Tag Archives: Bart De Dobbelaer

Xethral, Legacy of the Vanished, where ancient secrets slumber

In the heart of the jungle, an uncanny group of structures pierces the canopy like jagged teeth. Bart De Dobbelaer’s Xethral, Legacy of the Vanished is a haunting LEGO creation that embodies what used to be a shimmering power source of a lost civilization. He states that legends tell that Xethral’s scholars learned to channel this energy to sustain their cities, illuminate the night, and power machines far beyond modern understanding. However, when the stars aligned against them, a great silence fell, an entire culture was swallowed by vines and mist. Now, only their depleted power sources and crumbling crystal towers remain, silent witnesses to a brilliance long erased from history. It’s just the kind of esoteric lore Bart is known for. As with most of what he does, it garners more questions than answers. But at perhaps great risk to our personal well-being, we come back to ask more questions.

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Meet the LEGO builders behind the 2025 Masterpiece Gallery exhibition!

LEGO House in Billund offers guests an incredible way to connect with the company’s history and playfully engage with bricks, but my favorite wing is the Masterpiece Gallery, which honors fan creations from builders around the world. It’s an amazing way to showcase what LEGO artists are doing with bricks to a wide audience, and for those who follow the MOC world closely, it’s a chance to see favorite builds up close in the best possible venue (alongside three enormous T. rexes!). This year, the space was expanded to include two sections for wall-mounted artwork, bringing the total to 17 artists.

TBB was fortunate to speak with all of the builders this week before their works were opened to the public. Some of the faces and builds are quite familiar to readers of this site – one is even a contributor! Let’s meet these amazing builders:

Seigo Aoki (aka DeRa) – Japan

DeRa has created some of the most popular builds of the last two years featured on Brothers Brick, so seeing the amazing models in person was truly an honor. While DeRa‘s featured builds are organic subjects, the builder studies Architecture and has created incredible buildings from LEGO as intricate as his beasts and mechs. DeRa is proud that Japanese builders have been recognized around the world.

Meet the other 16 Masterpiece Gallery builders after the break

A dawn of translucent dark pink

Bart De Dobbelaer uses a stunning mix of only four colors to provide a powerful piece. Illtranor, Tree of Dawn provides us with a story of creation, civilization, and pride. Bart has a wonderful poem to accompany this beautiful build. With only four colors used, they are used very well. Sitting on a dark grey base, a deep back tree trunk provides a strong depth behind the white and translucent dark pink blossoms and branches. And the city that has grown up around the tree so perfectly matches the tree’s color.

Beginner’s Guide to Adventuring – Always bring your harpoon

I let LEGO phenom Bart De Dobbelaer title this passage. I merely copy/pasted it from his Flickr page because sometimes the builder’s own idea is by far better than whatever silliness I had in mind. Building bizarre alien worlds is not bizarre for Bart. It’s kinda his thing. But each time I’m enthralled with the level of imagination and storytelling. To further copy/paste from Bart (Is it good journalism or just laziness? You decide!) “Dear diary, today I went treasure hunting at the old temple ruin. Luckily I brought my harpoon with me as the place was swarming with crustaceans. I guess I’m having shrimp cocktail this evening. Pete.” But Bart-or-um-Pete, I have a question. Are they still called shrimp if they’re the size of a city bus?

A wasteland blowout by a master of LEGO sci-fi

The future is bright in Bart De Deobbelaer‘s LEGO world, even as the world turns to rust and ruin. And when the time comes to venture into darkness, you needn’t go alone. In his latest epic sci-fi scene, Into the Sunset, Bart reminds us why he’s the LEGO master of sci-fi worldbuilding. Character, composition, color and incredible building technique combine for the perfect shot that suggests a story that extends far beyond the borders of the image. The tunnel itself is a wonder, an almost perfectly circular icositetragon of grey bricks interspersed with orange rust and sand green patina. The smooth surface is pocked with tube stubble and stubborn weeds. Bulbous trans blue minifig heads sprout from the floor as part of the post-apocalyptic ecology. Most striking of all is the lighting, with a backdrop so bright it blows out the edge of the model, creating an illusion of parts floating against a white sky.

Let’s give a special callout to our wasteland wanderer’s unwavering robot friend. Here, in studio lighting, we can better apprecaite the greebles and tubes that keep him scuttling. Even though there’s technically no mouth on this friendly bot, I can’t help but see a big smile. The future is bright indeed.

An interstellar waystation fueled by imagination

Space is big. Vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big. For LEGO explorers running on empty while traversing the deep cosmos, Bart De Dobbelear has you covered with the Liquid-Core refueling station. When filtered through the mind of this Belgian builder, even a gas station in the stars becomes a scene of wonder, where brilliant technique blends with evocative lore. Space is a popular theme for builders, whether inspired by the LEGO sub-themes, sci-fi films, or swooshable ships and chonky rovers. Bart is an artist who pushes the theme further, whose work feels truly cosmic, offering glimpses of a vast and ancient universe that we can only understand in glimpses. His builds often remind me of the sci-fi work from Jean Giraud (aka Moebius) in the way he blends organic and mechanical, where technology is so removed from our understanding as to border on the magical. You can see that here with the eerily reptilian solar fins, sourced appropriately enough from a Ninjago NRG Dragon, and the fuel chambers made from the milky green domes of Yavin 4. This Liquid-Core station is fairly unique among Bart’s builds in that it features inviting human typography, suggesting maybe we aren’t so alone in the great unknown of space.

Once you’ve had your fill of this station, set a course for the Bart De Dobbelear archives to see why he is considered cosmic royalty around these parts.

The future of farming: the only way is up!

Vertical farming isn’t exactly a new thing, but even seeing examples of it in the present day, there’s something quite futuristic about it. Throw in some cool architecture, add in a few greebley bits, maybe some drone workers, and boom, you’re transported to a distant planet. Oh hey, that’s exactly what Bart de Dobbelaer has done! Although there are no immediate clues as far as scale goes, you get the sense this is some enormous monolith built just off the shore. Bart is quite the prolific off-world builder, you know.

Familiar ideas on unfamiliar planets

The fun of science fiction is to imagine how things could be, and LEGO is a great medium to realize these ideas. Take for example this bright build from Bart De Dobbelaer and its fantastic mining machines. These devices can mine the ore and resources of delicate planets with minimal destruction to the environment. This is the best hope for extracting resources from other worlds should we travel the stars. LEGO is wonderful for this build, given the fun shapes and colors of the bricks and pieces. The purple and transparent blues give the planet a unique presence, while the machines themselves look almost insect-like with their rounded edges and curved backs holding all the extracted minerals.

Exploring strange new worlds

The universe, much like LEGO, is full of possibilities for all sorts of amazing and mind-bending wonders. Bart De Dobbelaer captures this well in this alien landscape build. The strange new world is full of bright and bizarre plant life growing up wherever. Using bright pink and green pieces, the alien plants come to life and stand out against the white and greys prevalent in the build. Technic, Bionicle, and Hero Factory pieces give the large formations on the planet’s surface an otherworldly appearance, twisting and turning every which way. Who knows what other wonders these explorers will find on their adventures!

We are Legion, we are many

Whenever I think of creepy alien LEGO creations, I always think of Bart de Dobbelaer. His creations are always out of this world, on a much bigger scale than I personally am used to working on. Bart has the ability to perfectly use seemingly single-purpose parts in a way they were not intended to. The latest creation is called Legion and there we can spot the Belville horse saddle in black in the pillar-like creatures. This makes me wonder why Bart actually managed to get his hands on 16 black Belville saddles.

In the middle of the creation, there is the ‘mother’ of all the black critters. For her eyes, Bart used a combination of coffin bases and rolled-up Dots bracelets. Using mainly black bricks can be tricky, as those creations usually are really hard to photograph, but if you look closely, the little critters aren’t all the same. There are a couple of designs scattered around the base, making it look like each of the creatures has its own specific talent or ability.

A dominating domino for intense introspection

As the most prominent LEGO landscaper of alien terrain, Bart De Dobbelaer once again transports us off-world to a peaceful (and piece-full) forest scene dominated by a large, cryptic monolith. The color contrast on the structure is striking, with gaps of textured azure breaking through cracks in the large standing stone. A solitary figure sits at the base of one of the rings cut from the slab. This woman in red surveys the garden of leafy trees and large yellow blooms, no doubt reflecting on the beauty of it all. As is typical for Bart, the part usage here is top notch. I particularly like the X-Pod lids used at the base of the large flowers. Such a great throwback part!

Not everything in space is as it seems

The following is an extract from Beginner’s Guide to Space Adventures, by Lunar & Extraterrerestrial Geography – Outerspace (L.E.G.O.) expert Bart de Dobbelaer.*

“When exploring space, it is important to remember that not everything is as it seems. On strange worlds, what you might think are tasty space mushrooms could be anything from energy crystals to the appendages of a colossal planet-dwelling man-eater. It is analogous, if you will, to using LEGO pieces in interesting ways. That part you thought was a space egg? It’s actually the eyeball of a space monster. Remember what we learned in the chapter on basic planetary survival: just because you can’t see the colossal planet-dwelling man-eater, does not mean it cannot see you! The chances that they have more eyes than you are extremely high. And for goodness’ sake, if you suspect it is something that could eat you, don’t try and take it home. The best tool in a space explorer’s survival kit is a brick separator, but the second best tool is caution. Always keep an eye out!”

*Not a real book. Please don’t attempt to buy one from Bart. But do check out his other work.