Great builds don’t need to be large, or complicated. Sometimes sticking with simple connections, good photography, and good composition can do amazing things. This pensive character comes from Milan Sekiz. Our gray friend has a grey bird, cleverly using robot arms and wings. The whole spindly scene uses mostly axle connections, and the result is quite fascinating – and beautiful.
Korean builder Haeundaddy has designed and built probably the best LEGO version of Shotaro Kaneda’s bike from Akira that I have seen. This larger scale bike is shapely, detailed and full of the smooth lines that characterise this famous red bike. The specially designed base is a nice touch as a model of this calibre needs something a little special to rest upon.
The details are fantastic, from the sports seat to the handlebar area, and Haeundaddy has taken the time to capture his work with some excellent photography.
Click through to see more of this excellent anime bike
You don’t usually put the words “tsar” and “adorable” in one sentence, but here is the exception… This LEGO tsar is adorable! A charming sketch by vir-a-cocha depicts the famous Tsar Gorokh from Russian fairy tales. A little bit shy, a little bit silly and naive — all these traits are perfectly conveyed using a handful of pieces.
If you take a closer look you may notice that this figure features no regular bricks or plates. That’s because this creation was an entry in a local building contest, where builders were not allowed to use any basic pieces. The result is an outstanding mixture of modified plates and hinges that simply puts a smile on your face.
Meet Alex. Alex is the main character in Anthony Burgess’ novel A Clockwork Orange (later immortalized in film by Stanley Kubrick). Alex is depicted as a sociopath who robs, rapes, and assaults innocent people for his own amusement. David Hughes‘ LEGO sculpture of Alex is inspired by the 1972 book cover and I think his decision to stick with simple monotone shades and skin tone works very well.
The sculpture itself uses over 2,700 bricks and is 15″ wide x 12″ deep x 17″ high. And while the eye and eye-liner are certainly eye-catching, I particularly like the shaping of the Bowler hat.
Younger readers might be forgiven for mistaking this character as some kind of flesh-covered version of WALL-E (and there are some similiarities between them). But this is in fact ET from the 80’s blockbuster movie ET: The Extra-Terrestrial, recreated in LEGO form by Swedish builder LegoJalex.
This adorable ET model comes complete with a LEGO version of the communicator that he jury-rigs from household items (including a Speak-N-Spell), all beautifully presented in a fully brick-built forest scene. Here is another scene in which ET gets the idea for building a device to “phone home”:
As well as the attention to detail in these completely LEGO-filled backgrounds, what’s also impressive about this creation are the play features. As demonstrated in this video, he has an extending neck, posable limbs and even a light-up heart:
It’s a talent to build a good LEGO model of a character so that it looks like its source, but it’s even harder to imbue chunks of hard plastic with cuteness and personality. LEGO builder delayice has given these Stitch and Pikachu sculptures an extra helping of adorableness, though. Can’t you just feel Stitch’s lovable but mischievous mind working behind that grin?
I’ve written elsewhere that sumo is the greatest sport on earth, so I won’t belabor that point here. Because it’s my favorite sport, I always enjoy seeing LEGO creations inspired by Japan’s national sport. Krzysztof J has built this excellent sumo wrestler in a red mawashi, looking ready to take on the biggest and strongest Yokozuna. Krzysztof has used lever handles for the wrestler’s hair, while the round 1×1 plates are both inevitable and perfect as the big guy’s, uh, pectorals.
When the 2016 reboot of DOOM launched we covered a collection of classic demons from the games that included a perfect rendition of the player character (sometimes called Doomguy). Those versions were comprised of Bionicle and Hero Factory parts, but today we’re looking at one created with more traditional bricks by Anton Sundström. Which one do you like best?
If you’re on the fence about DOOM, let me suggest my review of the game. As the year draws to a close it’s looking more and more like the best title to be released in 2016.
Here comes delayice with a smart bit of character building. The face is just brilliant — packed full of expression, and the hair is well done, particularly the hairband and bow. But this is one of those LEGO models that is less about the details as the overall design. The head is spot-on for this kind of build — clearly too big for the body, creating immediate comedy value and injecting a real dose of personality. I can just imagine this little minx loudly demanding extra dessert.
Famous cartoon character Chilly Willy is probably the most charesmatic penguin in the whole state of Alaska. (Yes, he’s from Alaska — I double checked that!) His enormous charm fits in just a hanful of hand-drawn lines. Tremah put together a dozen or so black and white armour pieces and captured all the charm this little penguin has. Even his adorable hat! I wish I could place this build on my work desk, so that it would show people who distract me from blogging where the door is!
Koen Can Der Biest is a master of large-scale character sculptures in LEGO bricks. I love his latest, a depiction of every kid’s favourite construction worker Bob The Builder. Bob is immediately recognisable, and his tool belt is captured brilliantly, and as for that shirt — check it out (pun intended).
Koen’s photostream is well worth a visit for some other characters built at a similar scale. I particularly liked this version of the world’s most famous mouse…
Despite being in my 20’s, I will always enjoy the cleverness and humor of SpongeBob Squarepants, and still drop quotes from the show in conversation. Block Head has created a cute SpongeBob, complete with Krusty Krab hat and spatula, with another thing I haven’t outgrown from my childhood: LEGO bricks. Just don’t eat too many LEGO Krabby Patties. They’ll go right to your thighs, and then you blow up.
