When we talk about boldly going where no one has gone before, most of us don’t mean in the litterbox. Unless you’re this adorable LEGO feline astronaut by miscellanabuilds, of course. Borrowing its wide blue eyes from LEGO’s official new 21349 Tuxedo Cat, the model is probably the cutest thing you’ll see all day. With those outstretched paws and curly little tail, you’re not sure whether to pet it or cheer it on as it orbits the giant ball of yarn we call Earth.
Do you remember Galidor? I remember, and by the looks of this LEGO model, Care Creations does too! One of the sets in the infamous LEGO action figure line was the TDN Module; a large blue flying shuttle that could fit a figure inside, but was only made of nine parts! I think Care must have left their TDN out in the sun too long. This one has grown eyes, tentacles, and teeth! Spare a thought for the armored figure, and his electric chest plate, caught in the TDN’s grip. How’s he going to get out of this one?
In this house, we love trains and that means we love this LEGO train model by Malik Geldermans. Malik has done a fantastic job capturing the details of a Dutch Railways NS Class 1500 in brick form. And let me tell you, there is not a brick out of place on this model: the circle – circle – square pattern on the bogies; the 1×2 round tile ribs under the sides; and the 1×1 curved slopes beside the doors are all perfect details! Malik has also proven his handiness with all minifig grippers on the pantographs and on the greebles along the chassis. Great building Malik, we can’t wait to see more!
I’ve written a lot of articles about spaceships, castles, and the occasional train, but I’ve never personally done anything like this jaw-dropping piece of LEGO art. Michael Kanemoto says he built this “Dandylion” mask for his son in 250-300 hours of building, making it a truly leonine labor of love. Look at all those gold accent pieces, from the leaves in the mane to the antenna pieces for whiskers.
Take a look from a few more angles!
We’re constantly inspired by the strange creatures, swooshable ships, and epic dioramas shared by LEGO builders each day that instantly grab your attention. Ironically, we nearly missed one of the most impressive builds of the week because it’s so lifelike and mundane that it doesn’t even register as LEGO at all! This retro electrical fan at 1:1 scale is a nearly studless masterpiece from builder ruby_lego that begs the question: “Is it LEGO?”
The seed parts are the rare trans blue doors from the Aquanauts Neptune Discovery Lab. Ruby built the cage out of flex tubes from the T-Rex Breakout. To minimize seams, the base is made from an IKEA Byylek lid. The dial utilizes a clock face from Big Ben. Even though the plug and pneumatic tubing power cord is purely cosmetic, the stand hides official LEGO Power Functions so the lifelike fan really works! It’s a powerful piece of nostalgia and NPU (nice parts usage) that made us instant fans of ruby_lego.
How can a scrappy Rebellion possibly stand up against an Empire with massive fleets of grey, dark grey, sometimes black, but mostly grey ships? By using the one thing the Empire, in all of their power, could never imagine bringing to battle: teal. Teal, the color of hope, beloved by LEGO fans across the galaxy (except of course for designer Mark Stafford)! A band of rebels in the LEGO community have been slowly expanding on the Teal Squadron theme, and the latest addition is this brilliantly-shaped Teal Tower from Tim Goddard. As Tim explains, Rebels often repurpose existing buildings for their bases, and this tower’s weathered exterior certainly suggests a long history, with just small details to let the crafty Rebels lie low. Dark orange weathering looks great amongst the white masonry, and perfectly contrasts with the vital teal. The greebling (or sci-fi texturing) along the sides, rooftop antennae, and the decidedly low-tech awning perfectly capture the Star Wars aesthetic. And Tim’s teal-accented droidekas are maybe the best minifig scale versions of the droids I’ve seen.
For more teal-infused Star Wars creations, Mansur Soeleman’s Cerulean Phoenix, Alec Hole’s Capital E-Wing, Inthert’s Teal-4 Skylark, and Wami Delthorn’s Cobalt Thorn.
Season 1 LEGO Masters US winner Tyler Clites is nothing if not persistent. A few years ago, he uploaded a LEGO model of everyone’s favourite havoc-wreaking extraterrestrial, Stitch, to the crowd-sourcing Ideas platform. We covered the first iteration way back in 2016, and it was subsequently re-worked twice before hitting the magical 10,000 supporters mark. Neither model was approved, but Tyler is not content to let this little blue alien be a footnote in LEGO Ideas history! He’s now released instructions over on his website for you to download and build your own. And the best part? They’re free! All you need to do is source the bricks.
And why not get creative with it? Tyler has shown that Stitch can be rebuilt in a variety of forms, so have a go at customising one of your own! My personal favourite is this Elvis Stitch-ley. Look at that immaculate quiff.
While you’re waiting for the sixth Game of Thrones book to arrive, check out this LEGO build by /Sam\! For those of you looking for a new haircut, you might not need to look that far. The snowbanks on either side of the entrance to this cozy windmill are made from minifigure hairstyles! There’s also a couple helmets detailing the top of the chimneys. Don’t forget to take a closer look at all the work that went into shaping the windmill tower and the neat use of bars on the windmill blades!
Perhaps it’s the mysterious Algorithm™ at work, but my social feeds lately have been on something of a Muppets revival, and I am so here for it. If you feel the same, I defy you to look at Jon-Paul Hansen, AKA j-p-30‘s, LEGO depiction of the Pigs in Space skit without saying the tagline. The set is very well recreated, with – among others – letter tiles used to represent some of the buttons and controls. The crew of Captain Link Hogthrob, First Mate Piggy and Dr Julius Strangepork look as good as their names sound ridiculous.
And if the interior wasn’t enough, j-p-30 has gone the whole hog (geddit? OK, I can hear Statler and Waldorf telling me to leave) and modelled the exterior of the USS Swinetrek too! If I’m not mistaken, this does make use of some light bluish grey paint on the big cone pieces, but the end result is a dead ringer for the show model.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this builder tackle Jim Henson’s lovable characters, either – have a look in our archives to see some of the others.
In 2022 LEGO released their first official Lamborghini Countach, the LEGO Speed Champions 76908 Lamborghini Countach. Builder George Panteleon (who also goes by “ZetoVince”) brings us a larger-scale version of the same Lamborghini model. Taking inspiration from the official LEGO set’s headlight design and using some newly released elements, he was able to bring a build from the top of his wanted list to life.
Along with the overall iconic appeal of this car, he also brings to life the scissor doors, opening engine bay, and front trunk or “frunk”.
Creating a screen-accurate minifig-scale LEGO X-wing isn’t as easy as bulls-eyeing womp rats in your T-16 back home. Builder Joel Short takes his best shot at getting everything right—and it looks like that particular proton torpedo hits home. The long, tapered fuselage is notoriously tricky to capture (you could argue that many of LEGO’s official models have struggled to hit the mark) but Joel nails the angles.
Here’s a side view, where you can see the wealth of tiny pieces used to shape the fuselage. You can also make out a few more instances where attention to detail went above and beyond, like the intricacy of the landing gear or the shoulder armor on the laser cannons.
All wings report in! See more here…
This architectural scene by dicken liu would look right at home alongside the official LEGO Icons The Lord of the Rings 10316 Rivendell, with arched airy towers in white, twisted trees, and a waterfall. Inside each of the two domed structures are giant green and blue gems worthy of the glory of Numenor. Several unique gold-colored elements are used as accents for the white towers, and the many steps carved into the rock in zig-zag patterns add to the mystery.
