With magnificent ornate furniture, and perhaps the lushest LEGO carpet you’ve ever seen, this boudoir by simply bricking it is ready for royalty. Amazing parts-usages abound, from the minifigure stretchers used for the folding screen to the basketball net as the lampshade. How many more clever bits can you spot in this creation?
The original name of this creation is “Osterode Rathaus”, which means town hall, not “building containing rodents” as some might assume at first. Multilingual puns aside, this is some quality architectural work. There are many buildings like this one in town centres in my country, so I can confirm from first-hand experience that this creation is very accurate. The builder, Przemysław Czarnik, has filled this build with great textures and details, and I’m especially impressed by the simple yet effective roof.
At first glance, this mech resembles the baddie Enforcement Droid from Robocop. Take another look, though, because this mech transforms into a cruiser-shaped vehicle mode. Robocop isn’t going to stand a chance if you ask me. Builder Havoc shapes both alternate modes with bulk and strength giving it a weighty armoured feel, especially considering almost the entire model except the canopy is a single color.
Chicken Little is everyone’s favourite neurotic chicken who runs around telling everyone that the sky is falling and is mocked for his efforts. Well, just as Chinese New Year approaches, Alan Boar has created this adorable LEGO version of Chicken Little as he appears in the animated movie. His cute chicken features, stripey T-shirt and geeky specs are perfect, even though Alan had to compromise on colour and use grey instead of green frames.
Thankfully Alan decided to build Chicken Little with his beak closed. In the movie, Chicken Little has teeth, presumably in case he gets a bit peckish, but it just seems wrong to me.
Being unfamiliar with LEGO Ninjago universe, I had no idea that besides some majestic dragons the main characters also use traditional sailboats to travel around. Teen builder Robert4168 decided to recreate one from the Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu television show, and in my opinion it looks even more impressive than the dragons featured in the official sets.
Unlike most of the builds by designers from Billund, this ship looks truly solid, huge enough to fit a whole squadron of ninjas, and features some cool authentic sails. But the best part is the perfect use of long golden blades along its boards marking off the blue and brown areas. Topped off with an excellent red dragon head, this boat fits in with both the modern Ninjago adventures and the good old Ninja sets of late 90’s.
One of the coolest scenes from Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers was the memorable battle of Helm’s Deep. German builder KevFett2011 has created a beautiful rendition of this in micro-scale, using only a monochromatic palette. Kevin captures the essence of the fortress of Aglarond nestled into brick-built mountains perfectly, and I love how he has used levers to represent the attacking Uruk-hai pikemen. If you squint a little and look really close you can almost see Gimli and Legolas arguing over who has the highest body count.
Kneeling is a sign of reverence, submission and obedience. Darth Vader assumes this pose before the Emperor more than once during the original Star Wars trilogy, and this poignant action helps to emphasize his emotional conflict, between the master that guided him most of his life (but who he eventually destroys), and the offspring that he has known for a much shorter time. In recreating this moment in LEGO, builder SPARKART! takes the unusual approach of using a Vader minifig headpiece atop an entirely brick-built figure. He even offers a glimpse at the parts and techniques necessary to copy this distinctive statuette yourself.
The adventures of Master Chief and Marcus Fenix I get as an Xbox player are great and all, but it’s becoming clear I’m missing out on great games on PlayStation like The Last of Us and Journey. Mel F. shows love for the critically acclaimed indie title Journey in a vignette full of clever parts usage. Unikitty tails in tan and the arms of the chicken suit minifigure show the flow of a sandstorm, and a dark red minifigure fan as the playable robed character also evokes movement.
If you’ve never heard of a Great Ball Contraption (or GBC for short), you’ve probably never been to a LEGO convention. The term describes a popular theme of complicated LEGO machines built by fans, which can interconnect to continually pass LEGO soccer balls and basketballs around in a mesmerizing fashion, and they’re a mainstay of LEGO fan conventions. This particular GBC is built by Berthil van Beek, who was inspired after seeing another fan’s marble run. Berthil’s machine shoots the tiny balls up to the top of the run, where they hurtle down and are recycled.
There was a time in the 80s when the tale of huge transformable jet-mechas, intertwined with love stories which transcended galaxies, was almost real to some of us. Robotech (for those of us in the western part of the world) or Macross (in its original incarnation from Japan) is a series of science fiction mecha anime that’s rated highly enough to still be in many lists of the top 50 anime series of all time.
As a fan of the series, builder Stick Kim takes us back in time by capturing a particular scene where our hero saves the girl while piloting his mech. This fantastic miniature LEGO version of the VF-1S Valkyrie is piloted by Hikaru Ichijyo (Rick Hunter) and cradled in his palms is Lynn MinMay — a beauty who sings, and is his love interest and a key character throughout the series.
Nobody likes to do chores, but even a starship needs to be swept and dusted to ensure those grey space corridors are dust free for photoshoots. This fun little scene by TBB contributor Jen Spencer shows some Brooma and Waita droids helping out with the chores, albeit with a general lack of enthusiasm for their task. Jen’s little droids are adorable, with their cute pot bellies and Kardishan-esque booties.
The part used for their ‘assets’ is the dark orange 2×2 curved top brick, which is also the seed part in the ongoing ABS Challenge contest. And did you spot the ingeniously subtle use of the huge Airplane wing parts forming the walls and doorway?
The comical posing of the droids really makes this little scene for me; the Waita droid at the end seems to be struggling with his heavy plate of fruit. The poor Brooma droid on the lower floor is having to deal with a messy Cola spillage. I hope he has called for some back-up, ideally droids bearing mops and buckets!
Following up their firing LEGO Nerf gun, YouTuber AstonishingStudios shows how to construct another working Nerf blaster. Using pieces in your own LEGO collection and an additional spring, scissors, and Nerf darts (and tape and logo decals if you’d like), you can follow along his clear instructional video to build your own Nerf pistol.