Who says you have to lock the bricks together to make something beautiful out of LEGO? Mitsuru Nikaido knows just how to pile up pieces to take things in a very different direction. Better still, they show you just how it was done with a great time lapse video! (Seriously. Go watch.)
If you’re looking for more creative inspiration, be sure to take a stroll through our Art tag!
The Brothers Brick contributor Chris Doyle adds to his Super Heroic mosaic collection with a tribute to Chadwick Boseman as the Black Panther.
This image is based off of a publicity still, run through the LEGO Remix website a few times, modified to lower his hands, then hand color-corrected. This mosaic is 96 studs by 46 studs – 6,144 studs total in the image. (Plus a bunch more for the frame and Technic pins to hold everything safely together.) You can read more about the construction after the break!
It’s that time of the year for “new year, new me” declarations, and leaving certain things in the previous year which just ended. Builder Michael Jasper decided to build those sentiments as a small LEGO diorama.
When I think about it, New Years Day hangovers aren’t even that bad. Neither are New Year’s resolutions that no one will keep for more than a week. But that is every year. Things are already different at the start of 2022. Are LEGO Stores in the U.K. increasing the prices of Pick-a-Brick cups by almost 25%? Yeah that’s not exactly a good way to start the year. Newer lockdowns and restrictions? It’s a bit much but we’ve gotten used to them by now. We were all hoping this year will be better than the last, and the one before.
Nevertheless, COVID-19 persisted.
I love the Lord of the Rings films, but that’s about as far into the Tolkien waters as I’ve ever dipped my toe. But builder Josh is giving folks like me a taste of the deeper lore with this model inspired by the tale of Túrin from The Silmarillion. Here, Morwen bids farewell to Túrin as he ventures off towards the kingdom of Doriath. Josh’s use of round tiles and studs not on top techniques give a realistic rustic texture to the walls of this homestead. And the brilliant use of color for the foliage in the background reminds me of fall in Vermont. Good luck on your travels, Túrin. I hope Josh will update us on your progress. (I know I should just read the book, but it’s more fun this way.)
The UCS AT-AT set is impressive: full of detail, has an accurate interior, and is a marvel of LEGO engineering when it comes to stability and articulation. But at £750, it is way out of my budget, not to mention that it wouldn’t fit anywhere in my apartment (U.K. rooms be small.) Luckily, Will (BrickGuild) Built a smaller version of the AT-AT.
This microscale Imperial Walker is instantly recognisable, and sports one of the cleanest exteriors I’ve seen on such scale. The surfaces are clean and smooth, with studs remaining only on the wedge plates. I particularly like the use of “sandwich tiles” to give the hull some paneling. Using minifig hands as the “toes” of the walker is genius. And it can be posed reasonably, tho Will had to sacrifice knee articulation. Understandably so, that would have been impossible for a model this small without making the legs too clunky.
This Subnautic™ Research Drone by Alex_Mocs finds new uses for Galidor, DUPLO, and Scala elements in a brilliant underwater vessel. The Galidor upper legs (and sweet looking Technic and System-built lower legs) slot through the portholes of a DUPLO submarine hull. On the underside is a collection pot that made from (I think) a Scala water cooler. Add to that with a seabed full of twisting organic shapes and a wealth of aquatic life, and you have the makings of a very grim and gritty “Finding Nemo” reboot.
Is everything better under the sea? Is that a joke that we’ve relied on once too often? Check out our submarine tag and start counting the callbacks!
Sometimes a LEGO creation comes along that is both well detailed and informative. Such as the case with this amazing 1/9.2 scale Sopwith Camel built by James Cherry. This mostly uncovered model is suitable enough to draw a crowd in any museum. The wingspan is 94cm (over 3 feet!). Even the greenery is interesting in the sense that we’ve never seen this used for grass before. It’s easy to assume from this photo that this model is merely a replica based on the 10266 Sopwith Camel set from 2012. However…
…click this link to see a comparison
Okay, Star Trek fans, yours truly (Christopher Burden) here with something fresh! For the last few years my best friend Capn.Brickard and I have been exchanging custom models for birthdays and holidays. We love giving each other a challenge, and this year I had my work cut out for me. Out of three options that he gave, I chose to take on La Sirena from the 2020 Star Trek spin-off Picard. Honestly, as soon as it was revealed, I wanted to build it, but at the time, I wasn’t quite ready to take it on — all the different angles and slopes, not to mention that accursed command deck.
If you want to build some LEGO furniture, there’s a thing or two to learn from Jannis Mavrostomos, who has constructed a LEGO classroom full of things I remember from my own school days.
Don’t be tardy, click here to make it to class on time.
Andreas Lenander has designed this fantastic looking great hall. Light trickles in through the windows, surrounded by intricate stonework frames. Tall pillars are placed close to the main walkway with extended connector pieces assisting in adding to their height. A grand window overlooks the king who greets an approaching visitor while the guards stand ever watchful. Cast your eyes down to the floor and you can see complex mosaic patterns created by wedge pieces. The outer squares along the path also have some great details with arched pieces creating elegant curves in the patterns.
As Andreas says in the video, you wouldn’t want to tip this model upside down, otherwise those wedge pieces will be going everywhere.
I love how hobbies or interests are able to bring people together. I am quite the LEGO nerd and thanks to LEGO and its community, I’ve met so many lovely people. My partner on the other hand is quite the board game geek and thanks to him I got sucked into the community that comes with the dice. What never stops to amaze me is the amount of love that goes into designing board games. John Snyder and Isaac Snyder drew inspiration from the game ‘Everdell’. The game is filled with cute forest critters and almost magical surroundings. For their latest build, they decided to give the ‘Castle’ card the LEGO treatment.
The castle wall looks really organic and irregular at the top due to a fine selection of pieces. We can find dinosaur tails, spider legs and plant limbs used for the wooden castle gate. Each wooden beam gets adorned with a white horn, claw, cone, lever base, or a bulb to represent fresh snow. The main tower has a crazy angle to it and I can’t figure out how the bricks are connected at the place of the angle. My guess is flex tubing but I might be wrong. It may as well be friction and gravity. There are cattle horns used in brown as architectural details. We get flags made out of pentagonal tiles with a little crown attached to it with a rubber band, which looks like a little layer of fresh snow on the top of the flag. The inhabitants of the castle are LEGO animals, which makes this build less than minifigure scale, which allows for parts to be used in a very original way. The skis used for doors look massive and add a sense of grandeur to the castle. Have you spotted the brave little blue hamster defending the castle?
Some fans build massive recreations of props from their favorite movies and TV shows. LEGO builder Corvus Auriac has gone the opposite direction with this tiny five-stud-wide microscale model of the UFO poster that hangs over Fox Mulder’s desk in the X-files. The trees made of epaulets provide interesting texture, while the flying saucer works spectacularly considering it’s made of only two pieces—a pair of 2×2 radar dishes attached on a clear rod. Is this the smallest brick-built LEGO poster ever? I’m not sure, but I know the truth is out there.
