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.

Let’s get back to the moon

As NASA looks forward to the challenge of getting back to the moon and establishing a permanent habitat, here’s a vision of a lunar base we can all sign up to. Who wouldn’t want to spend some time in Jon Blackford‘s brilliant LEGO Research Outpost? The styling is excellent, with an attractive angled frontage and good greebly detailing along the roof. The hatch and the support pillars are particularly good, and the habitat’s smooth studless look offers a nice contrast with the rougher baseplate, creating a feeling of rocky surroundings.

All the important Classic Space elements are in place — the blue and grey colour scheme, the trans-yellow windows, the multicoloured team of astronauts. But is are some novel parts use too, including the paint rollers used in the rover’s front sensors and the ingots used to create unusually-shaped cargo crates. Best of all, there’s a fully detailed interior to enjoy.

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Just cruising on the lake in my Ford Mustang

In this incredibly detailed digital build, ExeSandbox was tasked to put a 1965 Ford Mustang in beautiful scenery. I think nobody told him it was supposed to be placed on a road, but the builder just slapped it straight in the middle of the scenery. And it looks amazing! Never before has a car driving on water looked so right.

The centerpiece of the scene is the quite accurate Ford Mustang, and it really gives the scene context. But it is the landscaping that shines here. There is a lot of simple parts that just work really well, like trees built of stacked leaf pieces or the clean layers of the ground. On the other hand, there are also very intensely textured trees with plates facing all directions and an extremely realistic lake bed covered in rocks. The water benefits the most from computer rendering, as finding this many perfectly clean translucent panels and placing them this straight without bending would be nearly impossible. What does not benefit from computer rendering is the perfect curved road though. While this technique looks beautiful and requires a proportional amount of work in real life, the builder states that it was a nightmare to do digitally, reminding us all that digital builders face their own challenges (the whole scene contains over 90,000 pieces). Often skeptics see digital builds as cheating or an easy shortcut, but the naysayers are often people who have never opened a brick-building program. And below is the final piece of art with a full background, and we can all agree that digital or not, the end result is a stunning image. And sometimes that is what matters.

From the sewers, Warsaw – it’s time to rise now!

In LEGO fan creations, the Second World War is quite a common theme. This is understandable, as this is a historical period that has a very personal connection to many people, while also bringing some action and gritty machinery to the table. Jan T. takes inspiration from an important part of Polish history that’s much less often recreated in LEGO, the ill-fated Warsaw Uprising.

The street combat is captured very well with makeshift barricades made of bricks, furniture, and an excellent period street tram surrounded by barricades.

See more of this detailed World War II diorama

Ride like the wind, Gandalf!

We featured norlego‘s stunning LEGO Meduseld Hall last year, but now he’s followed it up with another impressive slice of architecture from Edoras, the capital of the nation of Rohan in Tolkien’s The Lord Of The Rings. Here we see Gandalf and Pippin leaving the city at the start of their ride to Minas Tirith. The gated wall behind them is an impressive structure, with a lovely depth of detail and texture within both stone and wooden sections. The arrow slits in the main gate structure are nicely done, and the surrounding landscaping is excellent — all the green broken up with clumps of dark tan grass and boulders. Don’t miss the edge of the diorama — the undulating strata of earth and stone add immensely to the natural feel of the scene.

If you’re a Tolkien fan and just can’t get enough Rohirrim action, then be sure to check in on this wonderful microscale LEGO version of Edoras from a while back.

When the city wall becomes the city

The smells of a medieval city must have made it a nightmare to live in one. On the other hand, if you lived in a house built on the wall, you could enjoy the fresh countryside air as well as the city’s protection. This handy situation is captured in this creation by Mountain Hobbit.

All the various heights of the roofs and the complicated angles really give an impression of homes built on the wall and then new houses built on top of the old. The mixing of colours is done carefully to create a weathered impression that is not overwhelming. For a diorama with only a handful of minifigs, almost all grouped at the gate in the center, it seems to be teeming with life.

Paris is always a good idea, especially in LEGO bricks

First time travelers to Paris cannot be blamed for spending the majority of their visit strolling the bistro-lined Champs Elysees or marveling at the wonders of the Eiffel Tower and Louvre. While these sites are staples in Parisian tourism, some of the city’s most beautiful spots can be found up the hill in Montmartre. This village within a city is best known for its rich history, bohemian vibe, and engaging nightlife. Legendary artists such as Renoir, Monet, and Picasso once resided here. Focusing on more recent times, Toltomeja has recreated the steep hills and iconic Parisian architecture in this LEGO diorama of a typical Montmartre scene. It’s a colorful and charming build, seemingly brought to life with plenty of little details (the clock is a personal favorite). This scene is sure to stir the heart of anyone who’s ever visited.

Fair far worlds

This charming scene of interplanetary science is brought to us by Sad Brick. It’s a simple LEGO scene of an astronaut placing a sensor on a newly discovered world, but it’s charming as can be. The greebly goodness of the sensor encased in a clear canister, with a wire strung to an outboard relay is perfect brick-built technobabble, while the arrays of flora in three colors makes the scene come to life. The use of the Collectible Minifigure Plant Monster helmet for large leaves is something I actually haven’t seen often.

Assembled: The Battle of New York in LEGO bricks

The Battle of New York is the super-powered punch-up finale of 2012 movie The Avengers, which saw Asgardian trickster Loki attack the city with a borrowed army of bio-mechanical reptilian Chitauri soldiers. Such an epic confrontation might be an intimidating prospect for a LEGO model, but builder Ben Cossy has accepted the challenge, and this impressive diorama is the result. All the Avengers can be found amidst the city streets or on the rooftops, engaging the wall-scampering Chitauri and attempting to protect fleeing civilians and overwhelmed cops. Don’t miss the different styles of buildings on display, all featuring varying levels of battle damage alongside the architectural detailing.

You can see more of the action in this multi-angle montage, with our heroes engaged in various punch-ups and shoot-outs with the Chitauri. Check out the cracked pavement and enemies sent flying as Thor smacks Mjolnir into the ground…

For a weary traveler, any port is a good port

Mos Eisley and Mos Espa may have the big name recognition in the Star Wars universe as the leaders of backwater ports, and recently Niima Outpost has been an up-and-comer. But there are myriad other tiny trading posts and starports throughout the universe, and LEGO builder Sam Malmberg takes us to one such unnamed frontier town with this dusty scene. The Imperials have a strong presence here, but there’s plenty of hustle and bustle with traders and merchants plying their wares.

Sam’s approach to the dry ground looks especially great, with scattered studs giving the impression of hard-packed but slightly disturbed dirt. The building facades around the back edges also give these scene a lot of depth, making it feel even larger than it is.

On reflection, the Death Star’s not so bad

Here at Brothers Brick HQ, we’ve been following the microscale LEGO Star Wars adventures of Didier Burtin with enthusiasm. Didier’s recreations of iconic scenes from the various Star Wars movies continues with this cracking build of the captured Millennium Falcon sitting in a Death Star hangar. Taking photos of LEGO creations built from predominantly black bricks is normally a complete pig of a job, with rogue reflections and shiny bits ruining the composition. Here the model’s high reflectivity is a perfect match for its inspiration, as are all the brick-built details like the wall striping, floor graphics, and the lift shaft.

A medieval hero’s welcome

There’s nothing like coming home to your family after a long journey. Perhaps in this case, a long quest or crusade. You know that feeling you have when you see your house after having been gone a while? This scene of a warrior being welcomed by his family, built by Tom Breugelman, is reminiscent of that feeling.

Of course, the real hero of this build is that cottage. The angles and rockwork are superbly done. The architecture immediately catches the eye. And all of the colors throughout the scene come together perfectly, but especially in the cottage. Now, if you’re looking for something similar, how about a house with many faces?

Space is the place for a base, of course

In the future world of Boris Schneider, the moon’s got a colony and it’s pretty rad. This mash-up of real-world-inspired design and LEGO’s famous Classic Space aesthetic makes for a fantastic extra-terrestrial outpost. The moon’s surface is made from a jumbled mix of grey plates and slopes with exposed studs, a combo that works well to recreate the scattered regolith on the impact-dotted lunar fields.

The Apollo-era lunar lander has received a serious upgrade in the form of this moon-earth transport vehicle. The printed flag and USA elements from the official Saturn V set work excellently both here and on the base to give a bit of real-world tie-in to this Classic Space scene. Continue reading →