Tag Archives: Fairy Tale

Take a look, it’s in a LEGO book...

When he’s not busy designing LEGO sets like 40505 LEGO Building Systems, Markus Rollbühler finds the time to make creations of a less-official variety. His latest is an entry into this year’s RogueOlympics, a competition where each round’s entry must clock in at 101 bricks or less. And with this limited palette, Markus still tells quite the story, full of forced perspective and hard-to-use fabric pieces. But I think the real victory here is the integration of some of the oldest LEGO trees, circa 1960.

101 Bricks: Storybook Adventures

Nothing’s hipper than see-thru slippers

Thomas W had planned a different build for his contribution to a fairy tale collaboration but had to shift gears at the last minute. The result is a happy ending worthy of a fairy tale. This vignette, with its impressive tomes and frog-occupied wishing well, sets the imagination racing with all kinds of storybook adventures. But the real work of art is that glass slipper. There’s a limited number of bricks available in the trans-clear color, but Thomas transformed them into something special anyway, as easy as turning a frog into a prince.

Once Upon A Time

The story of the house on the chicken leg and the witch on the big broom

Marcin Otreba drew inspiration from the classic folklore tale of Baba Yaga. And he’s not the first one to use this story as an inspiration for a LEGO creation: we’ve featured numerous chicken-legged cottages throughout the years. Marcin’s is special because it’s so tiny yet so packed with details. It’s so small it almost has you wondering if the witch will actually fit into the cottage. The answer is yes, of course! It is a magic cottage, you silly! The arms with pins introduced in the Super Mario LEGO sets are used to create all sorts of odd angles, and the fact that the cottage is asymmetrical makes it even more aesthetically pleasing. But the most hilarious thing about this creation is the fact that Baba Yaga is riding a Belville broom which is far bigger than her house.

Baba Yaga ????

Check out more Baba Yaga creations here!

Everdell Chapel in the brick

Next to LEGO I am a huge board game nerd, and I love it when hobbies collide. Isaac and John Snyder drew inspiration from one of my favourite board games. Everdell is a worker placement game in which you build the homes of the many forest critters that inhabit the forest of Everdell. The artwork was done by Andrew Bosley and Dann May. The playing cards depict forest locations but also its inhabitants. The illustrations on the cards look truly as if they came straight out of a fairy tale. I can surely see why Isaac and John would draw inspiration from it. In this creation we see the Everdell chapel which is built on a rock in a foggy lake. A grey Belville tower roof has been incorporated in the landscaping and to me it is mind boggling that this large piece blends in with the scenery so well.

Everdell Chapel

The resemblance to the source material is really amazing. The Tudor style is done exceptionally well, and including yellowed and damaged white bricks to depict the decay of the building is really clever. On the playing card there are no animals included but it is nice to get some forest critters in there to make the scene appear more alive. They even get cute custom outfits made out of capes and rubber bands. I am curious to see if these two will keep drawing inspiration from this lovely board game. One thing is for sure, I wouldn’t mind!

Nostalgic little mushroom home

This LEGO creation by Jonas Kramm really reminds me of the Smurf toys I used to have as a kid. It is simply amazing. Jonas was inspired by the Forest Elf minifigure and I can totally understand why. It is by far one of the cutest minifigures ever produced by LEGO and it goes along with this creation wonderfully. This model features a big mushroom which is used as the elf’s home. The vibrant blue color used for the door and the windows is a nice contrast to the red mushroom cap. It even comes with white scales.

Mushroom House - LEGO Ideas Project

Next to the mushroom home there is a smaller mushroom growing. (Maybe it’ll be someone’s home in the near future.) This little mushroom features the plate with crown leaf as the skirt of the mushroom. Jonas’ eye for detail is truly remarkable. I do have to admit that we featured the snail build before, but it goes along great with this creation and I understand why it was included as it is still a wonderful build. Using the foot plate in trans clear is a smart way to mimic snail slime. I want at least half a dozen of these, preferably with different hood colours and little blue minifigures.

Art Nouveau book covers

LEGO has been into books as of lately. We got the LEGO Ideas 21315 Pop-Up Book, the Hogwarts Moments books, the Disney Storybooks, the 40410 Charles Dickens Tribute, and more. So as a LEGO fan, why not hop on the trend? That is exactly what Ted Andes must have thought. They created a series of lovely hardcover books with Art Nouveau-inspired cover art to go along with the Wasp-wing Table Lamp we featured a while back.

Book Cover - A Fairy's Tale

The blue book looks quite elaborately embellished with golden details which make the satin white jewels pop. The green book uses Spider-Man’s web as a very artistic cloud and the minifigure butterfly wings are used to represent a magical transparent butterfly. Most of all this is a very ingenious way to display minifigures you like and it can be translated to any theme.

Beware the servants of the Goblin King

Busts have become ever-popular, and with them have come a wealth of fun ideas. Builders trying their hand at sculpting a character’s features with bricks are forced to try new things and innovate. This Goblin bust by builder Jnj_bricks was such a foray that was definitely successful. Texturing really helped this character come through, from the spikey, short hair to the boats used in his jacket. The knobbly, green skin translates well as a Goblin, as do the bright orange eyes which hold a mischievous light. The gold earrings and jutting jaw with sharp teeth add that extra bit of character emblematic of this trickster species in lore, old and new.

The Goblin

Quite a few techniques were used to achieve all the interesting angles and textures of this build. Though Jnj_bricks says this is a very different style for him, it’s clear it wasn’t too far out of his range.

It’s a fairy tale in microscale

We’re all familiar with the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. Probably everyone reading this can sum it up in just a few words: Magic beans, giant’s castle, golden goose. But how many of us could tell the story in brick form as well as Markus Rollbühler has? Considering this vignette sits on just a 12×12 footprint, it’s amazing how much technique is packed into it. From the books and their detailed pages, to the microscale farmland, to the magic castle in the clouds. I’m particularly enamored with the use of Clone Trooper helmet antennae as a windmill. And that brick built “J” replicating a medieval drop cap is the sort of detail that makes this small vignette a giant-sized success.

Jack and the Beanstalk

Beauty and the bricks

Perhaps one of the most iconic scenes in Disney animated film history is depicted here in bricks, superbly constructed by LEGO builder Konoyaro.

Beauty and the Beast

In this model we have the ending scene from Beauty and The Beast all built up and spectacularly accurate to the film, from the windows with the dark blue 1×2 trans-clear bricks to the floors utilizing great tiling build techniques. The shapes, sizes, and poses of the brick-built characters are completely on point. Belle’s signature dress utilizes slope pieces in various forms and even bright light yellow claw elements with 1×1 cone pieces to accurately render the ruffles of the dress. The beast is also largely composed of slopes as well as bricks and both characters are constructed in a way in which a minimal amount of studs are exposed. With this build, Konoyaro truly translates the magic of Disney fairy tale films into a LEGO masterpiece.

I’ll huff and I’ll puff!

As a kid, I always loved Disney’s version of the three little pigs. Alego alego managed to capture the big bad wolf in all its wickedness. I am always a fan of a creation that looks as if it is in motion. This LEGO creation is a wonderful example of one that evokes movement. A couple of things attributed to the idea of motion in this creation. Let’s start with the Wolf. His pose is very dynamic as if we caught him mid-action. The builder use of the boulder bottom for inflated cheeks is quite clever. The rock fingers and the polygon wedge top mimic fur brilliantly.

Book The three little pigs

But not just the pose of the wolf evokes movement. We’re at the first little pig’s home. The one who has built his house with straws. The wolf just delivered his iconic lines about huffing and puffing and blowing houses away and he is now in the middle of the process. The straw flying everywhere sure looks amazing! All of the vegetation is bending in the same direction as the straw is flying. Even the books pages are moving along with the huffing and the puffing of the wolf.

A scraggily troll lives under a scraggily bridge

When I think of building with LEGO, the first thing that comes to mind is building with bricks. Jessica Farrell has taken that to the next level, and built a bridge out of bricks, that themselves are built with LEGO bricks.

Troll Bridge

And these brick-built-bricks ain’t your standard sized bricks either – they’re all kinds of odd shapes, cobbled together to build a bridge with character. Some have moss growing on them, there are even weeds poking out through the cracks. The vast array of different parts used give the bricks and bridge a quite amazing texture. Underneath the bridge you’ll find your standard bridge-hider-under, an ugly troll, ready to eat whatever goats go trip-trapping over his bridge. Luckily both sides of the river are quite lush. I really like the healthy-looking lime and green grass, as well as the custom-cut lengths of flextube for reeds and bulrushes.

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your…long chain of bricks

A classic fairy tale gets the LEGO treatment with this towering six foot tall brick-built minifigure-scale structure created by Martin Harris and inspired by the Disney film Tangled. Not only do we get the famous tower in this work, we also get a nice landscape – the forest in which Rapunzel was tucked away, complete with colorful trees and a nice riverbed utilizing many nature-inspired elements including flower pieces, plants, and tree-limb elements in varying colors.

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