Tag Archives: Cityscapes

Middle Eastern megacity is a triumph of LEGO collaboration and creativity

Every day we see incredible LEGO creations built from one person’s imagination and collection of bricks. When builders come together for collaborative LEGO builds, not only are we blessed with scenes of incredible scale, but the mix of builder styles harmonize to create to create something truly special. One such collaborative project debuted at BrickFair 2024. Organized by George Hawes and Michael Willhoit, the “Medinat Al Musawrah” collaboration depicts a fictional Middle Eastern walled megacity.  The other contributers are Brian O’Leary, Intense Potato, Detroitika, Evan M, Renobricks, Ryan K, Skooby C, and Zach Bean.

Medinat Al Musawra - Overall

This impressive scene captures the sort of 80s urban sprawl that inspired sci-fi works like Blade Runner. (Fittingly, many of the collaborators also participated in last year’s truly epic New Hashima cyberpunk collab at BrickWorld Chicago). But it’s real-world cities, like Cairo, Algiers, and Kowloon that inspire the grounded sense of place.

Medinat Al Musawra - Backstreets

Continue on our tour of this epic Middle Eastern megacity collab.!

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Honey, I shrunk the Harbour!

The cityscapes from the Architecture series do well to capture individual landmarks with detail; this is true. And while this is an excellent way for LEGO to save on bricks, builders like Samuel M aren’t shy about pushing the parts limit to honor the cities they know and love. This Australian builder clocked in 30 hours of work over four months on this massive micropolis. Over 10,000 pieces were used to recreate a geographically accurate Sydney Harbour and a laundry list of landmarks. Stand-outs like the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House may be hard to miss, but Sam spent a lot of time trying to capture it all.

Sydney Harbour

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The Star Wars Clone Wars unfold on a massive light-up Naboo diorama

Say what you will about the Star Wars prequels, Naboo is a planet that everyone agrees is beautiful. Inspired by its appearance in 2017’s Battlefront II videogame, Belgian LEGO Star Wars YouTuber Axidroid spent eight months building a Clone Wars battle scene in the streets of Theed. With 121 minifigures, with most of them being from the popular 501st Battlepack, there are also custom vehicles such as the Gunships, AAT tank, and AT-RT walker. While large Star Wars dioramas are not uncommon, the 140cm by 77cm size dwarfs the largest LEGO Star Wars set, the UCS Imperial Star Destroyer, which is 110cm by 66cm.

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While the size of this build is impressive, the real kicker is at nighttime. Using Christmas LED lights inside the buildings and street lamps, Axidroid lights up the Theed plaza into a lovely atmospheric scene. The battle droids and clone troopers now look like they’re lined up for an evening festival, and bring the Mediterranean setting of Naboo even closer to home.

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Axidroid even documented his 8-month long build process in a YouTube video series. In the finale below he shows off all the details in the expansive build.

Explore more builds of Naboo here.

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From Midgard to Asgard and the Bifröst bridge in between.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has supplied fans with awe-inspiring landscapes of fictional places such as Thor’s home world of Asgard. Undoubtably the incredible imagery in these films have inspired LEGO builders and content creators alike in recreating these fascinating worlds using their respective media of choice. Builder Joe (jnj_bricks) for example, translates the world of Asgard into the world of LEGO with his wonderful model of the Asgardian capital city.

Asgard

Joe’s model is from the perspective of the gate, where the Bifröst bridge to Asgard begins, the model as a whole is in micro-scale. The build largely utilizes many small elements as well as interestingly molded pieces such as minifigure helmets, weaponry, and other accessories to create forms of various buildings and dwellings. Asgard palace makes use of many pearl gold pieces, most notably 1×1 cylinders and cones and the ornamental golden clam shell. Of course my favorite component of this city-build is definitely the beautiful Bifröst bridge – its rainbow colors rendered by trans-clear plates and bricks of various sizes in multiple colors along with some black elements of the same kind. Overall with Joe’s creation, we get a post-card picture of a fan favorite setting in LEGO form.

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A bright spot in the wasteland

Not every image of the post-apocalypse world has to be Mad Max-inspired bleakness. Builder Mountain Hobbit brings a bit of light and color to the wasteland two thousand years from now with their build New Babel. Graceful, densely packed microscale towers make for a great place to spend the end times. I particularly like the use of purple modified angle tiles in the exterior wall. Also neat is seeing the backside of the yellow tooth plates in the towers. And it may be a drab grey, but the use of a stud shooter housings in the domed towers is clever.

New Babel

Yeah, this looks like a great place to visit. But being post-apocalypse and all, you might not want to live there. If you’re looking for other scenic destinations, be sure to check out some of Mountain Hobbit’s other idyllic builds.

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TBB cover photo for February 2020: Taking in the sights

From the incredible detail to the creative forced perspective execution, this build from collaborative team Grant Davis, Eli Willsea, and Micah Beideman, does not disappoint. With every glance, you’ll notice something new (oooh, look at that AC unit and that awning made of 1×1 cones), which is one of the many reasons we chose it for our February cover photo. Read our original article to see how this trio used LEGO to bring a painting to life.

The Painted City

Want to see your own LEGO creation featured across TBB social media for a month? Then read the submission guidelines and submit your photo today. Photos that do not meet the submission guidelines will not be considered, and will be removed from the group.

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The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

In space, no one can hear you drill.

If intergalactic asteroid mining sounds like an interesting prospect, Scott Wilhelm’s LEGO microscale New Bedlam Mining Hub delivers the goods. According to the builder, the mining colony of New Bedlam earned its name for the lawlessness and chaotic growth that comes with rapid development. Scott’s city fits the part, with foreboding dark towers covering the asteroid’s surface. Thanks to an extensive use of black and trans-neon colored elements, the colony also has all the grittiness of a red-light district in the stars.

New Bedlam Mining Hub

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Magnificence on a mini canvas

If there was ever a “Master of Microscale” it would be Jeff Friesen. As the author of LEGO Micro Cities and builder of our 2017 Creation of the Year, he knows how to pack a big punch in a small space. It’s incredible how he is able to create a whole world on a 20 x 20 stud baseplate. I love this latest piece, a medieval village and castle, for its levels, layout, and lovely parts usage. This time around, Jeff used several flick missiles to help form the lower towers.

I’m also a big fan of Jeff’s consistently perfect color palette. While this one is more simple in terms of colors, it holds true to form in the fact that there is zero monotony. The two-tone base gives it dimension and a slight complexity. If you love this build as much as I do, stay tuned for our review of the book, LEGO Micro Cities. Also, check out our interview with Jeff Friesen about his “Cityscapes” series.

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

TBB Cover Photo for October 2018: Enjoy the high life in the skies!

We at TBB always take pleasure in seeing builders take their creations to new heights. Here we have Marcel V.  execute on that quite literally, with these structures dubbed “Giap-Towers,” where minifigures and their humble abodes float amongst the clouds. After featuring this floating steampunk cityscape just a few days ago, we loved their simplistic charm and have chosen this to be TBB’s cover photo for October 2018.

The Giap-Towers

Want to see your own LEGO creation featured across TBB social media for a month? Then read the submission guidelines and send us your photo today. Photos that do not meet the submission guidelines will not be considered, and will be removed from the group.

Keep up with the Brothers Brick by liking us on Facebook and following us on Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. And for occasional extra goodies, follow us on Flickr or subscribe to us on YouTube.

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

A different kind of cloud city

With all the clamour online surrounding LEGO’s new Betrayal at Cloud City set, it’s great to see a builder with a very different take on life in the sky. Marcel V has taken inspiration from the super-talented anime illustrator Chong Fei Giap, famed for his sprawling cityscapes. Wonderfully photographed with the nimbus mist swirling around the towers’ stilts and only a cable car system to get around, the model really captures an other-worldly quality. Still, the mind boggles as to how the inhabitants pin their clothes to the precariously hung washing line–I hope they have a good pulley system! Marcel plans to take the model to the Skaerbaek LEGO fan weekend in Denmark next month; for those of us who are not lucky enough to attend, you can still check out detailed images of each of the balanced abodes on his Flickr stream.

The Giap-Towers

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Cool off with this Hot Piece of Waterfront Property

If you’re traveling through Northern Italy, you might encounter the picturesque city of Lecco. In his latest masterpiece, “Memories of Lecco”, Dario Minisini chose to model a representation of the city’s renowned waterfront architecture. I really enjoy the overall composition of this model, which has made an excellent use of color. The brown and lavender buildings make for an excellent contrast to one another, and the mixing of old light yellowish-gray and light blueish-gray bricks creates a vintage-looking patina that feels authentic.

There is certainly no shortage of charm here. What makes Dario’s model so memorable is the amount of thought and effort that went into incorporating so much detail. A look at the tree with half its leaves missing suggests Fall must be right around the corner. Weathered-looking roof shingles are made possible with parts such as the boat oar, and the benches utilize classic Fabuland fences to great effect.

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

Interview with Jeff Friesen of Cityscapes, The Brothers Brick’s Creation of the Year 2017 [Feature]

We singled out Jeff Friesen’s Cityscapes as our 2017 Creation of the Year. If you’ve missed it then, these are still very much worth a look, and even if you’ve seen them, they’re so mesmerising that you may find something you missed earlier on. It’s almost soothing and appealing to let your eyes wander around these intricate builds.

We could not resist reaching out to have a deeper discussion with Jeff to understand the mind of an artist that could create something so different and unique with the very same bricks all of us see and build with every day.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, e.g. where are you based, your LEGO history, and your work (LEGO/Photography and real life if it is different)?

I’m an award-winning photographer based in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, which is on Vancouver Island. I have vivid memories of playing with LEGO from the age of 3 (that was in the early 1970s). I had a shoebox full of white and red bricks in the classic sizes, mostly 2 x 4s. Those bricks were used to make everything from aeroplanes to cities to double-decker car ferries for Matchbox racers. Recently, I was wondering why the brick selection was only red and white. After doing some research it appears the bricks must have been a hand-me-down set from the 1960s. Back then LEGO used to have basic building sets in just red and white.

The late 1970s brought with it the dual treasures of minifigures and Space LEGO. I essentially lived in a Space LEGO drama for a few years. Blue, trans-yellow, and grey were the primary colours of that era. As a child, the actual LEGO building is just the beginning of the fun, and then you get to play with what you’ve made. As an adult, I’ve replaced the play phase with photography.

It’s amazing how LEGO has been there through every stage of life, and now my daughter’s life.

Click here to continue reading our interview with Jeff Friesen

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.