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.

Famous derailment recreated in LEGO bricks

One of the most famous crashes in rail history is captured in this build by monstrophonic. On 22nd October 1895 the Granville-Paris Express entered the Montparnasse station travelling too fast in an attempt to make up for lost time. It failed to stop and ploughed through the buffers, across the concourse, and out through the station wall. Amazingly only a single person was killed — a woman hit by falling masonry.

This would have been a great model on its own merits, but the fact it’s a compelling recreation of such a famous image just makes it all the better. Check out the original photograph and more information about the crash here.

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Star Wars podracing under the sea with Ariel

Fan site Imperium der Steine is running a contest to create a LEGO build blending Star Wars and Disney. Cecilie Fritzvold has brought podracing to the world of The Little Mermaid in this colourful podrace under the sea, comically called the Boonta Reef Classic (a parody of the Boonta Eve Classic podrace). Cecilie tells us that the pods are built to match the characters: a clamshell for Ariel, a gastropod shell for Sebastian, and a “dead carcass turned evil” pod for Ursula, pulled by Flotsam and Jetsam.

This unique creation is full of beautiful colours and some ingenious parts used to merge Star Wars podracing into the Little Mermaid’s world. For example, Ursula’s pod mimics Sebulba’s pod in shape, but has a color scheme more befitting the evil octopus witch. For a closer look at the colourful details, check out the close ups in Cecilie’s Boonta Reef Classic album on Flickr.

Slums of Mandalore

The Sydney Brick Show is coming up this weekend, and we get to see an amazing preview of a contribution by Joshua Morris. He has collaborated with Jade Wisniewski to build a large sci-fi diorama, and this is his half.

Mandalore is an an Outer Rim planet from the Star Wars Universe, which has an interesting and violent history. Of course, Mandalore’s greatest claim to fame is that fact that Boba Fett – everyone’s favorite bounty hunter – wears the iconic Mandalorian armor (though Boba Fett himself was neither a member of the Mandalorians nor born on the planet).

Click here for a closer look at this hive of scum and villany

13 Miller’s Court in tragic detail

The late summer and fall of 1888 was a rough time for women in the Whitechapel district in London. The ever evasive Jack the Ripper slowly but surely made his way into history and headlines, culminating in what is believed to be the last attack on Mary Kelly, who was discovered the morning of November 9, 1888.

Mark Hodgson has illustrated the room she rented with stunning detail of how it looked prior to the first week of November that year.

The alley way, building front, and room are full of detail of the cramped quarters where she lived. Her life, up until her tragic death, is illustrated in one tiny room. Her murderer was never found, and the legends surrounding Jack the Ripper endure to this day.

An epic LEGO tale of death

This fantastic vingette by Thorsten Bonsch is a LEGO recreation of a scene from the Elder Scrolls Online (ESO). The ESO is an online multiplayer role playing game and this particular scene comes from the latest part of the saga, The Thieves Guild. The build is not an action scene but, as Thorsten calls it, a ‘still life’ that tells a story – can you imagine what happened by looking at the evidence left behind?

The builder uses a great building technique to curve the bricks and allow the ground to slope gently upwards to the right side. In addition, the rock formations are very nicely shaped and hints of colour are just enough to capture your attention. The more I look at this scene, the more intriguing I find it.

Personally, I think that a huge snake-like creature has eaten the first man and then reaches the second and kills him just as he mortally wounds the snake with a spear to the heart. All that remains are the bones and undigested evidence that tells the story of their deaths.

Previous ESO-based creations by Thorsten have been blogged by us and are worth a second look: the City of Orsinium, the Stonefalls in Morrowind, and an amazing 11,000 piece portal called The Dolmen.

Alien kills Predator with a LEGO flipper

The 2004 movie Alien vs Predator was a clash of two eponymous sci-fi creatures to bring the comic action to the big screen. Grantmasters has captured the penultimate moment from the movie in LEGO, when the Alien Queen has mortally wounded Predator with a thrust of her tail to his torso and his green blood drips spills.

Grantmasters has cleverly utilised a host of parts to create this scene in ‘small scale’. Black minifigure hands form the feet of Alien, while lime green depict Predator’s dripping life-blood. The minifigure diver’s flipper also makes a fantastically unusual appearance as a wound!

The characters are cleverly built and a few subtle landscape details add to the scene without distracting from the main event. I hope Grantmasters continues with Alien vs Predator Requiem next…

Corridor spaces are the best Space spaces

A beautifully-lit space corridor scene? Yes please. SweStar is the builder behind this great little model, and they’ve done an excellent job of creating a whole galaxy’s worth of atmosphere in a tight space. There’s a genuine sense of tension and impending trouble here. I want to know what’s going to happen next.

Space shaman is set to stun

All too often, LEGO space models can be a sea of light gray. This cracking little creation from Chris Perron breaks the mould with a wonderful splash of color.

The mech obviously features a bold color scheme, but there’s some great parts usage on show too — check out the use of the alien legs as feet. And I’m enjoying the metallic silver pieces, particularly the figure’s staff which I think adds a nice little touch of fantasy to this sci-fi scene.

Chris says this was inspired by another builder’s model in a very different genre. I think it’s cool when builders link to their inspiration like this, it shows how ideas travel and change from person to person.

Not just a tree house, but a LEGO tree fort

Did you have a tree house as a child? jsnyder would have been very disappointed by my basic tree house if his LEGO tree fort reflects his idea of one. This creation is on three levels with a swing bridge that spans across two huge trees. There is a look out at the top of the largest tree with a telescope to keep an eye out for potential attack (or parents looking for you at bedtime). The trees themselves are well shaped and I love the mix of studs on show and tiles to add texture.

The details are really adorable in this build, for example the tyre swing and rope pulley system to allow a crate of resupplies (perhaps more ice lollies) to be lifted high up into the tree.

You can see more detailed views of the tree fort on his Billy’s Tree Fort album on Flickr.

Gotham’s Ace Chemicals in LEGO bricks

I’ve always been a Batman fan, and Joker has always been my favourite of his adversaries. However, until very recently I have never possessed a Joker minifig. As soon as I got my grubby hands on one, I knew I had to have a go at building something appropriate…

The model was designed to sit in a basin of water and I used an ultrasound fog generator to create the mist effect. It’s a bit splashy, hence some of the water droplets on the model, but I figured it looked like rain and I could get away with it. A couple of people have asked how I did the lighting. I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t do anything fancy. I cheated and did all the tinting digitally in GIMP.

I’m slightly obsessed with Ace Chemicals — it’s such a cool Gotham location, and its factory and pipework elements make it ripe for reinterpretation. As well as the minifig-scale version, I recently had a go at something a little smaller…

Launch Status: looking good

We’ve featured a couple of justin_m_winn‘s scenes of everyday life in the future previously. His models just keep getting better. This latest creation has a strong sense of being part of a greater world — the control room seems an island of activity in some kind of vast hangar. There’s a good use of lighting too. Sometimes nice interior touches in models are lost in photographs, but not here. Check out those classic printed control panel slopes…

Kombinat: apocalypse is now

A group of LEGO fans from Poland decided to build the hugest Fallout diorama ever, and Bartłomiej Huetter has already built the first part of the project. Kombinat features a derelict factory that’s been turned into a refuge for survivors in the wasteland. Despite all the chaos, people seem to find entertainment in this messy living space. A brewery, an arcade saloon, a dance club and a couple doing not so safe for work activities. I guess we can’t expect more fun out of this apocalyptic world!

Usually it’s quite hard to build a large scale diorama but sometimes they are also full of details that it’s harder to absorb everything at once. Luckily, Bartłomiej has created a huge album on Flickr which displays many details including stickers and digital designs of the early model. Make sure you don’t miss anything. The vehicles and minifigures are astonishing!