Tag Archives: Fairy Tale

Unsettling figure will haunt your dreams

Sometimes the most effective LEGO creations are those that skillfully employ a sparse economy of parts. This creepy figure from Cezium does exactly that–building genuine character from a handful of pieces. Whilst this (blind?) old lady appears to be only gathering herbs, her eyeless visage and the skull-bearing staff create a real sense of unease. I suspect there’s nothing but a frame beneath the cloth habit, but it doesn’t matter, as what is visible is well done. The face (built from an upside down Raptor body no less!) and the skull are excellent, and the use of spider leg parts for the staff’s tips is perfect. Couple the model-building with atmospheric photography and you have a wonderfully unsettling LEGO creation.

Baba Ludmila

Baba Yaga’s black woods

Baba Yaga is the enigmatic mistress of eastern-European folklore, haunting the forests and bestowing spells of good or ill on those bold enough to seek her out, or foolish enough to stumble upon her. Finding Baba Yaga’s home takes a striking amount of bad luck, though, as her home runs about on chicken legs. In Bricksom Parsom‘s LEGO scene, however, a small girl has done just that by wandering into a section of woods gone sour.

Baba Yaga's garden (better quality)

The twisted trees and blackened plants are excellently wrought from a variety of elements, on the most interesting being the Nexo Knights mechanical spiders used as grey flowers and a flail as another. The rickety cottage also looks great, with a mix of round tiles for a sickly, bubbled roof.

My, what big eyes you have Grandma

Built around BrickHeadz style figures, this lovely sketch of Red Riding Hood by Cindy Su features an adorably ferocious wolf and a strikingly vibrant granddaughter. The little scene is mostly a setup for the characters, who have some great techniques, and thankfully Cindy has some pictures of the characters on their own, too.

小紅帽(Little Red Riding Hood)

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Which raven do you choose?

Most of us are familiar with princesses kissing frogs in fairytales to save their beloved from a curse, but this build by Revan New introduced me to a different, unique story, in which the girl is tasked by a sorcerer to guess her lover amongst four of the sorcerer’s apprentices, turned into ravens.

Quest

The creation is not a perfectly “realistic” recreation of the fairytale scene, as Revan adds expressive, artistic accents to the build. The snow on the edges of the beautifully constructed walls seems to have little logical relation to the scene itself, instead capturing the atmosphere and emotional aspects of the story. A few splashes of brown help to break up the build colour-wise without making it inapropriately cheerful, and the window is especially well integrated into the wall. The figures are well built too, with great details like the sorcerer’s boots and belt buckle, but most importantly, they are very expressive.

Take your seats, folks – it’s time for a fairy tale!

The traditional fairy tales my parents read me and some of the old Basic LEGO sets are probably the biggest impressions of my childhood. And when these two things meet, it really touches my heart. As did this simple illustration of a traditional Russian fairy tale Emelya and the Pike by Dwalin Forkbeard. The story tells of an ordinary fellow named Emelya who was notorious for his indolence. Once he was lucky enough to catch a fairy pike who made all of his wishes come true. My favorite episode of this tale is Emelya riding his self-driving stove around his village. And here is the traditional stove exactly how I imagined it as a kid! Bricks with masonry profile work just perfectly for this kind of build, not to mention smart use of handcuffs as a shoulder yoke.

Emile and the Pike

Baba Yaga and her Chicken-Legged Hut

Captainsmog presents a wonderfully illustrated scene, telling the story of Baba Yaga and her chicken-legged hut. There are many versions of the fairy tale, and like any good story, the details are where the weirdness begins. Is there one Baba Yaga? Three? Why do all of these stories involve cannibalism?

I invite you to look long and hard at this wonderfully constructed witch’s hut and check out the wonderful details.

Chicken-legged hut

Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum

Brother Steven artfully captures the moment a home intruder breaks in and steals the owner’s valuables, before subsequently escaping and murdering the wronged homeowner. I never quite got the moral of that story.

I particularly like the expression on the giant’s face in the picture above, but be sure to check out the full shot for the fantastic details.

Seeing Red

This edgy version of Little Red Riding Hood, by Evan B., depicts her in the midst of an anti-wolf vendetta. This build is quite striking. I think this is a case where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The girl is nicely done, the landscaping is good, the wolf and the blood effect are well-thought out but when all the elements are put together something special emerges. I get a real sense of the character and her pain when I look at this build. Well done, Evan, well done.

Little Red.

This was built as an entry for the annual MOCathalon on MOCpages