Tag Archives: Art

Some LEGO builders elevate the form to fine art in its own right, while others enjoy reproducing famous works of art with the brick. Find beautiful and thought-provoking LEGO artwork right here.

No sleep ’til bricktime

The Beastie Boys’ debut album Licensed To Ill is a certifiable classic. Not only is it packed full of awesome tracks, but I can distinctly remember how cool the gatefold sleeve looked when the LP first appeared back in 1986. Brick Flag is also clearly a fan. He’s recreated the iconic cover art in LEGO bricks — a Boeing 727 smashing into a mountainside, and looking more than a little like a stubbed-out cigarette. The model would be great anyway, but the fact it’s such an accurate representation of its inspiration just makes it even better. What’s the time? It’s time to get built.

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No creature can look upon his face and endure his terrible heat

Every LEGO creation is a work of art. Whether it’s good or bad is a whole other discussion, where opinions are driven by personal interpretation. However, there is often a pattern amongst creations built with artistic intent — simple colours, high contrasts, and plain minifigs, a style seemingly evolved from “black fantasy” themes, popular in the building community about a decade ago. Anthony Wilson is no stranger to this expressive style, but his recent creation — c̸̡̹̉͝ţ̴̳̻͎̱̹͙̇͂͛͜ǫ̸͈̹͙͍͚͌̾̿͒̐̽ţ̴̧͔͖͙̺̈3̸̧̧̛̯̥͛͊͒̄̾̕b̴͕̦̑̈́̎̚5̴͎̱̫̺̮̪̈́4̷̢̭̰̻̯̳̖͔̅̊̃̒͛͝3̶̥͈̳̻̫̘̎s̵̟̃̀̾̐̃͒͠d̷̬̂̑́̍̕̕g̸̨̰̳̩̫͆̍̂̇͜ͅ4̵̟͉͇͈̯̩̔͌̚ͅͅ — takes it to a whole new level. It could mean anything, but everyone is welcome to come up with their own interpretation.

The angelic figure at the center is certainly imposing. It contains thematic as well as visual contrasts with the gaping blood-red mouth and tentacles. The gray path lined with braziers, and the audience of faceless minifigs give the build a sense of movement and twisted life. The figures mimic the shape and colours of the wings, and the fires extend the reach of the tentacles, enveloping the black minifig — seemingly the subtle centrepiece of the creation.

Monument valley defies the physical brick

Monument Valley is a beautiful puzzle game developed and published by Ustwo Games. In the game, you guide the silent Princess Ida through mysterious monuments, uncovering hidden paths, taking advantage of optical illusions and outsmarting the enigmatic Crow People. Described as a surreal exploration through fantastical architecture and impossible geometry, it doesn’t immediately sound easy to build from LEGO but that’s exactly what qian yj has achieved. The six main structures are colourful, whimsical with an Escher-like quality of illusion thanks to stairs and clever use of colour and angles.

Each structure appears simple at first but sections are not as connected as they first seem and there are some apparently floating areas within the builds. The apparently simple, surreal structures are the attraction of the game itself, and LEGO seems like an ideal medium to transfer the art from the screen.

The close-up views of each structure can be seen in the builder’s Flickr album but even better is this video showcasing the creations with a mix of LEGO and Princess Ida animation.

Jump up and get down

We like when LEGO builders take on the task of trying to recreate famous artworks, or reimagine the styles of well-known artists through the medium of brick. Grantmasters takes on Keith Haring’s iconic cartoon pop-art in this cool little creation. I had to take a closer look to scope out the selection of curved black pieces Grant used to provide the signature outline to the red character — nicely done. The stripped-back colour schemes of Haring’s work obviously lend themselves well to the LEGO palette, and the collection of black “motion marks” are perfectly-placed to echo Haring’s style.

I’ll take that Falcon with a splash of bricks

Most people may not think so, but LEGO builders really are artists in their own right. The medium that they choose to express themselves in is simply tiny bricks instead of the traditional tools of oil and canvas that we see more often. The traditional approach of interlocking these bricks is the expected aspect of it, but a more unusual approach is the loose placement of bricks, such as this spread by city son.

This design is a breath of fresh air to the overdose that the Millennium Falcon is getting recently due to the largest set ever being released by the folks over at Billund (plus a couple of major contests inspired by the venerable freighter). What stands out with this piece of art is the colorful, celebratory effect showcasing the Falcon in flight. It almost looks like a splash of rainbow paint in pop-art style.

The escape of a colourful monster

The Masterpiece Gallery in LEGO House has creations from seventeen different fan builders from all over the world. French builder Samuel Pister has specially designed this fantastical monster for the display. Samuel explains that the build is the story of a colourful monster who is confined in the display case and wants to escape. The only language the monster speaks is modelling colours to express his emotions, and he is trying to call out to visitors to help him. The monster looks at the outside world with the face of the lime goblin, and he tries to push up the display with the orange tree. He is asking for love and touching the window with an aqua hand.

You might think that there is no way this monster can escape but by leaving a mark in the mind of the visitors, engraving colours and leaving questions, he will escape with them when they exit the house.

LEGO collaboration is sweet and super-cool

At first glance, these LEGO popsicles look totally sweet. A collaborative creation by Carl Merriam, Niek, and Milan CMadge, the twin models perfectly capture the shapes of an ice-cream sandwich and a half-munched orange popsicle (or “ice lolly” as it’s known where I come from).

However, regardless of how nice the models are, you might wonder why it took 3 builders collaborating to create them. Well, it all comes down to the sheer scale of the endeavour. Perhaps the image below will make everything clear? It’s only when the massive size of these models becomes apparent that you can truly appreciate the effort and skill which went into their creation. Genuinely amazing stuff gents — well played.

Not everything in black and white makes sense

Pacman gobbling the power dots — check it out! Fresh from wowing us with a massive Medieval Village display, French builder ilive now knocks it out of the park with a wonderful LEGO optical illusion. Yep, there are no curves in this build, nor fancy photoshopping — it’s just your own eyes and brain messing with you.

If you like a good optical illusion, check out this brick-built rendition of the classic Escher terrace illusion we covered a while back. Personally I’m a huge fan of this kind of thing and wish we saw more of it in LEGO creations. I built one of my own a long, long time ago — the Castle of Illusion.

French revolution of steam-powered gears

We have spoken about the LEGO steampunk genre many times before, but for the uninitiated it is a genre of science fiction that has a historical, normally Victorian, setting and features steam-powered machinery. Castor Troy‘s latest creation adds to his growing Paris Steampunk 1889 display with the world’s largest museum, the Louvre. The architecture has been brilliantly captured using a host of smaller parts to add decorative features, ranging from Technic gears and monochrome tan minifigures to studs, slopes and droid body parts.

The larger glass pyramid has been replaced with an altogether different type of pyramid, worthy of a place in steampunk history.

Still LEGO life worthy of an art gallery

Traditionally, still life is the drawing or painting of items such as fruit, flowers and household objects, which are usually arranged on a table top. Birgitte Jonsgard has crossed LEGO with a typical still life set up to give a still LEGO life piece of artwork that seems to emulate the work of Dutch Golden Age painter, Pieter de Ring. The dark background and table contrasting with the vibrant colours of fruit, vegetables and, of course, the central lobster have been carefully arranged to really give some serious artwork vibes.

If you like Birgitte’s still life style of LEGO art, you will love another of her creations that we featured; Still life painting of LEGO fruit and seafood.

Giving new life to an old image

Not content with recreating his parent’s wedding photograph as a conventional LEGO wall mosaic, Caleb I decided to commemorate their 25th wedding anniversary in this ambitious two-and-a-half-dimensional non-rectangular format. After spending 100 hours digitally designing the piece, Caleb then set about the arduous task of not only acquiring the 2400 odd bricks needed to build it, but also addressing physical demands on the model that aren’t apparent until a design actually gets assembled “in the flesh”.

I hope this is still hanging on their wall when they get to commemorate their 50th! At which time, Caleb can no doubt recreate it using 5-dimensional LEGO holocubes.

If Banksy started building in LEGO

Graffiti has been a fact of life since the pyramids were built, but you may not have ever seen LEGO graffiti before (unless you’ve been reading The Brothers Brick for a really long time). Roman says he started with the minifig street artist and then came up with the larger build. The backward bandana as a hood is inspired and it’s good to see he takes his respiratory health seriously.

I love the dripping paint from the freshly painted wall and the items chosen to inhabit the scene. It is a concise frame for a cool piece of instantly recognizable graffiti.