Welcome to Day 23 of your digital LEGO Advent Calendar! Each day, we’re revealing the day’s calendar model for the LEGO Friends, City, and Star Wars Advent Calendars. We know some of you want to be spoiler free, so you’ll need to “open” the day’s post to see the models by clicking below!
Using only the movie trailers as reference, Graham Gidman built this excellent little scene from Star Wars: Rogue One. Graham was able to create an accurate slice of the imperial-occupied city of Jedha and the people that inhabit it. There’s a ton of texture and personality in that tan building.
And if you think that AT-ST Walker looks like an official LEGO set, well you’re correct! (…it’s the 75153 AT-ST Walker).
Jonas Kramm, whose way of seeing LEGO bricks has delighted us so many times, has simply done it. And by that I mean he’s literary created “it” with a handful of bricks and curved slopes. This is a fine example of an antique neoclassical font… heavy lines with sharp ends and gorgeous serifs.
If you like this creation by Jonas as much as we do, check out his other builds for “The New Black” project on our favorite parts-obsessed blog New Elementary, where Jonas explores the unlimited possibilities of modified and unusual parts, like paint rollers which he used to create some stunning antique street lamps.
With just over a week to go, the Classic Castle Competition keeps bringing out the hits with this compact creative build by David Leest. He says “Built as a gift for a Lion Knight War Hero, the manor stands proudly above the waterfall”. This towering manor does stand very proud indeed! The battlement is crafted using a stepped technique, with subtle patched brickwork that makes great use of yellowed bricks (usually the curse of many a LEGO fan). The beautifully detailed textured roof and wooden entrance also use a variety of techniques to give the whole model an authentic lived-in feel. The armed guard, standing among the flowers and wild grasses, serves to give the model a sense of scale – it’s bigger than you first realize.
The main feature of this castle is the stunning archway over the river and the balcony where the hero stands with his fair maiden. Another armed guard looks on, while the maiden’s father takes in the view. The techniques David has used to create the different trees, the variety of foliage and the bubbling churning rapids, are wonderful. A home fit for a hero!
For over a decade the Brothers Brick has been bringing you the best LEGO creations, and 2016 has stood out as a bumper year. To celebrate 12 months of great models, the Brothers Brick team has looked back over everything we’ve featured and pulled out the best LEGO builds of 2016.
Take a look at these ten amazing shortlisted models, and stay tuned for the final announcement of our LEGO Creation Of The Year 2016 on New Year’s Eve!
LegoJalex‘s brilliant ET model wasn’t just a great bit of character building, the surrounding room was wonderfully done too…
Letranger Absurde‘s Room With A View sneaks into contention — although it was posted on NYE 2015, we didn’t blog it until a couple of days later!
Click here to see the rest of the Shortlist
I have no idea if Mitsuru Nikaido‘s mechanoid LEGO reindeer is really atomic-powered, but it would seem appropriate. How else would a robotic ungulate have the sort of power and endurance to traverse the world with heavy sacks of gifts in tow?
The posing of the reindeer robot (reinbot?) is excellent, as is the level of greebly detail suggesting working gubbins and machinery. Don’t miss the use of minifig gun parts to create the antlers. It’s easy to overlook the sleigh alongside the mechanical beast — but that would be a shame, as it’s a great little build, managing to look futuristic, functional, and festive all at the same time.
For lack of a better term, I find the “evil castle” subtheme to be the most under-represented among historical LEGO builders. I certainly love the sight of a LEGO castle situated upon a hill, surrounded by green trees and happy-looking peasants as much as anybody. But there is a special character to builds which take a darker and more fantasy-inspired direction, such as this ominous creation by ZCerberus:
A master of big, evil castles (such as these twin towers we covered a while ago), the builder brings us this wonderfully eerie scene that takes many turns from the usual castle build. Particular highlights are the battered castle walls, the exposed wooden structures and the keep, which looms high above as if to impose its master’s will upon all below. The choice of lime green for the swamp works really well, and I can’t help but wonder what foul creatures live within it. The black, gnarled trees and the circling wyverns evoke further mystery and trepidation. Overall, the color scheme portrays very well the darker tones the builder chose to express here.
This delightfully creepy castle is part of a collaboration between the builder and myself to launch the next chapter of the Guilds of Historica collaborative roleplaying project on Eurobricks, which is sure to promote some fantastic building and storytelling in the coming weeks. If you’re interested, check out this list of our other collaborative castle builds, including stories and additional pictures, made for the new chapter.
“What is this? There’s children throwing snowballs, instead of throwing heads, they’re busy building toys and absolutely no one’s dead.” Now that you’ve got one of the catchiest Christmas songs ever stuck in your head, take a look at Cesar Soares‘s amazing Nightmare Before Christmas LEGO sled, helmed by none other than Jack Skellington and his faithful ghost-dog, Zero.
This Halloween, we featured Cesar’s incredible Nightmare Mayor-mobile and now that it’s nearly Christmas there’s no better way to celebrate than by kidnapping the Sandy Claws, taking over his job, and delivering gruesome toys to all the children of the world. Like Cesar’s prior Nightmare build, this one is incredibly accurate to the movie. In addition to Cesar’s great characters, I love the rickety-ness of the launch ramp and that each skelly-reindeer is unique.
Welcome to Day 22 of your digital LEGO Advent Calendar! Each day, we’re revealing the day’s calendar model for the LEGO Friends, City, and Star Wars Advent Calendars. We know some of you want to be spoiler free, so you’ll need to “open” the day’s post to see the models by clicking below!
I could go through every detail of this digital build by Bigboy99899 and tell you why it is perfect… but just take a closer look for yourself! One can almost feel the weight of the snow on the trees’ branches and the slipperiness of the ice, not to mention the warm-looking cottage. But even with all the details, the best part must be the presentation; the render looks like real LEGO at first glance and the lighting is perfectly wintery. “Emotions: Winter” is appropriately titled – can you say you don’t feel the emotions of winter (whatever they are) when looking at this build?
When the Christmas presents absolutely positively definitely need to get there on time, you need Chak hei Mok‘s Festive LEGO Tumbler. No blizzard or broken bridge, or Joker ambush or GCPD roadblock is going to stop Batman delivering the Yuletide cheer. However, I doubt DC’s greatest hero is going to be hugely impressed with whichever kid asked for a Captain America shield…
We have been left to form our own conclusions about the meaning of this latest colourful creation by Delayice. The only potential clue given is the title, Maze of Entrance, which simply adds to the intrigue rather than offering any explanation. The medium azure waterfall was the first part of the build to capture my attention and it contrasts perfectly with the dark orange inverted slope. The texture of this inverted slope gives a pixellated feel to the build and my overall impression is that this door is part of a colourful quest, almost like a video game.
Who knows what lies beyond the doorway, but it seems that there’s a few intelligence tests on the wall to overcome before it will open.