With the return of one of the most anticipated franchises around the corner, LEGO has started preparing their site for the reveal of the Harry Potter original series along with the new Fantastic Beasts series. We’ve already gotten a look at the much-anticipated Hogwarts set, both with an official announcement and a hands-on examination, but we know there are more sets still coming. We’ll be sure to bring you more information as soon as its available.
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
Occasionally, I’ll day-dream about winning the lottery. Usually there’s some fiscal responsibility, but then there’s always a house purchase. That house is typically on the water somewhere, and I certainly wouldn’t mind one with the inspired architecture of Villa Arcus by Jussi Koskinen.
There is a lot to love about this build: The roof line, the windows, the curved walls. My eye is drawn to the gorgeous brickwork on the upper right of the home. This creation features a full interior, too. The techniques go far beyond the outer walls, with fantastic attention to detail in each room.
Check out more pictures, both inside and out, after the jump.
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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.
When we set out to plan our April First content, a lot of great ideas were suggested. But when the idea to build BrickHeadz of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin was suggested, we knew we had a winner. I was thrilled to build them, having already designed and built custom BrickHeadz of Santa, and recently, a Leprechaun.
My first idea was to really make it a solid caricature, with comb-over blowing in the wind, and a shirtless Putin. But the trick to any good April Fools joke is to have enough realism to make it plausible, to really make people think, the same way that the best lies have a kernel of truth. So we decided that they should have that certain official “LEGO BrickHeadz style.” Luckily for me, the recent release of the LEGO Go Brick Me set that we have recently reviewed included just the parts we needed to give our custom BrickHeadz that kernel of truth.
The article was very successful and even led to some folks contacting LEGO about how they could get a copy of the set (for reals, please don’t do that). Sadly, this set will never be available to purchase (LEGO Education has much more important work to do like helping teach creativity to kids than making satirical products). But we are proud to share the instructions here, and while we don’t have a parts list, most of the parts used are readily available along with the Go Brick Me set, available now in stores.
See full instructions after the jump
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…
Adorably cute or cringingly ugly—no matter your position on LEGO’s BrickHeadz characters, there’s no denying they’ve struck a chord with a great many fans. Since the first BrickHeadz characters a few years ago, LEGO has rapidly expanded the cast of blocky brick-built figures. They’ve even just released a kit allowing you to fully customize your own—41597 Go Brick Me. But like nearly all the previous sets, the latest lineup mostly features characters from major franchises. And although Star Wars is arguably the biggest franchise of them all, the characters we’re looking at today hail from an offshoot: Solo: A Star Wars Story, which opens May 25. 41608 Han Solo and 41609 Chewbacca have 141 and 149 pieces respectively, and each retails for $9.99 USD, and are available now.
You can tell a lot about a historic Lego diorama through its landscaping. This collaboration by Classical Bricks, Cole Blood, and Mountain Hobbit shows a majestic castle settled on a rocky and hilly landscape next to a flowing river. The construction of the castle on top of the highest point of the ground elevates its sense of grandeur. It’s no wonder this creation caught the attention of many and won “Best in Show” at Bricks Cascade.
Here’s a tiny slice of futuristic LEGO from Blake Foster — a cool spaceship in an equally-smart hangar. The ship itself is a masterpiece of microscale building, boasting an impressive depth of texture for such a small creation. Blake has made the most of the details moulded into the chainsaw handle element which makes up the core of the craft, but it’s the chunky droid arms used to create the thruster fins which give the ship its distinctive shape and character. Set the craft in a neat little hangar (featuring binocular parts used to create pillars) and couple with some excellent macro photography, and you’ve got a great piece of LEGO microscale.
