Love it or hate it, the Assassin’s Creed videogame series has brought many historical themes into the collective consciousness of the younger generations. And while LEGO builders often don’t need another incentive to look for inspiration in history, with classic LEGO themes like castle and pirates at the core of our hobby, Assassin’s Creed falls perfectly into such time frames and therefore makes a perfect subject for our beloved bricks. One of the recent builders who picked up this inspiration is Wookiewarrior, with this amazing diorama representing a scene from Assassins Creed Unity. The scene is part of a collaborative project built for the German Comic Con a project that involves some of the best builders from Germany.
Tag Archives: Dioramas
Mad for it
We’ve featured Martin Redfern‘s Alice In Wonderland LEGO creations previously, but this latest scene — the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party — is a cracker. The table features a brilliant array of teapot designs (some including fireman’s helmets as lids!), and I like the variety of chair styles on display. The surrounding scenery is great, and gives the model a real sense of place — an impression helped by the tight crop of the photo.
As ever, Martin’s work on the characters is excellent. Here’s a closer look at the Tea Party Trio…
Colonizing the wilderness
Wochenender presents the first part of a planned series of builds illustrating the colonization of a remote wilderness on a fictional island called Sølvheim. This display showcases the expertly crafted landscape which features melting snow elements — something I haven’t seen explored much by builders, making this an interesting fresh concept. The wooden port and watchtower are the only structures at the moment, but I look forward to their evolution in the upcoming dioramas.
Sometimes you just need some time for yourself. In a castle.
And I know of no better castle for this purpose than this cute “little” fort built by Marco den Besten really has everything you could want. Built in a beautiful landscape, surrounded by a picturesque village and defensible to boot!
Every singe aspect of the diorama has something unique that deserves to be talked about. The castle’s textures are great, but even more so I love the architecture and layout of it, with tightly packed towers and walls that give an impression of a very sturdy construction. The houses are mostly simple, but the new quarter-circle tiles add a really nice texture. The best part of all, though, are the trees. I have never seen the dark green root piece used for pine trees and I have no idea what the actual technique behind it is, but it just seems so obvious now that I see it.
Autumn is the most beautiful season in the Allanar forest
With the Colossal Castle Contest XV starting two weeks ago, the greatest castle builders ready their bricks to compete in what is probably the largest themed annual LEGO competition. Lasting till the end of the year, it gets countless high quality submissions every time. John Snyder joins the competition with a diorama of an elven village, setting the bar high for any still considering to compete.
Unconventional colour use and stark contrasts are definitely the first parts to catch one’s eye, but there is more to see beyond that. I am sure many people will take a closer look at this creation, but some details I believe should be pointed out range from blue minifig legs used as waterfalls to the buildings’ textures and the somewhat simple but highly effective autumn trees. Indeed, taking your time and exploring every little corner of this diorama will surely be a nice experience.
Once upon a time in old Beijing
This diorama by vincentkiew showcases the beauty of traditional Chinese architecture and landscaping. A quaint courtyard and miniature garden completes the peaceful setting, and the use of the new Ninjago fences as well as the wallpaper brick are fantastic details that add style to the creation.
There are many delightful detail shots to discover in the Flickr gallery, or you can check them out in this slideshow accompanied by traditional Chinese music.
3 fans take over 200k LEGO pieces and 2 years to build incredible diorama of Hoth Echo Base from Star Wars
Hoth accounts for less than 20 minutes of The Empire Strikes Back, yet it has left an indelible imprint on Star Wars fans, including Brick a Ben, Ferroh12 and Brick_Phil. Together, they have collaborated to create Winter is Hoth, and incredible diorama built over two years and using more than 200,000 LEGO elements.
A truly tiny village in the mountains
Break out your magnifying glass for Patrick B‘s mountain village. This miniscule hamlet has a distinct architectural style, with black-clad longhouses of a faintly nordic design. From the palisade wall made of Technic pins to the longhouse butresses made of teeth and a crossbow, Patrick has put all manner of elements to good use.
While the pickaxe as a tiny footbridge is quite clever, and the scraggly wizard’s tower made of robot hands looks appropriately sinister, my favorite details are definitely the covered wagons made with half-round 1×1 tiles. The grooved edges of the tiles fit perfectly as wagon bows under the grey bonnet, and the tile’s hollow underside gives the illusion of an interior.
Sector is clear...Not clear! Not clear!
h2brick has created what has become quite an iconic scene from the Star Wars Battlefront 2 Gameplay Trailer, depicting the moment Darth Maul shows up to ruin the sectors clearness. The build makes use of surprisingly few new and specialized parts, but still captures the aesthetic of a battle damaged Naboo perfectly. I particularly like the addition of the simple yet quite accurate AT-RT walker.
Enter Elvendale, the village of colours and magic
Stepping out of her favourite theme of modular buildings, Vesna Todorović has struck gold with this Elves-themed diorama. Heavily inspired by the Elves Netflix series and a bit of the official sets too, the builder had the idea in her head for quite a while before amassing enough bright colours to realize it. She notes that the diorama was a great opportunity to use not only new colours, but new bricks too, including many floral elements, Angry Birds eggs and all sorts of Elves and Friends decorative elements.
The cliff in the back is recycled from an earlier diorama, with appropriate upgrades of course. The foliage is bright and colourful, as are the cute little cottages – exactly in the official theme’s style. There are interiors built for all the cottages, but sadly the buildings don’t come apart to be photographed.
This diorama was one of my favourite builds at the 19th Kockefest, the Slovenian LUG’s display, and many people I talked to there, from fans to casual visitors, agreed.
World of Warcraft’s Theramore rebuilt in LEGO
Any LEGO fan will recognize the old school and cartoony looking castle in this World of Warcraft-themed diorama by Mark Erickson, but those familiar with the game will see a very faithful recreation of a lore-wise, very important town in the recently announced expansion.
Mark has accurately built the fortified port town using over 55,600 pieces. The style of the game is captured well in the buildings’ construction, and the composition and shape is just like its in-game counterpart too, as this screenshot demonstrates.
While the game’s style belies the size of this creation, those are standard green 32×32 baseplates it’s sitting on, which makes photographing this monster quite a feat by itself. But in the end, no matter how amazing the creation is… The orc in me just wants to bomb it. Lok’tar ogar!
Building will bring you focus
What better way to relax than to rake through the brick bins and create an Oriental pavilion? At least that’s what David Hensel appears to have decided. David clearly felt the roof was the key element of this LEGO creation — and no surprise, it’s wonderfully detailed, and a nice mix of colours without appearing garish. That would explain the shallow depth of field in the photography, bringing the roof into sharp focus and rendering the rest of the scene with something of a haze. This, coupled with the lack of minifigures, creates a strange dreamlike atmosphere. I like it.