Indonesian builder Dennis Qiu brings us another stellar example of the amount of character that can be captured in LEGO. This Chinese lion would fit perfectly into mythology or, because I love robots, an episode of Zoids. LEGO has been going gold-crazy lately, but the use of it here is superb.
Kosmas Santosa of the Indonesian LEGO club Bhinneka LUG is one of my favorite builders, working across numerous LEGO themes with excellent techniques and beautiful presentation. For the club’s first public display earlier this summer, they built famous landmarks and buildings in the nation’s capital. Kosmas contributed several iconic landmarks and vehicles, but my favorite is this gorgeous, incredibly detailed Hindu temple, the largest in Jakarta.
As a bonus, here’s one of the great vehicles Kosmas also built — a three-wheeled auto rickshaw called a bajaj. It’s actually quite hard to build small with LEGO, and Kosmas does it very well.
Today is Chinese New Year, and Andy Hung from Hong Kong celebrates with these Lego creations of iconic items you may see around Chinese homes such as a candy platter, a paper door decor with the “fortune” character, a bowl of narcissus, and a string of firecrackers. You can see more photos on Flickr.
This pagoda built by me will be displayed at Brickcon this week. I wanted to depict a subject of Chinese architecture not often seen in Lego. The pagoda is modeled after the Big Goose Pagoda from my hometown of Xi’an, China.
Yes, there was no Friday Night Fights last night. Sorry. Hey, we’re all very busy finishing our builds for BrickCon! But instead of going on a violent rampage, just take a deep breath and soak in this temple triple gate by Hiroshi Kataoka (片岡 ひろし). Oh, and ignore the ninja. He’s hiding. You can’t see him.
And if that creation doesn’t cause a wave of tranquility to wash over you, here is another one by the same builder that should do the trick. Unless you have cherry allergies.
Lukasz Wiktorowicz crafted a beautiful oriental diorama featuring three temples nested on a tiered landscape. Check out the innovative and realistic technique used for the roofs and the waterfall.
Tyler Halliwell is best known to our regular readers as a creator of amazing LEGO busts. So his latest work – depicting the Monkey King of Chinese mythology – is an ambitious departure in terms of its size and construction. We think you’ll agree that the attention to detail and the naturalness of this figure’s clothing and facial expression are completely mind-blowing!
We journeyed for several months across the Asian subcontinent, rescuing helpless villagers from all manner of demons along the way, to visit the mountain in which Tyler has been imprisoned for the past 500 years, so we could find out more about this creation…
BB: So how many hours and how many bricks went into this creation?
TH: That’s tough to estimate, but probably about 100 hours over the past two months, with most of it coming into shape in the past two weeks. There’s less pieces than you’d think, as it’s mostly hollow but for a technic frame. So if I had to guess, I would say around 1500 bricks.
BB: What inspired you to choose the Monkey King as the subject of your latest LEGO sculpture?
It does seem like we’re obsessed with spacecraft today, so here’s a very different kind of vessel. Hoang Dang built this Vietnamese fishing boat to raise awareness of the complex political situation happening today in what westerners typically call the “East China Sea” (even the name of the geographic area is fraught with tension, thus my quotation marks). For a change, I’ll stay out of the politics, but Hoang’s LEGO model certainly deserves plenty of attention.
Hoang has built his model at the scale of the classic Technic figure, which gives him a bit more room to play with shapes and details than if he’d built it at the typical minifig scale. He captures the curves of the hull wonderfully, and details like the sea star on the Vietnamese flag, nets, fish in barrels, and lights all add realism. But my favorite aspect of this model is the color — it’s not often you see a bright blue boat built from LEGO!
I must say this piece of junk by j¤nesy is fantastic:
I’ve actually tried to build one before, but even 4 times as big as j¤nesy’s, I wasn’t able to recreate the distinctive elegance that he has managed to capture with this creation. The use of the old Ninja Sails is nothing short of an epic technique. But it doesn’t stop there – the little details of the rolled up silks in the boat and the fantastic rolling waters just adds the this already amazing build.
This scene by Lukasz Wiktorowicz shows a warrior training in a beautiful nightscape built entirely out of Lego. There are multiple layers to this work and they all stack together to create a well-composed scene.
Jonas (Legopard) packed a lot of detail into this exotic vignette of a bamboo hut. The water technique is perhaps the most interesting feature to point out.
If Phuket in Thailand tickles your fancy and you’ve got some money to burn, perhaps Villa Amanzi is just the place to rent for your holiday.
This spectacular model of the villa was built by Robert Turner (rt_bricks). It’s roughly half minifig scale, but still measures a respectable 96 studs x 64 studs x 61 bricks and has a detailed interior. The house is fantastic, but I particularly like the rock face and the tropical foliage above it. Robert’s description sounds as though it could be from a holiday brochure: “It features a 15 metre infinity pool overlooking the Andaman Sea, 6 bedrooms, and a contemporary modern design nestled into the edge of a ravine and up against an impressive rock face that penetrates into the house on multiple floors”