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.
In 1869, the Ingalls family left Wisconsin and went west, eventually settling in Kansas near what is now Independence, Missouri. Like many families moving west, the journey and new settlement was full of adventure and danger. Eventually the family went back to Wisconsin, then west again.
Laura Ingalls Wilder turned her experiences into the Little House on the Prairie, cementing herself into literary history.
SeigneurFett brings us this gorgeous diorama depicting Plum Creek from the books and TV series, which captured the hearts and minds of viewers of all ages.
I encourage you to explore the diorama and get lost again in the story!
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Despite more comebacks and fewer female characters than the Star Wars franchise, the Smurfs are still wildly popular today, almost 60 years after their first appearance as a Belgian comic strip. With two new Smurf movies behind us and another one in the works, it was only a matter of time before fans got tired waiting for LEGO to get in on the action, and took matters into their own hands. Which is exactly what Lee Jones and a team of builders did at BrickWorld Chicago did last month!
This huge diorama depicts the Smurf village, complete with forest landscaping, mushroom houses, and a forced-perspective version of Gargamel’s castle. All beautifully rounded off with the giant intruding faces of Gargamel and Azrael (courtesy of Tyler Halliwell and Kevin Lauer).
But the most remarkable part of this display have to be the Smurf minifigs. No, you’re not seeing things… Those aren’t shoddy clone brand figures. And no, LEGO didn’t secretly launch a line of collectible Smurf figs when no-one was looking. These are 100% custom manufactured! Lee’s team worked with BrickForge and Brick Fortress to design and produce custom components (heads, tails, even rotatable arms) all to “LEGO quality”. The results speak for themselves. Our pals at Beyond the Brick talked to Lee at BrickWorld and got the low-down…
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One of the great joys of Brickworld is to see the massive collaborations that take place, and this year’s most ambitious and massive feat of LEGO engineering was VirtuaLUG’s Around the World in 80 Days:
Based off the movie and book, written by Jules Verne, it tells the story of the misadventures of Mr. Phileas Fogg, his manservant Passepartout and Inspector Fixx. Much like the Fogg, the tale of this group build stretches all around the world, with 25 contributors, bricks were sent from all over the United States, Canada, Belgium and even New Zealand to complete this masterpiece.
This build was an amazing 10 feet by 20 feet in size and a whole year of planning, organizing and building, not just LEGO bricks, but custom table and supports for the series of mosaics chronicling the 80 day adventure. It is made up of of 224x 32×32 stud baseplates littered with both minifgure-scale and micro-scale builds, several operating trains, and one big world – with spinning sign.
Our friends at Beyond the Brick take us through an in depth interview with the Project Leader Heath Flor about this layout:
You can see more details photos of this display in the Flickr Group
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This Tron diorama by Tim Schwalfenberg perfectly captures the glowing cybernetic world of Tron and even features a crisp and detailed interior where the party has just begun.
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In order to faithfully recreate both the interior and exterior of the Stockholm public library, Swedish builder Linus Minkowsky decided to just build them as separate models. So I guess you could say it’s bigger on the inside! And looking at the end result, I’d say that was a pretty smart idea. Especially since it meant he didn’t have to exhaust the world’s supply of Medium Dark Flesh colored bricks.
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Portuguese builder César Soares has recreated his childhood bedroom, and along with it a kind of organized chaos that I’m sure all of us remember well (or as parents, are still dealing with on a daily basis). But far from being just a random collection of objects, there’s much attention to detail in the background of this scene too, from the furniture to the walls and even the floor.
The use of Modulex to represent LEGO bricks is a particularly clever touch. See if you can find anything in this scene that dates César’s childhood in the many wonderful closeup images.
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This foreboding compound represents the end of the road in an enormous post-apocalyptic LEGO diorama created by Swedish LUG Swebrick for an exhibition they held last month. The full diorama is quite impressive, both in its scale and in its attention to detail …and also in the amount of dark tan used! Thanks to Jonas Wide and Christer Nyberg for the photos.
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Let’s take a walking tour of this gorgeous spaceport, built by Stephan Niehoff. Stephan estimates it took 6 months to build. In terms of parts, he stopped counting after 9,000. Hats off to you, Stephan, because I’m quite sure I would have stopped counting parts at 10.
On to our tour.
You’re going to have to sit down with this and just oogle the gorgeous details, but let’s cover a few of them to get you started:
The Craters: The building style gives some great angles and very smooth lines for the entire display.
Communication Tower: With the dish set to receive signals, the tower is sturdy, industrial, and excellent situated with everything anyone could need.
Landing Pad: I absolutely love the textures from using the up-side-down plates here. It’s a great way to seperate it from the smooth lines of the studs-not-on-top design of the rest of the diorama.
I am particularly delighted by the rocket and launch tower, with all of the access points and the rocket itself.
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Pro building team Olive Seon are back it with another magnificent brick-built beauty; this time a theme park. The awesome high-flying roller coaster really ties the model together, and also gives you a sense of scale for just how small most LEGO dioramas really are. As per usual with these builders, there is a lot to look at and loads of fun little details to spy. My favorites are the LEGO Architecture line buildings used for a miniland within the park.
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I love the detail on this tower and the half-timber walls of the building. The sparse landscaping is very nice and the stairs leading up to the door are very well executed. But what makes this build really stand out is the fact that it opens!
Building a beautiful castle is much harder than it looks. Building an accessible and believable interior is also much harder than it looks. Doing both of these in the same the build and making it look like the castle doesn’t actually open is something that Isaac S. has mastered.
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Patrick Massey just posted a diorama of a gorgeous tan city. I love the splashes of color from the buildings and the texture of the walls. The scene is also packed full of detail and “life”. The longer I look at it, the more intriguing details I find!
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The indomitable Mark Erickson has created yet another beautiful scene. I love the detailing on all of these buildings. Mark has done a great job of packing them with believable historical detail, making them all work together while still keeping each building unique. Not an easy job at all. My hat is off to you, sir!
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