Massive new Marvel movie coming out? What better way to celebrate than with a set of teeny-tiny LEGO Avengers? I couldn’t resist giving these guys a go in micro/nanoscale. There’s not that many characters you can reduce to this scale and still keep them immediately recognisable, but the distinctive colour schemes of comic book superheroes make it possible. The model is not quite purist — there was a little bit of cutting involved (HERESY!), and two sections are balanced on each other rather than stuck together. But I think it looks cool so I’m begging forgiveness. (Bonus points for any eagle-eyed commenters out there who can spot which piece I cut…)
Category Archives: Models
Behind the Scenes – Getting into the mind of builder Eli Wilsea [Video]
This scene was built by Eli Willsea (also known as ForlornEmpire) for a recent brick challenge. Brick competitions usually consist of using a seed piece of which various builders have to find clever ways to use it in their creations. The seed piece for this build is the Silver Goblet. See if you can spot how they were used in the theme.
What’s great about this build is not only the level of detail it took to pull off this futuristic lab scene, but Eli took the time to share with The Brothers Brick an exclusive in-depth behind the scenes video on how it was built. He shares the thought process and analysis you won’t be able to grasp by just looking at a static photo. If you have aspirations towards doing a scene like this or even just want to enjoy hearing what goes on in a builders brainwave when constructing a complex scene, this is for you.
Did you enjoy the video? Would you like to share your creative build process with the world? We are always looking for interesting builds and videos to feature and discuss. Feel free let us know, and you could be the star of the next video!
Finally! A dewback worth talking about
Everybody’s favorite sand lizard has been featured in a few LEGO sets over the years, but they have not been much to get excited about. But this dewback and sand trooper scene by LEGO 7 is an amazing tribute to this Imperial beast of burden on the remote Outer Rim planet of Tatooine.
The dewback looks to be posable and features some impressive organic sculpting using a variety of curved and sloped parts. And that yellow lever base for eyes is genius. The sandtroopers also deserve close attention, and while a bit clunky, they do capture the likeness pretty well at this unique scale.
And speaking of scale, here is the official dewback and rider for comparison.
The hottest and coolest guard post
What better place to stand guard during the winter than by a hot spring? The scenery in this diorama by Jaap Bijl truly is something to look at — in fact, perhaps it’s “scenery” that the dwarves are protecting!
The builder has used his signature sagging roof style lined with a bit of snow, along with some nice wood construction on the building. While the building uses some new ideas, the star of the show is the hot spring. It uses window pane pieces as the water to make the surface extremely smooth, giving it a great reflection and allowing the deep colours underneath to be seen. These colours continue outwards on the shore in a gentle gradient to the sulfuric yellow that ends under the snow.
B is for beauty, and B-Wing Starfighters too
B-Wing fighters are truly under-appreciated vehicles in the arsenal of the Rebel forces in Star Wars and similarly, in the LEGO world, I’ve yet to see a decent build until now. This stunning creation by Patrick Lacroix uses a colour scheme that stands out quite a bit with the red highlights and great use of the blue transparent base parts from the Dimension series which has those RFID tags inbuilt at the exhaust ports. It uses the same style of caterpillar tracks modelled from the LEGO 10227 UCS B-Wing release for the cockpit but in the more common black parts, and the best part that Patrick mentioned is, it rotates as it rightly should so as the main feature! While I wasn’t quite sold on getting a B-Wing to add to my collection, I believe this has changed my mind!
Click more to see the beauty of it all
An endless dogfight delight with a motorised LEGO creation [Video]
Jason from JK Brickworks never ceases to impress us with his animated skills of using motors and moving parts to bring a build to life. This time he’s got a Sopwith Camel and Fokker Dr.1 all tuned up and ready for an endless chase.
Open the book and let your legend unfold
It says in this unique creation that every legend has a beginning, and I believe this is indeed the beginning of Malin Kylinger‘s legend. As a newcomer to the online LEGO fan community, her photostream on Flickr is hardly half a year old. Malin’s photostream has already accumulated a few, very cute builds, but this vibrant fantasy scene is a level higher than the rest.
Obviously what makes this build unique is the ornate open book with the words “Every legend has a beginning”, but the build is much more than that. The landscape seems to be spilling into the book, while a sea serpent emerges out of the latter with a very dynamic water splashing effect. The serpent is quite good too, most notably the shaping around its eye. I can not wait to see this legend continue… Both the Legend of Anendra and of Malin.
Holy Brickhead Batman!
Brickheadz are a fairly common subject here on The Brothers Brick, whether reviewing official sets, sharing instructions to build your own, or showcasing custom creations. Fan-built tributes to this chunky and highly-collectible series are popping up all over, and today we’re featuring a couple of classics built by Andrew Cookston.
On the left, is Batman from the 1960’s original television series starring Adam West, which made sound effects from printed comics come to life with a bang. On the right, we have Two-Face, a.k.a. former DA Harvey Dent, from the Batman animated series from the early 90’s. Both models are spot-on accurate in their resemblance to their on-screen inspirations.
These are the droids that I’m surely looking for
Builder DOGOD Brick Design certainly found the droids that we were all looking for. These tiny builds of the robots that we know and love so dearly are cleverly built in a slightly 2D form. The flat designs would sit quite nicely in a frame or stuck on a magnet or even on a Christmas ornament. While the building techniques may be simple-looking, DOGOD certainly brought these characters to life with instant recognition. I wonder if we might see the rest of the characters from the Star Wars movies represented in a similar style sometime in the future.
Click for a closer look at these droids
Microscale ISS model is out of this world!
One of the trademarks of a successful microscale model is when it can be mistaken for the real thing at first — or even second — glance! This spectacular microscale model of the International Space Station by Jussi Koskinen is a great example of this. So much attention to detail and photography make this creation really stand out!
Whatever floats your tugboat
Every now and again we see a realistic civilian minifig-scale LEGO boat, and they keep getting better. The latest is this steam-powered tugboat by Koffiemoc. It is actually a recreation of the last steam tug in Germany, the Saturn. The builder was inspired by this photo and I think he has captured it almost perfectly.
Click to see more details on the Saturn
Micro Taj Mahal fits in the palm of your hand.
Building a microsocale landmark is a fine art of choosing the right miniature detail that makes your model instantly recognizable. Some landmarks are so iconic that it might seem like this would be too easy. Not so! Finding the perfect detail part can be challenging. In this model of the Taj Mahal by Jay B, several recently introduced parts provide great details, but might not be the first thing that a builder would think of.
This model reminds me of one of the very first models that I posted on Flickr over 5 years ago, using a much more limited supply of parts.