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.

Disposable walls of Distrikt 18

With the recently concluded LEGO speeder bike contest, there have been hundreds of speeder bikes submitted, and I too have decided to join in at the last minute with a police chase diorama. The build started with the police speeder and its huge windscreen, which gave me the idea of a wall-smashing speeder in a future where buildings are so cheap to rebuild, a police officer may consider just breaking through a few walls to catch a criminal.

I have put a large majority of the effort on the speeder bikes themselves, with the somewhat simple diorama acting as a catalyst to join them together in a cohesive scene. The walls are literally broken up by the hole that the police speeder has punched in them, as well as a hole being repaired by a 3D-printing robot.

Since this diorama was built for a contest and it was limited by a deadline, I put emphasis on the speeder bikes themselves, but the concept of a crushed wall and a wall being printed are something I really want to revisit. While I do have a technique for both in mind, there are a lot of other things I want to build before I return to Distrikt 18.

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Advertising the derelict remnants of a city street

Broken windows, damaged buildings, garbage on the street and infrastructure destroyed are some of the tell-tale signs of a post-apocolyptic world. There’s ample of opportunity to see some post-apocolyptic decay in this fantastic diorama by W. Navarre that centres around a couple of office buildings in what used to be part of a city and descends into an underground world of “every man for himself.” The Chima game card works surprisingly well as an advertising sign, and the collapsed sign with the Nike logo has seen better days. I particularly like the subterranean part of the build; it’s like an underground car park that has been repurposed, and there’s plenty of pipes, wires and drains to catch your eye.

There’s a lot to admire in this closer view of the rear portion teased in the image above. Click to see an edited version full of special effects

A study in landscaping

More often than not, landscaping techniques in LEGO creations serve a secondary purpose, like helping a building or a story feel complete. While this little landscape by Emil Lidé does contain more than just plants and rocks, that hierarchy of motives is inverted here. Instead of the landscape augmenting the “story,” the decrepit wall and building’s remains add some purpose to the dense and diverse foliage.

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All the key locations are present in huge Ninjago diorama

There a lot going on in this huge Ninjago diorama. At 145×95 studs in size and made up of more than 11 separate sections and locations, it’s no suprise it took about six months to complete. The build is a collaboration between brother and sister, Robert4168/Garmadon and Kai NRG/Geneva, with the right and left side being t by each sibling respectively. The diorama stays true to the essence of the Ninjago theme with plenty of character in the buidings that include Temple of Airjitzu, Birchwood Forest, Sensei Wu’s tea shop and Dareth’s Mojo Dojo .

Click to see detailed views of the different buildings

Elven underworld, so far from the stars

The Lord of the Rings is constantly present as a theme in LEGO fan creations, although less so in the past year or two. As an extension, other stories of Tolkien’s universe find their way into bricks, notably and in this example by Carter Witz, the Silmarillion. The build represents the gates of Menegroth, the thousand caverns, which is one of the most beautiful motives in the Silmarillion in my opinion.

As the obvious centerpiece of the diorama the stone door is beautifully crafted with carefully and effectively placed sand blue pieces to break up the gray, as well as some neat part uses, from the shields and a ribbed hose above the gates to the moustaches used as door rings. I should point out the landscaping, which has a good mixture of greens for a realistic grass effect and a neat tree with simple yet effective roots extending beyond the base.

Police chase in District 18

With the LEGO speeder bike contest not only well underway but even close to conclusion, we see some of the highest quality entries being submitted. It seems to be a trend that builders put disproportional amounts of effort into their speeders’ scenes. Andreas Lenander is far ahead on this front with his District 18 – San Tokyo scene.

There are heaps of details throughout this multi-layered diorama and each level contains its own pocket of a larger unwritten story. I love all the classic cyberpunk elements, from hoses, dirty water, neon lights and more to the thematic mixing of historical Japanese, contemporary and far-future science fiction. While the speeder bikes are obviously the main part of the build as far as the contest goes, my favourite parts are all the light-up features throughout the scene.

The peaceful side of orcs’ life

The German online roleplaying game Nine Kingdoms (Neun Reiche) consistently provides high quality castle-themed creations of all sorts, from standard to quite unique. This build by Patrick B. is somewhere in between, containing basic village life elements, but in the shape of an orc settlement, which is not your everyday castle creation.

Somehow, Patrick has managed to make lime green look like grass, which is nearly impossible. Combined with light green, it gives a very unique look to the diorama. There are a lot of clever uses of parts like large figure and minifigure hair pieces as stones and gears as flowers. The hut has some exotic elements as well, most notably some scala parts and a DUPLO bearskin. It looks perfect and I think I would not need orcs strolling around it to know they lived there.

Mesopotamian manor

Where do the nobles of Mesopotamia gather to discuss politics or who owns the most camels? Sam Malmberg will show you the way to his desert retreat where drinks are served and the dancers are divine.

This build features prominent Arabian-themed architectural elements, and the use of colored paneling adds character to the predominantly gray structure. The slanted stone railing and the angled brown awnings are great techniques that have broad architectural applications.

Who says pirates never do anything for their community?

This lighthouse on a tiny island by William Navarre is by far not the first time the concept is represented with LEGO bricks and I can guarantee it will not be the last — lonely lighthouses of all styles and sizes are an evergreen theme with a lot of expressive value, so it is no surprise one pops up every now and again. What distinguishes William’s build from others is a mix of simplicity and complexity.

His signature highly detailed style with intense textures is obviously apparent not only within the lighthouse’s walls and the rock below it, but also the sea and the small dock. Still, the overall design of the building remains simple, which diverts attention to more important segments. There seems to be just enough vegetation on the island so we can know it is indeed a natural island, but not too much to make it nicer than a pirate would deserve. Using natural sunlight for photography can be a risky move, but William has managed to pull it off well, additionally facilitated by the digitally added background.

Luke discovers the consequences of “imperial entanglements”

By now we’ve seen almost every scene from the Star Wars franchise meticulously and repeatedly recreated as a LEGO diorama, except for one… When Luke receives the Empire’s calling card, in the form of the still-smoking remains of his Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru in Star Wars: A New Hope. So I thought I’d rectify this glaring oversight by the LEGO community!

I’ve found no satisfactory explanation for this surprisingly graphic scene in a seemingly PG movie franchise …which to be fair does feature its share of bodily dismemberment and a pretty significant body count. And while you might argue that this is an important moment of gravitas that propels Luke on his journey against the evil Empire, it’s interesting that he never once later mentions the demise of his only living relatives, who in all likelihood died guarding the whereabouts of their whiney nephew!

On the other hand, this sad event does furnish Luke with the perfect excuse to finally leave his godforsaken home planet in search of the adventure he had always dreamed of. So maybe he wasn’t that cut up about it after all. Then again, who cares – it’s just Star Wars, where nothing really makes that much sense. It’s all just a vehicle for a lotta big space battles and waving of laser swords by a bunch of space wizards!

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Ascending from the plains into the foothills

Master microscale landscaper Full Plate brings us another lovely LEGO scene that captures the moment on a roadtrip when he finally reached rolling hills and winding roads instead of the boring plains he’d been driving on. I often feel the same way when returning to the green of western Washington State from the barren wastelands east of the Cascade Mountains. While many of the builder’s previous microscale masterpieces have featured a wide variety of trees, this build is at a smaller scale, and uses varying heights in the underlying terrain to add variety to the forest of evergreens.

A whimsical world with a waterfall

Whether in person or through the tubes and pipes of the internet, looking at a LEGO castle diorama has always been somewhat akin to viewing a renaissance painting in an art gallery for me. Like many great medieval artworks, there’s always so many things happening, and so many visually foreign and intriguing things occuring all at once — so much to take in. Brickwielder‘s latest build is filled to the brim with fun details and nifty building techniques. From the waterfall to the winding staircase, the bridge, or even all the foliage, there’s enough here to get lost.