Tag Archives: Eli Willsea

Placid plastic (brick) duck simulator

One of the weirder gaming experiences I had this year was playing Placid Plastic Duck Simulator. If you haven’t played it – and I use the word ‘played’ loosely – it’s an idle game where you watch a bunch of rubber ducks floating around. Why am I telling you this? Because Eli Willsea has created an equally tranquil rubber duck simulator, but this one made of LEGO bricks. In truth, the ducks are probably the most conventional part of this build. There’s some clever parts use, including artists’ boards for lilypads and green katanas for reeds. And the most eye-catching is the use of clear 1x2x5 bricks with some lighting behind them to create the water. Is it realistic? Well, no, probably not. But is it pretty? You bet!

A Bunch of Baby Ducks

We love Eli’s builds at TBB. I’m going to watch more rubber duckies float around on my screen, but you should go and see what else we’ve featured from Eli over the years.

Here’s one LEGO hedgehog who takes it slow

Small LEGO scenes like this make me smile. With just a few parts and a simple story, Eli Willsea crafts a fun and colorful vignette of a hedgehog taking a walk after a light rain. The chopstick element makes perfect spines, yellow rainboots are instantly recognizable, and he even has a frog friend along for the ride.

Puddle Splash Pals

Zamor spheres, Clikits, and candlesticks, oh my!

Sometimes a handfull of the right LEGO elements can make you look at your collection in a whole new light. This “Midnight Mushrooms” vignette from Eli Willsea is just such a build, invoking a whole matgical world on a base just 8 studs in diameter.  The bulbous tree tops are made from Zamor Spheres, bygone Bioncle ammo, while the mushroom caps come from the Clikits jewelry line from the early 2000s. At ground level, the smiling salamander is a Friends recolor of Elsa’s magical pet and provides the perfect contrast to the cool blues. It’s a fantastic mix of unusual parts.

Midnight Mushrooms

Well, well, well, what do we have here?

For a lot of treasure hunters, the real treasure was the great LEGO builds we found along the way! This build by Eli Willsea portrays a pair of adventurers delving deep into a empty desert ruin, but what it really shows off is a trove of fantastic building techniques! Down on the floor of the lost well the cracked tiles are made from the immensely useful cheese slope, but did you notice they’re embedded in 1x2x3 windows? On the back wall, Eli uses those windows again with minifigure brackets as decoration. Finally, if you take a look at the well itself, you’ll see that it’s a combination of cheese slopes and 1×1 bricks with sideways studs which fit so well inside an 8×8 dish!

Into the Well

Meat and more are back on the menu in LEGO Isengard

After weeks without elevenses or second breakfasts, with naught but Ent-draughts to sustain them, you can feel the joy when Merry and Pippen discover Saruman’s private food stash. MorlornEmpire (secondary account of Eli Willsea, aka ForlornEmpire) recreates the scene in a delicious LEGO vignette. The builder is no stranger to Lord of the Rings vignettes, and again he showcases his eye for screen detail with dynamic composition at miniature scale. The lattice roof is my favorite feature, providing a nice contrast from the color and textures on the stone walls. Look carefully and you’ll see that the floor is flooded, but not so high as to ruin those barrels of Old Toby.

Merry & Pippin Find The Food Stash

The scene was created for the Middle Earth LEGO Olympics 2024 for a final round duel against Isaiah Kepner, who ended up winning the competition with his tribute to Rohan’s Golden Hall feast.

Medieval bathhouse is a clean build indeed

LEGO models from Eli Willsea feature clean lines and smooth surfaces where studs have been all but scrubbed away, which makes a medieval hammam (public bathhouse) the ideal subject for his immaculate building style. I love the variety of arches stacked and nested the give the build an airiness, complemented by the bits of greenery around the scene. Of course this wouldn’t be a ForlornEmpire build without some mind-blowing parts usage. DUPLO brooms are a truly unexpected part that fit so naturally into the scene. Droid arms and binoculars link so neatly into the arches, it’s hard to believe LEGO didn’t design them for just that purpose.  The greatest trick in the scene has to be the water effect, made from upside down transparent baseplates, creating the perfect bubbly surface.

A Day at the Hammam

Luminous and ominous; the Numinous Isle!

When LEGO builders collaborate, great things are bound to happen. Micah Beideman, Eli Willsea, and Grant Davis have gotten together to build the mystical breakwater called the Numinous Isle. Let’s talk gold! At the very top of this build, you’ll find a few gold 4×4 wedges. Those pearl gold pieces were only available in two sets from 2013. Behind the gold sais and interlocked gold bar clips is the grand dome of the build. That dome is one half of the Star Wars planet Bespin from a set released in 2012. Take a look further down at that grey arch. Did you know that macaroni pieces fit into a large arch so neatly? I sure didn’t! Even lower down, there’s a pair of fins from an A-Wing masquerading as part of a wall. Check out that fountain too. It looks like the ingots fit just perfectly into that specific wheel. All of that beautiful building only takes us to the shoreline. What other secrets are hidden beneath the waves?

The Numinous Isle

Dungeons deep and caverns old

When I first saw Eli Willsea‘s epic LEGO diorama “Into Dungeon Depths,” it took my breath away. The epic vertical scale, the mix of colors and form, and the aura of foreboding make this one of the most striking works from one of our favorite builders. The cross section of the burrowing wyrm skeleton is the star attraction; the way its snaking body weaves around stones and intersects with the geometric stairs must have been an incredible building challenge, but the results are magical. Eli does impressive work with the lighting as well, both through the color gradation of bricks as the stairs descend, and through an ominous red glow coming from the dungeon floor. What will the three minifig adventurers find at the end of their descent, I wonder…?

Into Dungeon Depths

“Into Dungeon Depths” is Eli’s entry into the Stairway Stories category of the Summer Joust contest. See why we loved his previous entry too.

Prepare to meet thy (map) maker!

Some of the best LEGO builds are the ones that not only have a story behind them, but that subvert expectations somewhat. Now I’m not talking about all the Nice Parts Use (NPU) in Eli Willsea‘s little vignette – although it is absolutely chock full of it. A wrench is used as a very sturdy-looking door handle, doors make for an elegant staircase, and candles mimic scrolls on shelves made out of Duplo elements. The bucket handles shoved into lever bases for the bookstand are cool too. This creation is titled “Madeline the Map Maker”, but is that really all she is? Look how brooding this place is… The dark red evokes something a little sinister to me. And it’s not helped by Madeline’s black robes. Perhaps we should be wary of where these maps might lead us!

Madeline the Map Maker

What’s the best Christmas film to be rendered in LEGO?

December is a little over a week away, which means we will soon have the annual debate over what the second-best Christmas movie is. Wait, second-best? You heard me! You can keep your Home Alones, your Nutcracker adaptations and your Die Hards (if you’re that way inclined). As Eli Willsea clearly knows, The Muppet Christmas Carol is the undisputed festive film champion! It’s wholesome, it has some great songs, it’s not too cheesy (Muppet cast notwithstanding), and it inspires creative use of LEGO watering cans. What’s not to love?

"It's not easy being a green watering can"

Cactus makes perfect

I love a bit of meta in a LEGO build. Eli Willsea is taking part in Iron Builder, where the challenge is to use the watering can piece in new and unusual ways. Now a watering can is a tool to help keep your plants alive. So Eli has used it to bring a plant to life in brick form! But why not go further? Why not choose a plant that is famous for not needing a lot of water, like a cactus? Now we’ve got a hint of irony involved too! Pretty much all that’s missing now is a good pun. What to do for that, I wonder…

The Cactus Caretakers

Water (and frogs) under the bridge

This saccharine sweet little LEGO scene is brought to you by famed builder Eli Willsea. With adorable frogs under a bridge and equally adorable birds on it, what’s not to love? This is an entry for the ever-popular Iron Builder competition; this time the seed part being the watering can in lime. Eight were used to denote the frog eyes. I especially love that one frog peeking from behind the bridge. It’s just so sweet! Even the wee caterpillar seems happy to be eaten in this delightful little scene.

Frogs Below the Bridge