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.

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.

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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.

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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.

The birthplace of the European rebirth

A builder that goes by the name Classical Bricks (Timothy Shortell) would probably find it challenging to choose a more appropriate theme to build in – there are few things more Classical than the Renaissance in western culture, which Timothy is a part of. His creation, built for the Time Isles collaboration at BrickCon, represents Florence, the birthplace of the Renaissance.

The scene is bursting with the style and characteristics of the depicted time and place; the buildings are packed tightly to give an impression of an old city, but the buildings themselves are obviously screaming Renaissance too. Arches, ornate decoration and colours show us a rich city that was instrumental in bringing western culture to where it is today.

LEGO Space builders take over the moon [Interview]

This year’s season of LEGO shows in the UK saw a massive collaborative moonbase display, from some of the UK’s best-known and most talented builders. The model was absolutely enormous, 2.5m square, featuring a huge tower and multiple compartments. It was built with more than 50,000 bricks…

The moonbase plays host to an impressive collection of landing pads, with Neo-Classic spaceships and rovers of all shapes and sizes…

But below the lunar surface, there is even more action going on, with dozens of cutaway compartments and corridors, stuffed with lighting effects, motorised elements, and cool building techniques…

Brothers Brick caught up with Jason Briscoe, one of the collaboration’s organisers, to find out more…
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A harsh but satisfying life in the village of Avalon

Four young builders join forces to bring us this extensive medieval village diorama. While I often complain about lack of variety in top-end castle-themed LEGO builds, there is a very bright side to this; if I had not known this creation was a collaboration, I would never have figured it out. The main image is hosted by Timothy Shortell, but the others involved are Micah the fire-breathing hobbit, Mountain hobbit and Cole Blood.

There are many details to see all over the diorama; the market has many interesting elemets, houses are all exceptionally done with interesting textures and angles everywhere, and the plant life facilitates the time and place where this diorama is set up – dried grass, autumn leaves and pine trees show us a cold but habitable place.

Volvo – they’re blocky but they’re good

70s Sweden. What do you think of? If you didn’t say ABBA, there’s something wrong with you. But here’s a fabulous LEGO diorama from LegoJalex which manages to capture the era perfectly without a hint of the Scandi-SuperTroupers. We’ve got an excellent orange Volvo 242 in the driveway, but for me, it’s the surrounding scenery and attention to detail which make this model pop. I love the textures of the different walls, the use of forced perspective to create the buildings and factories in the distance, and the little touches like the pail and the abandoned football in the grass.

The car itself is a smart model in its own right, well worth a closer look…