar with the finer details of skeletal anatomy, but this skeleton looks to be fairly accurate, which is something I can appreciate. I know this is a digital build, but this would be awesome to see IRL just to look at it from every angle.
In this imaginative LEGO scene by Malin Kylinger, a group of mages have summoned a portal to the winter realm. The whole diorama is loaded with great builds, from the trees with their densely packed foliage, to the picnic of magical equipment beside the house. The whole build rewards closer scrutiny with lots of great details lurking.
But the real standout is the magic circle at the center, a fantastic use of cheese-slope mosaic-making to craft a pattern that’s almost quilt-like, and at the center is a perfect use for the rare Belville crown element.
Ever struggled to remember which Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle was which? If so, Dan Ko has provided a handy guide in LEGO form, with some beautifully-made sculptures. I never was that into the show, so I always had a hard time remembering the names (although I do recognise this first one as Donatello). Normally I just wondered how they ended up settling on these particular adjectives for characters in a kids’ show…
“OK team, we need some new animal characters for a kids’ TV show. Any ideas?”
“Turtles! But on their own? A bit four-legged – let’s make them mutant turtles, so they can be humanoids. And let’s make them ninjas too. Ninjas are cool! Still not relatable enough though… How about we have them be teenagers? The Mutant Turtle Ninja Teenagers! And we can name them after Renaissance artists!”
“Uh… Sounds great. The name needs some work though…”
See the rest of the gang after the jump
Do you think orcs ever get tired of warmongering? More often than not, they’re depicted as grumpy, aggressive beings hungry for conquest, but Versteinert posits that they might also be partial to a more peaceful life. This particular one has taken to the forest for its downtime. Which makes sense – if you’ve got all those nice heavy battleaxes, there’s no point leaving them gathering dust between pillages. Might as well put them to good use making some wood. A bit of woodworking is probably a nice way to decompress after terrorising the realms of man, in the absence of LEGO sets. Making a wardrobe or coffee table, perhaps. Rest and recuperation is important, folks!
If you told me that TBB regular Moko had made a LEGO stingray mech suit, I’d think it was a suit in the shape of the flat fish. But never one to conform to expectations, Moko’s mech is actually piloted by a stingray, who looks right at home inside the blue suit, even sporting a HUD over one eye. As usual there are lots of great techniques and interesting pieces that make it worth your while to spend some time picking this one apart, but the best are the Hero Factory jumper shells used for the toes.
Some books, like The Eye of Argon, Mein Kampf and the entire Twilight series should be read by no one. But this LEGO tome built by Áron Gerencsér has the opposite effect on me. As in I want to crack it open and drink in whatever forbidden knowledge lies within. The lock and key and ethereal chains really sell the notion of forbidden lore that is not for the faint of heart. I mean, it probably doesn’t have any high school drama and sparkly vampires so that’s a good thing. With all the attempts to keep this book from being read by the masses, I’m guessing it’s a particularly truthful coming-of-age Judy Blume novel. Juicy!
Japanese LEGO builder Mitsuru Nikaido has a knack for turning any beast into a mechanized creature. This time the mighty ostrich gets the mech treatment. I’m loving the quizzical expression of this leggy bot. As always, there are some amazing shapes and build techniques here. This prolific builder’s growing bestiary is truly a sight to behold. Check out our Mitsuru Nikaido archives to see what I mean.
A New Zealand LEGO builder, who is clearly a robot aptly named j-p-30, has been commissioned lately to build a Fujifilm C3530 Printer. This just proves, as a LEGO builder, you never know where your next commission can come from. In a world of spaceships, castles, and battle mechs, this creation is refreshingly extraordinary in the sense that it’s so…ordinary. If it weren’t for the telltale studs on top, I’d almost mistake this as a reasonable facsimile for the real thing.
I’m not familiar with the Deepgate Codex fantasy series, but after seeing this captivating floating castle built of LEGO by Gino Lohse I think I might have to check it out, because this microscale structure has my imagination running. It’s a simple build but no less effective at evoking the feeling of precarious city perched atop a magic rock and chained in place. A few carefully placed studs make for great windows on the buildings, while the rock-texture slope gets put to good use giving added dimension to the chunk of earth without looking forced.
So often in LEGO castle creations, the focus is on the large keep in the middle. But in a refreshing change of pace, Oshi has–literally, as well as figuratively–shifted the focus away from the big structures and to an often overlooked one by centering their build on the gate, with the rest of the castle in the background. It’s not immediately obvious, but Oshi has also employed forced perspective, as the back buildings are not quite minifigure scale.
What happens when you’re building and grab a Ninjago fig instead of a TIE Pilot? Generally I toss it back and keep building, but I imagine TBB alumn Simon Liu runs with it, as evidenced by this Kai Fighter, a TIE-turned-mech that’s as cool as it is well done. Ninjago and Star Wars may not be the most common crossover, but after seeing this I can’t wait to see Lloyd Vader and Jedi Master Wu.
