Tag Archives: Anu Pehrson

An Ode to the Goatherd: designing a pastoral LEGO diorama [Guest Feature]

LEGO diorama expert Anu Pehrson is back as a guest contributor to give a behind-the-scenes look at her latest creation, a large scene that highlights LEGO fans’ favorite farm animal, the goat, as well as the minifigure who tends it. If you’ve ever wondered how some of the big builds we feature go from concept to completion, Anu has documented her process for us from first bricks to final touches.

You may recognize Anu from some of her previous builds we’ve covered, including a giant minifigure-scale recreation of The Wall from A Game of Thrones. Check out our articles about Anu’s previous LEGO builds here. Continue reading →

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A peek behind the Wall: building a 200,000-piece LEGO Game of Thrones diorama [Guest Feature]

LEGO builder extraordinaire Anu Pehrson joins us to give an inside perspective on how she built this enormous 200,000-piece minifigure-scale diorama of the Wall from Game of Thrones. If you’re not familiar with Anu, she likes to build big. If you happen to be in Denmark soon, check out her huge model of the Greyjoy Stronghold, which has been showcased in the LEGO House for the past year. She previously gave us a behind-the-scenes look at her 20,000-piece rice plantation diorama from The LEGO Ninjago Movie, but now she’s gone ten times bigger. So read on as Anu walks us through the entire process of building the Wall from early concepts to finished model.

Building the Wall

As builders, most of us are inspired by things we encounter in our everyday lives, travels, and other interests such as books, music, etc. I immensely enjoyed reading Game of Thrones and was inspired with several ideas for building. The Wall was an obvious choice but a very daunting task and would require me to get several tens of thousands of white parts. I started the process of collecting parts specifically for this project in 2012. Nine years later, I finally started building in 2021, and it has taken me over two years to finish it. The model is 5 x 5 feet and approximately 4.5 feet tall, and in the end, I used close to 200,000 pieces.

My thought process here was that the Wall would be the central grounding factor, with several structures added to both the south side of the Wall and the area beyond the wall to the north as described in the books/show.

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How I built a 20,000-piece LEGO rice plantation inspired by The LEGO Ninjago Movie [Guest Feature]

Today we’re pleased to welcome Anu Pehrson as a guest contributor to give a special introduction to her latest creation. We spoke with Anu last year about her amazing models, which range from a monastery in Bhutan to the Iron Islands from A Game of Thrones. Her newest model, Master Wu’s Rice Plantation, is just as amazing. She worked on the 20,000-piece model over 3 months, and she’s documented for us the process of how a creation like this goes from idea to completion.

The diorama is enormous, at nearly four feet on each side, and includes multiple buildings, a river, beautiful trees, and lots of incredible landscaping up the staggered terraces of rice paddies.

The Building of Master Wu’s Rice Plantation

By Anu Pehrson

I wanted to build something in the Japanese architectural style, perhaps some smaller cottages where I could try different building techniques for the windows, wall patterns, roofs, and porch railings. I thought a village-like setting for these cottages would be the ideal layout. The second thing I was interested in trying was terraced agricultural fields, and rounded terraces that are used for rice farming in East Asia seemed like an interesting challenge. So bringing these two ideas together formed the basis of this MOC (My Own Creation). I also wanted to build a working gondola from a lower level to a higher level (but that hasn’t happened yet).

The LEGO Ninjago Movie was just being released as I was building this MOC, therefore, it seemed like perfect timing for to create a place for Master Wu to teach and practice with his disciples.

The starting point was a body of water. For any MOC with landscaping, I think a water body adds color and texture. The important part is to make the water interesting. There are a great many methods of doing this, but I began with using blue in the center and different shades of blue on the edges. At this point, I didn’t know how I was going to add to it, but I later added transparent 1×1 plates in a few shades over top of the blue plates.

The next step was to build stone curved walls for the terraced rice fields. However, it turned out that curved walls were very difficult to build upon as terraces.
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World Architecture, Al Pacino and Stealing your brother’s LEGO: a chat with Anu Pehrson [Interview]

This week we were able to talk with Anu Pehrson about her beautiful architectural builds, as well as many other aspects of the hobby. Anu lives in Seattle with her husband David and volunteers a lot of time to help make many different behind-the-scenes aspects of BrickCon run smoothly. She is a very easy person to talk to. If you ever get the chance, spend some time with her. You will be well-rewarded. Until then, however, this interview will have to do! Let’s dive in and explore the mind of a builder.

TBB: Can you give our readers some background on yourself? What is it about LEGO that draws you to it?

Anu: I’m from India. Growing up, there wasn’t much Lego to play with. Someone had gifted my brother a Lego systems set that I commandeered. Every time I sat down with the set, I tried to build something different. That’s how the story of building my own creations started. Then came my dark ages and in 2001 I moved to Seattle where I found Lego in abundance and rekindled my love for building. I built by myself for a few years and then accidently found the local LUG, BrickCon and the online Lego community. I see Lego as more of a medium of Art, rather than a child’s toy. Something that can be used to express one’s feelings, maybe like paint for a painter… As I build more, I use its limitations of being a finite piece of plastic to push its own limits and try to give models an organic and natural feel. Some of the newer parts definitely help in this process.

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What is dead may never die | Greyjoy stronghold from Game of Thrones in LEGO

The Game of Thrones universe is full of amazing structures, including a ginormous wall of ice, pyramids, and even a castle half-melted by dragonfire. But my personal favorite has always been Pyke, an ancient castle built upon the cliffs of the Iron Islands of Westeros. Anu Pehrson‘s LEGO version of the Greyjoy stronghold is breathtaking. Anu, who won an award for this creation at BrickCon recently in Seattle, perfectly captured the rickety towers connected by rope bridges and the eroded, mossy cliff faces. There’s even salty brine covering the lower rocks!

The landscaping in this large LEGO creation are worth a closer look, with blocks of green breaking up the gray cliffs.

Where water and earth meet

Water is quite fascinating, really. It has the power to create and destroy. It has carved the earth over the centuries to create the world we see today. It continues its slow work each and every day.

A bit philosophical for a Saturday morning, but for that, I look to Anu Pehrson who posted this absolutely lovely seaside village. With her build, she focused on how water interacts with stone to create arches and the curves of the coast, which she’s accomplished beautifully.

Anu puts brick bricks to good use

The 2012 LEGO City sets were the first to include the new “brick bricks” more than six months ago, but it’s only recently that LEGO builders have accumulated enough of the new element to build something substantial with them. Anu Pehrson treats us to a lovely modular building full of rich colors and wonderful details. The fluted columns on the second story are a great touch.

Nagara-style Indian temple

One of my favorite new themes at BrickCon this year was “World Architecture,” organized by Anu Pehrson. Her own contribution was one of my favorites — this gorgeous Hindu temple in the Nagara style of Indian architecture.

Anu provides a bit of background:

This is an Ancient Temple from India. This is the Nagara style of Architecture which was fully developed in the 10th century. Such Temples exist till date and are very much in use as a place of worship and pilgrimage. In Hinduism the devotee offers flowers and fruit to the ‘deity’ as a form of worship. Therefore we always see stalls selling garlands, flowers and fruit outside a temple. A visit to the Temple is not a sombre event, and could be and evening outing for the family or a ‘picnic’ Therefore one finds a ‘fair’ like atmosphere around the entrance.

Her beautiful diorama deservedly won “Best Architectural Style” at BrickCon.