Tag Archives: Gardens

How to wring iron elegance from unlikely elements [Building Techniques]

In celebration of spring’s arrival, Flatland Brick shares a charming LEGO build of a gardener tending to the season’s first blooms. The real star of this scene is the wrought iron bench. The builder draws on some clever parts for the ornate metalwork, such as umbrellas for the armrests, minifig hands for the rear legs, and a samurai headpiece for the back. The cleverest techniques are hidden until you flip the build around.

Link treads are used to hold the wooden slats in place at a subtle angle. They also offer connection points for the antennae that hold up the horns! LEGO kicked off the trend of finding unusual black elements to use as wrought iron in the earliest modulars, turning screwdrivers, harpoons, and skeleton feet into railings. Flatland Brick shows how much room there is to innovate, especially with parts like the tank treads that offer unconventional anchor points.

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Bringing new life to old parts

Spring is swiftly approaching, and in celebration, Jonas Kramm and Martin Gebert built a sweet LEGO garden. It’s lovely enough on first glance, but take a closer look and you’ll be even more enamored! Fun parts usage abounds, including fences that only came in a couple 1987 Fabuland sets in this color (3659 Playground and 3675 General Store). More rare Fabuland parts make an appearance in the little gazebo (yellow decorative arches), and nestled in the cart (the earth-orange “carpet beater”). Speaking of the cart, a Duplo crossbow sneaks in as the tongue. Other notable rarities include the medium-blue barrel, only appearing in one set (4579 Ice Ramp Racers Freeze and Chill), the aspen/birch trunks, which only came in 41164 Disney Frozen Enchanted Treehouse, and the Series 13 Collectible Minifigure Carpenter’s saw. Scala even makes an appearance with the flowers centered in the Sonic rings at the top of the gazebo! The more you look, the more you find!

A post-human paradise in LEGO

Engaging with LEGO bricks can be an act of play, a hobby, fandom, even an investment, but for some builders, LEGO bricks are an artistic medium just like clay or oil paints. Mihai Marius Mihu is one of those creators who uses the brick to explore big ideas, with motifs that carry over across works and even transcend mediums. After a long building hiatus, Mihai is back to LEGO with “The Garden of the Goddess,” a diorama in silhouette that serves as a culmination of years of exploring this post-human future.

The “ash giant” humanoid figure climbing the hill first appeared in Mihai’s underworld-inspired LEGO vignettes a decade ago, seemingly representing a husk of humanity. The goddess on the left, with her three black orbs, is featured in numerous drawings over recent years. The statue of a face on the right is my favorite element, both for the startlingly lifelike human profile, and the effective use of Technic bricks to convey the geological timescales at play. It’s fascinating to see how Mihai’s ideas translated from sketch into LEGO model.

Mihai’s work often touches on the mythological afterlife, encounters with the unknowable, and human transmutation. It feels in conversation with fiction from Dan Simmons, Jeff Vandermeer, Octavia Butler and Ridley Scott. Work like Mihai’s doesn’t need to be explained. I’m just grateful that the artist allows us to follow his journey over the years, whether in pencil, music, or in brick.

Tiny garden, mighty parts usage

This LEGO “Hanging Gardens of Babylon” build by Versteinert may only use 101 pieces, but those elements are expertly selected. This elegant little microscale includes bright green hair for trees, hockey sticks for an archway, gear racks for stairs, and forks for pillars. There are also splats in both lime and trans-light blue for both plants and water, and crowns forming the decorative spouts. 1×2 handle plates on their sides have never looked so good! Overall, you can’t ask for much better parts usage on a build so small!

If you’re a fan of the work, check out more featured creations by Versteinert. And while you’re at it, we have lots of articles about clever microscale to get those creative juices flowing.

A dominating domino for intense introspection

As the most prominent LEGO landscaper of alien terrain, Bart De Dobbelaer once again transports us off-world to a peaceful (and piece-full) forest scene dominated by a large, cryptic monolith. The color contrast on the structure is striking, with gaps of textured azure breaking through cracks in the large standing stone. A solitary figure sits at the base of one of the rings cut from the slab. This woman in red surveys the garden of leafy trees and large yellow blooms, no doubt reflecting on the beauty of it all. As is typical for Bart, the part usage here is top notch. I particularly like the X-Pod lids used at the base of the large flowers. Such a great throwback part!

The Giffen Gardens is an award-winning LEGO build [Exclusive]

Over the last several months, I’ve been able to admire the individual pieces of this gorgeous LEGO creation by fellow SPSLUG member Kimberly Giffen. But when all the parts came together this past weekend at BrickCon, my jaw hit the floor! The build is alive with so many textures, from the roof and cobbled tan walls of the house to the stone-paved path around it. Each of the dozens of flowers adorning the grounds here feels unique, a single beautiful piece in the larger puzzle. And the variety is outstanding, bounding between building techniques with ease. In this pocket, we have rockwork with studs exposed, but an inch to the left explores the patterns made with this pentagonal tile in dark blue.

Enter the garden grounds below…

A ghostly greeting in a green garden.

A black knight encounters a white ghost in this garden scene, but the only color you’ll see is green. ABrickDreamer took on the gradient challenge for Summer Joust, and this wonderful little vignette is the result. Eight shades of green are used to give life to this delightful little garden. And the limited color palette forced some excellent parts usage, like those Hulk bigfig arms making up the little hill.

A Kylothian in the garden

Those with a green thumb are often on the lookout for new intruders in our garden beds, ready to weed deep to keep our leafy babies safe. LEGO builder Galerie d’Antha recently discovered this peculiar perennial popping up amongst the spring blooms. Its sweet smell seems to be attracting a crowd but that alien eye-stalk makes me think those spiders are marching to their doom. The builder filled this model with gold, creating a filigree-like plant that I imagine would wiggle and writhe in Lovecraftian ways. You might recognize the large, golden leaves in the center as the wings from the Snitch in the Hogwarts Icons set. The tentacle portions come from the Gargantos Showdown set but, combined with the gold eggshells and leaves, the whole thing kind of feels like a Kylothian from Men in Black 2. You know, that little alien from that little ship that turns into Serleena? Hopefully, this one isn’t as malicious though.

This beautiful garden is a paradise for birds

Created by lego_monkey_, this build shows an idyllic garden, full of wildlife. A robin takes a moment to pause while on the garden path as a blue tit watches from above, perched on the entrance to a bird box. The stone path has a great look to it, with large stone slabs surrounded by stone chips, represented by an assortment of wedge pieces. The variety of textures used in the brick wall creates a realistic interpretation of the stonework, as the bricks begin to deteriorate with age. The purple flowers have some fantastic shapes, with leaf plates portraying the petals of the plants.

Not your average garden gate

An alien scene, bright and mysterious, speaks volumes within a small space. Builder Eli Wilsea taps into their imagination to open up this garden gateway to an unknown world beyond. As is the trend at the moment, tap pieces are used to create patterns within the stones. While two are identical and use the tap in tandem with the minifigure posing stud, the middle features a pattern with solely tap pieces that opens up to a solid blue barrier to the beyond. The morose, cloaked figure stands by a lamp made with taps. Like a futuristic Kharon waiting to bear us across this door into the underworld, I’m not sure this guy would be the most comforting guide.

Despite the foreboding figure and the unknown beyond the gate, the garden surrounding it seems pleasant and welcoming. The bright yellow frog bids me to stay, to not take this journey with the Ferrymen. The tree’s dark trunks and bright colors suggest a saccharine poison to this world though, so maybe it would be better to see what lays beyond. It’s up to you which is the true Forlorn Empire.

TBB Cover Photo for August 2021: Home – where fondness meets tranquility

After a weary journey, there is one place that is welcoming and puts the soul at ease… Home! And no matter where your heart lies, this enchanting LEGO scene by Arfelan Nest will take you to a place that whispers tranquillity and blissful peace.

The framing of the build almost places you ready to take your first step to enter, yet is tempting you to come in and restfully explore what lies within. The out-of-focus teapot in the foreground -through to the paneling on the sliding doors behind the garden, set the scene with depth, intention, and true staging mastery. It is then, on closer look, you will find the technical skill tucked away within each section of this well-planned space – the dark green garden bed itself consisting of a slight valley and the simplistic, yet the intentional selection of light grey parts to cleverly convey the placement of stones.

Arfelan’s use of a minimal palette has resulted in a great showcase of intentional colour, drawing your eye in the desired direction for the story to unfold. There is no doubt, that this scene is where fondness meets tranquillity and smiles shine bright… or to put it in another way, this… is home!

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The peaceful garden temple

LEGO builds are often quite small-scale compared to minifigures, with buildings occupying the equivalent space of a car, and castles the size of houses. Here builder Andreas Lenander has flipped that script on its head with a temple gazebo scene in a garden that’s the size of many LEGO castles. Unsurprisingly for Andreas, there are lots of lovely details, too, though one of the best might be the minifigure katana holders that make the hanging lanterns on either side of the gazebo.

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