Tag Archives: 1:1 Scale

Lifesize props that will have you asking “Is it LEGO?”

The cheese stands alone

We’ll soon return you to your regularly scheduled Baby Yoda or Star Wars spaceship or whatever you folks are demanding more of but first I wanted to show you this cute near life-sized rat built by Keiichi Kamei. The rats that occasionally invade my backyard are a bit bigger than this but his stance, his little ears, his bare tail and even his hands are all pretty spot on. I’d be more agreeable to sharing some cheese with them if they weren’t so invasive in real life.

This is not quite instructions but you can sort of reverse engineer your own with the help of this photo. Neat, right? We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

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A build to watch out for

Most builders seem to gravitate towards the unusual when crafting their LEGO creations, from fantastic castles to spaceships, perfectly maintained and bustling historic downtowns, or superheroes. We all know those things don’t exist. But sometimes a builder builds something mundane, commonplace, and knocks it out of the park. Take this watch by Andreas Lenander. I think the results tock, er, speak for themselves, but I especially love the presentation with the brick-built box and the delightful band that looks properly wearable.

Built for a challenge over at New Elementary, the hands are neatly crafted with a new Batman accessory, though as a result the watch can only ever tell times that have the hands at 90 degrees from each other. Not that a LEGO watch actually tells time, of course, unless we are talking about the line of watches that TLG has released as gear. Rounded 1×2 plates with holes make the band seem supple, and the 4×4 round tile looks like a watch face when inverted, with a little line for 12 and 6 o’clock. This is an ordinary object, perhaps, but the build is extraordinary.

Love LEGO watches? Check out this Rolex from a while back.

Even with a pair of ears, one can never have too many sets of headphones

Even though I’m not an audiophile, I am a headphone freak. I have one just for watching movies, another for doing conference calls, and another for listening to music without noise cancelling, and yet another one with it if I need the silence. I guess each one works the best for what it was designed for. Having said that, though I have no idea what I’d do with these LEGO headphones made by Andreas Lenander. Perhaps I’d just have them for a showcase accessory. I wonder if replacing that head parabolic reflector with a speaker would make a nice mod. One thing for sure is that it would make an excellent addition to my collection.

I am Plastic Man! ...err, I mean...I am Iron Man!

It’s fair to say that the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has had its share of ups and downs over the years. To many, 2010’s Iron Man 2 is one of the lower points. Personally, I think it’s just fine, and there are some standout moments that make it special. In particular, I loved the inclusion of the comic-book classic “Suitcase Armor” of the Mark 5. I had thought that the “reality” of the MCU would keep Tony Stark from ever having a portable version of his armor, and being proven wrong tasted sweet indeed. Imagine my delight, then, when Brickatecture moc industries revealed their amazing, wearable, and 1:1 scale helmet from the Mk 5.

Made from around 1,500 elements, it took nearly two years of design tweaks to bring this beauty to life. The combination of wedges and plates gives an appropriately angular feel to the red sections, while the face plate makes use of curved slopes to smooth things out where necessary.

If you’re interested in more super-heroic wearable LEGO, be sure to check out Brickatecture’s Atom suit. If we ever get a DC/Marvel crossover event, an Atom/Iron Man mash-up seems likely!

This LEGO build is an open book

Here’s a build worth taking note of — a 19th century workplace, in 1:1 scale by Russian LEGO builder Nikita Sukhodolov. We get an open ledger on a blotter, a pair of glasses, an inkwell and pen, and a candle to shed some light on it all. All the individual elements are well-built, but some standout features include the melting wax at the top of the candle and the simple-yet-perfect shaping of the spectacles. The ribbon-strip bookmark is nicely done too. I can imagine a whole series of 1:1 scale “workplaces” like this, taken from different technological eras as we progress from handwritten ledgers to desktop computers, tablets, and beyond.

My art supplies never looked so neat

When I saw this image I thought, “Now, why am I seeing ads for neat art supply boxes when the ad algorithms should already know I like to keep my art supplies scattered haphazardly in a six-drawer rolling cabinet?” Then it occurred to me, this wasn’t an ad but rather a LEGO render by a builder called Vant. There’s a certain danger to building this realistically and that is that a finely crafted creation like this one could be passed up by writers like us thinking it may be an ad or some other non-LEGO related thing. Upon closer inspection, what looked like silver corner tiles clued me in that what I was looking at was LEGO.

The whole shebang folds neatly into this handsome “wooden” case. The clasps, handle, even the round silver “feet” are particularly inspired. While this is a render, Vant tells us he is currently building this in actual brick and is part of a larger project that will be…unfolding (See what I did there?) in his Flickr photostream soon. When I see these in the store, I marvel at how neat and tidy other artists, who are not me, might be.

Tube or not tube

As usual, the good folks over at New Elementary are up to hijinks related to new and interesting LEGO pieces, with a stable of talented builders exploring some of the ways fans can use the parts. One such recent exploration was undertaken by Pistash and involved a variety of new coral-colored elements. He’s taken the color exploration quite literally, turning the bubblegum-colored bits into a squirt of paint, complete with a cool mosaic on the side of the container. Fittingly, the splash at the bottom is a large 14-tooth splat gear.

Announcing the TBB Banquet brick-built food collab for BrickCon 2019 [News]

Do you like brick-built brunches? Studded snacks? How about AFOL appetizers and MOC munchies? Then you’ll want to attend the TBB Banquet! This year’s TBB reader collaboration at the BrickCon LEGO convention is all about life-size LEGO food. We’re spreading a magnificent feast made of our favorite bricks, and we want your help. The theme is simple: build something to eat and make it life-size. There’s just one twist: we’re featuring all these food items on real dishes and plates!

If you’re planning to attend Seattle’s BrickCon this year as a fully registered AFOL attendee, join us in laying out our parts-pack potluck! We know the title says banquet, but that’s just because we liked the alliteration with our name. Really, we’re not quite that pretentious, and our LEGO lunch is likely to be a lot more laid back. We’ve got a lovely-looking lobster (built by the inimitable Ty Keltner), but we expect the food to range from casserole to croissant. Want to bring potato chips and Coke? Great!

We’ve even got a potluck signup list, so you can sign up your SNOT-covered snacks ahead of time, and see what others are bringing! (Note: you’ll still need to register your MOC with BrickCon.)

Click here to sign up for the Potluck. (A name is all that is required to sign up. Email is optional.)

We’ll have some real plates, bowls, and glasses available to present your MOCs, but if you’ve got a special dish in mind or a MOC that requires a very specific size or type of dish, you’ll want to bring your own. As always with our reader-collab themes, don’t get too caught up in the details. As long as your model is about life-size, we’ll make it work and it will look great.

Now let’s take a closer look at a few of the models we’ve already got, brought to you by Ty. Continue reading →

A wearable LEGO Atom suit, though it won’t shrink anything but your wallet

While most people would agree that the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as a whole, is vastly superior to the competing DC product, the same cannot be said of the television properties, where the CW’s “Arrowverse” shows have been both successful and watchable. A minor character first introduced in Arrow, Atom (a.k.a. Ray Palmer), gets more screen time in the spin-off Legends of Tomorrow, and his shrinking suit is built in wearable (by a normal-sized human) scale LEGO by Brickatecture moc industries. Like the MCU’s Ant-Man, Atom can vary his size by using highly advanced technology contained in his suit, giving him the ability to get into tiny spaces or to grow huge, though it should be noted that Atom was first published in the comics in 1961 and Ant-Man didn’t debut until…1962. The suit in Legends of Tomorrow also allows Ray to fly and shoot energy bolts from his hands, and probably other things as well, so it ends up being something of a cross between Ant-Man and Iron Man.

Now, I won’t pretend to be able to identify the technical parts of the suit, but it looks great with its dark blue and red color scheme, and the connectors formed of pin connectors and Mixel joints give the thing a splash of contrast and flexibility to be worn. I don’t know how sturdy it is, but it definitely looks like it would be fun to wear around at a convention for a while, at least until you wanted to sit down. This is not the first bit of wearable LEGO superhero swag that Brickatecture moc industries has built; check out his Infinity Gauntlet, Star-Lord mask, and Venom mask here!

You need these office supplies

Whether you’re preparing a business report or hiding your coworker’s office supplies in the vending machine like Jim, this arrangement of MSIndustries‘ corporate essentials is all you need to have a productive day. This really is an incredible set of creations, and I’m truly impressed by the attention to detail. The staples, ink stamp, even the pencil shavings in the bottom of the pencil sharpener. It’s all here!

An Old Lady you really want to cradle in your arms

Music is cool. Electric guitars are cool. Brian May, the guitarist for Queen, is cool. The Red Special, the electric guitar that Brian May designed and built with his father is very cool. You know what else is cool? LEGO. And here’s something very, very, cool – Nick Jensen‘s stunning 1:1 replica of the Red Special in LEGO.

Learn more about this icon of classic rock built from LEGO

Don’t just walk – boogie to your favorite tunes with this LEGO Walkman

We’ve seen excellent Walkman-themed LEGO models in the past, but this one by H.Y. Leung is an absolute cracker. The cassettes are beautifully put together, and the parts choice and shaping on the headphones are particularly good. The buttons on the tape player’s side are relatively simple, but accurate to the original piece of hardware. And, whilst the cable doesn’t appear to be “purist” LEGO building, its messy tangle adds immensely to the build.