Builder Dad’s Bricks has a reputation for excellent Asian ink paintings made of LEGO. This latest addition to the gallery is a gorgeous golden dragon. But unlike a 2-D ink painting, the model springs to life, popping right off the canvas of plastic along with some surrounding clouds and crags. The colors here are so vivid – angular gold and tan scales standing in stark contrast to the wispy white feather parts coming off the beast. This is most pronounced around the dragon’s face, as its mane of whiskers accentuates the pair of 2×2 round tiles in pearl gold staring directly at you. It’s clear there’s ancient wisdom held within, but only shared with those worthy of such secrets.
Category Archives: Models
2022 LEGO Advent Calendars, Day 7
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Yes, it’s the holiday season, but it’s also the return of our annual LEGO advent calendar extravaganza. We’ll be opening our calendar windows daily in the run-up to Christmas. Our team will also share their thoughts, comments, observations, and jokes about each day’s builds!
We have five advent calendars this year, across the City, Friends, Star Wars, Marvel (specifically Guardians of the Galaxy), and Harry Potter themes. Let’s get right into it and see what’s hiding behind the doors of day 7, shall we?
Click through the jump to see today’s builds!
Keeping watch over the colorful terrain
There are so many bright pops of pigment in this goblin outpost LEGO scene by Carter Witz. Terrain of lime and yellowish green is dotted with golden flowers and trees sporting pink leaves, standing in stark contrast to the brilliant blue of the cascading waterfall and rich brown of the gobbos’ watchtower. The palette is incredibly immersive, reminding me heavily of the Elves theme from years ago. And amid the colorful scene, Carter sneaks in some terrific designs with the round concrete foundations of the outpost, the cute cave entrance on the left, and the craggy textures of exposed rocks utilizing studs in all directions. The use of slopes and exposed studs in trans-clear throughout the waterfall is a real triumph, too. I can almost hear the rushing water as it cascades down the goblins’ hill!
Darling it’s better, down where it’s wetter, and the LEGO is teal
I defy you to look at this underwater LEGO organ by Eli Willsea and not start humming the tune to “Under the Sea”. See? It’s in your head now! And you won’t forget this build in a hurry either. It centres around the cylinder pieces used as the organ’s pipes, the seed part for the current round of Iron Builder. The slits in this particular piece make it a great fit for this instrument, although there aren’t many organs I know of that are painted turquoise. But put it on the seafloor, and suddenly the teal makes perfect sense. The little crab at the keys is pretty cute as well. Presumably, it’s a homage to Sebastian from The Little Mermaid. The only other musical sea-dweller I’ve heard of is Davy Jones, and he didn’t look that friendly…
This round of Iron Builder is just getting started, so why not see some previous entries in our archives?
By Air Mail, to the future!
When the land is flooded and we take to the skies to avoid global warming, LegOH! is here to allay our fears that we’ll still be getting our mail on time in this LEGO airship build.
LegOH! has managed to cram a lot of detail into this diminutive vessel that I love from the limited colour palette, the steampunk inspired furnace keeping the airship aloft to the wrought iron details and, of course, the cargo of letters connecting this brave new world of aeronauts.
This reminds me, I must stick the holiday post in the mail…
Mitsuru Nikaido’s creature mechs are as numerous as...well, rabbits!
I’m certain there’s a great joke in here somewhere about the abundance of Mitsuru Nikaido’s LEGO creature mechs and the mating habits of rabbits but damned if I can figure it out. While I may be tapped for jokes tonight, it makes me no less of a fan of this builder’s, by now, iconic color scheme and his amazing creatures both familiar and bizarre. Anyway, enjoy this cute bunny mech and check out our Mitsuru Nikaido archives to see what else this builder has miraculously sprouted. And if you have a better joke than what I’ve already stated then please let us know in the comments.
Birch tree shepherd meeting
Birch trees continue to be a great source of inspiration for LEGO fans. This creation by gGh0st features a beautiful birch tree surrounded by some well put together LEGO minifigures. The birch tree features large patches of black due to the technic connector attaching all the dinosaur tails to each other. Brooms hide between all the tail parts, adding texture to the tree trunk. The use of the coral, as seen in the LEGO Ideas Winnie the Pooh set, is quite clever as it is a nice way to attach a lot of different LEGO leaves in different directions. This sure looks like a friendly gathering that I wouldn’t mind attending.
Two friends and some past gas
Life changes quickly and there could come a time when even a modern gas pump may become a thing of the past. But thankfully Eloi Parizeau and his friend Martin Chauvette teamed up to preserve a blast from the past in LEGO.They’ve built this very retro gas pump in striking red and yellow. The replica stands twenty six inches high and is constructed from over 4000 pieces. I particularly like the golden shell with wings emblem and the Captain America shield as a centralized emblem on the light face up top. Eloi tells us this isn’t a theme he would normally build for but as a car enthusiast and a lover of all things retro, I’m pretty glad they did.
Iron Builder meets Tin Man…
LEGO Monkey took a big swing with his latest Iron Builder entry, crafting an iconic scene from one of the most well-known movies in cinema history. But you can’t argue with the results. The star of this build is the seed part (the 1×5½ cylinder with bar handle), which clumps together beautifully in a recreation of the Emerald City of Oz. But we have to give a Best Supporting award nod to the landscape, particularly the way the green wedges imply a winding hillside that allows the yellow brick road’s forced perspective effect to work so well. And, even though Dorothy and her three traveling companions all have official minifigures, Lego Monkey pulled this scene off without owning any of them. That’s what we call a special effect!
This one will grow on you
You may know builder Big Stannis from their meme-tastic large character creations, but the creativity doesn’t stop there. (25+)Wise Mystical Tree features some really clever part usage. It’s somewhat easy to spot the raft forming the front of the face, but if you look very closely at the eyes you might find some surprising Thanksgiving leftovers. There are even some 1×1 round tile cookies in there if search for them. And, just to be juvenile, there’s also plenty of SNOT.
This is just the latest example of the great builds you can find in our tree archives. Go take a look!
Most Impressive detail in this Star Wars Underworld scene
You can do little better in finding inspiration for a LEGO Star Wars build than Darth Bjorn‘s builds. Capturing that seedy underworld vibe we’ve seen in the recent Obi-Wan and Andor series here is on point and I love the futuristic urban decay that’s evident across this build.
In his latest, he’s taken one of the Expanded Universe’s lesser-known planets as a basis for creating his own take on this backwater world for the Galaxy-spanning RPG this was built for.
The brick-built Graffiti on the back wall is perfectly crafted, sitting below the neon lights that draw you into this scene. The main draw is what can be found below the giant fan, which is a brilliant circular structure that dominates the building and invites you to look below.
Now, I love customizing figures but I’ve never seen this done with Jabba before and I love that sled contraption!
The industrial elements that decorate this scene throughout from the gantries and communication equipment down to the floor itself are all brilliant examples of what detail can be made from the smallest elements in the LEGO catalog, and a reason I love what LEGO does in the Advent Calendar’s.
An urban mech to spice up your next ceremonial occasion
I like my mechs to have a purpose, and the MA-3 Svipul from LEGO builder MySnailEatsPizza has some great backstory:
Armored weapons platform typically used for ceremonial purposes. While based on the mass produced MA-2 frame, the MA-3 is uniquely equipped to handle operations in cities. Its two Phase-Tech Power Trade-Offs are most often fitted with Phase Claws, though short range blasters are occasionally employed. The Svipul is piloted by Colonel Juergen Krenn.
Lore aside, I really enjoy the head design. The use of the Chakram minifigure weapon reminds me of the Ninjago 71765 Ninja Ultra Combo Mech. The transparent purple in the wrist blades is also a plus for me, as are the well-articulated feet and the inverted Bionicle mask in the torso. It looks like a great action figure to play with, too. Nicely done!
There are even more mighty mechs in our archives. Why not take a look?