It has been nearly a year since LEGO Masters: USA announced their teams and it’s nice to check in from time to time on how some of the contestants are doing. Aaron Newman clearly has seafaring vessels on the brain with this stunning research vessel. He tells us that it’s over 20″ (50cm) long, and features three levels of accessible interior details. He goes into greater detail about this build on his blog. We’ve been smitten with his work before. Give it a looksy.
The Walnut Villa is the latest modern microscale home by Sarah Beyer. Only comprised of a few brick, tile, and plate pieces, this LEGO villa showcases the strength in simplicity. On the facade, the minimalistic colonnade harmonizes with the alternating profile grill bricks. Small textural details contrast with the smooth streamline surfaces like the micro green wall and the poolside masonry bricks transformed tiles. When you look through the panoramic windows, you can spot a single white pillar standing inside the home. It’s remarkable how Sarah captures the same grandeur of her minifigure scale homes in this microscale vignette. Surrounded by brilliant greenery and bamboo-palm trees, the Walnut Villa looks like a dwelling in paradise.
Browse through our archives to see more architectural builds by Sarah.
Holy guacamole, Batman, this machinery puts Scarecrow’s to shame! Corn cobs everywhere are shaking in their husks!
Well, this giant LEGO harvester built by Michał “Eric Trax” Skorupka actually has nothing to do with the infamous Gotham criminal, but it sure is impressive. With all the details of the real-life Krone BigX 770, the specs are incredible. With its perfect body-shaping and lack of dirt, it may even look better than the real thing. But it’s not just how it looks on the outside.
Even if you know absolutely nothing about farming equipment, you can appreciate the effort that went into making it move. Inside every expert-level LEGO Technic vehicle is a complex system of motors and gearing that is sure to leave you wondering how they designed it. And this behemoth even puts some of them to shame. It houses 9 motors (one servo, one XL, one L, and six M motors) and is controlled by three Sbricks. It even has lights! Simply put, it’s ridiculously cool.
If you’d like to see more like this, take a look at a couple more of Eric Trax’s other farming equipment builds.
I believe “totally stoked” is the correct medical term used to describe some of us when LEGO came out with the 10271 Fiat 500 set. It’s an iconic little car, which would have been exciting enough but heart palpitations reached critical max when it was realized the set would be primarily comprised of a rare light-yellow color. This meant builders could come up with our own lemony-bright creations in due time. Australian automotive engineer Peter Blackert loves a challenge. (You have no idea!) An Instagram follower asked him to do this and he answered the call of duty using only parts from a Fiat 500 set (or two) to build this 1935 Auburn 851 Boattail Speedster. The doors open and I particularly love that the convertible top works using the same canvas part from the set.
A step into the portal should have been the beginning of an adventure on another world. Instead, it was the expedition into a nightmare. Or at least that’s what builder Bart de Dobbelaer would have you believe with his newest LEGO model.
Not only are these intrepid explorers unaware of the monstrosity behind them, but they’re also in the dark about the fabulous building job on Bart’s creation! This landscape is truly unearthly, with black spiky plants pushing their way out of the ground and forgotten stone arches pointing to dangers left and right. The monster itself is a clever use of ancient Bionicle pieces. I like the wheels around the eye sockets as a gruesome bone-like skeletal superstructure. Very frightening. Very cool.
One of the best things about the LEGO fandom is how we can all build off of each other. (Inadvertent LEGO pun is inadvertent, but worth keeping.) This mighty tower by SweStar, for example, was inspired by the techniques developed by Luke Watkins Hutchinson. But there’s more to this build than just the underlying structure. Check out those great vines and those equally impressive spindly trees. Although there are minimal other landscape details, you can’t help but be pulled into the scene. What’s up with the approaching skeletal rider? Friend? Foe? Part-time USPS worker? It’s up to the viewer to decide.
If you’re looking for more cool towers, I suggest a quick stroll through our archives!
Who could forget all of the valiant efforts of IG-11 during season one of Disney’s streaming series The Mandalorian? With this LEGO model, SPARKART! reminds us all of IG-11’s commitment to his programming: to nurse and protect everyone’s favorite child.
We’ve got a brick-built speeder, brick-built IG droid, and even a brick-built child in this vignette. The builder utilizes some small and pretty common elements such as slopes, wing pieces, bricks, 1×1 cones, and cylinders to create a pretty sleek white and grey imperial speeder. The limited color scheme for the speeder and droid allow the sand green and tan colored elements utilized for the child portion of the build to really pop against the rest of the model. Overall this is a great build capturing an intense moment in the series.
Koala Yummies is no stranger to The Brothers Brick and their latest creation definitely deserves a mention. If this were a modular I’d buy it in a heartbeat. There are quite a few features that set this creation apart so let’s dive into it!
The roof design on both of the buildings is amazing. For the taller building, 1×1 round bricks are used to represent roof shingles while on the shorter building curved double slopes were used. The window treatments are different but equally stunning with the white building utilizing boomerangs to adorn the windows and on the tan buildings we have arches combined with curved wedges. Tying it all together, both buildings use the ingot bar and masonry brick have been used to add texture to the walls. There are also a lot of half circle and quarter round tiles used to represent broken pavement. Last but not least, I love a building with plants trailing the facade, in real life and in LEGO life. And this one looks lush with all those plant parts added to it.
LEGO builders frequently take inspiration from video games. This cute little car by Sheo., from the upcoming CD Projekt game Cyberpunk 2077, looks like it rolled right off the assembly line. It wouldn’t surprise me if this compact vehicle, which is probably electric, turned out to be the fastest car on the block and it’s probably packing some serious heat as well.
Letranger Absurde has been playing with the LEGO book binding and book cover to create some tiny furniture. The outcome is really pretty! Not only the book binding got the furniture treatment, but the suitcase element got incorporated into the build as well. According to the description, connecting the books can be quite the challenge. I am really curious to how these are constructed. So if your castle or house interior needs to be spruced up, go and buy yourself some books!
I’m not going to pretend I know a lot about music, but I’m sure many are familiar with what an audio mixer looks like – lots of switches and lights, the functions of with I’m personally not familiar with at all. However, as a person who gravitates towards gadgets, these switchboards certainly do look cool to me, or maybe John Snyder’s LEGO model of one makes them look cooler than they are.
The switchboard body uses some standard bricks, tiles, and slopes in black assembled via the SNOT (studs not on top) technique. This build is part of an Iron Builder challenge, the seed part is the modified 2×3 plate with bar in dark red, but there are many other interesting small elements utilized here such as the broad-brimmed castle helmets which serve as dials and the technic piston cups in yellow. Of course, I am a fan of trans-clear elements, and Snyder has thrown in a few of those like the minifigure heads at the far left and some light pieces that look exactly like LED lights. Snyder’s model certainly makes me want to learn more about these cool pieces of tech and how exactly they work.
You don’t normally think of “round shapes” as a highlight of a NoVVember Vic Viper, but Sheo, as usual, refuses to be bound by conventional building styles. The Blue Piercer is a twin-fork starship with enviable curves. My favorite detail is the thin Technic pulley tires nestled inside arch bricks. I also like the small detail of the half-circle tiles, adding another subtle bend to things. And those rear thrusters are pretty sweet, too.
If you like your spaceships (and other LEGO creations) with a heavy dollop of curved building, then be sure the check out the other creations of Sheo’s that we’ve spotlighted.