Tag Archives: Dioramas

There’s nothing like a massive LEGO diorama to prove that you’ve arrived as a LEGO builder. The LEGO dioramas we feature here span everything from realistic medieval castles to scenes from World War II, and more than a few post-apocalyptic wastelands.

Lino’s 1960 Chevy Apache will carry inland surfers to the dunes

It’s hard to believe that LUGNuts is already two years old, but the group of LEGO car builders celebrated its second anniversary in October. For the anniversary challenge, LUGNuts co-founder Lino Martins built a 1960 Chevrolet Apache.

The truck is great — with diamond patterns on the interior and a great gas can — but the backdrop is just as interesting. I love the cow’s skull and vulture.

Click the picture to read Lino’s full write-up about his inspiration, and see his roundup of all the entries on the LUGNuts blog.

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Rust, rubble, and greens

Niek Geurts built an interpretation of a post-apocalyptic scene that’s different than most for two obvious features. The first feature is the diagonal road, which breaks up the squareness of the diorama. The second feature involves the abundant overgrowth of plant life, which adds a nice color contrast to the classic rubble colors. There’s many more details that are worth a look, you can see them all in the gallery on Flickr.

You know what street art needs? More frogs.

I’ve been noticing a plague of frogs in a variety of creations and it’s one of the coolest trends out there. Alex Schranz (“Orion Pax”) even incorporates frogs into his latest brick-built graffiti wall called PaxFrogriderstyle.

Fedde (Karf Oolhu) also has a whole series of frog based creations, though my favorites are his civil defense observatory and mobile heavy infantry.

Busy bee

I’ve been a busy bee and had no time to do a decent job of blogging. So here are the pictures I have in my bloglist. One is old, two are new.

At the foothills of the mountains

Chris Wunz‘s Border Outpost is a marvel in landscaping. I really like the intricately carved paths on the mountains and the integration of the two lakes joined by a cascading ravine. The setup also features a working waterwheel and millstone, a cool addition that tops off this wonderful creation.

Happy Halloween 2009!

Ok, so I’m jumping the gun by a couple of days, but I couldn’t pass up Keith Goldman‘s latest creation. The lighting is just gorgeous.

So you think your toys are gangster . . .

No, these toys are gangster. I especially like how Daniel Shehadeh (Sir Regonold) captures the action with the truck on the curb and trash knocked over.

Of cliffs and castles

These two elements tend to combine to make an awe-inspiring scene. This is precisely what’s depicted in Luke Watkins‘ diorama of a church on a cliff overlooking violent waters. The story goes that pirates used lights on the cliffs to lure ships to crash on the rocks below during stormy nights. The church thus rings its bells as warning and lament for those passing.

You can see separate photos of the church on MOCpages.

LEGO D-Day on Omaha Beach: Liberating France, one brick at a time

Occasionally, I take a break from blogging and actually build something. For my most ambitious creation to date, I present “Fox Red: Omaha Beach”.

My D-Day diorama features the following vehicles and weapons:

Yes, that’s dark blue water. (I do believe I’ve mentioned before that I like LEGO Agents…)

Naturally, I couldn’t resist the urge to turn a few photos into black and white Robert Capa-esque shots.

See my full photoset of Fox Red: Omaha Beach pics on Flickr.

Ook? Oook ook ook. Ook!

I continue to be a sucker for just about any creation that alludes to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels. My favorite character finally came to life when Sylvain (captainsmog) created and placed the Librarian in his natural habitat, the library of Unseen University. He’s an orangutan, not a monkey. Do not call him a monkey!

Aside from my easy seduction by Discworld and apes behaving as humans, this diorama features some neat posing, building techniques, and fantastic attention to detail, such as books chained to shelves, metal rods to conduct magic from the books, and of course bananas. I wonder if he even has a Watch badge in his desk.

He also has a great scene of an Agatean farmer that inspires me for an upcoming project of my own, and his diorama of an Omnian inquisition chamber is horrifyingly fantastic. And Hex, and an iconograph demon, and 72-hour Ahmed, and Hodgesaargh, and . . . never mind. Don’t take my word for it. Check them out yourself.

Pancho Villa Raid by Brian Williams

For his latest LEGO Indiana Jones creation, Brian Williams looks for inspiration to The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles .

The five-foot-long diorama features dozens of awesome mini-scenes and techniques, including gunrunners, leaf springs on the locomotive, proper horseback riders’ legs, and lovely sand-green cacti. Check out the full photoset on Flickr.

Thanks for the tip, Austin!

ChromeBricks review

We recently posted about a store where you can buy custom chromed LEGO elements. Here is a review of products from ChromeBricks.com.

To put things simply, the quality of the chrome elements are what you’d expect from LEGO’s chrome parts. The layer of chrome is the result of a procedure that industrially evaporates metal onto the brick, resulting in a very thin coating that doesn’t hinder the fit with other LEGO pieces. The chrome surfaces also resist scratching, which means they can handle a moderate amount of play while remaining in their pristine condition.

ChromeBricks currently offers three colors of chrome including gold, silver, and a new copper chrome. Consistency of color among the parts is flawless. When compared with chrome LEGO elements, the silver is also an exact match while the gold is darker than LEGO’s chrome gold (LEGO does not currently produce chrome copper bricks). The richer chrome gold color results from actual gold being used to coat the bricks!

On the flip side, ChromeBricks differs from LEGO bricks where most of the parts from the former are not coated on the interior or underside. This should not be a concern since the uncoated sections will not be visible in a LEGO creation.

Overall, I recommend ChromeBricks for their high quality of parts. The price of each piece can be on the expensive side, but the cost is justified (you can ask other custom vendors who have tried to chrome LEGO bricks). Shipping is relatively inexpensive and very fast (about a week to the US) while the parts are individually packed in separate baggies. If you want to make a few minifigs with chrome accessories, this is definitely the store for you. For those interested in customizing a car model with chrome bricks, you probably need more money than pocket change.