What exotic destinations would you choose to visit if you had a portal through time? Piotr Machalski selected the Mesozoic Era for this startled minifig who’s unfortunately come face-to-face with a venom-spitting Dilophosaurus. Good thing he brought a turkey leg! Piotr’s cleverly-built time machine looks a bit like a cross between a Stargate and the Nexo Knight portal we featured in February. But most of all, it looks like it could be an official LEGO set! I’d certainly swipe it off the shelf and into my shopping cart before you could say “hold on to your butts!”
Tag Archives: Fantasy
LEGO Elves – and dragons! – from New York Toy Fair 2016 [News]
We’re excited to bring you pictures from the new line of LEGO Elves revealed at Toy Fair in New York. Stay posted this week for our upcoming reviews of 41172 The Water Dragon Adventure and 41176 The Secret Market Place!
41171 Emily Jones & the Baby Wind Dragon (80 pieces @ $9.99)
Thriller, Killer
TBB regular Letranger Absurde continues to refine his unique style and churn out one great character build after another. This week he graced us with not one, but two, new examples: the erstwhile King of Pop, and a lady assassin who seems to be taking her work a bit too seriously. Both feature stellar poses, great proportioning, and a delightful use of Mixel eyes. It’s almost enough to make this aged character builder wanna hang up his bricks! I tip my hat to you, sir…
The Goblin King: It’s only forever, not long at all
The latest creation by builder Centuri is Jareth the Goblin King from the fantasy movie Labyrinth. Labyrinth was released in 1986 but lives on with cult status amongst its fans. It tells the story of a selfish 16-year old girl who is given 13 hours to solve a labyrinth and rescue her baby brother when her wish for him to be taken away is granted by the Goblin King.
David Bowie played the part of the dangerous yet charismatic main antagonist. Centuri cleverly captures Bowies’ big 80s hair and quirky eye-shadow in this LEGO version. The Goblin King’s high collared, wide shouldered jacket is perfect and little details like the brass buckle help complete the look.
With the recent death of David Bowie, Labyrinth was shown in some cinemas in the UK to raise money for cancer research. In addition, it has been reported that Hollywood is planning a sequel, although in my eyes the role Jareth the Goblin King will always belong to Bowie.
Hidden in the mangroves
Mangrove trees have a chaotic, almost alien feel to them. In salty, waterlogged conditions, where other trees flounder, they thrive. Tirrell Brown has perfectly captured the majesty of these strange trees in his most recent build. His swampy scene, which was built for Eurobrick’s Guilds of Historica, depicts a hidden croc warrior desperately fleeing a pair of dangerous dark elves. For now, the croc is escaping their notice. Can you spot him?
Tales of Samsara
Korean builder Amida Na has created a series of fantasy characters with individual backstories that he calls Tales of Samsara. As an avid character builder myself, I’m always fascinated to see innovative scales, styles and techniques being used for these kinds of builds – and these are just brilliant!
Fjollum Great Hall – Inside and Out
This medieval pile has rather unique walls. This technique is most often used for floors but Isaac S. has done a great job of incorporating it into the exterior walls of this hall. But the features of this model do not stop there. Isaac has built a very believable interior into it as well. I really like the cheese-slope mosaic, featuring the coat-of-arms, on the lower floor.
Diplomacy in the Dark
This dark scene by Disco86 lit up my day. Besides being a well-thought and nicely posed scene, the lighting and editing of the picture are top-notch. The elves look like they aren’t sure what to make of each other and the lighting really gives it a creepy, other-worldly air.
Grand designs
Patrick Massey builds great fantasy environments, then stocks them with entire armies of figures. But like the landscape we featured previously, much of his scenery is so gorgeous that it demands to be enjoyed unpopulated as well, to appreciate all the little details. Fortunately Patrick seems to feel the same way. The result: pure LEGO scene-porn!
In the company of dwarves
The first installment of Peter Jackson’s sprawling Hobbit adaptation hit theaters almost two years ago now. Shortly after the premiere, Finnish builder and TBB regular Pate-keetongu decided to build two of the dwarves from the movie. And he just kept going! Now, his grand opus is finally complete. So we present to you, the company of Thorin Oakenshield in LEGO (or as the builder describes it on his blog, the “Hobbitsplosion“).
As breathtaking as the above spread is, it cannot do the individual builds justice. So we encourage you to check out the full album on Flickr, or visit the builder’s blog for lots of close-ups. Each character’s hair, costume and equipment has been accurately captured, making each one instantly recognizable.
And coincidentally, I recently interviewed this builder for a coming issue of LEGO fan magazine BrickJournal, where you’ll be able to learn more about his inspirations, building techniques, and impressive body of work.
“The tales and songs fall utterly short of your enormity, oh Smaug the stupendous!”
Regular readers will know that we’ve featured many LEGO dragons over the years, but I think on this occasion YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID now that heavy-duty character builder Shawn Snyder has decided to get in on the game with this recreation of Tolkien’s Smaug. From head to tail it’s 28 inches and the wingspan is a whopping 35 inches!
We used Sauron’s seeing-stone to track down the damp cave that Shawn hides in, and dispatched our goblin hoard to interrogate him about his latest bunker-busting creation…
TBB: You’re best known for creating large figures and busts of humanoid characters from videogames such as Halo and Assassins Creed, or movies like Iron Man and Predator. What inspired you to attempt a monster this time?
SS: I’ve actually wanted to make a dragon for quite some time. It wasn’t until ArchLUG did a collaborative build of Laketown that made me commit to finally attempt it. After all, Laketown needs a Smaug!
TBB: Tell us about the build. How did you get such a large yet detailed model to stay in one piece? Did it present any new building challenges for you?
Dragon Kill
In his posting for this model on Flickr, builder A Plastic Infinity composed a list of reason why prospective viewers should take the time and leave a comment. Most of them were fairly boilerplate self promotional offerings like “Because it’s my favorite!” and “the photos are good this time.”, but my favorite was definitely “Medusa tails!“. How can I possibly argue with that logic?…so enjoy the Medusa tails, and the rest of this scene from an up and coming builder.
Although I blogged the creature a few months ago in a Sunday round-up, the builder has since added a decorative base and is therefore worth a second look. Enjoy “Quane in Wonderland.”
