A long time ago, in this galaxy far, far away, you won’t find lightsabers and droids, but you’ll certainly spot princesses and knights. Built by Koen, this precariously perched castle has a wonderfully Disney-like aesthetic with some clever techniques mixed in, if you take some time to study it. Note, for instance, the second-tallest turret, which has windows made of pulley wheels and Technic pins.
Personally, I’d like to think this is where the Little Prince lives after he grows up.
The 1920s witnessed the birth of some beautiful boats, such as the Olmaha, built by J.M. Martinac of Washington state in 1926. Markus Ronge has artfully recreated this classic yacht with impeccable detail, complete with convincing curves from bow to stern. In the cabin, 2×2 “crate” pieces have been used to great effect and give off the impression of ornate woodworking. The surrounding waves feel organic, and I love the way Markus has used white bricks to form the ship’s wake.
When not in the water, Markus props the Olamaha up to show off its bright red hull.
Get your quarters and tokens prepped, because it’s time to hang out at the arcade! This impressive collection of minifigure-scale machines by Kale Frost has everything a LEGO gamer could want, from classics like Pac-Man and Kong to Street Fighter and air hockey. See if you can identify all of the machines!
A closer look at the skeeball machine shows just how perfectly they fit with minifigures. These machines would look great in an expanded version of the arcade in Ninjago City Docks, which featured official LEGO-designed minifigure-scale arcade cabinets. Or if something bigger is more your style, check out this 1/2-scale working arcade cabinet.
Going in to see Solo: A Star Wars Story with managed expectations, I loved this movie! And the speeder sets for Han Solo and Moloch released in the first wave were some of the best speeders to come out of the franchise, in my opinion. Apparently, h2brick is also a big fan, having built this great street scene featuring Han and Qi’ra careening along pursued by a patrol speeder. There are a lot of nice details throughout this dark gray scene, including a few toppled containers spilling something unhealthy onto the street, and plenty of discarded debris.
LEGO builder Helen Sham is a huge Nintendo fan, so she decided to combine her loves by building an incredible arcade cabinet completely out of LEGO. Standing more than 5 feet tall, the cabinet features brick-built graphics from the game Mario vs Donkey Kong 2. TBB spoke with Helen, and she’s given TBB an exclusive early look at this amazing machine.
Click to see more of the Nintendo Arcade Cabinet
A contrarian caterpillar makes for a fine bit of building, as seen in this lovely setting by Markus Rollbühler. Alice in Wonderland is a common subject for LEGO creations, no doubt because its whimsical caricatures allow builders to flex their muscles a bit and try out lots of fascinating new techniques. The two techniques I’m most drawn to in Markus’ version are in the flowering plant at the center, with yawning leaves made of upturned dragon heads, and a bright light orange flower made of hand mixers and shoulders.
Wreck-It Ralph was one of those movies that did pretty well and I thought was a great story but somehow wasn’t very memorable in the long run, for me at least. Seeing YOS Brick’s build certainly jogged my mind indeed and reignited some of the memories of Ralph going rogue (aka gone Turbo!) and with the new sequel coming up, we get two of the main characters in BrickHeadz form: Vanellope and Ralph. Well, Ralph isn’t strictly a BrickHeadz; he’s more the appropriate extended form, or to coin a new phrase: a Big Brickheadz, perhaps?
We see a lot of LEGO models that attempt to create very life-like scenes seen through an almost documentarian lens. Rarer, however, is the build that takes a more artistic approach, such as this pair of ballet dancers by Nicolas PICOT. Using a flat style with lots of curved bricks across a few planes of depth, Nicolas has emulated a photograph, and the dancers’ frozen-in-motion pose is conveyed perfectly.
Brütal Legend is the satirical video game about heavy metal that was remarkably well received, considering its unusual premise. Matt De Lanoy brings us the epic sculpture of the game’s hero, Eddie Riggs, who’s voiced in the game by none other than Jack Black, of course.
Click to see more of Eddie Riggs
….And if this scene by Grant Davis is any indication, it involves hours of watching television re-runs of Pokémon. Grant’s model is a representation of artwork shared by Deviant Art-user, Nerd-Scribbles. Some impressive-looking techniques were used in constructing Pikachu’s native habitat, including hundreds of dark tan jumper plates used to form the curve of the Poké Ball’s wall. Pikachu looks pretty iconic, right down to the gaping mouth shouting its signature “PIKA!” Grant’s version may be missing the purple Gamecube found in the original artwork, but rumor has it Ash keeps Pikachu on a pretty tight leash now.
Most fans build LEGO trains in a scale known as L-gauge, or roughly minifigure scale (somewhere around 1:40 scale). But that wasn’t big enough to capture all the details André Pinto wanted, so he designed this fiery orange engine in huge 1:15 scale, making it nearly two feet long.
Click to see more of this massive engine
The Sirius is a fictional vessel first appearing in the Tintin graphic novel The Shooting Star, and later in The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham’s Treasure. It was named after the SS Sirius, the first steam-powered ship to cross the Atlantic under its own power. This wonderfully detailed boat by Stefan Johansson is so accurate compared to images of the vessel John-O.88, a trawler that inspired the author, that it is easy to mistake it for a wooden model.
The curved hull is particularly impressive, along with the riggings, made up of various lengths of LEGO string elements. On deck, Tintin is ready to plunge into the depths in his diving suit, while Snowy, Thomson (or Thompson?) and Captain Haddock look on.