Tag Archives: Flowers

Sowing seeds for the season

As February rounds to an end, many of us gardeners in the northern hemisphere are looking fondly at the melting snow in our yards. Builder brickdesigned reminds us of the future fruits of our green thumbs’ labor with these Farmers Market-themed builds. These clever, quaint designs are delicate reproductions of the crates and canopies common amongst weekly markets. Each has its own distinct character with creative coloration, prints, and usefully minifigure accessories. The produce stand is full of fruits and veggies held in their own clever little bins. The angle on that canopy is deceptively simple, just like the crates.

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LEGO 40524 Sunflowers expand the botanical collection [Review]

It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year since LEGO added the Botanical Collection to their lineup but here we are. After the initial success of the 10280 Flower Bouquet and 10281 Bonsai Tree, as well as the 10289 Birds of Paradise that came later in the year, it was clear that LEGO would keep watering this prospering garden. Joining the ranks of the “botanical boosters” 40460 Roses and 40461 Tulips, LEGO has announced the upcoming 40524 Sunflowers (US $12.99 | CAN $16.99 | UK £11.99) to be release on January 1st, 2022.

The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.

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Falling for these autumnal flowers

This bunch of autumnal LEGO flowers by Barbara Hoel is a beauty — one of those creations which at first you scroll past assuming it cannot possibly be made of bricks and has made it into your feed due to some glitch in the algorithm. But then you look again and realise the pot is brick-built, oh… and the stalks, and the flower petals, oh and EVERY LAST PIECE OF THE THING, including those wonderful puffballs to the rear. The parts use on show here are delightful, well worth a closer look, particularly the use of pearl gold crowns for the impressive puffballs. We’ve seen more LEGO flowers since the release of the official LEGO flower sets, and when they look as good as this, long may this horticultural building trend continue.

LEGO bunch of flowers

Beauty comes in all different shapes

One of the joys of building with LEGO is working with lots of shapes in order to create new ones. Clever builders will use parts with a particular origin and morph them into something with an entirely new purpose. Like shields for leaves or balloon panels for a vase base, or shoulder armor for petals. This expertly crafted render by _Regn takes it further by creating a particularly complex shape: a hyperboloid. Essentially, if you twist a cylinder at its center, you create an hourglass-shaped design. It makes for a gorgeous centerpiece!

Bloom of Crimson Glory

Unfortunately, there are elements of this artwork that would likely be too difficult or impossible to build in real life. Those shields, for example, don’t come in green. And the connections would be very precarious. Still, it’s certainly beautiful to look at, and a superb bit of rendering!

If you’d like to see more flower-based creations, check out the exquisite new LEGO Botanical Collection and other custom flower builds in our archives. Oh, and if renders are your thing, we have plenty of those too!

LEGO Botanical Collection 10289 Bird of Paradise: April showers bring May flowers [Review]

Let’s start things out right with a few floral puns, shall we? LEGO has been branching out into new themes lately. Introduced in late 2020, the Botanical Collection has already taken root with amazing sets like the 10280 Flower Bouquet and the 10281 Bonsai Tree. It was a pretty safe bet that we’d see more growth in this area, and now we know what it is! The 1173 piece 10289 Botanical Collection: Bird Of Paradise will  retail for US $99.99 | CAN $139.99 | UK £89.99 starting June 1 in Europe and the rest of the world, and August 1 in the Americas. I know you’re just budding with excitement, so let’s take a closer look!

The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.

Click to read the full hands-on review

Pollinator from another planet

Far away, on some advanced planet, there are probably cyborg animals. I mean, the likelihood of Earth-like creatures seems reasonably high. And cyborgs aren’t just made from our imagination. Look at prosthetics — medical advancements are headed there more and more. Matt Goldberg gives us a glimpse of that with his latest LEGO build. This bee has circuitry! While the trans-blue Insectoid wings call attention, there are other great features too, like the marbled Bionicle Mohtrek mask used in the abdomen. My favorites are on the head, where skates are used for mandibles and minifigure hands attached to sausages form the antennae. Also, let’s not forget that colorful flower, cleverly built with purple Bionicle Pakari masks.

Alien Pollination

We try to keep it light here at TBB. But on a somber note, did you know our bees are in trouble? Without bees and other pollinators, we’d starve. We’re not going to be able to develop cyborg bees anytime soon, and even if we could, the real thing deserves our help. Please take a moment to learn what you can do, and check out these sites for more information on bees and their impact. Every act helps – even small and easy ones like planting a little bee garden and providing a refreshing bee bath.

Stacked terraced garden habitats

Are you aware of the phenomenon called Minifig Habitats? It’s essentially an 8x8x8 diagonal vignette that can be stacked and interlocked to form a pyramid display. However, there is a more popular habitat style that isn’t diagonal and has less open space. These habitats first appeared on Flickr in 2016 and were popularised by LEGO fan sites in the last few years. Since then, they became a nice way for people to show off LEGO Collectible Minifigures in a small dynamic display. Kristel Whitaker takes it to the next level by reimagining minifig habitats into a diorama of a pergola, a balcony, and a potting shed.

Spring Habitat Stack

The white structures provide a bright canvas for plants to grow on and make the diorama clean and minimalist. In addition, the nougat flooring brings a lovely warm contrast to the blue backdrop of Kristel’s photo. There’s plenty of other colours as well, from the yellows and pinks of the flowers to the blues and reds of the potting shed in the lower right habitat. All of these come together in a concise diorama that are clearly different parts of the same house.

Want to build your own minifig habitats? Here is the template.

These Irises were made for walkin’, and that’s just what they’ll do.

The walking iris is an interesting plant. When it reproduces, new plantlets form at the top of the flower stalks. This added weight causes the stalks to bend to the ground, where the new plants take root. Repeat that a few times, and you have a flower that “walks” around the garden. This exceptional botanical recreation by James Zhan captures the unique beauty of this plant, and adds in a swanky LEGO base to boot.

Walking Iris

Seen close up, you can appreciate the building techniques that have gone into the flowers. There’s some very clever part usage including minifigure ski poles and crowns, as well as a 1×1 plate used as a tiny mosaic to give the petals a splash of color. I also like the varied joints in the greenery, allowing for some very organic curves.

Walking Iris

Flowers have always been a popular theme for custom LEGO creations, and we’ve seen some great sets coming directly from LEGO recently, too. What sort of botanical build do you want to try?

A flower is worth a thousand bricks

LEGO may have released an official Flower Bouquet set now, but that doesn’t mean they’ve got a monopoly on great-looking life-sized flowers made out of plastic bricks. This beautiful orchid by James Zhan shows that there are a lot more possibilities waiting to be explored. This one comes in a lovely 2×2 brick vase (something the official set lacked) and isn’t just cut flowers but instead the whole orchid plant. Look closely and you’ll even spot some bamboo stakes that help hold the flowers aloft. And my favorite detail is the succulent planted at the base, a common accompaniment to potted orchids.

orchid2.0

First dates and breaking the ice with LEGO [News]

LEGO is doubling down on focussing on the Adult market with a video just under 2 minutes featuring six strangers out on their first date. The setting in this typical session of mixed emotions ranging from being tensed up and full of anxiety are also those moments of silence, but with one difference – a LEGO set placed between the two individuals meeting for the first time.

Click to see the full video from LEGO

This frightening flower could eat you right up

The new LEGO Bouquet set is all the rage right now, so it’s cool to see some LEGO fans build their own brick-built potted plants. Aiden Rexroad joined in the fun with a truly frightening Flos Corpus.

Flos Corpus

This creation is impressive in that you can, more or less, see all the parts he used. But don’t let that relative simplicity take anything away from how terrific (or terror-ific) this flower looks. This meat-eating plant brandishes rows of sharp teeth tucked inside some beautiful purple petals — petals expertly made up of purple Bionicle Pakari masks. The Bionicle theme continues down the stem, with leaves of Bionicle Rahkshi Kraata. Luckily this little plant is contained to a pot. If it had legs, I’d be truly scared of it walking over, licking me with its slimy pink tongue, and taking a big chomp outta my leg.

Beautiful blossoms in memoriam of a loved one

It’s the season of all things flora with LEGO and while typically we think of happy thoughts when we see such cheer and beauty in nature around us, sometimes they also represent sorrow and sadness. Every build has a story behind it, and this lovely creation by John Cheng was built with love in memoriam of a beloved sister that’s dearly missed. The soft yellow tones of the anthers are made with simple round plates, while the white petals and olive green shrubbery offer a very peaceful and warm feel.

Mourn #legomoc #lego #legophotography #legocreation #legolife #legobuilder #legoplant #yan