Well, what do they have in common? Absolutely nothing! Sorry to disappoint you, but this is really more of an abstract art challenged driven by a contest to build a LEGO creation in a single color. Builder Markus Rollbühler cleverly builds a gravity-defying paint bucket and a tiny pirate ship sailing off the edges of spilt paint. So, since we’re on the topic, what’s a pirate’s favorite color? For sure it’s not yellow, but.. if you’ve not gotten it yet, it’s ARR-inge.
Improvisational jazz — taking basic structures and guidelines and playing with them to make something beautiful. Exactly what LEGO 7 has done with the bricks in this fabulous Jazz Quartet. The instruments are brilliantly done — check out the shaping and details on the piano and the double-bass, and I love that pearl gold trumpet. However, it’s the figures which make this something particularly special. The poses are striking in their expressiveness, perfectly capturing the look and feel of the band taking their cues from the trumpet player’s solo. The natty styling of the musician’s clothing is the icing on the cake, with little details making the difference, like the white band on the drummer’s hat, and the slight angle to the trumpet player’s necktie. When this kind of virtuoso LEGO building performance is coupled with clean stylish photography, the result is simply stunning. It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing. But this? This is fully syncopated and super-cool.
Many people seem to have more time on their hands recently, with much of normal life disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. And as a result, contests are popping up out of the woodwork to give LEGO builders some inspiration, whether it’s Reverse Engineering or Alphabet Starfighters. Included in that is one called Style It Up, where the rules dictate color choices and style rather than content. Since the first week’s challenge is to build something with only one color, jnj_bricks went straight to black. As in black panther. Now, if you have ever tried to photograph LEGO, you know it can be a challenge to get the lighting right. When your build is black, it gets about a billion times harder because it reflects everything. Yet this cat is perfectly captured mid-step, standing out against the black foliage.
A lot has gone into the panther, with teeny tiny parts giving it an organic shape. I see flippers, a mohawk, and a cap, to name a few. But minifig arms and gobs of horns for the grass add further details, and the scene as a whole is both dynamic and vibrant, despite being monochrome.
Feel inspired? There is still time to hop over and get some entries in.
I never had bunk beds as a kid. There was plenty of space in my bedroom for friends to sleep over on a camp bed, but somehow bunks always seemed more fun. Guess I’ll have to suage my nostalgic regret with Markus Rollbühler‘s LEGO-built version instead. The bunks sit at the heart of a charming little model — a child’s bedroom, packed full of furniture and belongings. The scene was created as part of a challenge to build something with no more than 101 pieces, and the restriction lies at the heart of some creative parts use. Don’t miss the swivel chair with its backrest made from an old-school minifigure cape, and the little bulldozer on the floor. I also love the Belville shoe used as a computer mouse and the anglepoise lamp on the nightstand. This is one of those LEGO models which manages to be both cute and clever at the same time.
I’m something of a failure when it comes to building spaceships. I have tried and failed for the past three SHIPtembers to build a massive spaceship, and even my smaller spaceships generally end up on the scrapheap due to a lack of vision for their execution. Balancing the greebles with the smooth parts is a challenge for me, and integrating the cockpit with the rest never seemed to work out well. But then Dave Kaleta announced an alphabet starfighter contest, and I had to give it a go. Finally, I had a coherent plan for the design, a letter of the alphabet. And what better letter to start with than B? After all, my name, Benjamin Stenlund, starts with B, and so does Benny from The LEGO Movie. And since Benny and I are both from the 1980s, I went with a Neo-Classic Space styling, to remove any further difficulty that might have arisen from complicated color choices. I had to start somewhere, you know?
I was quite pleased with the way the dual cockpits integrated with the overall shape, and indeed having two of those canopies was a major reason I went with this design, as the curves add to the B shape perfectly. I added as many Classic Space elements as I could, like the triple loudspeaker on the back and the computers in the cockpits, gleaned from the older part of my collection; and then I went greebled like crazy in the gaps. My favorite element in the greebles is the old exhaust pipes from my childhood Town sets. I’m not afraid to mix old and new greys together, so both can be seen in the build; I think it adds a sense of weathering appropriate for a spaceship. I’ve already been commissioned by my 4-year-old to build him a few spaceships, so hopefully, I’ll be able to add to the collection of finished craft soon and spread literacy across the galaxy!
Are you looking for an escape from the day to day grind, but have only a modest LEGO budget? Maybe you can take inspiration from the Teeny tiny treehouse built by Andreas Lenander. It’s just as sweet as a large Ideas set, but at a fraction of the part count. Andreas hasn’t shared any instructions, but we can still make some guesses as to what supplies you’d want. First, you’ll want to snag a decent amount of minifigure lassos, as they form the basis of the tree. You’ll also need some cheese slopes, headlight bricks, modified 1×1 with rod plates and rounded 2×2 plates for the ladder and treehouse. Oh. And some various bits of greenery. I’m sure it’s a super easy build. I’m also sure that the last statement was a complete lie. This is some skilled and imaginative craftsmanship.
Still, if we all give it a go, we could be on the verge of a giant (albeit microscale) treehouse boom. Think of how relaxing that could be!
You’re trapped in your home, and you and your roommates have no choice but to watch bad movies.
Sound familiar? No, it’s not just a good guess as to what many of our readers might be doing at this particular moment in time. It’s the plot of Mystery Science Theater 3000 – the story of a man shot into space and forced to watch cheesy movies with his robot companions. It’s one of my (TBB contributor Chris Doyle) favorite shows to binge-watch. Oh, and to build in LEGO. I’ve previously shared a build of the first subjects of this movie-watching experiment, Joel, Tom Servo, and Crow T. Robot. Thanks to being trapped at home myself, I’ve had time to build the other two sets of castaways.
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We love Classic Space. We also love Pirates. So captainsmog has pulled a brilliant maneuver by combining the two beloved LEGO genres and the end result is just as charming as you’d think. I like how it is shaped like a seagoing vessel but functions as a space rover. Those beefy tires can handle any terrain outer space may throw at it. And the skeleton/spaceman as a masthead figure; that’s just cool. It conjures childhood memories of exploring outer space with my Classic Space sets…and also pillaging seaport towns. Captainsmog just might be a builder to watch out for. It seems we were equally smitten by this.
If you were to create mechs based on your favorite LEGO minifigures, which would you chose? For Steven Howard, he’s picked three that would top the lists of many people, especially when they look this cool. And I’ve gotta say, the setting sun backdrop and shadows showcase them well. They look like they stomped straight out of the LEGO Movie. But they’re even better up close…
Click to see these guys individually
Recently LEGO builder Dave Kaleta completed his series of Alphabet-shaped ships. Many of us wondered “what’s next?” Well looks like Dave answered that question with a question of his own. Behold the ?-Wing. As impressive as that curved hull is, even more spectacular is that this ship is able to stand upright on it’s own. (Well, okay, partly thanks to two small landing gear strips.) It’s worth clicking through to Dave’s instagram post to see this beauty in action.
Like the rest of the fleet, this ship was built in collaboration with Dave’s 4 year old son, Elliot. Interested in joining in on the fun? Dave is running a contest for builders who want to make their own entries into the Alpha-fleet.
I love The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. Like, really, really love it. I have more than a whole shelf in my library (yes, I have a library, filled with many leather-bound books) devoted just to the book and its ancillary volumes (The Hobbit, Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, etc.). Tolkien is my favorite author, by far, and I’ve read his major work at least twelve times. So when I see really well done LEGO builds based on the stories, like this one by Simon Hundsbichler, it gets the warm fuzzies going inside. Even if it is based on the movies, I still love it; after all, for whatever butcheries they did to the characters (e.g. Faramir), Peter Jackson et al. did a phenomenal job of representing the material cultures of Middle Earth. This particular build is inspired by the second volume of the work, The Two Towers, and features many towers, from the horn tower of Helm’s Deep to Orthanc to Minas Morgul to Cirith Ungol.
Microscale is notoriously tricky to pull off, but Simon is a master among masters at it. Some features that need to be pointed out include using the tiny hole in the bar holder with clip as the window at the top of Cirith Ungol. Genius. But it is all amazing. Helm’s Deep bears repeated looks, with the absurd number of unconventional pieces in the rockwork, from grey hawks and frogs to saddles. But then there’s my favorite stair technique with a grille brick leading up to Meduseld. And a stud shooter in Cirith Ungol. And rockets in the towers of both Minas Morgul and Helm’s Deep. And a spider as Shelob, a giant spider. Brilliant. And there’s a Treebeard, too! Add in the book base, and the water flowing through it, and you have one of my favorite LEGO creations ever.
If you missed Simon’s masterful representation of the first volume of The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, check it out here. I can’t wait to see the third installment!
When I was a kid, one of my absolute favourite LEGO sets was Forestmen’s Crossing, and while those old sets were cool, building techniques have greatly evolved in the last 30 years. Patrick B exemplifies this with his updated version of the classic set. The most noticeable difference is the greater level of texture that’s possible now. All of the large pieces from the original set, like the baseplate or bridge, are instead brick built in this creation, giving both of them greater detail.
The walls of the tower are much more textured, using a mix of various bricks, plates, slopes, tiles, and even light gray briefcases! There are other amazing parts usage throughout, from the red Technic gear as a flower or the brown pneumatic t’s as fence. I love use of Hero Factory rock armour as a rock – simple but brilliant. The thing that really ties it all together though, is how he’s managed to incorporate some of classic pieces like the Forestmen shield or their original minifigure parts, so seamlessly with new elements.