Lego artist Martin Redfern has a unique signature style to his builds: they always seem to be from a bygone era, and captured beautifully. This police cruiser is loosely based on a 1950’s cruiser like it was straight out of a mobster movie. He even built an engine under the hood and loaded it with full decor on the dashboards. You’ll definitely want to check out all the details on this one.
Click to see more under the hood
Large LEGO sculptures made out of mostly regular bricks are most commonly created by LEGO itself for promotional displays, but fan builders sometimes make their own too. Felix Jaensch has done just that with this great rendition of Yoda, which instantly reminds us of the old 7194 Yoda UCS set.
There’s a lot of good shaping here, especially because a large percent of the character is a robe, which you can see better in this shot of Yoda’s back.
If you’ve never seen a red-crowned crane, they are certainly a site to behold. Standing at 5 feet (1.5 meters) tall, with a wingspan of 7-8 feet, and weighing up to 25 Lbs (over 11 Kg), these endangered creatures are among the largest birds in the world. Their mating dance is also incredible! Native to East Asia, the sacred cranes have significant symbolism in Japanese tradition. They represent luck, longevity, and fidelity, and they often show up in art, like this elegant diorama by ggwingx.
The background and base are a perfect tribute to the homeland of these beautiful animals. But what really stands out is the terrific use of those white clamshells, and black and white feather pieces to really give them dimension. The legs, necks, and heads are also clever. Altogether it’s a great use of simple parts to make something that truly embodies the gracefulness of these creatures.
Watching Top Gun is like eating a Philadelphia cheesesteak with cheez whiz. Some of the ingredients are a bit dodgy and there really is an awful lot of stringy cheese, but it tastes oh so good. Why? Forget Tom Cruise—the undisputed star of the movie is the Grumman F-14 Tomcat. However, instead Lego Admiral chose to build one of the villains, called the MiG-28, and that’s cool in my book.
The MiG-28s in Top Gun weren’t really Russian, of course, because they never made a MiG-28. In reality, the planes on-screen were F-5 Tigers, which are normally used by the US Navy as adversaries in air-to-air combat training. However, the jets certainly looked the part, as for the occasion they were painted in temporary color schemes with fictional national markings of some Communist country. This made them look even more sinister, as we all know that evil wears black. The LEGO model has a long shark-nose and an expertly rendered coke-bottle fuselage. Even more than thirty years later the MiG-28 still looks bad-ass.
Hot on the heels of the official duo of cycles from Tron: Legacy, Fictitious Pasta brings us this epic microscale version of the bike from the original Tron film. The simple setting with scattered rocks and a gleaming light streak is perfect for the digital frontier. And in a twist that seems particularly appropriate, this model exists only in digital form, as the scene is an excellent CGI render.
This model may be tiny, but don’t miss the excellent large-scale version of the same vintage Tron bike we also featured recently.
Ferrari 308 GTB is one of the rarest Ferrari cars with only 800 copies produced. But Jonathan Elliott builds one more. Although, it is not of metal and not quite as large, it is just as red and looks fabulous. Even though it looks very simple and easy to build, certain parts of this tiny 308 GTB are perfectly executed for this scale. The builder admits that there some compromises, but I simply can’t imagine what can be done differently to make this car look even better.
You may remember back in January we featured instructions for a tiny typewriter by Niklas Rosén. After seeing more of his gorgeous builds we decided to feature highlights from his Flickr collection. Niklas tells us it’s the shapes that give him the inspiration to create everyday household objects. Here he is trying to expand his Monofig collection with this nifty airbrush kit with paints.
His favourite among his eclectic collection is the elegant antique clock. I love the simplicity of his gravity-defying tap with water splash motif.
Click here to see more awesome mini-builds!
You may know Martin Latta as the builder who made the life-sized Terminator or the epic Battle of Hoth diorama. His latest display takes us to the desert planet of Tatooine in the midst of the fast-paced podrace featuring Anakin and Sebulba. This giant layout spans about 9 ft by 6 ft and contains around 100,000 pieces.
Click to see more of this amazing Mos Espa arena
M-Tron is known throughout the galaxy for its abundant use of magnets, even deriving their name from the self-attracting rocks. But where do all those rocks come from? A giant metallic asteroid? No, intrepid M-Tron miners harvest the magnetic grains from the desert sands of alien worlds. This mining outpost was a collaboration between Wami Delthorn and Tim Goddard, with a few additional models by Jeremy Williams and Alec Hole.
Don’t be deceived, it’s much larger than it looks at first glance, as this night shot of the whole base shows.
Some of the best builders are the ones who are constantly trying to push the envelope of what LEGO can do. And arguably, some of the best builds are a tale of two parts. When you get two great builders together, there is no telling what innovative works of art they might come up with. Shinmizu Village by the brother-sister duo of Geneva (Kai NRG/Geneva) and Isaiah (Robert4168/Garmedon)is a great example of such a creation. At first glance, it’s a beautiful little village on a cliff. But there is more to the story! According to the builders, it’s a mash-up between Venice and Japanese design. And apparently, achieving the angles of the layout was quite a feat!
Click here to read more about the two halves of this collaboration!
This ain’t no Hogwarts. This broken down school by Jonas Obermaier has been turned into a base of operations for a nefarious gang of survivors of the End. In addition to the well-textured vegetation running wild on the grounds, there are some very nice architectural details not to be missed. Take the Dobby heads on either side of the lion head below the roof, for example. Also, a number of micro-figures in tan are a nice touch along the rooftop.
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Though silenced half a century ago, the voice of this legendary American civil rights activist and leader rings thunderous today; his thoughts still quoted in speeches; the reach of his legacy reflected in thousands of public roads, buildings and spaces across the US that now bear his name. (I am actually writing this from King County, Washington.)
My simple tribute: King’s likeness (taken from a memorial plaque in Berlin) recreated with LEGO parts pushed together but not attached. Despite the progress we’ve made, it seems sometimes that the pieces are there but not all connected…