Tim Goddard’s EERV, or Extreme Environment Reconnaissance Vehicle, brings to mind the Destroyer from the Thor movie, menacing and a lot of damage to be done. My favorite parts of the build are the batch of elements used for textures, which look like very functional armor, especially around the abdominal area. Don’t let that red threatening cyclops eye scare you however, as this guy seems to be a lot friendlier once you see who’s piloting it.
Click to see more of this towering mech
Twenty years after its inception, the often-overlooked yet undeniably cool LEGO Rock Raiders theme finds its way into fan creations as well. In February we featured a collection of vehicles built in honour of this theme, and now it’s Chris Perron‘s turn to show off his gritty tunneling hovercraft, with all its glorious teal and chrome highlights. Chris notes that this creation is actually a year and a half old, but was inspired by friends to give the tunneler a base and finally upload it.
The base is a convincing cutout of a rock tunnel, dotted with chrome green crystals (these crystals actually come from the Space Port line from the same year–Rock Raiders featured trans-neon green crystals), and it’s perfect place to show off this cute little drilling drone. The drone itself is quite a perfect representation of its theme. The colour combination has all the characteristics of Rock Raiders; teal highlights, black and yellow warning stripes, a brown rollcage and grays as the main colour. What is especially impressive is the complex drilling head in the front, built of various custom chrome elements.
In LEGO fan creations, the Second World War is quite a common theme. This is understandable, as this is a historical period that has a very personal connection to many people, while also bringing some action and gritty machinery to the table. Jan T. takes inspiration from an important part of Polish history that’s much less often recreated in LEGO, the ill-fated Warsaw Uprising.
The street combat is captured very well with makeshift barricades made of bricks, furniture, and an excellent period street tram surrounded by barricades.
See more of this detailed World War II diorama
March is nearly at an end, and that means the end of another fun month-long building challenge known as Marchikoma, where LEGO fans build tributes to the semi-autonomous spider bots from the Manga/anime franchise Ghost in the Shell. When I saw this entry by Oscar Cederwall (o0ger) I was blown away. Not only does the model capture the aesthetic of the source material in a unique but instantly recognizable way, there are some great part usages to call out.
The ice skates make perfect details on the feet, and the microphones used as the primary eyes are spot-on! Also, check out the hands made from Hero Factory minifig arms. But one of my favorite parts is used as the top of the head: it’s a Bionicle armor element that was used on the legs of the Star Wars constraction figure of the Range trooper from Solo: A Star Wars Story.
With the release of the most recent How to Train Your Dragon movie, we’ve seen several builds of loveable Toothless floating around. But none of the others are quite like this version, designed by one of our favorite artists, Jayfa! Great skill has gone into the shaping of the head. And feet… Actually, there is great shaping happening all over this little dragon!
Toothless’ playful nature is perfectly captured in this model. Perhaps my most favorite part is the eyes because they’re so expressive. A minifigure hand inserted into each of the ball socks was quite clever. And while I’m personally a purist, the little white bit cut from a claw/tooth element is undeniably a brilliant finish. Is it ironic that the actual tooth part was left behind?
Jayfa is a master of this style, and most of his creations come from his own imagination. Just check out a pair of some of his best mechs. Want to build your own version of a similar dragon? Check out this Toothless with instructions, designed by Build Better Bricks.
It’s amazing how some things never go out of style. They’re timeless. Like the Beatles, denim, and bubblegum. Underwear (thank goodness)… Harry Potter… LEGO! And Pokémon. Articuno, one of three Legendary birds, was born into the Pokémon universe in 1996 with 150 other First Generation creatures (like Pikachu, Charmander, and Squirtle), and is still popular today with Pokémon Go. This beautiful build by mk bricks is a nod to the famous bird. The layering of parts to create an icy feathered appearance is well-achieved here. It’s not all that easy to avoid making these kind of builds look blocky and repetitious, but not here! And perhaps the coolest (pun intended) part is the most obvious. The bending technique to shape the iconic tail looks great! It really could not have been better accomplished.
If you like Pokemon, also check out other articles about Oddish, Charizard, Eevee, and a build-your-own Bulbasaur.
It’s still the largest single-storey building ever constructed, so what better tribute could there be to NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building than a teeny-tiny microscale LEGO version? The level of detail packed into Ryan Olsen‘s small model is impressive — the grille bricks providing texture on the sides, the machinery on the roof, and the massive shutter doors. Don’t miss the Saturn V rocket on its way to the launch-pad atop the crawler-transporter, or the perfect shaping of the Launch Control Centre with its sloped windows, jutting at an angle away from the main structure. The only thing I’d challenge on this model is using 1×1 plates for cars — unfortunately they don’t quite fit the scale. The rest of it is bang-on though, making me want to head back to Florida and get a refresher boost to my space-geekery.
We featured norlego‘s stunning LEGO Meduseld Hall last year, but now he’s followed it up with another impressive slice of architecture from Edoras, the capital of the nation of Rohan in Tolkien’s The Lord Of The Rings. Here we see Gandalf and Pippin leaving the city at the start of their ride to Minas Tirith. The gated wall behind them is an impressive structure, with a lovely depth of detail and texture within both stone and wooden sections. The arrow slits in the main gate structure are nicely done, and the surrounding landscaping is excellent — all the green broken up with clumps of dark tan grass and boulders. Don’t miss the edge of the diorama — the undulating strata of earth and stone add immensely to the natural feel of the scene.
If you’re a Tolkien fan and just can’t get enough Rohirrim action, then be sure to check in on this wonderful microscale LEGO version of Edoras from a while back.
A LEGO model built predominantly from a single colour generally needs to be something special to grab the eye. This gleaming clockpunk-style spider beastie from Markus Rollbühler manages to do exactly that, using a variety of textured pearl gold parts to provide lots of delicious mechanical detailing in amongst the bling.
The eye in the mechanoid’s “face” is a brilliant parts choice, and I like the egg-sac feel of the teal balls held between the wheels of the abdomen. Katana for the lower limbs make this thing look like it’s tip-toeing around, but it’s the use of saxophones for knees which is the masterstroke here, adding touches of tiny texture to a nicely angled joint, and proving once again there’s no such thing as a single-use LEGO part!
Love, Death & Robots seems to be making waves on Netflix via word-of-mouth recommendations. It’s a series of animated anthology short clips targeted at adults, and this character is featured in Episode 2, which simply titled Three Robots. It’s pretty cool to see the various LEGO elements that builder Lu Sim used for a change of expressions just like on the show.
Many cities throughout the world have at least one natural locale which presents a postcard-perfect view of that city. Hong Kong is no exception, as seen in this microscale model of the city by Twilight Yellow which features Lion Rock, a hilly area just North of downtown Hong Kong. The city is filled with modern architecture and pastel colors, which come to life in this scene. The repetition of simple shapes along with a choice selection of grills and tiles and plenty of green spaces captures the clean and colorful spirit of Hong Kong.
Have you ever played one of those games where you look at an image and find the hidden details? They used to be in magazines, but these days there are loads of apps for them. And now, there’s even a 3D LEGO version! This greenhouse, built by César Soares, is a hidden-gem masterpiece. While there are lots of LEGO creations with incredible parts usage, this one goes above and beyond, and may be one of my absolute favorites!
No spoilers! Take a moment to scan the whole thing, and read below once you get stumped. Can’t remember where you last saw that part? We’ll fill you in on a couple of those hard-to-pinpoint pieces!
Click here to discover which items you may have missed